The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1889-05-01
CHAOS IN OKLAHOMA.
THE LAND OF PROMISE BECOMES 4 YER
TABLE HE'LL UPON EARTH.
Settlers Suffering for Lack Of Shelter,
Water and Food-They Desert Their
Claims and Flee for Their Lives-A
Stampede to Get Out Of the Country
and Back to Civilization.

Stampede to Get Out or the country
and Back to Civilization.
CHICAGO, April 25.-An Arkansas
City, Kansas, special says:
Chaos relgns, not only IN Oklahoma.
but in the entire tributary country.
The railroad is Frustrated, and COM
munications are entirely cut off. The
Western Union, with its crush of train
dispatching, would not touch a message
of any other character in the Territory,
though the earth swallowed town site.
Gutbries back seems broken, and there
is furious stampede to get out.
People there are wild from the depriva-
tions that lack of shelter, water and
food impose upon them. To these dis
tresses are added the misfortunes of
terrific heat and the absence of means
of flight
When your correspondent reached
Willow Springs from the Diamond Bar
Ranch, he learned from dispatches that
neither the North nor South bound pas
senger trains, shortly due had been heard
from. The hour Of waiting passed, when
a train of twenty cars from
the South arrived. The cars
were locked, but upon the roofs,
the buffers, amid the coal on the tender,
on the pilot and gangway of the locomo-
tive, and packed in and upon the ca
boose, was dense and miserable throng
of men. The train from Guthrie had
started with its strange load at 6 o'clock
in the evening. 1t was useless to attempt
to enforce the laws restricting railroad
travel. The people were fleeing practi-
cally for their lives. They had added
to long periods of privation suffering
of seventeen hours without food or pro-
lection from the cold. No trains had
passed them, and none was in sight from
behind They had left a bowling mob
in Guthrie, baffled in its efforts to join
in the fight. The uselessness of pro-
ceeding to Guthrie was apparent, and
your correspondent secured footing for
one foot and returned to this point with
the baggage tram.
Since dark other freight trains have
followed, having made eighty-fve miles
from Guthrie in from six to fourteen
hours. The cars are piled with fugitives,
thirsty and famine-stricken, and Ar
kansas City Is crowded as it was before
the descent. Some experiences are pitt
full. 4 terrible storm last night raised
the miSeries of Guthrie to almost horror.
A violent wind arose as the sun sank
and filled the air with the sitting red
alkali dust that strews the plain. A
deluge Of rain succeeded and through
the night it beat upon the thousands of
shelterless. The railroad is utterly in
competent in the emergency, and is de-
livering baggage and express too slowly
to be of use to the unprotected.
The fugitives cry with JOY as they
alight here and rush to the hydrants and
eating houses. Curses are heaped upon
the region, and the government mar
shals, Needles and Jones, are eXecrated
without stint for the theft of the land
and the railroad denounced for its feeble
service
Guthrie is without form. The orig
inal streets have disappeared and new
sections are being plowed every hour.
Values have fallen to practically no
thing, and confidence is at a low ebb.
Those who are not going home announce
their intention of moving upon the
Cherokee Strip, and report that hun
dreds Of boomers in wagons have already
done so. Scores of men surrendered
their claims to lots in Guthrie without
an effort to preserve or dispose Of them.
The South bound passenger train ar
rived, after time, crowded with pill
grims for Guthrie, and few could be dis
suaded by the lamentations of the fugi-
tives. 1t is impossible to predict what
the next few days will develop in Guth-
rie.
ST. LOUIS. April 25.-An Arkansas
City special to the Republic says:
A number Of claims have been de-
serted in various parts of the Territory,
and wagons can be seen frequently on
the back trail. Many of the disgruntled
threaten to ''squat' on the Indian lands
surrounding Oklahoma. Some will go
back to the Cherokee Strip; others will
90 down into the Chickasaw country aud
lease farms from the Indians. That
country is being rapidly settled by farm
ers who pay annual head right or lease
for the privilege OF tilling the soil
there. The country is as much superior
to Oklahoma as is the Cherokee
Outlet, and there is great deal of COM
plant among the boomers that the
poorest land in the Indian Territory
should have been the only land opened
to settlement.
Despite this Encouragement, however,
many contests for possession OF lands
are threatened. An interesting case has
arisen, where two men arrived on the
same quarter section not five minutes
apart. The first arrival claimed posses
sion by priority. The second made i'm
provements and claimed that it was the
Improvement which perfected the right
of occupation. This case will doubtless
be taken to the Land Office for settle
ment.
AS Illustrating the "ingratitude of re-
publics,n it may be mentioned that con-
tests are already filed against the claim
of Captain Crouch, the old boomer
leader. on the curious ground that be
disqualified himself from making entry
bv entering the Territory years ago On
boom expeditions.
General James B. Weaver Of Iowa,
one of the most persistent advocates Of
the opening of Oklahoma in Congress,
L. .+.I