Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1878-03-28

having been given that the custom of the
country or the former usage of the Depart
ment was to be changed. All the fuel piled
up for the use of citizens, and even for SOL
diers in garrison, cut under contract with the
War Department, was seized. A violent
snow storm was prevailing at the time the
| order was received winter was just setting
in !; the people were alarmed; mass meetings
were called and it was represented to the Sec
retary that great suffering would ensue unless
the fuel was released the people could not
live without fuel nor could they make an ex-
odus in the winter time.
The Secretary telegraphed back to release
the wood and collect an indemnity. A board
of award was constituted by Judge Wade,
chief justice Of the Territory, which, taking
all precedents into account and the Govern
ment price or wood land and the cost of cut
ting, fixed fifteen cents per cord of wood as
proper consideration. The Secretary re-
fused to receive the award and telegraphed
back to collect $1 per cord. The people
protested that this was ruinOus, that it would
stop every mine and mill in the Territory,
stop the production of $500, 600 of the prec-
ious metals per month, and depopulate the
Territory The Secretary was inexorable
and the people, confronted by an arctic win
ter, were obliged to pay this onerous tax,
protesting meanwhile that they paid it not as
matter of right but as man would give up
his purse to highwayman who had a pistol
at his head.
Meanwhile the officials were active in pros
ecutions. Their fees were immense. Most
if not all of the proceeds of these collections
went into their pockets They were carpet
baggers sent out from the States.
It seems they have carpet-baggers else
where than in the South [Laughter.]
They bad no sympathies with the people,
and desired to line their pockets. The Hell
ena Board of Trade and the people en- maasse
petitioned the Secretary, but his orders stand
and the prospects of that promising Territory
are paralyzed.
This is upon the authority of the gentleman
who represents that Territory, and speaks
authoritatively of what he has seen and
knows. l come from lumber State myself;
know something about its My colleague
Mr.. Hamlin] knows greatdeal more. The
honorable gentleman who sits in the chair
[Mr. Ferry] probably knows a great deal
more about lumber than either OF us and l
undertake to say that collecting what we
would call stumpage of dollar cord on
wood remote from wood market is some-
thing the most extraordinary that ever hap
pened in the lumber markets of the United
States.
Mr.. Sargent-And there<was no law forit.
Mr.. Blaine-There was no law whatever,
the Senator from California says; and it is
the opinion of the Delegate from Montana
that there is no law foc it whatever. But
law or no law, the idea that a practical busi-
ness man will take hold of the property of
the United States in remote Territory where
there is but handful of hardy settlers wrest-
ling with all the cruelties of climate and for
est and the wilds of the mountains and say to
them: ''This wood that you have cut on the
mountain sides and hauled with great labor
to your fresides, you shall not burn one stick
of until you pay dollar a cord stumpage to
the United States!" What we call wood
lot in Maine must be very advantageously To-
Gated to be worth dollar cord stumpagc;
it must be pretty near a large town, where
the hauling is easy, the market ready, and
the wood of the best quality. asked the
honorable Senator in the chair what would it |
be in Michigan on well located wO0d-lOt |
for stumpage, and he said twenty-five cents. |
I asked my honorable friend on my left, my |
colleague, and he said he thought in Maine
it would average possibly up to half dollar;
and in the interiOr-he corrects me this mo-
ment by saying not over twenty-five cents.
| call attention to these facts because they |
shake my confidence in the discretion and
sound judgment of the Secretary Of the In
terror; and if these people in Mississippi are
before the Senate asking for an extraordinary
remedy, it is because they are suffering an
extraordinary oppression and without know
ing anything of their case, if the facts l
have recited be true-and many of them have
been made public and are undenieu--I say
hey must be suffering a positive outrage and
4 needless and oppressive cruelty.
heard some one say-I am glad it was
not said openly in. debate-that this request
IF the people of Mississippi was very much
ike the Molly Maguires of Pennsylvania
asking that they should be tried where their
crimes we're committed, where their confed-
crates might be Witnesses do not see the
analogy. Here is peaceful calling, very
aborious calling. and subject to very great
hazards on its pecuniary side; a calling OF
very great exposure in the physical labor IN
;ident to it; calling in which men OF hardy
nerve and muscle only will engage; and
possibly thousands, were so en-
yaged in Mississippi. I belive the Senator
rom that State Mr.. Lamar said. that twen-
y-five or thirty large mill establishments
we're. at work, and were suddenlys as II by a.
stroke Of lightning, stopped and their 0per-
ltives turned out of employment. and the In
lustry stands paralyzed and dead to-day.
The remedy now asked may be extraor-
linary. bat I say the wrong seems to me to
,e most extraordinary one. It seems to
ne that without previous notice the process
vas an unprecedented one. and for my part
'm not. 80 far as my vote is concerned, going
o sit still II can avert it and await the laws
lelay to remedy what, in my Judgment, has
,een done. % the Senator from California
ays without authority of law, and 4 add