USA > Indiana > Lake County > The First Hundred Years (1938) > Part 9
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Lake County Star Dec. 24, 1889
B. W.
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The sharper getting in his work in 1883 is not so different from what he is today. The People's Railway Company and the patent drive well Blackmail, trying to get money out of the in- nocent people without working for it, are given a round by Bartlett Woods.
1883-OCEAN TO OCEAN-LAKES TO GULF
"By the people and for the people-an issue will be made at an early date of $10,000,000 of first series of stock by the Peo- ple's Railway Company of America-incorporated under the laws of Indiana-Capital stock $36,000 per mile-double track, narrow guage-this series to be sold at sixty-five cents on the dollar, in thirteen installments of five per cent, or payable sooner, at the option of the purchaser-face value of shares, $50-net cost to purchaser, $32.50.
"The People's Railway Company of America, having within the past thirty days, received nearly $200,000 of private sub- scriptions to its capital stock, will during the coming month make a simultaneous offer of. $10,000,000 of its stock to the public, through local boards, upon payment of 5 per cent, or $2.50 per share."
The above we clip from an Indianapolis paper. It seems that within the last thirty days this "People's Railway Company" has received from the "People" $200,000; now they are going to ask for $10,000,000. It may be all right but it seems a risky business to invest money in a business whose promises are all on paper, whose reputation is unknown, who give no substantial secur- ity, nothing that we can see, as any guarantee that the men who put their money in the concern will ever see a dollar of it again, either in the shape of dividends or value for the stock purchased as a commercial value in the market. Nothing is too glaring or suspicious if presented so as to excite the love of easy gain or freighted with big promises to deter the credulous, but enough are found to furnish their money that has been earned in most in- stances by hard work, and saved by denying themselves many of the comforts and little luxuries for the wife and the little ones. Why this seeking for subscriptions from among the people? Why not go to the men of money ? Capitalists, who are posted on these schemes offering chances for investments, and who are in a posi- tion to know the value of such offers? The two dollars and fifty cents per share, paid down, looks so modest that thousands will go in and become stockholders in the great "People's Railway Co. of America." Now, if there is a farmer in Lake County who has money to invest, he had better ditch and drain, and improve his own land; make his home more comfortable and his wife and children more happy. Here he has an investment that will pay a
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security as sound as his own solid acres and will pay bigger in- terest than any scheme glittering with promises, or stuffed full of mammoth anticipations. If there is a business man, let him keep his money in his own business, that is the safe place for him. The failures that occur can nearly all be traced to the diverting of capital to some outside speculation, instead of keeping in its own legitimate business.
Lake County Star August 24, 1883
B. W.
HORSE THIEVES
Horse and buggy stealing seems to have had the place in police records that automobile theft now has.
Stolen-On Wednesday night of this week (1883), a span of bay and gray mares of Fred Kreiter, on Henry Hayward's place, and a 3 spring buggy from Sam Woods. It appears that the horses were taken out and cleaned off before taking them, which is supposed to have been done about 11 o'clock. The other time Mr. Woods' buggy was stolen they took Tom Hoffman's team, which was never heard from. Mr. Woods thinks the thieves are two fellows who were canvassing for the sale of Bibles.
Lake County Star
1883
Here is another short bit deploring the laxity of our police laws :
Horse thieves have a rich field in Indiana! Neither the State nor the county or township will disturb them, only the victims of their infernal villiany. If caught, all the technicalities of law are on the rascals side, all the doubts are given to him. Money will hire him brains to work against our own people and the fools will applaud the lawyer who does the work. The technicalities are the lawyers stock in trade, the public capital he works on, he banks on it, he lives on it, gets fat on it. Indiana may be a paradise for criminal lawyers, but it is an everlasting disgrace to the state.
Talk about protecting labor and honest industry by our laws, shut up; such stuff is all " cant and wind" and hypocrisy. It may do for 4th of July spread explosion but it is false, the re- verse is true. We stood by and let Paul Raasch lose his team and buggy, and ride over hundreds of miles, and lose and spend his money and the state and the county did nothing, and so it is today with Fred Kreiter, and so it will be tomorrow. When will the people have common sense and see things in their proper light ?
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They like to be humbugged! Honest men that tell them the truth, and can't be bought by demagogues to do their dirty work are spurned and kicked to the rear. Thousands of dollars are spent to elect some demagogue to office, and the fools applaud at his success, and his great popularity, and think it all right, but if the county should expend two or three hundred dollars in upholding law and protecting and recovering the property of one of her citizens, these same people would make a terrible howl at the way the commissioners were going on spending the peoples' money.
B. Woods.
Lake County Star
August, 1883.
ON GROVER CLEVELAND'S ELECTION Victory in Defeat-1882
The sublime laconism of Francis the First-"All is lost save honor."-may be applied to the Republican party in the late political contest. But honor being saved, all is saved. The bosses said, "We will rule or ruin." The masses of the Republican party promptly responded, "You shall do neither, you can rule the Re- publican party only by ruling it, and you shall not rule it." The bosses said : "We control the party machinery and the patronage, and we will use them first to nominate and then to elect our can- didates." And they proceeded to marshall their henchmen and to levy and collect assessments. "Very well," responded the Republi- can masses, "we show you that your slaves control no votes but their own, and that the power of patronage is a delusion and a snare."
The late election proves to a demonstration several proposi- tions. It proves that the Republican party is not composed of a mass of unreflecting men who will vote the ticket right or wrong. It proves that there are vast numbers of men in the Republican party so bent on reform of administrative methods that they will risk party defeat to accomplish their purpose. It proves that civil-service reform is a vital issue, and that the Republican party can afford no longer to trifle with it. It proves that Republicans meant just what they swore in their wrath in 1880 that they would not endure boss rule. It proves that the Republican party is to- day a party of convictions as truly and earnestly as it was when it chose as its standard bearer, Abraham Lincoln, the great man who solemnly declared that the country could not continue to exist half slave and half free. It proves that Republicans are de- termined that their party shall move forward, even if it moves through defeat. It proves that the Republican party must go forward or go down. It proves that behind thousands of Republi-
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can votes in every State there is an idea, and that ideas cannot be coerced. It proves that trickery, chicancery, and fraud at Republi- can primaries pave the way, not to victory, but to defeat. It proves that Republicans cannot be led where they are sure they ought not to go. It proves that the Republican party is an asso- ciation of intelligent citizens banded together for the purpose of securing good administration, and not to secure and divide official spoils.
These are lessons of the election last Tuesday. Let not Demo- crats take heart of hope from an assumed Democratic victory. It is not a Democratic victory; it is a victory of Republicans over their own party drifting toward the rocks. Governor-elect Cleve- land does not misinterpret it. He says, "The reason is chiefly due to the unpopularity of the Stalwart Administration." He is ask- ed : "Does it presage a victory in 1884?" He replies: "The re- sult in 1884 will depend almost entirely upon the conduct of the two parties during the intervening period." Mr. Cleveland is not jubilant. He knows that Republicans have administered a rebuke to their would-be bosses and that he has reaped the benefit of it. He knows that Democrats are likely to abuse the power which they will wield in Congress. He knows the Republican party will be stronger than before because it is purged of impurities. He is not even hopeful of the future. How could he be with the history of his party staring him in the face from the pages of history ?
Republicans should exchange congratulations now as they did issuing from the convention hall in 1880 at midnight after the principle of district representation had triumphed. They felt then that the Republican ship had been steered off the rocks, and they shouted, "Saved, saved !" Let them shout now, "Saved !"
Lake County Star
Friday, Nov. 17, 1882
BARTLETT WOODS SAW THE EVIL OF THE FOREIGN VOTE IN THIS COUNTRY
Senator Voohrees and Carl Schurz.
Senator Voohrees in his Saturday's speech alluded to Carl Schurz, that he would do like him, oppose his own party if he dis- agreed with its policies and its methods. Daniel W. Voohrees would do no such thing. Carl Schurz is a very different man. Voohrees during the war denounced Lincoln, the war, and the soldiers in the field, gave all the aid and comfort he could to the rebellion, and would if he could have taken the whole Democratic party into the camp of Jeff Davis. Carl Schurz was in the Free- mont campaign, sustaining by voice and vote the election of Lin-
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coln, and when the war broke out, was in the field fighting rebels while Voohrees was at home using every effort against the North, and doing all he could to help the southern confederacy. Carl Schurz is opposed to some of the plans and purposes now adopted by the Republican party, and he has the right to vote for any man who may be his choice, and he does it, simply exercising the citi- zen's right of a free ballot. Carl Schurz carries his sovereignty under his own hat, Voohrees belongs body and soul to a faction in the Democratic party, a faction distasteful to the loyal and better portion of Democrats. Its past history is a record that they would be willing to blot out, and drives away and keeps away thousands of votes that will never be attracted to a party who holds up as their ideal statesman such a man as Daniel W. Voohrees.
Voohrees says the Democrats were the fathers and authors of the clause in the constitution of Indiana giving the right to vote to an alien six months in the state. He missed his mark when he said this. A man is not necessarily a fool because he was born in the United States. The foreign born and the Ameri- can born who can trace his ancestry back for a century, can see no reason why his son, born on American soil in these United States, should be compelled to wait after he becames at an age sufficiently well informed as to the duties and responsibilities of citizenship. The boy may know all this at 16 and yet he must wait 5 years before he can vote, or he may be 20 years of age at a presidential election and the American born cannot vote, but must step down and wait another four years until the next presidential election comes 'round, but the man landed from an emigrant ship and has lived here in the United States one year, and six months in the state, can vote simply by declaring his intentions to become a citi- zen, and perhaps never takes out his final papers. Such cheapen- ing of the suffrage is an injustice to those whose long residence and right by birth has entitled them to undisputed citizenship.
It is a menace and a danger to the best interests of our country, and both adopted and native born citizens look upon it as an evil that must be met by enforcing and adopting the naturalization laws of the United States, for this state, and allow none but citi- zens to vote. Why Not ?
B. Woods.
Lake County Star Sept. 5, 1884
In 1883, in an article in the Star, my father discusses the causes of the strikes that were then occurring all over the country : The strikes all over the country are becoming a source of anxiety to not only those who participate and are individually
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interested, but to every person who has the best interests of his country at heart. Labor strikes for better pay, capital com- bines for more profit. Combinations have become a power all over the land; we have in nearly every industry a combination of in- terest bound together by their own pecuniary gain, the purpose be- ing to keep up prices at the expense of the masses of consumers. The great army of workers think they do not get their rightful shares of the products of labor, hence strikes. We will not dis- cuss now whether they are right or wrong, but it is discontent, it is uneasiness, it is a source of weakness in our social and political fabric that may some day work mischief to the best interests of our common country. There is one industry that never strikes or combines to keep up prices. Their numbers are too vast, spread over so large a territory ; combination with them is an impossibility. Rain or shine, with high prices or low prices, in abundance or scarcity, the farmers keep at work. They sow each year hoping for a harvest which they may never gather. Mills may close, fac- tories may suspend, iron mills may shut down, but the farmer in the field, and his wife in the dairy, keeps at work, and they have more than once saved the country from financial ruin and disaster. In the panic and depression from 1873 to 1879 the results of their labor produced the magnificent surplus which freighted our rail- roads and our ships, made resumption possible, turned the balance of trade in our favor, improved our credit at home, and maintained it abroad. The wheat, corn, hogs and cattle paid our debts, brought our bonds home, and placed the country on the road to prosperity, and yet the whole legislation of the country is directed in a channel that ignores the existence of the great agricultural interests of the United States.
"Farm Life in the County" is a paper written by my father in 1892 as his farewell address to his brother farmers whom he loved so well and for whom he had fought all through his life to bring justice.
In all that my father did in a public way, there was not one selfish thought. He was seeking simple justice for every man, wo- man and child in this United States of America. His heart, I know, went out to the whole suffering world. He believed in the Fatherhood of God and in the brotherhood of man. If simple justice were practiced, he was convinced that everybody could live in comfort and be happy.
FARM LIFE IN THE COUNTY From Pioneer Days to the Present Time.
(Paper prepared by Bartlett Woods for Farmers' Institute.
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Owing to feeble health, he was denied the privilege of being present. )
The territory at the south end of Lake Michigan, stretching south to the Kankakee, was, up to 1832, the home of the Potta- watomies. It was the last of their lands ceded to the United States and no wonder they so reluctantly gave them up.
In its natural wildness it was full of game, deer in droves, ducks, geese, quail, prairie hens, etc .; its rivers and lakes full of fish so that their food supply must have been abundant. Fur- bearing animals, all famous for their valuable pelts, were found in every marsh along the borders of the rivers and on the margins of the lakes.
To the Pottawatomies, it was indeed a happy hunting ground, and in your travels, should you happen to meet an aged Indian of this tribe anywhere, he would listen with keen interest should you allude to the Kankakee or Calumet. This territory, the land of the Pottawatomies, washed on its northern borders by the waters of Lake Michigan, is today Lake County.
In 1834, the advent of civilized life had begun. The pioneer settler had come, his home a log cabin; many of the younger people here today have hardly seen one, and fewer have lived in one.
Before 1834, the groves and woodlands of what is now Lake county had hardly resounded with the echo of the white man's axe; nature had here a new field for his efforts; it was a small beginning, you may say, but think; it lay in the line of march of civilization towards the setting sun. The mission of the race was to build up homes, to make the wilderness, figuratively speak- ing, blossom as the rose. The home life of the pioneers was very simple of furniture; as we understand it they had none; a few splint bottomed chairs, a home-made table, a bench or two, a bed- stead, or if not, this was supplied by poles, and every one in that day knew what a pole bedstead was; a stick chimney and open fire place, backed by clay, and a clay hearth. No one in that day had a cook stove, to my knowledge. The kettle had the place of honor on the crane, a fry-pan, a few pots and pans, a grid- iron, a bake kettle, or a dutch oven was about the outfit in the cabins of the pioneers.
The first settlers located near timber, and this assured them plenty of wood and a good fire. There was no matches, fire was got by the old flint and steel; no sewing machines; the hum of the now forgotten spinning wheel was the music made by wives and daughters of that day.
Nearly all kept a few sheep for the wool, and some of the grandmothers at the Institute may remember the annual trip to the carding machine; then came the spinning, then the doubling and
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twisting; and work accomplished by the women of that day was marvelous; all the socks and mittens had to be knitted, all the clothing for the children; and if the baby was troublesome, a spring pole of hickory was rigged, and by a few bands it was hook- ed on and the little tot could then jump and crow to his heart's content.
Of fashions there were none. They had no time or inclina- tion to bother with the frivolities of fashion. A sun-bonnet in summer and a hood in winter answered every purpose and was cheerfully accepted as satisfactory.
The men on the farm were busy in winter, getting up wood and rail cuts, so as to make that stake and rider fence, which, thanks to the brain of some genius, we can now do without, hav- ing now ready-made the barb wire for fencing.
In summer four and five yoke of oxen with a plow made in the village blacksmith shop, were breaking the first furrows in Lake County. Sod corn was planted with an axe; the steel plow had not been invented. Cultivation was imperfect; there was no shovel plows or riding cultivators. Threshing was done by oxen treading out the grain, or by an open threshing machine.
The cradle and scythe did the work then, now done by the self-binder and mower. Science has come to our aid and made a reaper that binds, that ties a knot and delivers the bundles, thus lifting the farmer out of the hard work and drudgery of the harvest field.
Let every farmer know and appreciate what brains have ac- complished.
One simple contrivance, telling the value of each one's milk and the money value of the cow itself. No wonder that the farm- er of today, who applies all the knowledge that he gains from the experience of practical men of the past, and keeps posted on every improvement, enjoys life better, takes an interest in his work and makes more money. He makes the farm pay.
The Farmer's Institute is preaching the gospel of better farming, making labor lighter by improved methods, aiding on prosperity to the farms of Lake County. The future is bright to those who will accept the new education that teaches that Nature is our friend, that Providence is working on our side, and showing us that not only the soil beneath, rightly used, but that the atmos- phere above and around us contains the breath for animals and man and also food for plants; above every acre are ten tons of nitrogen, and here is where the Legumes show and prove their value; it is accepted as a fact that all leguminous plants by some subtle chemistry of nature, take up and utilize the nitrogen as plant food, and deposit the fertilizing properties on their roots,
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then enriching the soil and insuring the increased fertility. The farmers of the future will be a student of every element of na- ture, his fields will grow big crops, as forage crops, he will grow all the clovers, alfalfas, crimson clover, cow-peas, etc.
His aim will be to produce cheap food and keep up the fer- tility of the farm; he has learned the value of the corn stalk.
With him the silo is his mainstay for winter, his intelligence will demand respect, he will add to his individual wealth and to the prosperity of the state, he will stand for good citizenship and honest Government.
Citizens of Lake County should appreciate their advantages. They live in the great corn belt, right in the track of the com- mercial highway from the Atlantic to the Pacific; they are within the magic sphere of Chicago, the great interior city of the con- tinent.
The Farmers' Institute has my best wishes that it may con- tinue to prosper and be an educational blessing to the community. BARTLETT WOODS.
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HAMMOND COURT HOUSE ARTICLES
HON. BARTLETT WOODS: A STUDY
One of the bitterest opponents of the superior court house -yet withal one of the frankest and manliest in his opposition- was the Hon. Bartlett Woods of Crown Point. He had no per- sonal interest or enmity in his fight-it was simply that the man labored for the common weal, the interests of the taxpayer. In this he was joined by his son, Sam B. Woods of Lottaville, who was in the 1899 fight, president of the Center Grange. Bartlett Woods is today an old man of 82 and has rightly been termed the Grand Old Man of Lake County. His speech at the meeting in the Crown Point court house in March 1899 will never be for- gotten by those who heard it. He hurled denunciation with trembling voice and hand, at those who wanted to build the Ham- mond court house. He was unrelenting in his opposition. He wrote to the newspapers in his own vigorous style. He talked against the building on the streets to his friends-enemies he had none-and he never ceased until the last forlorn hope had fled. Even today, it is questioned that the fight did not age him, so earnestly did he carry it on, and so thoroughly did he throw his life into it with all that splendid British fighting blood that came down to him from those grand old Winchelsean ancestors of his, who helped make England what it is and are helping to make America what it is. Time, the great healer of wounds, softens all things and it is hoped that when all that is mortal of Bartlett Woods is carried to its last resting place, that his memory will never be forgotten; that what he has done for his beloved Lake County will bear fruit in years to come and that sterling qualities he displayed in fighting for principles' sake at one time will be imitated by those who today fight to make Hammond the Queen of Indiana cities. All honor to Bartlett Woods.
Lake County (Hammond) News, September 19, 1902.
In 1883, the first crack in efforts to have the county seat moved from Crown Point to Hammond was heard. My father objected to the idea in a letter to the Star. His letter is quoted and commented on in the Hammond Tribune of May 11: Editor Star:
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I find the following in the Hammond Times.
"The Valparaiso Herald wants the new Insane Asylum at that place. How would it do to use the Crown Point court house for an asylum and build a new court house at Hammond ?"
Crown Point needs no insane asylum, she is satisfied with her position and her prospects. The outlook for the summer is very good, all her mechanics have plenty of work, more buildings and some choice ones going up, and everything indicates a happy and contented people; happy because we have no gnawing green-eyed jealousy tormenting us. We are glad to see Hammond prosper, and I have noticed that the Star has repeatedly expressed its pleasure in the progress and growing development in the Calumet country and especially Hammond. We desire to live and let live. Every paper in Crown Point has treated Hammond with the kind- est expressions of good will. There is room enough in Lake county for both Crown Point and Hammond; each can fill its own place to which each is adopted. We have no cranks here that want to run everything and everybody. We have no need for an asylum. Our heads are level. We mind our own business and don't poke our nose in to disturb other people. When the court house is made into an insane asylum the first patient we will put in it is the crank at Hammond that suggested the change. Keep him there two or three months and he might get straightened out, and lose his foolishness and return to his work in Hammond, braced up and toned up with something he terribly lacks, a little level common sense. Why should Hammond try to injure Crown Point? I know there is no such feeling in Hammond, only with a very few, and this crank that proposed taking the court house for an insane asylum started it. Coming from the East, I selected Crown Point for a home as it was very healthy, near Chicago and a nice re- spectable place to live in. It can never be a big manufacturing town but Hammond can. Why Hammond should try to injure the property interests of Crown Point is beyond my understanding, and I think the sensible folks at Hammond will not encourage any such feeling. Let us have Peace. B. W .- Star.
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