The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1893-09-06
A, GROTESQUE
SPECTACLE
RObbing the Head of the Wheat
Ring!

OF course we all deprecate highway
robbery, u ct arnais. And yet in some
respects it is more honorable than
plundering the people under color of
law. When the robber claps pistol
to your head and demands your mon
ey or your life, you have still ga
chance for your white alley;" you
may pull your "gun" and kill him.
He takes his life in his hand and is
willing to pay the penalty. 1t is
life against life. But when lot of
rascals get up wheat ring, and
plunder the whole people, men,
women and children for twenty years
inside the law, reducing whole COM
monwealths to poverty, making them
selves millionaires and their victims
paupers, you cannot fall back on your
shooting-irons. The ring is intangi-
BILE, though it's results are most tan
gible. You cannot shoot a ring
And if you assault the leaders of it
or their agents, you become criminal
duU SO w pIISOu.
And hence the whole state was on
broad grin the other day when the
newspapers reported that the Hon.
John S. Pillsbury, the big miller of
Minneapolis. the head of the Mime
sofa wheat ring, the partner of A. G.
Smith & Co. (now being sued by the
state for the proceeds of a fraudu-
lent pine land deaD, had been robbed
by gang of train robbers in Monta
ma, on the Northern Pacific railroad.
And the Hon. John gives very en-
tertaining account of the matter.
He says:
"I think 1 must have fallen into
doze, for the first thing [ remember
was the conductor coming into the
sleeper and giving the passengers the
startling warning to put away their
valuables, as he thought the train
was being held up. ''Hide your money
and jewelry," said he, " for the train
is stopped, and 1 think it has been
boarded by robbers
l was by this time fully awake, and
l found sure enough that the train
was at a standstill. heard cries and
shots, but they were evidently on the
other end of the train, our sleepers
being coupled on in the rear of seve-
raj ordinary coaches.
l first gave my watch and jewelry
and diamond studs to my daughter,
believing that the robbers would not
molest women. Mrs. Gale was not
at all frightened, but took things as
coolly as though nothing had hap
pened. Neither was Mrs. PillSbury
frightened very much, although there
were several ladies in the car who
were quite unnerved. Then | divid-
ed what cash / had, putting half in
reach it, for l knew J would have to
lay down again. Mrs. Gale went into
my wife's berth, dressed as she was,
and lay down beside her."
Johns courage in shifting the dan
ger of the search onto his wife was
beautiful. 1t reminds me of the sto-
ry of the man and his spouse who
heard sounds in the house in the mid
die of the night and concluded they
were caused by robbers. The good
woman insisted on investigating, and
siezed the poker. "That's right,
Betsy" said the valiant husband,
"you 60 ahead, and I'll follow; for
it would be mighty mean burglar
that would strike woman"
And note the melancholy cadence
with which the Hon. John acknowl-
edges that he "would have to give
the robbers somethinq." And then
see how the foxy old gentleman pro-
ceeded to fool the robbers, and sue
ceeded:
81 was lying upon my right side,
with my face to the wall of the car,
as it hurt me to lay on the other side
on account Of my rheumatism. l
reached up to take the money from
my vest pocket, the vest hanging
above me, and fumbled with it some
time. / was slow both on account of
the rheumatism and because / want
ed to delay the men as long as possi-
BILE. They ordered me to hurry up,
and one of them siezed me roughly
by nv rheumatic shoulder and shook
me. 1t hurt like everything, and l
said, look here. you don't want to
do that. I'm sick man, and that
shoulder hurts Then turned over
and for the first time found myself
looking right up the muzzle OF a
Winchester. Three or four other
guns, as they call their long pistols
out there, were leveled at my head.
This sight and the threatening as
pect of the men, made me move
trit1e quicker"
What q pity every wheat-grower in
Minnesota was not present to see the
foxy old miller looking down the
muZZle of that rifle and those re-
volvers and handing over his money
What cheers would have gone up
from a hundred thousand throats.
And John would have reasoned
Z with them if they had, and would
have sent them away with the con-
victiOn that he had enriched them ;
but. they were not open to Christian
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