The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-01-05
ENDORSED A MURDER.
Serious Charge Against the Farmers
Alliance in Kansas.
PLOT TO DRIVE CATTLE MIN FROM
THE STATE.

1t Resulted in the killing of Two of Them
and the Alliance Is Said to Have
Shielded the Murdercrs-Oath of the
Order Used to Prevent Prosecution
Matter Laid Before Governor Hum
phrey.
New YORK, Jan. A despatch to the
Press from Sedan, Kan, says:
Thomas Turner, DR.. j. T. Ingalls, and
Peter Gordon of Chautauqua county have
been arrested for the murder of J. S.
Frazier and w. II. Gibson, near this city,
June 2S, 1890. The whole country is
greatly excited, for it is known that war
rants are out for many other prominent
citizens. There is much more to the
story, however, than The mere fact of ar
resting people for murder. The case is
one which involves the good name of tho
Farmers Alliance, and the crime Of mur-
der will be laid very close to the doors of
that organization.
While the charge is not made that the
Alliance either ordered or sanctioned the
deed, it is known that the plot was
Matched within the halls of the Organiza-
ton, and the men who did the murder
were protected by the order while con-
cocting the plan and after they had COM
mitted the deed. All the plotting which
had for its object the injury of the busi-
ness of the cattlemen, was begun by the
Alliance as an organization, and this
plotting included the cutting of miles OF
fencing and the formation of q committee
of thirteen sub-alliances to wait upon
Gibson and Frazier and warn them outsof
the country. That these committees
were appointed at regular Alliance meet
ings the books OF the organization will
show.
The case was worked up by John I. L.
Davis and S. N. West, residents of Elk
county, and when the chain of evidence
was complete they laid the matter before
Governor Humphrey, who placed it in
the hands of State Senator kirkpatrick,
who now has such mass of evidence as
to lead him to say that he win prove a
conspiracy with ramifications so far
reaching that it will go into the very
heart of the organization. He is able to
prove that all the men concerned in the
murder are members of the Alliance;
that the plan was formed behind the
soathborind doors of the Alliance, and
that the conspirators are today using the
oath of the organization to protect them
selves from harm.
While it is not claimed that the ALI
ance as an organization ordered the mur-
der, he will show the body was cogniz-
ant of the fact that the murder was to be
committed and took no steps to prevent
it; nor did they, after they knew the
murder had been committed, take any
action condeming the perpetrators of the
crime. 1t is known that several men,
bers withdrew from the Alliance when
they learned what was going on, and it
was one of these members who first gave
the clew which led 20 the liz.aveling of
the mystery.
1t was four months from the beginning
of the trouble to the day of the murder,
and during all that time the plot was
slowly Matching. One morning in Febru-
ary, 1890, trains bearing stock from the
Texas rancho of w. II. Gibson and j. S.
Frazier reached Spring Valley, small
point ON the southern line of Chautauqua
county. An attempt was made to un-
load the stock, but the people organized
and forced the stockmen to send the
train back into the Cherokee Strip.
There it remained until the people relax
ed their vigilance, when it was secretly
unloaded and the cattle were driven into
Chautauqua county. When the news of
the invasion spread through the county
it created an excitement that soon devel-
oded murderous spirit and brought in
to existence the plot to murder Frazier
and Gibson.
Gibson obeyed a warning and was
leaving the country. lie stopped, how
ever, at a small town and was there over
taken and murdered. Frazier refused
to leave and was killed near his home.