The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-06-06
Crist Of the
Political Mill

There wwar In the Minnesota dele
cation in congress. The Cass Lake
land Office is primarily the cause, but
the efforts of Tams Bixby to take care
or his townsite investments at Bemid-
il has precipitated situation which
promises the hottest kind Of hostili-
ties.
The usually placid Buchanan. who
stands up to campaign accusations
and factional press attacks with a COM
placent grin, has at last lost his tenn
per. Buchanan is angry, not so much
over the attempt to beat his district
out of maximum land office. for
which he worked so hard. but over
what he styles malicious press misrep-
| resentation at the hands of the Wash
| ington correspondents.
q u
Several months ago. when the rear
rangement of public land districts
came on the carpet, Stevenson and
the Bemidji people decided to take the
| general land office to Bmedji. Buck
man went to Washington, but declined
to consent to the Steenerson-S Street ar
| rangement. He eventually secured an
order locating the Office at Cass Lake
and removing the Marshall office to st.
Cloud.
When the boundaries were an
nounced. it was discovered that the
Duluth office had suffered. and Buck
man at once consented to a change,
saying he did not care about the
boundaries, but that he did want to
/ protect the settlers by locating the Of
flee at Cass Lake. None of this suited
Bixby. He came to Minnesota to see
the president, and announced that he
had managed to hold up ratification of
the department until the president re-
turned to Washington, when, accord
ing to Tams, his personal pull with
the president would finish off the pre-
tentions of the Sixth district crowd.
q q
Bixby must have been mistaken
| about his arrangement with President
Roosevelt, because the presidential
proclamation establishing the office at
Cass Lake was promulgated shortly
L
| made another excursion from Indian
territory to meet Roosevelt at Topeka.
Then STEVENSON started for Washing
ton, and Immediately after arriving
there two of the Washington CORE
spondents for Twin City papers an
| nounced that Buchanan joined Steen-
erson in asking for the change to Be-
midi, and one of them said Buchanan
had been opposed to the Cass Lake To-
cation from the inception Of the plan.
* q
That was the slap that stung the
Little Falls man to the quick. He was
in ST. Paul yesterday and wired Con-
gresham Bede requesting Bede to
personally see the president imme-
diately upon his return from the big
swing around the circle and explafn
the difference between the protection
to the settlers to be gained by locating
the office at Cass Lake and the per-
sonal benefits to be derived by the
townsite boomers who are plugging for
Bermidji.
To 7 Clio b e Buchanan said:
Q1Q not come TO 81. Pau1 In con-
nection with the Cass Lake land Office.
l consider that a closed incident. The
president has issued his proclamation
locating the office and I do not be-
Heve he will be induced to rescind that
proclamation at the behest of a town
site company. I am naturally enough
Disguised with the statements Of the
Washington correspondents, but they
made themselves sufficiently silly in
presenting me as fighting to undo my
own work to protect me without any
effort on my part. I worked hard to
secure that Office and we are going
to open 1t at Cass Lake June 30"
q q
Buchanan came to st. Paul In the
interest of the settlers on Northern
Pacific lands in his district. The til
ties We're in dispute since the memory
Of man runneth not to the contrary
until early this spring. As a result
the settlers declined to spend money
in improvements and the lands re-
turned nothing in taxes. Buchanan
secured an order from the department
of the interior settling the titles and
yesterday secured an agreement with
the railroad company to give the set
tiers first opportunity of purchase
without commission and was informed
that spectators would not be per-
mitted to secure any Of the big tract.
George A. VanSmitn.