Bismarck weekly tribune., 1889-10-11
LOCAL Z. NEWS. Il
The Gossip and Happenings of a
Fair Autumnal Day in
Bismarck.
{ ssa'Walk-In" Miller's Impertinent I'M
pressions Of North Dakota's
Capital.
Bound for Centralia Base Ball
Personal and General
Mention.
"0oaquin'' Miller Rampant.

In q long and soggy letter to that dear
old Journal, the New York Independent,
joaquin" Miller, the wild.eyed poet of the
Sierras, has this to say of Bismarck:
We struck the muddy Missouri at Man
dan, with Bismarck on the other extreme
of the long and lofty bridge that crosses
the sinuols and swift river. 7i7s-
got off at Mandan and took day to
ride up and down and around the country.
1t is not encouraging. The farmers seem
discouraged. Still they are better off
than many others in this region. Coal
abounds here, comes to the surface on
nothing better to do digs out a wagon load
and hauls ig to town and sells it just the
same as men sell cOrd-wOOd in so many of
the older states. The railroad shops, hav-
ing been removed from Bismarck across
the river to Mandan,. help maintain the
latter place fairly well and it may make q
place in time. But the life # the immi-
years at best, and ] should hesitate long
time before advising any one who is not
we'll fortified with herds of stock, or other
solid means of beating off the wolfe, to
pitch tent here.
AS for Bismarck, let me say pointedly
pie to settle there or anywhere near there.
Bismarck is literally in ruins, and is exist
ing, or trying to exist, on the reputation it
had as railroad town and terminus and
q substantial shipping point for the vast in
terror beyond. But now that the railroad
has passed on and the shops of the road
have e been .a.ia taken I IaTay, why, y,o Bismarsk is
station at best. This place once had 5000
inhabitants To-day she has not half that
number. The houses are half empty and the
place has an indescibable air of beggary
and swagger about it, that reminds one of
some old southern town after the war.
Still the staggering and dingy place
stoutly demands that she shall have the
capital of the new state. Her ge0graphi-
cal position forms her demand, ana she
may get it. But at best Bismarck, to my
humble way Of thinking, is huge imperti-
nence, and about the last place on earth
for any honest man to settle in.
So this is what Joaquin Miller has
to say OF Bismarck, q place never visited
or seen by him, save as he caught mid
night glimpse while the train passed
through. Cincinnatus Hiner Miller (f0r
this is his name) is getting to be q
gotten that it had poked little innocent
fun at his Fallstaffian claims to literary
supremacy and little dreamed that what it
said Of the ridiculous affectation of this
vainglOriOuS man would prompt him to
use SO credulOus and Well.meaning Jour
nal as the Independent as q weapon Of as
sault on an entire community.
Ever since Cincinnatus Hiner Miller
started south with the declaration that he
would write poem that would shake the
"a tiers of heaven. he has been petulant
an sour. He made q mistake. was care
les with regard to details. or siipped q cog
somewhere. for much to Ills SURPRISE the
"rafters of heayen'' did not Shake. The
day his poem was published there was no
perceptible crash in the sidereal realms and
the land and the sea. as though Cincin-
natus Hiner Joaquin Miller was not look
heavens! Heartless and disObedient rafters!
F;oo,haray aaverse tnaG W9Hlast incur !n9
~ MiIieri What M % SIGHT on the one ea hand