The Searchlight (Guthrie, Okla.), No. 517, Ed. 1 Friday, March 20, 1908 Page: 1 of 16
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\Y hole Number 1 "j
rmn
OK LA.
FRIDAY,
MARCH 20,
I erms: HO Cts
RESCUED FROM MEXICAN JAIL
Enid, Okla., March '7.—Edward
Stuver, of. Brookfleld, .Mo., is In this
city today 011 his way home from Old
Mexico, and for the first time since
hisv release told of the horrors of ex-
istence in a .Mexican dungeon. Stuver
gained his Mberty through a demand
upon Mexico by the secretary of state.
In company with W. B. Speed, of
Dallas, Texas, Stuver was confined to
a prison for thirteen months and thir-
teen days, having been sentenced for
a crime of which he was wholly guilt-
less, as the Mexican authorities es-
tablished to their own satisfaction be-
fore he was released. Bearing in his
face distinct traces of the agony lie
had endured during the long months
of confinement, Stuver told :i tul > rf
cruel persecution.
In July, 1906, Stuver then an engi-
neer on the Mexican Central railway,
was arrested at the city of Cardenas
011 a charge of murder. In company
with A. Rodfish, a conductor, of
Kansas City, the engineer was stand-
ing on the platform of the Cardenas
depot when they heard an uproar In
the restaurant which occupies a part,
of the depot. Looking in a window
they saw a scramble for the door .m
the opposite side and a peon dying
on the floor. That was all Stuver saw
or knew of the killing.
Not Present at His Trial.
Before his train could pull out the
American engineer was placed under
arrest, charged with complicity iu the
killing of the native. W. 15. Speed,
also an engineer, was in ihe restau-
rant when the fatal row took place and
he, too, was arrested. That night tlae
two Americans were locked in the
Cardenas jail, and the nexi morning
some twenty natives, enraged over th»
killing, swore that these two men had
slain the dead peon. The only trial
afforded was being called before .1
judge and informed through an in-
terpreter that they had been sen-
tenced to twelve years in prison.
With the tropical sun blistering
their faces, Stuver and Speed were
marched over rocky roads, hills and
mountains and across swampy ravines
to Aliquines. On the route they were
guarded by a detachment of twelve 11a
tives armed with machettas, who kept
the points of the weapons within a few
inches of the bodies of the prisoners,
who were not allowed to look around
once during the day's fatiguing march.
The Horrors of Their Cell.
And in the rear of this procession
which was led by Stuver and Speed
was a group of natives carrying the
casket which contained the corpse of
the slain Mexican. Again and again
the peons stopped to weep over tlielr
dead comrade and to curse the Amer-
ica 11s.
Arrived at Aliquines the prisoners
were lodged in a dirt floored< adobe
walled cell, six by nine f?et, with a
roof of bamboo polM. There they re-
mained eight months and five days.
One kept watch while the other slept,
and guarded the body of the sleeper
from tarantulas, centipedes and every
and
form of tropical insect, vermin
pest that infested the cell.
After eight months here Stuver and
Speed were transferred to the state
penitentiary at "San Luis Potosi >c
serve out their sentences of twelve
years each.
One day, while visiting this prison,
two Enid women, Mrs. James Saunier
and Mrs. A. Rogers, sisters and th-3
wives of American engineers in Mex-
ico, saw the two prisoners and ob-
tained their story in Hill. When these
women came back to America they
gave an account of the suffering they
had seen to the American newspapers
and the story of the unjust imprison-
ment of innocent men.
American Newspapers Freed Him.
Edward Stuver says that the .pub-
licity of the facts in this case is what
gained his release. Forces that had
been at work were given a new im-
petus. Hundreds of letters asking for
the relief of the men were received by
the state department in Washington.
A request for an mvestigation was
made to President Diaz, who readily
granted it, and a special representa-
tive of the state department went to
Mexico to look up the facts.
Pacing he unveiling of gross neg'i-
genee in office in connection with
previous communications and de-
mands on the same subject the Amer-
ican consul in San Luis, S. E. Cros3,
who, it is said, had offered to free the
prisoners for a bribe of $1,500, com-
mitted suicide before the investigation
was well begun.
Investigation Vindicated Them.
Stuver and Speed had been found
guilty on the theory that the peon was
slain by lanterns which they carried
and with which they beat the Mexi-
can to death. Digging up the long
buried skull it was proved that the
blows which caused death were not
inflicted by Ianterns< but by one of
the stools in the restaurant.
When £tuver went inot a Mexican
dungeon he was six feet tall, weighed
193 pounds, and hisnalr was jet blacic.
When he came out he was stooped two
inches, weighed 132 pounds and his
hair was gray. He is 39 years oil,
but his prison experience has made
him appear much older.
May 18-20, Talala, May 31-23, Lenapah
May 25-27.
There are over 2000 Cherokees who
have never selected their allotments
and probably never will, because all of
the land has already been filed upon
except about 200,000 acres and this is
rough mountain land that is practically
worthless Most of the Indians who
are wiling to file have already done so
and others would rathed take chances
on getting cash from the nation to the
value of an allotment than take the
worthless land that is left. There are
some Cherokees, several hundred of
them who have refused to file 011 any
land, though the land office has been
open for five years and they had their
choice of the best land in the nation.
The land office clerks will not waste
much time 011 this class of Indians.
The object of opening the land office
in so many towns is to get allottees
who have selected nearly all their al-
lotments, but have a fraction remain-
ing, say ten or fifteen acres yet to
select, to complete their filings." Hun-
dreds of Indians have selected a part
of their allotments but could not get
a full one on account of their not being
enough available land where thev
wanted to file. These fractions that
they will now select will in most in-
stances be located a long way from
their homesteads. Prior to this time
the land office would not let an allot-
ee file on less than ten acres at a time.
But to clean up a lot fractions an order
has been made that an allottee may
select as small a tract os five acres to
complete his allotment, provided the
land is not scheduled at less than $2
per acre. In other words a man may
select as low as ten dollars worth of
land.
SPENDING DOLLARS IN EUROPE.
New York, March ;—Computation
by officers of the emigrant department
of the North German Lloyd Steamship
Co., as to the sum of money which has
been taken out of the United States
by foreigners who returned to their
homes last year, lias resulted in the
estimate that—if the outward rush
next few months—
will lose more than
ISSUES PARDON TO INDIAN
Young Seminole Granted Clemency by
Governor Haskell.
DELIDQUENT CHEROKEES
Muskogee, Okla., March 13.-—Prom
Aprtl 7 to May 27, the land office for
the Cherokee nation at. Muskogee will
be .closed, and the commissioner will
send the records of the land office, to-
gether with a large force of clerks to
various parts of the nation in a last
attempt to get the delinquent Chero-
kees to make their filings and complete
partial allotments of land.
The land office will be established
at the following towns on the dates
mentioned. Porum, April 7-10, Camp-
bell, April 11-15, Sallisaw April 16-18,
Tahlequah April 20-22, Westville, April
23-25, Siloam Springs, Ark., April 27-28
Grove April 29 to May 2, Afton, May
46. Welch May 7-9, Pryor Creek, May
11-13, Cfctelsa, May 1446, Claremore,
Governor Haskell granted a pardon
to William Fise, a young Seminole In-
dian who was convicted in 1906 'n
the distric court of Kay county of lar-
ceny of a domestic animal. The par-
dan was issued on lie recommendation
of B. T. Hainer, the trial judge, and
others.
In October, 1906, Fise, who was then
17 years old, ran away from his home
in the Seminole Nation and applied for
entrance to the Chilocco Indian school.
He gave there the assumed name of
William Cook. Although contrary to
the rules of the school to receive stu-
dents from the five civilized tribes, the
boy was admitted.
Some time after entering the school
the young Indian grew tired and home
sick and ran away, taking one of the
government ponies. He was arrested
at Shawnee onliik way home and taken
back to Kay county where he was
tried and convicted to serve a term of
three years which would expire Decem-
ber 21, 1908.
The case was investigated by the
Sequoyah presbytery of the Presbyter-
ian church and a formal appeal was
made to Governor Frantz for the boy's
pardon, but no action was taken.
continues for tlu
the United' States
1125,000,000.
In the emigrant travel of 1907, reck-
oning up to January 1, 1908. it is esti-
mated by the steamship company offi
cers that $110,000,000 in cash went to
foreign lands, principally to Italy and
to the Hungarian and Slavonic provin
ces. This calculation is necessarily
approximate; but there are good reus
ons for accepting it as accurate. In
this computation, agents of other
transatlantic lines furnished facts and
fjjures and the reports of money-chang-
ers figured even more prominently.
The first thing was to determine the
per capita amount which the outgoing
550,045 aliens took with them. A ma-
jority of opinions agreed upon $200.
Naturally, every emigrant did not have
anything like $200, but there were
thousands who had in their pockets
sums of money which considerably ex-
ceeded this figure, Thus it is the fair-
est average possible
As an offset to the loss oli this great
sum, which, as the North German
Lloyd puts it, would pay for the Pana-
ma canal, there was an expenditure in
tnis country for railroad and steam-
ship transportation and other things
iucidental to the homeward passage of
$15,000,000.
There is till another offset—the
amounts which each immigrant
brought into the Tinted States in the
same 12 months. While it was fair
to assume that the aliens would not
have in their possession as much as
they took away, there were many di-
verse opinions as to just what this dis-
parity was. No surprise would be oc-
casioned by an anouncement that it
was a third less, or even a half less;
but, as a matter of fact, the difference
is far greater.
According to the commission-gener-
al'of immigration, the ratio of money
brought in to money going out is as
ten to one. In other words, whereas
the homeward bound foreigners car-
ried out an average of $200, the im-
migrants brought in an average of $20
each.
Last year 1,364,760 foreigners ar-
rived, and so the total sum of monev
brought to these shores may be set
down approximately at $27,293,760.
This, however, cannot be considered
as pure gain to the country, since much
of it was furnished to the Immigrant
by some friend or relative, who origin-
ally carried it in the United States. In
many cases, this person also paid the
steamship fare, so that often what ap-
j pears as a gain in the end may be fig-
, urod out as pure loss.
I The Hamburg-American line, as well
as he Lloyd, continues to report un-
diminished rush of steerage travel for
1 foreign lands.
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The Searchlight (Guthrie, Okla.), No. 517, Ed. 1 Friday, March 20, 1908, newspaper, March 20, 1908; Guthrie, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc285852/m1/1/: accessed April 25, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.