Bedford inquirer. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1857-1884, 1857-11-27
GREAT DEMOCRATIC s,gISDLE.

We make the following extr acts from the
correspondence Of the Chicago TribUns, show
ing how the peofAe's affairs are taken care Of
By "the powers that be" TIE correspondent.
writing FRI ST. Anthony, Minnesota. under
date of October 28th, sends The details Of the
sale of the Fort Ripley Reservation, which
turns out to be Tue most frgrant and high
handed robbery in the ca talogue of the rirati-
cal transactions oS this government. The in
fanny of the Front Smelling fraud is fresh in
the minds of the people, by which they we're
defrau3ed out Of over million of dollars for
the needs of pro slavery politioisns--an close
in its wake comes the s;.le OF this 81 900 acres
of the peoples dolnarn for trife over s., 600.
or Four Cents an .fcrst This is Democracy
in power Hew long are these violent and
hagrant outrages TO be practiced upon usl-
Well may it be aSkeI, '.where are We going
and whittier are we tendinga" when the ad-
mini>tration gives a willing nod of assent to the
iniquities of these few prosayory politicians.
The Fort Smelling swin6e was certainly a bold
and outrageous one, but this one takes tho
premium. The American people will soon be
accustomed to expect any extravaganza or
swindling from the Administration 10 which
they have condded their government. The
history of this country has no parallel to the
frauds that are being perpetrated in that ter
ritory by the appolnteos OF the present National
Administration, and tolerated--not tolerated,
but encouraged, and even farther -coneocteG
by that Administration Read the following;
mediate upon IT. treasure it up; show it 10
Democrats; read and forget it for your party's
sake, but read
"a few days since the Fort Smelling Ressr-
vation was transferred from the people to the
politicians. Ninety thousand dollars wort th of
it went into the treasury Of the United States:
at least, we guess So The other million or
more helped to elect demagogaes to Office
To-day the Fort Ripley Reserve, consisting of
ifty-seven thousand acres of land, goes to the
same Democratic bourne at FOUR CENTS
AN ACRE -ffty-seven thousand acres of as
good land as Minnesota holds, worth at the
lowest estimate of cultivators OF the soil, fpe
dollars an acre, and for which the Government
! could haze received one dollar and fl1enfy-fue
PER acre on the day Of sale. In short, ffy
thousand acres Of iand haze been donated to
knaUes for 81. go, instead Of being sold to
farmers and actual occupants for SCI ,260-or
iustead of being made 10 bring into the treas
ury its full worth, S2S5,000! Do you think
that wonders will never cease1
The circumstances of this foul transaction
are these: The Fort Ripley Reservation is sit
uated in Todd county, On the Upper Missis-
sippi. 1t was occupied, legally or not, by fiftv
or sixty Democrats. They resided on the lana
and intended to secure their claims like regu-
lar pre-emptionists, or perhaps much in the
way Indian Reservation sales are managed
These persons formed claim association which
met the day before the sale to adopt mea-
sures for securing their titles. The governs
ment agents, or few confederate scouudrels
who were employ ed for that purpose, sent in a
proposition to the claimants that if they tclain-
antsI would not bid on the lands, they (AIr.
Buehanau's agents. would cut off the whole
tract and guarantee the occupants their titles
ar one dollar per acre. Some Of it, for the
Gun of the thing, was run mp 10 twenty-five
cents and still greater portion Ut 0ne CENT
per acre. The average was four cents. These
facts can aud will be verified by eye Witnesses
Of the whole transaction. When the sale was
over the scales dropped from the eyes of the
settlers they saw that these faithful SERVANTS
Of the people bad lied their homes away from
them for nothing and were proposing now TO
steal one dollar, or more accurately, nneiy-six
cents for every acre Of tho r3rchsse But they
allege in excuse for th-.f blundsr that if they
had not accepted those terms, the sharks would
have run the land out of rcach--so there tbey
were, n6i ike asses between bundles of nav,