Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1901-02-28
THE KIDNAPPED LINER,


T eight o'clock on the morning of
n November IA, 1901, the Anglo
American liner oklahoma" left her
dock in New York harbor on her trim
to Southampton.
The fact of her departure, ordinarily
of merely local interest, was tele-
graphed all Owe the civilized world:
for there was a significance attached
to this particular ship such as had
never before marked the sailing of an
ocean steamship from those shores.
1t was not because the great YES
sci numbered among her crowd of
passengers a ~well-known English
duke and his young bride hat her
sailing was heralded by such a blow
ing of trumpets, nor because she also
had upon her lists the names of the
august British ambassador to the
United States, returning home on a
brief ~furlough, a noted English TRACE
dian, fresh from his American tri-
umphs, and a score OF other illustri-
Gus personages whose names were
household words in a dozen coun-
tries.
EASoCAASS III RI tau
was merely incidental. What made
this trip of the oklahoma an event
of international interest was the fact
that at this, the apparent climax of
the great gold-exporting movement
from the United States, no~w,continued
until it had almost drained the ma
tional treasury of its precious yellow
hoard, and had precipitated a COM
mercial crisis such as never before
had been experienced, the "Okla-
homa" was taking to the shores of
insatiate John Bull the greatest
amount of bullion ever shipped upon
a single vessel.
It was not the usual paItry half
million or million sterling that she
was carrying away in her great
strong room Of steel and teak wood,
but thirty million sterling OF CLINT
ing bars, hastily called across the
ocean because of the adverse ~bai-
ance of trade and the temporary
mistrust of American securities by
the tickle Europeans.
Suppose some daring Napoleon of
crime should hatch a startling con-
spiracy to seize the steamer, intini-
date the crew and passengers, and
possess himself of the huge treasure?
at would be a stake well worth long |
risks" thought some of the police
officials. as they read the cabled ac-
counts in the London evening papers. |
The oklahoma" was a fast sailor.
Her 500 feet of length and her 1900
tons of displacement were made light
work of by the great clanking, triple
--I4- %IA- a2-, 4
bined force of $4,000 horsepower was
brought to bear upon her twin
screws. Under ordinary conditions
she ought to nave made port ON the
other side in time to let her passen-
gers eat late dinner on the sixth day
out. Incoming steamers reported a
brief spell of nasty weather in mid
ocean, however, and so her failure to
reach Southampton on the sixth day
and even the seventh, was not particu-
larly remarked.
If the big ship had arrived on the
day, or eve early on the
it would still have found the
public in a comparatively calm state
mind, for the mid-Atlantic storm
would naturally account for a multi
tude of lost hours; but when the
ninth Tapped over on to the tenth,
and the tenth on to the eleventh and
with no tidings of the tardy
steamer, surprise grew into anxiety,
and anxiety into an international SEN
All sorts of plausible theories were
advanced by the steamship agents,
the newspapers and other oracles, in
that OF the inevitable broken
shaft: and these might have sufficed
a day or two longer had it not ]
for another and much more start
ing theory that suddenly come to the !
and threw two continents l
INTO a fever of trepidation and sus-
oense. 4
1t was the following announcement c
a leading New York morning pa I
Der that reused excitement to fever !
neat: $
"a new and most astounding phase I
come over the ease of the mystic
.iously missing Oklahoma. 1t has I
ust been given out from police head Q
quarters that Gentleman jim Lang I
wood, the noted craftsman and Il
whose ten years sentence ex- v
1ired only a few weeks ago, was in =
Sew York several days before the Q
of the Oklahoma and went g
Fith her as a passenger under an as n
name. Even at that cry time n
detectives were looking for him, as a
Up had been sent around that he was II
,p 10 some new deviltry. One of those b