Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1895 — Page 2

PATH OF THE STORM

Fifty Persons Killed and One ■> Hundred Badly Hurt FARMS LAID WASTE.; Property Worth Half a Million Destroyed. Survivors of the Horror Deprived of Their Homes —Fair Villages and Fertile Fields Devastated Schoolhouses in the Path of the Storm, and Teachers and Pupils Annihilated—A Carpet of Mud Strewn Over Growing ' Crops in lowa Work of Wind, Kain and Hail. Northwestern lowa’s cyclone m Sioux, Lynn, Osceola and O’Brien Counties cost at least fifty human lives. A hundred others are injured, and the destruction of half a million dollars’ worth of farming property is a lbw estimate. The whirlwind, but half an hour in duration, while at its fiercest, swept over 1,200 square miles of cultivated farm land, and left in its wake a ruin rarely equaled in so short a period of time. The number of dead, although not so large as at first reported, is great enough to have plunged the whole of Northwestern lowa into mounting. A revised list, as accurate as could be obtained at the time this is written, reports the following: At Sioux Center and Vicinity. John Marsden, Miss Anna Marsden, Mrs. John Koster, Alice Koster, aged 8; Miss Tillie Haggie, Babe of Mrs. L. Wynia, Mrs. Annie Postma, Jacob Jansen, Townes Verhof? aged 4; Maurice McCoombs, aged 4; Babe of W. Vlesma, Mrs. K. Waner and babe, A. Barblin, Mrs. L. E. Ost, Mrs. J. Post, A. M. Perry, Mrs. F. S. Fieldcamp, Mrs. Charles Waldron, Henry Smith, B. L.. Smith, Mrs. L. Maretie and babe, L. D. Everetts, John Frize, IL Deboor. At S’blcy. Mrs. John Waterman, Mrs; M. Blackburn, Mrs. Herman Belknap. At Laurens, Peter Stimmer. At Sutherland. * Rudolph Sehwordtfeger. At Creston.—: Everett Arnold. Many Fatally Injured. The fatally injured are: H. Koster, aged 8; Minta McCpombs, Luella McCoombs, Mrs. L. Wynia, J. Deboor, Hattie Koster, Willie, Jennie and Grace Ccrumman, Maggie, Gertie, Jennie _and_Jimmie Welbard, Jennie and Eddie Brown, Ben Pry, John Hermah, Henry Haggie, Mrs. James Warie. The greatest loss of life is in Sioux County, between Ireton, on the Hawarden branch' of The Chicago and I Northwestern, and Sioux Center,' on the Sioux City and Northern. It was a veritable slaughter of the -innocents. The children of tender, years outnumbered all others in the mortality list, ~ and that of those fatally injured.—Upon the edge of a plowed road two little ones lay, their hands clasped together, their bodies torn and mangled. Beyond them in the roadway the leaves of an arithmetic fluttered in the-breeze. Still further on and close to the McCoombs homestead was a battered dinner bucket and nearby a reader turned back to the page where the bld lines ran, “This is a cat; is this a eat?” In the wrecked school houses little feet protruded from plaster and broken boards. Sun bonnets lay in the pastures yellow with bytter cups. In one child’s hand was clasped the broken slate and in another's a reward of merit card given but half an hour before by the teacher, dead, also face downward, in the furrow of a distant field. From Sioux Center to Perkins and from Perkins to Hull and George and Ashton’there was the wail in the close of the spring afternoon of children, not dead, but dying, children with limbs torn apart, children who had been carried over fortyacre fields and hurled into ditches, children who called out for mothers already dead or beyond the aid of human help. Death Visits Schoolhouses. About 3 o’clock in the afternoon black clouds, with green fringes, appeared west of Orange City and five miles northeast of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway. From the black mass, nine miles west of Orange City, as near as could be estimated, tentacles dropped, and at last • high,- hound ball, which appeared to •trike the ground, rebounded and then touched again, just as football wages between goal and goal. Conductor Halan. oh train No. 10 of the Chicago and Northwestern east-bound, saw the bounding mass of wind and electricity, as did also his brakeman, W. F. Dobson. This train •nd its valuable contents just eseaped destruction; Annie Marsden, a young girl from Boseobel, Wis., had dismissed her twenty pupils when she saw the approach of the storm. It was already 3:30 in the afternoon. She was conducting her second ♦erm of school and two miles beyond her en the same section line her brother was conducting a county school. She boarded at the farmhouse of L. McCoombs, the wealthiest farmer in the district. His home was a quarter of a mile distant from the school. Four of his children were taught by her. When she sent the other children home the four were frightened and refused to leave. Annie Marsden stood in the center of the little white school house and drew the four children, whose ages ranged from 5 to 14, about her •nd waited. An instant lifter the cyclone was upon the-school hotrne and the five hapless beings withiu. In less time than it takes for a watch to tick the seconds es a minute the teacher and one child were dead and two others fatally injured. The school house and its rock foundation was swept out of existence. At the H agri e school house, where George Marsden, brother of Annie, was teaching, not a vestige of the school house remained and Mr. Marsden was found some distance •way in a field, dead, together with two Fnpils. On the McCoombs homestead every building was destroyed but the house. There was not a seeded crop in his fields worth a picayune, and the honest accu■miations of a lifetime swept away by a

half hour’s stprm. His hundreds of acres of wheat, oats and barley were buried in dust and debris out of sight forever. His farming machinery was scattered for miles about his home. His cattle were dead or dying. At the little school house where his children, bad lisped their A B C’s there was a hole to mark the spot, and in hi s house' a lit tie one dead and; three others praying_for relief from pain. Beyond McCoombs' the storm raged. Curious things were found in the field by ThiFrenef parties seut out. In one field, on the crest of a furrow, jay an open prayer book. A clod of earthpointed to the lines, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy.” On the fly leaf of the book was found the name of Eva Butler. Mrs. Butler's home was 1 where the book was found. Leaving the Butler’s, the storm attacked Herman Ripma, one-half mile-north of the destroyed school house. Ripma had his arm badly crushed, his house destroyed and his crops ruined. But shortly before this he lost his wifeTiiid two children through trichinae. Presented a Pitiful Sight. At the farm of L. Wylanga was one of the most pitiful sights of the storm. Wylanga was some distance from his house when the cyclone struck his fields. He _ was picked up in the teeth of the gale and carried bodily ove.. 1 forty acres of Ignd. lie fell in a plowed field, practically uninjured, but frantic as to the safety of his own wife ard children. The wind had lifted him over t vo wire fences, but on his return he had to cut these down in order to pass; ■ He found his house, barns, sheds and granaries gone. His hogs and chickens were lying in their yards. Still searching for his wife, he walked to the southwest of his house. In a field tilled for an early :rop of corn, he found her, face down? ard, unconscious. She had been carried before the wind until her strength left her. In her head was a terrible gash and from her hips downward she was a mass of bruises. Close to her bosom was clasped her baby, dead. Thus husband and wife met, with the rain beating down upon them and the ruins of their home.

The description of the McCoombs and Wylanga property and school could be repeated on nearly every section in the wake of the storm. Numerous victims were found lodged in the trees, where they had been hurled by the storm, and so seriously injured that death is expected momentarily. Two grown boys who had come from the field near Alton at the approach of the storm were injured in the barnyard, one seri* ously and the other fatally. Wires wera completely stripped from the posts,-.and in some places posts were all taken from tha ground. Horses, cattle and vehicles wera hurled through the air like chaff, and tha country for three-quarters of a mile wide and many -miles in extent is entirely wrecked. Where had stood fine residences could be found nothing but a cellar hole and in some cases a few twisted timbers, while strewn on the ground were portions of the buildings and furniture, bearing not the least semblance of their original form and useless except for kindling. Fields that were beautiful as green carpets with the sprouting grain are now as bare ns in the bleak months of winter. Trees are uprooted and all is desolation along the trail of the destroyer. »........... In Osceola County Mrs. John Waterman, five miles west of Sibley, was instantly killed. A joist fell on her neck. She held her l>aby”Tn””lTer”afins and the baby escaped injury? The Melcher and Whitney school houses were both wrecked. Miss Marie Good, teacher of the Whitney, closed the school twenty minutes - before—the—storm John Coughlin, wife and ten children were all saved by taking refuge in a cyclone cave. They lost their house, household goods, barn and had a horse killed.

DESTRUCTION IS WIDESPREAD.

Other Points Contribute to the Death List by the Cyclone. Aside from the cyclone proper, which was confined to the three Northwestern' lowa counties, other sections of the country suffered from severe wind and elec.trical storms. On Saturday afternoon a terrific wind at St. Charles, 111., blew down the brick walls that were left after the destruction by tire of the Luhgreen & Wilson block. Next to the east wall was a small building owned by George Osgood, formerly used as a post office. It was occupied by Mrs. Hattie E. Church, milliner; John F. j-Rliott, justice of the peace, and the Anderson Sisters, dressmakers. The heavy wall crushed the small building, killing four persons and injuring two others, as follows: Charles Anderson, Miss Gustie Anderson, Mrs. Hattie E. Church, Joseph Thompson. Tha injured were as follows: Luke Cranston, will die; Andrew Johnson, Elgin. Fred Cronkhite and his team were killed at Henderson, 111., by lightning. The storm was severe at Abington, unroofing the new wagon factory, causing a damage of SIO,OOO. Reports from the country indicate great damage. Everett Arnold was instantly killed by the storm at Creston; lowa. J. I‘. Smith's house near Lake Geneva, Wis., was struck by lightning and totally destroyed. Loss about $40,000; well insured. Several freight cars were also burned. George Rhodes and James Ashford, who had taken refuge in a barn, were killed by lightning at Lancaster, Mo. Both men were farmers living near Downing, and each leaves a family. Three barns belonging to D. Ayres, about six miles west of Burlington, Wis., were struck by lightning and burned to the ground, with a loss of about $3,000. In* Racine- the residence of J’ames Murphy on Jackson street was struck by lightning ami his little son was knocked senseloss. Considerable damage was dona to the house.

At Superior, Wis., water came down in sheets, and a destructive hailstorm followed. Lightning destroyed several small buildings in the country. __ A cy done .liear llu 8- D., took onehalf the roof off Martin Baum’s house aud carried it half a mile. Lumber was scattered over the prairie. The graneries were also wrecked aud scattered Over tha, country. At their closing session nt Carlisle, Pa., the Methodist Episcopal bishops assigned Bishop Merrill to the Pittsburg conference and Bishop Vincent to the Erie conference. _ Perry Bowser, a former inmate of the Soldiers' Home at Dnyton, 0., and who lived at Elwood, Ind., recently with his family, has disappeared and it is feared he has gone insane again.

CAN NOW GET FACTS.

PUBLIC PRINTER PEDDLES OUR TRADE STATISTICS." An Interesting Comparison bf Ciis--toms Receipt^—What the Wilson Tariff Has Accomplished—Farmers Are TiredofDemocratic Sneers.” —~ k - Fifteen Cents a Copy. ; The expense of printing the monthly summary of imports and exports has always been paid out of the general ftnidyapproiirkijed for the printing of the Treasury Department, and Congress has never been concerned, either directly or indirectly, with its issue until now. The full amount of money for the printing of the department for the current year was appropriated as usual, and under ordinary circumstances there would have been no question as to the issuance of the regular monthly report. The Public Printer, however, under the new authority with which he Iras’beeu ordained by Congress, has decidedly that the monthly summary is a “document,” ami therefore comes under the general provision*of the new printing law, which provides t hat the

head of -an executive department shall not print more than one thousand copies of any document not expressly authorized by law. As the summary is mentioned in no law by name or by implication, the Public Printer has refused to print more’than one thousand copies for the use of the department. The statistics, however, can be secured under Sectiop 69 of the new law regulating public printing, which reads as follows: “Sec. 69. A catalogue of •'Government publications shall be prepared by the Superintendent of Documents on the first day of each month, which shall show the documents printed during the preceding month, where obtainable, and the price thereof. Two thousand copies of such catalogue shall be printed in pamphlet form for distribution.” The Public Printer is compelled by this section to sell copies of the monthly summary of our imports and exports, which he now holds to be a “document,” and he has begun -to sell the “document” at the rate of fifteen cents per copy. This is the first intimation the public has had of this fact, and it is to be hoped that the additional revenue thus acquired vill be appreciated at the Treasury Department in these days of uncomfortable deficiences.

Receipts and Deficiencies. The customs receipts during the first seveji months of the McKinley law were $127,123,942, those of the first seven months of the Wilson law are $96,547,646. The internal revenue receipts under the McKinley law were in the first seven months $80,488,340; those of the first seven months of the Wilson law $59,359,610. The total receipts during the first seven months of the McKinley law were $219,583,107, those of the first seven months of the Wilson law were $161,744,668. The total receipts during the closing seven months of the McKinley law were $197,584,324, against $161,744,688 in the seven months of the new law, with importers rushing In their new goods and buyers filling the shelves which they had permitted to Become empty in to get the benefit of the new tariff. So take the new law any way you may, compare its operations with the McKinley law at its beginning or at Its ending, and you will find It ata disadvantage. There has not been a single month since the new tariff weut into effect without a deficiency. The average deficiency has been $6,000,000 a month, while the McKinley law showed a surplus of $21,000,000. or an average of $3,000,000 a month, in its first seven months. Even in all the unfavorable conditions of its last seven months, it only created a deficiency of $2,000,000 a month, against the $6,000,000 a month which the Wilson law has shown under the favorable conditions in which it found the markets for foreign goods.

Here are the figures, side by side, 1 comparing the operations qfthe Wilson law with those of the McKinley law in its first or last seven months; the reader can take his choice: Receipts, first seven months Wilson law, $161,744,668; McKinley, $219,583,107. Receipts, last seven months of ciency first seven months of Wilson law, $43,507,322; surplus first seven moaths of McKinley law, $21,609,397. —New York Tribune. It? The Wilson law is not a protective law. It is not a free trade law, though it looks more toward free trade prindplJ'sTtra'n any other, it is not a rev- ~ enue tariff law. It is simply a nondescript, made up of deals and compromises, and opeii bribery. Its protective features are cliiefly for the benefit of trusts—notably the sugar combine ami the Standard Oil. It has not given work to one single American toiler, but has robbed thousands of them of the employment they had. It has not raised the standard of wages' in a single American industry, but has lowered it throughout the country. It has uot opened a foreign market for a barrel of "pork or a bushel of wheat or a dollar’s worth of manufactured goods, but has destroyed a considerable portion of the

THE SIGN OF THE TIMES.

foreign markets already possessed by Americans. It has not brought a dollar of money into the country, but lias sent millions put.—Buffalo Express. The Farmer's Tired Feeling. The American firmer is getting tired of Democratic sneers at the home market. He has been studying in the light of practical experience. The demand of his products is undiminished, but he feels the effect of the scarcity of cash through slack work aud small wages, occasioned by the operation of the new tariff law. The farmer probably feels most sensibly and keenly any impairment of domestic industries. The fields are dependent upon the factories. They work together and usually benefit each other. The foreign market buys now from 6 to 8 per cent, of our farm products; while the slurred and despised home market consumes from 92 to 94 per cent. The more this home market is protected in its varied sources of vitality, the better it is for the farmer. He has no chanpe in Europe except in times of war or famine.—Hawkeye, Burlington, lowa. No man does Lils best who works only for pay.

FAVORS FREE SILVER.

SENATOR VOORHEES READY FOR FREE COINAGE. - J. He Averse tha “Arrognqt Anoetlea of Gold” Mean 111 inth? People, and Demands White Metal at 16 to 1 — flan We Shoa Id Not Wait for England Wants No Straddling. Senator Voorhees, of Indiana, in an interview on the silver question said: I do not regret the agitation of the silver question. Sooner or later it had to be definitely settled whether the labor producing” people of this country can be bullied out of hair of their debt-paying money or that they will stand up like free men and protect and defend tne money named and provided in the Constitution—gold and silver, or both—not one of the precious metals alone, but both, and on terms and conditions as to coinage and use of absolute equality. That' is the question immediately before us, and no bettertime than now wllleverbefoiind for its settlement. The Sherman aet, which was conceived in rancorous hostility to sliver and brought forth into a Taw by an inlqultious betrayal of silver free coinage, has been burled In an unhonored grave, over which no lament will ever be heard. I have never been willing to admit that our system of currency should be dictated by England and other foreign countries, aud I repel that idea now. The real and vltal'*lssue now presented to the American people is tire-pro—-posed elimination of, silver from our currency. . This movement means the destruction of half of the debt-paying money of the United States and of the world. If it should be successful it will doutfle the burdens on every debtor and, multiply the gains and income of every creditor wherever the sun shines. The debts of the American people at this time, both public and private, are appalling in amount. They have been contracted on a bimetallic basis and it Is now.proposed to make them payable on a basis of gold alone. The two metals also, constitute the specie basis for such paper currency as may be put in circulation. If silver money is destroyed paper*clrculatlon must be contracted In that proportion. Every form and kind of money must become that much scarcer and harderto get in exchange for labor and the products of labor. Such a policy Is to my mind simply horrible. I have not a particle of doubt as to the result of the contest now going on. The enemies of silver will be driven to the wall. Silver money will not only survive but it will be fully restored to its old place as a leading and controlling factor in the development and the progress of the country. Danger from the coinage and use of silver as money in this country never occurred to the sane mind until greed, avarice, unholy speculation reared its serpent head and aimed a vicious, deadly blow nt the honored dollar of the fathers In 1873. Since That

SENATOR VOORHEES.

time we have had nothing but financial vexation. distrusts, business depression, ruinous panics, and confiscation. . If 1 am told 'on this questlon that-silver’ bullion as a marketable commodity at this time commands a low price, my answer is that if gold had been conspired against, persistently assailed by foul means as well as fair, stabbed in the dark and in the daylight,' and in the back and under the fifth rib, and wherever else a dagger could be planted for nearly a quarter of a century past, it would be in a far worse crippled condition thwj silver. No other form of mbney on the face of the earth could have withstood as silver has done such a malignant, unsparing crusade as the lasfi twenty-two years have witnessed in this country. 1 It still holds its place in the affections and confidence of the people. Battered, bruised, and tattered as It has been, yet It will buy to-day all that gold will buy, and pay all the debts that gold will pay, unless a special contract has been made for gold. The American people will never give it up, aud the sooner the minions of aggressive, indolent, consolidated wealth and the arrogant apostles of gold monometallism realize and act upon this fact the better and safer it will be for them in the future of this country. The need of the white metal In the hands of the people Is even greater now than ever before. There is scarcely a speck of gold in sight of, the laboring classes. In round numbers there are nearly four thousand millions of gold money lu the world and about the Baine amount of silver. With silver demonetized the plain people, the wage workers, and those who raise and sell the produce of the soli will handle specie money no more forever, and will catch even a glimpse of It but seldom. I wish to impugn the motives of no one and to avoid hard words in discussion as much as possible; but the time has coine when speech, though temperate, should be very plain. Party platforms from this time forward will not be framed to cheat on this subject, whatever may have been done heretofore. If the free and unlimited coinage of silver as full legal tender money and as a standard of statutes and the unit of account and payment, without a word of International agreement on the subject, will put this country on a silver basis, then we were on such a basis every day and hour from the passage of the first coinage act In April, 1792, until the demonetization act of February, 1873, a period of elghty-one years, during which we rose from weakness to the foremost rank among the nations of the earth. I commend to all croakers in regard to a silver basis a careful reading of tire act of April 2, 1792, formulated by Hamilton and Jefferson and approved by Washington.

ALLISON FOR SOUND MONEY. lowa Man So Expresses Himself to n Chicago Newspaper Interviewer. Senator William B. Allison, of loyva, passed through Chicago the other day on his way to Washington. In response to

ALLISON.

l&tion and pass it current with gold ? It is gratifying, is it not, to know that a few men can save our country by loaning us gold to pay our current expenses?” Proposed Republican Policy. Washington dispatch: Certain elements In the Republican party will endeavor to obtain a definite declaration regarding silver at the national convention. They think it useless to attempt to commit the party to free and unlimited coinage, but they will try to secure Insertion in the platform of a provision for coinage of silver to a considerable amount They are even willing to change the ratio and make it 18 to 1, or thereabouts, but they want the Republican party to commit

the quiries of an interviewer he said: “I am in favor of sound money. Gold and silver have been the money ,of nations for centuries, and all that is needed is to establish the relative value of the two metals. The question now Is how can we place Silver in eircu-

itself to the coinage of $400,000,000 hi silver. There are Republicans in ths East who call themselves friends of silver, and this is the kind of policy they are counseling. A ’ ■ FOR FREE COINAGE. Ex-Speaker Crisp Says tfie 1896 Democratic ConventionShonld So Declare. In an interview at Atlantaex-Speaker Crisp gives his views of the coming presidential campaign and the politics which will enter into it. He says: - “From the time of the tariff commission of 1880 down to a year ago tariff reform had its varying fortunes, resulting at last in a revision acceptable to the people. Ths silver question is going through the same course of public discussion. Just as in that fight the silver men will have their battle royal, when the American people

EX-SPEAKER CRISP.

will award the victory. The majority of people in both parties are in favor of the free coinage of si 1 ver. They are today behind the free silver movement, and they will push it on to success and have silver re-established to its old equality 'with gold, in the next campaign the re-' habilitation of silver will be the controlling issue upon which Democracy will appeal to the people. Party platforms- should always be plain and direct. Whatever reason existed for different constructions of the platform of 1892 should no longer exist, and for this purpose that to be adopted in 1896 should be so plain that even a school boy caniunderstaud it. The platform should declare for the free coinage of silver. “Of course,” said Mr. Crisp, “there is a contingency in which the people might not be called upon to settle the question—that is the probable action of an international conference. .That would be the best and method of re-establishing silver, and with less of the element of e£> periment in it. If such a conference should bo called, and it took action restoring silver so that the people would be satisfied, we would have no financial issue for 1893. I am in favor of its free coinage, as I have always been.” 3

BECRETARY MORTON’S VIEWS. ‘ Dcclares-Himsclf for Gold Supply and Demand Regnlates Value. Secretary Morton, in an interview on the silver question, said: “I do not believe that an international conference can establish permanently a commercial ratio between gold and silver any more than it can establish a permanent commercial ratio between rye and wheat. But if an international conference can fix the price

of gold and silver it can also fix the price bfwheator any commodity, and "thereby avoid all possible Shrinkages* in value; which tend to caus< < panics. i “Aly own judgment is that we must sooner or later declare that the United

States recognizes gold as the best and least fluctuating measure of value and medium of exchange which the commerce of civilization has thus far utilized. .The time for straddlers is passed. Those who are for sound currency on a gold basis ought to have the courage to say so and abide by the results ot their convictions. I have no hesitation in declaring myself opposed to all free coinage fallacies. My judgment is that silver cannot be restored to its former monetary place in tha commerce of the world, because the supply of silver has outgrown the demand for silver in the exchanges of civilization. The relation of supply to demand is the regulator 'of value. This axiom applies alike to salt, silver, sugar and soap. All the legislation of the law-making bodies on the face of the globe can neither mitigate nor annul the operation of the inexorable law. The relation of supply and demand is the sole regulator of value."

Tennessee Bimetallic League, The first movement of the friends of free silver coinage in Tennessee to organize was made when, in response to iF call, a gathering of the supporters of the white metal was held in Memphis, at which the nucleus of a Bimetallic League to embrace the entire State was formed. Before organization was perfected the meeting declared its principles in a brief resolution favoring the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1, independent of the action of other countries. , t Trials of the New Party. Washington dispatch: When the Bimetallic League, which has headquarters in Washington, organized the new silver league on a 16 to 1 basis, it was with the expectation that both Populists and free coinage Democrats would go into it. The Democrats refused to have anything to do with a new party movement, and now the League people have been informed that the Populists will decline to join them. Sixteen to One Move in Texas. At a caucus in Austin, Tex., of the members of the Legislature, at which Hon. John H. Reagan, ex-State Comptrollers Brown and Swain and other prominent citizens were present, resolutions were adopted looking to the organization of the free silverites in Texas on the 16 to 1 basis. Carlisle to Speak ut Memphis. Secretary Carlisle has confirmed the report that he is to address the soundmoney convention at Memphis. He sent a formal acceptance and will at once begin the preparation of what he is to say. —e The eyeball 18 white because the blood vessels that feed Its substance ace so small that they do not admit the rev. corpuscles. Some men would rather not pray than to have their trousers bag at the kneea

SEC. MORTON.