The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-10-22
THE BAD MEN OF II.
PASSING OF THE TERMINUS THUG
FROM INDIAN TERRITORY.


PurpOses-Scenes of wild Disorder
in the Days of Pioneer Railroad
ing in the West.
From the Chicago Inter-Oc
A man was killed at Muskogee, in the
Indian territory. the other day. The
shooting was just around the corner from
where Judge Springer presides in the fed
eral court 1t was not so great an affront
to Federal authority as occurred at Mus
kogee one morning in 1871. Then a man
was killed for exhibition purposes to i'm
press Secretary Delano of the interior
department under President Grant.
Muskogee is billed for a boom after
the Curtis law becomes operative or such
treaties as the Dawes commission may
conclude with the Creek Indians are in
force. The boom will not be of the en-
thusiastic and sanguinary kind that pre-
vailed in 1871. 1t was that boom which
brought the Secretary of the Interior to
the spot 10 see what could be done to
check the rapid growth of the cemetery.
The visit led to a technical violation of
treaty obligations and the invasion of the
country by our troops
Frontier life in the United States has
never produced a worse variety of the bad
man than the one known as the terminus
man. The terminus man followed the
gangs that built the great lines of railroad
across the plains. Wherever the tempo
rary terminus of the line was found, there
he was found also. Whether in tent or
rough board shack or dugout, he was a
shOrt-card gambler, a purveyor of bad
whisky a D1aiO 6pGppra IN wit
disguise When the Atchison, Topeka and
Santa Fe line was being laid westward
along the southern border of Kansas the
terminus men fourished at Caldwell
Kiowa, Dodge City, and Liberal He did
much of the work for which the Texas
cowboy has had too much of the dis
credit But there was law in Kansas
which, enforced by men of the Bat Ma ter
son stripe. restrained the terminus man.
lie was a hard proposition at best, but
under the state or territorial government,
backed by the right sort of material for
its administration, he never rose to the
dignity of being negotiated with by one of
the cabinet officers from Washington.
The negotiations were unDrece leuted. but
they were clearly justified. The terminus
man had trailed along with the Missouri,
Kansas and Texas Railway. then under
construction toward the Gulf ell the way
from Sedali& down.
The main terminus was at Parsons,
Kan where the gang kept its headquar-
ters tor a long time. The terminus man
was his usual self at that place, restrain
ed somewhat by the law aud the public
sentiment behind those who were there
30 enforce il. He had made a proftaoc
season, but was not reluctant to move.
for the next terminal point would put
him beyond the jurisdiction of any court.
| The Indian territory lay invitingly be-
fore him. The territory is now a compar-
atVely lawless country Then il was su-
perlati1ely so. \ lit,le squad of United
States deputy marshals pretended to eX-
ercise Federal authority within the liml-
tations of the treaties. Shadowy as was
this semb ancc of government, it was
substantial when compared with that of
the Indian tribes.
There vas a body of Federal troops
quartered at Fort Gibson, but that IL
could not be used without a violation
of the treaties with the Indians was clear
90 the terminus men. The Missouri Kan
sas and Texas got into the Indian terri
tory in a hurry, but it was none too quick
for the terminus men, who got there with
It, and resumed business on a new and
enlarged scale at Che,opa, the first tenn
poTary terminal point on the line in the
Red commonwealth. Chetopa was enter
ed by the first locomotive that ever ran
into the Indian territory on May 6, 1871,
at noon. That night all the gambling sa-
looms and dance houses We're in fun blast,
and one man was buried with his boots
on before SHUTDOWN. The railroad COM
pany had laid twenty-siX and half miles
of finished line in eleven days to get to
Chetopa, and confirm its right to a 3,0O0-
OO0-acre land grant but the terminus men
opened up trade in way to convey the
impression that it was their opinion that
the expedition was made for the purpose
OF charging their facilities for doing bus
mess.
They enlarged accordingly. The engl-
neers. builders and contractors on the
line knew many of the men In the term
mus gang. They had had experience with
them at Laramie, Cheyenne, Ogden, and
other temporary terminal points during
the years in which the Union Pacific road
was being built. They had been able TO
manage them, in a way. when under Fed.
eral authority and within the call OF
Federal troops. But without such forces
to command the railroad men soon found
that the terminus gang was a quantity
it was no longer possible for them to
deal with. Murder became an event of
daily occurrence The terminus men took
to shooting people for the fun of seeing
them die with their boots on What was
worse from the company view, perhaps,
was that they took to robbing the pay
cars and killing the men supposed to be
carrying company funds Several valued
SliploNtS Ol Tue CpiiIPdtiN WIiS SuoA uiltltI
the impression that they were United
States deputy marshals, a fact eloquent
of the degree of respect entertained by
the terminus men for the shadowy au-
thorty of the Federal government
Conditions grew worse the further the
line got into the territory. AT Chetopa
they were. bad. Al Nnita they were
worse. At AIuskogee they reached their
worst There the event which broke the
record was the killing of three men in
one night without provocation. Robbery