Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1899-11-30
TEMPLE IN THE RACE
CLARK County Candidate for Speak
ership Has Many Pledges.
CONTEST WILL SOON TAKE SHAPE
Consul Hanna Get. Good Thing In the
Service = Rumor That Will 4.
Muse is n Candidate for
State Binder.

Des Moines, Nov. PIN. L. Temple,
of Clarke county, was in the city re-
Gently and his friends say that he will
have the solid eighth district behind
him in his race for the speakership-
that Mr.. Prentis, of Ringgold, is al
ready out of the way, and that Mr.. Tenn
pie has more than twenty votes pledg-
ed to his support, and he has hardly
begun his, canvass. The speakership
contest may be expected to show pro-
nounced developments during the next
few days.
Consul Phil c. Hanna received fine
compliment from the state department
in the offer of the best thing open at
this time in the consular service, that
of supervising consul general in Next
co. His location at Monterey, great
commercial center, is very desirable
one, for there is a fine American col
ony there. His duties, however, will
take him all over Mexico, having about
thirty consulates under his iurisdic-
ton. Mr.. Hanna was offered place
in the war department that would have
kept him in Porto Rico, but he preferred
to remain in the department where he
had made his record and his acquaint-
ance. and where he is known as one
of the very best men in the service.
The work he did in the Spanish Amer
lean war has necessarily remained, in
the background. Its value depended
upon its remaining unknown to the
public. But when the permanent his
of 1. e
Hanna will occupy a much more prom
inent and important place than that
of some of the men who did the dress
parade work, and whose names got
into the newspapers in big type dur,
ing the excitement.
Maj. Olmstead, of this city, who was
placed on the retired list last year. and
is now doing duty as the representa-
tive OF the war department. in Iowa
without regular pay, was captain in
the Ninth cavalry, which has been ac-
curing notoriety of late on. the Next
can border. This is colored regiment,
and it has had trouble before for rea-
sons very much the same, that is, OBJ
jecting to being shot by "nigger hat
ers." In 1892 we were sent up into
northern Wyoming" said Maj. Ohm
stead, land ordered to march to the
place where the B. & NJ. railroad
crosses the Powder river, and camp
there. The srustlers' had gone there
and erected fort and declared that no
cattle should be shipped from that
point. The chutes were located there
and thousands of cattle were shipped
from that pointevery season. We We're
told to make our camp there, and do
nothing more. 1t was enough; the
'rustlers' abandoned their fort, and
went away. The-cattle men and other
friends of the 'rustlers' did not like
the idea of having colored troops.there
and they gave 1t out that if thablank
niggers came to town they would be
shot. One night a few of the soldiers
went over to the town and went
around to different places, behaving
themselves all the time, when two of
them were shot dead by the cattle
men, it was supposed. The soldiers did
not enter into afight there, but they
came back to camp and getting two
companions together went back to have
it out. The first the officers
knew of it was the awfullest fusilade
and yelling we ever heard. In short
time we got the rest of the command
together and went after them. The
people were terrorized. The soldiers
were shooting in every direction aud
had driven the people out onto the,
plain in all stages of undress. The
only thing that prevented general
massacre was! the fact that the people
had made temporary houses out of
tents, placed over holes in the ground
three or four feet deep. They were
sleeping below the surface of the
ground, so the bullets went through
the tents above them and did not hurt
the people inside. Very few were
wounded, but it was understood that
the colored soldier had to be respected.
We had hard time in getting the peo-
pie back into the town, they were so
much afraid of the shooting negroes"
The smallpox epidemic in Storm
Lake is believed to have originated in
a gang of laborers on the Chicago,
Milwaukee & st. Paul railway. These
laborers, living in filth and moving
about from state to state, are good
carriers and communicates of disease,
and they ought to be watched very
closely. Storm Lake is now in the po-
sition of the man who wished after
fire had burned everything he owned
that he had carried fire insurance. The
expense of having taken every precau-
ton against the disease would hardly
have been one ten-thousandth part of
the cost of this epidemic to Storm
Lake. Secretary Kennedy, of the state
board of health, says that smallpox is
prevalent all over the country now,