The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-06-28
ANGELL STEPS OUT
EXECUTIVE CLERK QUITS TO AC-
CEPT POSITION UNDER THE
CHEROKEE COMMISSION
TAMs BIXBY NEEDED HIM
One OF the Familiar Faces at the
Capitol Will Be Gone After To-
morrow, After Years of Official
Service-The Big Chief From Red
Wing Lured Him Away to the
Indian Territory.

~ =, -Esss=- -s.-i1-.s'z.. s-- e.r
After tomorrow the familiar face of
William HI. Angel will not be In its ac-
customed place behind the big fiat-topped
desk in the governors outer chamber. 1t
is seventeen years since the Angelic
countenance first looked up there, and it
is seventeen years since the round An
gellic black stub penmanship began to
adorn notarial commissions and other
official papers of the proletariat.
Hubbard. McGill, Merriam, Nelson,
Clough, Lind, in turn. sat in the inner
room and decreed the fate of fearful
wives whose husbands had murdered men
or stolen horses, but yet William, as
every one about the capitol learned to
call him. hung on. Even the shaking of
the party base beneath the Republican
machine did not jar from his rocker the
urbane executive clerk who knows the
blue book as he does his spelling lesson
and recites the roster Of official patronage
like one Of his youngsters might daily
with the multiplication table.
But it hasn't been the same old smile
with William, since Jan. l. One at time
he was called upon to sign papers that
another of his old time compatriots Men
who had been sitting on state boards I'M
til the slfvers had almost unseated them,
found the. unseatiag finished by Gov. Lind
and William was, as the last scion of a
waning race, the last of the Republicans.
He could have stayed, for he had never
been an offensive partisan. He never
even had to carry his own precinct, for
he lived up in the Seventh, where it
couldn't go but one way. William just
tended to the gubernatorial detail from
early dawn till late at night, and never
tipped anything off to the outside world.
That was Williams long suit Even q
new administration bent on turning out
it's predecessors with an orthodox Jack
senian policy could but stand in awe of
this virtue. Here, indeed, was a man of
mark.
1t came perhaps Of long association
with that other beau ideal of sphinxlike
imperturbability and mysterious COM
placency, Tams Bixby. Bixby has secrets
such as the box Of Pandora never could
have held. 1t was supposed that when
Tams went out of the executive depart
ment he left his administrative secrets
behind. Many thought they would like
to blow the safe In the governors Office
and discover the essence of the Bixbyan
f1nesse in politics. But it would have been
futile. Bixby had not struck his simeon
fed sands of Oklahoma before he had
begun winnowing new secrets. Ultimate
ly he got so many he had to have An
CELL. So he touched the wire. William"
he said, I've got a good thing here at
Muskogee." William was puzzled.
Should he leave the state administration
to new hands. clericaly? Should he stin
stand under the gun, regardless of party
differences, and help to guide the good
ship Minnesota clear Of the shoals of exc
cutive dishonor, or should he accept the
honor that was thus thrust upon him and
five tribes from the darkness of bar
barism into the broad light of modern
civilization and political freedom, as ex-
emplifled in the gigantic genius of the
Red Wing statesman, Bixby. There was
but one answer. The state had enjoyed
for seventeen years the fruits of his labor.
Should the five tribes be left in somnolent
ignorance of half lifes joys? No. So
William accepted the new place, and Gov.
Lind babe him Godspeed, but now not
without the assurance that he might have
stayed through the present administra-
ton If he wished.
IT will go Friday" said Mr.. Angel yes
terday. "I shall have a clerical position
In the Office Of the Cherokee commission
at Muskogee. I do not know exactly
what the duties are. but 1t is a position
worth, in my Judgment, going to take 1
had my choice of going or staying here.
I will leave my family here for a few
months, till after the summer months, at
least"
Eugene Rice, of owatonna, a Demo-
crat, will succeed Mr.. Angel tomorrow.