The Portland daily press., 1893-09-15
RIVALS WARS HoNoRs.
The Long Agony of the Thousands Wait

Lie LOuR agony OF bHo L AuOuSduuS w alC-
ing to Secure Homes.
Arkansas City, September 14.-Tongue
of man cannot adequately describe the
part played by the $4,000 claimants who
underwent the ordeal prescribed as the
preliminary to the getting of the public
lands of the Cherokee Strip Men who
have undergone the march of Sherman,
the bull dog sieges of Grant, and the
horrors of the Chickahominy, declare all
these pastines and pleasure compared to
the inferno of yesterday With an in
genuity Of stupidity that closely re-
sembles malevolence, the personages in
charge of the registering operations chose
point four miles south of this town for
the recording booth.
Even this wrong was aggravated by the
site selected. Instead of taking advan-
tage of the broad, open prairies, the
official booth was placed to windward of
broad dirt road at least foot deep in
pulverized dust that arose in whirling
clouds at every footstep To add to the
discomforts, the only available..space for
the long ranks to form was compulsorily
along the barbed wire fence of the
Indian school reserve.
From early Sunday morning the
anxious settlers began to take their
places In an hour every man, woman
and child had lost all semblance OF
Caucasian lineage. Powdered dust
filed the air until the prairies for miles
were seen through a fog infinitely thicker
and more painful than the sooty eclipse
that makes London intoferable to people
of other climates. To add to the misery
of the torture, light, persistent breeze
blew the Opaque clouds along the road
.,1%, +La tha fostanod fnfthn
barbed wires. Hundreds were compelled
to relinquish their laboriously acquired
places and fly cityward to preserve life
Hundreds were stiVed in the mephItlc
reath of their improvised abodes, and
at night death was promised an abundant
harvest and the leech's skill endless
practice.
AS if to accentuate the criminal mis-
management of the responsible authori-
ties, squadrons of audibly grotesque cow
boys mounted upon short, quick STEP
ping bronchos, whirled and cantered by,
each hoof of the troops scattering puffs
of black, powdered dust that swirled
in eddying cyclones, into the tortured
eyes and nostrils Of the patient thousands
condemned to endure it.
At midnight, Sunday, 5000 exhausted
specters of humanity yelled and cursed.
At z o'clock yesterday morning, when
the officials consented to begin the work
of alleviatioD, as prescribed by the God
of Red Tape, this grieving unrecogniz-
able mass stood in long lines, one, two
and three ankles deep in the pulverized
soil, unkempt, irritable, in revolt.
There was no good reason why the booth
should not have begun work at o'clock,
while the only GOODNESS known in this
torrid cline endures.
Rain has not moistened the rich earth
here since the 11th of June. The foliage
is deeply crusted with thick coating
of plaster like dust. A man walking over
the parched verdure of the prairie leaves
line of light, as if machine had cut
the grass and weeds. The thermometer
at O'Clock registered 80, and at noon
ITO, and while the painting, palpitatin,g
mob writhed and groaned IN this intol-
cradle furnace, the smart young clerks
from Washington emerged from their
cool pavilion and moved off leisurely to
dine and refresh themselves for an hour
Men were carried from the ranks smltten
by the burning sun. This hideous horror
is to continue to the end. What should
be an imposing pageant OF the people
taking possession of their own is turned
into tragedy. Men are entlced to fraud
and cunning evasions, the only available
means of securing the lands nominally
free to all