Golden Valley chronicle. (Beach, Billings County, N.D.) 1905-1916, 1907-02-21
THREE WEEKS FINE WEATHER.
The Winter is an Augury Of a
Successful Crop Year.
the EASTERN DAlLIEs 1RY TO KNOCK.
Contain False and Exaggerated Reports aas
Keep People From Emnigratiax.

Keep People From Emnieratlag.
The following article was clipped fir ON
an eastern daily and mailed TO MIR. Cramer
OF this village. His friends who sent the
same had planned to move out here this
spring. but have fully decided not TO come
and nothing could convince them that the
untrue and exaggerated articles are any
thing but the facts of conditions here:
Bismarck, N. D., Feb. l6.-Put yourself
in the place Of a North Dakota emigrant
who has gone to the emf of :. railroad line
taken up farm and. with his family. got
crop harvested and ready for market
Think of him surrounded by snow drifts
twenty feet deep. with only small amount
of coal in the Kitchen and no trains run
ming in or out OF the nearest railroad stat
tion for two months.
1t may be he has not shipped out his
wheat crop and can burn that to keep his
family from freezing. But frozen small
grain makes almost no FIRE at all. Corn
is not much of crop in North Dakota or
it would not be quite 80 bad, for corn
makes a good fire. 1t once saved Iowa
farmers from freezing to death, and sew
eral times it was the blessed Marmpth of
bankrupt Nebraska and Kansas settlers.
In North Dakota the settlers are freez-
ing to death, or on the verge of it. not be-
cause they are poor, not because there is
lack of fuel in the world but because
the railroads which took them into the
country. promising them many wonderful
things. are mixed on the system of running
their property. They supply cars at their
convenience. Cars are taken in loaded
with fuel when there is return load wait
ing to escape making long haul of emp
ties Whatever number of cars are nee
essary to take out the grain just SO much
fuel will be taken in, but for some reason
the roads did not wish the grain to go out
this year.
So when the snow drifted the tracks
under twenty feet of crystals and froze the
drifts solid in temperature of so degrees
below zero. the inhabitants were suddenly
shut off from the outside world. If they
had fuel stored up sufficient to last sixty
days. they may get along. But many Of
them are spending their first winter in this
country and know nothing about the con-
ditions likely to prevail. and they are
caught with only few days fuel on hand
Scores of small towns are no better of.
! They have ordered coal but it has not
come in. At Litchfeld. small town in
North Dakota. the snow drifts are twenty
two feet thick. The last freight train to
arrive there was on Dec. 26. and the last
passenger into that part of the country was
stalled at Marion. six miles east of Litch-
| field on January H.
The railroad management for some un-
known reason supplied these trains with
just enough fuel to take them to the ter
! minus of the branch and they can neither
go back nor supply any fuel to the inhab-
itants. The Litchield people say this
style of railroading has been in operation
for some time: that since last September,
| when threshing commenced nobody could
get grain hauled out or coal hauled in.
No doubt the railroads are doing all
| they can at the time to break the snow
blockade and gel, food and fuel into that
snow bound country. but the task is diff
cult.
The inhabitants are hardy. good ma
tured lot. Fhe children build snow forts
and run about over the great drifts with
the exhuberance of little savages. But
there is always the gloom of being frozen
hanging over community that has fuel
famine and no certain communication
with the outside world"
The above is very much the opposite to
the following article written on the same
date and published in the Mandan Pioneer,
only across the river to the west of Bis
marck: Wonder what the reporters will
have to say of the weather conditions as
they have existed in North Dakota for the:
past week. If the true state of affairs
are exaggerated oppositely from what the
| cold weather was we NAV exnect IN In.