Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (May 5, 1907)
unday Bee PART III. Advertleo In THE OMAHA DEE Best & West IIALF-TOIIE SECTION PACKS 1 TO 6 VOL. XXXVI NO. 46. OMAHA, SUNDAY MORNING, MAY 5, 1907. SINGLE COPY FIVE CENTS. THOMAS SWIFT WHO HAS HELPED AAKE OAAHA A CITY Wanderlust Brings' a Sturdy Young Irishman to Omaha Where He Meets Fata in - Form of a Maiden Who Still Lives With Him on the Lot Where They Built Their First Home Omaha .1 fllv i HE river steamboat, Keystone, loaded with material for . v mt a i . 1 1 , 1 1 J l - . a l . . v . i. a b me ursi capuui uuiiuing ui iu Biaie oi ifurun loose from the dock at St. Louis one pleasant morning in Mar, 18SG, headed up the Missouri river, set iU paddle wheel turning and moved slowly out of sight. It was bound for tbe settlement of Omaha, which had just been given its first Impetua toward becoming more than a village by the location of the state capitol. Among the passengers on the Keystone wai a tail, lank youth of 20, whose dress showed he was from Kentucky and whose blue eyes and brogue showed that he was late of tbe Emerald Isle. The young man was Thomas Swift, destined to be come a pioneer of Omaha. The father and mother of this sturdy young man, with their children, had emigrated from Ireland when Thomas was about 7 years old. In a sailing ship they bad come to New Orleans, a trip of nearly eight weeks. Thence they had gone up the river and set tled permanently at Louisville, Ky. The river steamboats passing the city and going away up and down the Ohio had the same fascina tion for young Swift that they had for Mark Twain. They seemed to beckon him to come end see the world, and before he was 14' years old he had made a trip to Vanceburg, Ky. Then, when he was 16 years old, he got a position on the Natchez, bound for New Orleans. The experiences of that trip were sufficiently rigorous to cure him of the "wanderlust" for some time. The boat was a slow one, that stopped at many wharfs for small cargoes, and then the "hands" had to "step lively" to get the cargo shifted. At the end of the gang plank stood the mate, an especially brutal fellow, with a big ranting stick. When one of tbe men didn't move fast enough to suit him he gave him a whack with the stick that either put him in the hospital or Increased his agility. When the young man returned from this voyage he remained at home three years, until the voice of the spring called irresistibly to him in 1866, and hq ran away on the trip that was to decide his destiny. The Keystone steamed easily up the river with its load of men and material for the construction of the commonwealth ot Nebraska. On the morning of June 10, 1856. it tied up at the dock of the settlement of Omaha and the passengers disembarked. It was an important day for the young Kentucky Irishman in more ways than one. With the "wanderlust" in his veins he might have wandered through the world and, like the proverbial rolling stone gathered little moss, had he not met on the very day of his arrival tbe girl who anchored him to Omaha. She was Miss Bridget Doolan. She was also Irish. They were married in the summer or 1857, and have lived in Omaha ever since. Worked Days and Watched Nights The first work which young Swift did In Omaha was for Bovey ft Armstrong, who were erecting the new capitol. He hauled brick for them at a salary of $26 a month and at night watched the fires In the brick yard located where the Union Pacific shops now aand. He received $2 for each night's work. ' "It's myself was not afraid of the work, at all," says Mr. Swift. "I was economical, too. all the time. I lived in a little dug-out on the clay bank at where Thirteenth and Chicago streets now are. It -was nothing at all but a hole in the ground, with a light coming In' through a bit of window by the door. Inside were only the bare r'elay walls. One night I remember I had to get up and go out and c'drlve away a cow that was eating the hay off the roof. We were ."jafrald the beast would break through and fall down and disturb our reet Between Cass and California and between Thirteenth and - Fourteenth streets was the 'Blx Six,' a dug-out ot pretty good size. I Borne of the richest men ilvlng In Omaha today and noma that are dead had that as their palatial residence in the early days." , He helped to build the first church for the St. Phllomena'a Cath v Ollc congregation. It was located at Eighth and Howard streets, on tbe hill, where It could be seen from the river. The members of (the little congregation did most of the work of building the church. Mr. and Mrs. Swift were married in this pioneer Catholic structure. With the money earned by hard work day and night for Bovey ft Armstrong, Mr. Swift purchased a team ot horses and a wagon, and in the winter of 1856 began hauling goods between Omaha and Thurston county for Salisbury ft Davis, who were cutting timber and rafting it to Omaha "I received $20 a month for this work to start with," he says. "But before the end of the winter I was getting $80. Provisions were ve-y high, excepting such as we could shoot on the plains. Deer. elk. entelope and buffalo were to be had for the shooting. I used to buy all the deer I wanted up there In Thurston county for 11, head and 1 generally hauled half a dozen carcasses down and old them in Omaha, getting about $2 a head for them. We bad deeper snows In the winters of '56 and '57 than were seen In Nebraska either before or since that time. The Indians used to say the white man brought the deep saow and they were angry and protested against him tor doing it. I used to drive down the river on the Ice for some forty miles, which shows you that it was cold. too. There were about 200 head of cattle near the Salis bury ft Davis camp wh'ch frote to death that winter. The snow . ... ik. i.vi Tha deer and elk and antelope used o foddered la 'the drift and w. would go out from our little bout 4.500 poundi," he bays to get founaerea m me .,hnil,. ,.t th.m or mules. I'd go up the Rawl sod and log nouses an suuw -"v bleed to death and then carry their carcasses to the hut and throw them down to freeze. I've seen piles X deer there as high as the root of the hut." Experience With Indians One time while he was making his trip down the river three Indians approached him and begged to borrow his revolver to shoot some deer which they said were at the river bank Just behind a eurre In the stream. He refused to let them have the revolver and they became angry and would have done him harm, but he suc ceeded In driving them off and continued his Journey. After their marriage the young couple moved to a very modest home at the present corner ot Thirteenth and Webster streets, where they lived until 1860. when Mr. Swift bought the lot on which their present home Is located at 409 North Fifteenth street. There he built a cottonwood board home, and on that same spot they have lived for forty-eeven years "which," says Mr. Swift, "U the longest time any man has lived on the same spot in the city of Omaha. In 1867 he increased the length ot bis freighting joute and made the trip from St. Jo&ph to Thurston county. Snow was so plentiful that he used a sleigh nearly all that winter. He remembers buying . 300 bushels of corn In Sidney. Ia,. and selling it In Omaha at $3 a V baebel. so scat le was the grain when the farmers needed It for seed. ' lie never ventured to begin a long trip on a Friday that winter, tor, ? fie declares, it Invariably snowed on that day aqd on Saturday It 'J would drift in a stinging, blinding, cold, white billiard. He met tbe famous trader, Peter A. 8arpy, that winter while topping over night at a hotel kept by another Frenchman in St. Mary. Mr. Swift had a load of live chickens and pigs standing on his wagon out at the barn. Sarpy, he says, did not like the French man who kept the hotel and delighted In making trouble for him. On this particular evening Sarpy had remained too long in consulta tion with John Barleycorn and he wj, to say the least, "not quite himself." He was playing on a squeaky eld fiddle when he entered the hotel barroom. He went around to each of tbe guests, rasped oui a few notes on his fiddle and asked the auditor how he liked (It And woe to the man who dared say his playing was not good. Sarpy had a lengthy altercation with the laudlord, but abided until he was ready to go and departed without Interfering with the pigs and cMckena ot the Swift outfit That spring Mr. Swift met a slelghload of lawmakers returning home from their legislative labors In the interests of the state. They, he says, had all kinds of bank slock and lota on newly created towa altea which they had accumulated, apparently, during Ifcelr term circulator of the literature which told of tho golden opportunities out west, and when they were disappointed they blamed It on Brown and erected that tombstone to make themselves believe he was dead. I remember when a bunch of these grumblers returned to Omaha and threatened to burn the town. We arrested the whole outfit and put them In Jail till they promised to leave town Intact and go on to the east where they belonged. Tbe likes of them had no busi ness In the west. They could have learned lessons from the bravo women, many of whom I saw leaving Omnha pulling their two wheeled carts out for the Mormon country in Utah." Happiness of Pioneer Times Considerable of his time, even while freighting, was spent In Omaha. He declares the people of Omaha were never happier than they were then. "We were all happy In the early days," says Mr. Swift. "We all belonged to the 'four hundred.' We all went to the same dance whether we had patches on our breeches and wore callouses on our hands or whether we were dressed In broadcloth and did nothing harder than count money. Yes, sir, we were all happy, though we had nothing. Amusements and sports? Of course, we had them. I remember the horse races they used to run on Harney street on 'moonlight summer nights.- The course ran from the old Douglas house at Thirteenth and Harney to the City hotel at Eleventh and Harney. The chief favorite beast was Itanter, which was owned by Bill Knight. They used to have matches between this horso and a speedy foot racer, W D Brown. This race was for a short distance and return. They had to pass around a pole and back. Ot course the animal would beat the man on the straight stretch, but when they rounded the pole that was where the man made up time. I've seen bets put up on that of $500 and $1,000. We never thought of locking a door In those days, and if a friend asked for a loan of $10 or $100, a man Just put his band down in his pocket and handed It over. I loaned $400 to a certain man myself without anyone witnessing me giving it to him, without a note and without security. The man didn't have any too good a reputation for paying debts, either, but he paid me every dollar." Mr. Swift remembers an amusing Incident connected with rather a serious affair, namely, the hanging of Bove, one of two men who committed a robbery and assault at the home of Mr. Turner, who kept a stage station west of the city. The two men were arrested, and one night the vigilantes entered the county Jail, which then stood at Sixteenth and Farnam streets. A large crowd gathered outside the Jail, but no one knew who were carrying out the orders of Judge Lynch. The noose had been placed around Bove's neck. He was standing on a box and a man was fastening the rope around a beam. The box was about to be kicked out from under when the man who was tying the rope called: "Hold ong, I alng got it fast yet." His voice "gave him away" to those outBlde, for he talked through his nose and there was only one man who talked like he. A laugh from the crowd was the last thing Bove heard. It is said he even laughed himself. A public whipping In Omaha was wit nessed by Mr. Swift. Two men had stolen some horses from Pat Gernett and T. Kimball, taken them to Oenoa and sold them to the Indians. . The horses got loose and returned to Omaha, with tne Indians In pursuit. The Indians were able to identify the men who had sold them the horses. The men were seized, tied to the 'liberty pole' at Thirteenth and Harney streets and twenty-five lashes were administered on their bare backs. Then they were tarred and feathered, placed on two rafts and sent floating down the river. Had they committed the same crime a few years earlier the penalty would have been death at the end of a rope. Still Lives on Old Lot THOMA9 SWIFT. at the capitol. They would trade them for horses, old watches or anything else of value. From the front window of the little cottonwood board home which he built In 1860 on the same lot where he now lives Mr. Swift has seen thousands of emigrants camped on Jefferson Square. On the sides of their wagons was painted "Pike's Peak or Bust." They seemed bewitched to go to Pike's Peak, he says, for if a man who had been there tried to tell them they would be no better off there than where they were, they would generally become very angry. From Omaha the trail led out to the present Junction of Twenty fourth and Cumjng streets, where there was a bridge over a creek. Thence it went out Military avenue and away to the west, striking the Platte at Bhlnn's Ford. Thence the trail went up the south side of the -river until nearly at Fort Kearny, where the river was crossed once more. Freighting to Pike's Peak . Mr. Swift began freighting to the west in 1860 and in the next few years made some twenty trips to Pike's Peak and the farther west "Part of the time I had three yoke of oxen and a wagon heldlig And part of the time I had horses go up the Rawhide bottom to Fremont and then west The poor boy and poor girl who met that June day in the settle ment are still residents of Omaha. A large family has grown up around them, and the boy and girl still live on the lot where they built their house soon after they were married. They are still a. a stock of all kinds of stuff a little of everything and not much of Doy and girl In affections and are living upon the fruits of their1 anything. Sometimes I made money and sometimes I didn't, accord- industry. Their children are the following: John T. Swift St. ing to the way Denver was stocked. I remember once selling nails Louis- p. h. Swift Omaha: Thomas F sir nmK". t' ' -'. w wuiua. tJ & Ui CH l. I've gone along that road when the mud was up to the hubs. I made more than one trip to Denver walking barefoot all the way. I had for 35 cents in Denver which the same I bought in Omaha at 3 cents, and, again, I've been in Denver when you could scarcely sell flour because the town was full ofit. "A nice, free sort of life it WasTto be sure, in pleasant weather. There we were on the free, broad plains with nothing but nature and the animals around us, with plenty of stuff to eat and plenty of forage and the whole Platte river full of water running by our side. When we needed meat we would shoot a buffalo calf, rip open the hide and take out as much as we needed, covering over the rest until the next train, perhaps a few miles behind, would come up and they would take what they needed, and so on till the meat was all gone and the last man would cover the carcaBS over. Then there were plenty of buffalo chips, which was what we used to burn. "A curious thing to be observed along the trail was little wooden labs shaped like tombstones stuck in the ground, on which were printed the words, 'To the Memory ot Sam Brown.' Sam Brown Was a banker and promotor who lived in Omaha and later estab lished a bank In Denver. The emigrants believed that he was tbe Swift, Omaha; Mrs. T. J. Fltzmorrls, Omaha; Mrs. Charles B. Dug dale, Omaha, and Miss Margaret Swift, Omaha. Mr. Swift has acquired considerable real estate, which has grown in value many hundred per cent. He bought 400 acres west of Seymour park in the early days for $9 an acre. This he now values at $160 an acre. A. J. Poppleton once wanted to sell him a tract of 400 acres in the south part of the city for $1,600, but he refused it. "Which shows," says Mr. Swift, "that there is a time comes in every man's life when two fools meet The land sold later for $900 an acre. He was foolish for wanting to sell it and I was foolish for not buying it." Mr. Swift Is a member of the Knights of Columbus and both he and Mrs. Swift have' been members of St. Phllomena'a church ever since Its organisation. They take their ease now and generally go somewhere to spend the winter. "We've both of us had a good many bfcrd knocks and both of us have done our share ot the hard work. I'm thinking, and we've earned a good rest for the remainder of oui days," declares Mr. Swift Tainted News Agencies and Their Operations THE FRANCHISE corporations of the coun try have been quick to realize the Impor tance of publicity, not as a cure-all for their abuses, but as a means of perpetu ating them. When the rising tide ot public senti ment in favor ot railroad regulation manifested Itself two years ago systematic efforts to check the threatening flood were begun. Publicity bureaus for the dissemination of tainted news were organ ized. How they carried on the work ot befouling the sources of public Information respecting rail road regulation and municipal ownership is de tailed In Collier's Weekly. ' The following extracts Illuminate the methods and outline the results: When the railroads. Just about two years ago, foresaw the beginning of that tide of public clamor against them which is Just now at its flood, they forehandedly determined to poison public opinion at its very fountain head. They proposed to spread throughout lhe United States a newspaper propaganda against rate legislation. The rail roads took this enterprise very, seriously. They went about it with the thoroughness, the order and system characteristic of railroad administra tion.. Individual railroads were assessed for large contributions, aggregating over a million dollars. The late President Spencer of the Southern rail way took personal charge, making his headquar ters at Washington, and glvthg to the work tnoBt of his time tor many months. As illustrating the pains taken to keep from the papers and the public the Identity of the railroads with tbis work, a code was invented in which President Spencer and oth ers in the management were known as "A," "La tex" and "Latemak." For the publicity organization which they pro posed to build up the railroads found a ready made nucleus in a small concern doing business In Boston under the name "The Publicity Bureau." The firm had for some years done a comparatively Innocuous business, getting into the newspapers laudatory articles about commercial and educa tional institutions. Their work had been that of high-class press agents. Up to the time the rail roads took hold-of them they had never engaged In the propagation of any doctrine on subjects of political or economic controversy. This organization tbe railroads expanded to Impressive proportions. They founded branch offices in New York, in Washington, In Chicago and la many of the smaller western cities, where the anti-railroad sentiment was strongest In the Chicago office alone forty men were employed. With characteristic railroad thoroughness and or der, it was determined to found the campaign upon a complete and detailed knowledge of the field to be covered. For the acquiring of this agents of the Publicity bureau were sent from town to town, omitting not even the remotest vil lage that contained a country weekly, to ascertain from personal Inquiry, not only the position as to the rate bill of every editor, but also by what weakness or opening that position. If against the railroads, could be changed. From the reports of these agents there was compiled a most re markable card index of the newspapers of the country, which is still kept In the Chicago office of the Publicly bureau. It was no mere record of obvious facts, such as any newspaper directory might contain; rather, it gave, as one of the man agers of the bureau expressed It. "a practical knowledge of the working of the brain of any editor with whom we want to 'land' a story." In addition to the usual details, the first column on tho card tells what railroad the paper is de pendent on. the third gives the Information that the paper's Influence Is small and its editorials weak. In the last column Is a cartful analysis of the editor's position on public questions, including the paradoxical discovery that he is agalnBi most of the trusts, but "pro-railroad," and also, oddly, although a democrat, "pro-Roosevelt" These pointers were obviously useful In suggesting open ings to a railroad writer anxious to prepare an article which should contain the railroad "doc trine" and at the same time be palatable to the editor. At the bottom of each card In the index there ia, as here, some Intimate memoranda sug gestive of how the editor is best approached. Many of these memoranda are sage, cynical and withal amusing. Even If not very Important, the gaiety of nations deserves the reproduction of a few concerning western papers: "Has had many favors from the Chicago, Mil waukee ft St Paul." "Policy directed by Senator Gamble, and latter not likely to approve editorial opposition of popu lar measures." "A former Chicago printer. Home-loving and has children. Senator Klttredge secured appoint ment toAnnapolis for son." "Will sell his soul for money. Natural born Ishmaellte. Envious. Quarrelsome." "College bred Rich. Knows how to take care of himself. Wants to go to congress." "Hobbles: Qod, the Bible and Sunday school." "Smith's hobbles are the Smith family." "Hobby: Grand lodges and secret societies." "A wants money and he gets it Roasts the other editor and occasionally knocks him down in the street" "280 circulation: A puny sheet with two pages of 'home print A religious turn." "Considerable ability, fair and impartial." "Controlled by O. D.. local banker, who wants to be governor and then some." "Editor of paper because he married It Mar ried founder's widow. Holds on because it gives him prestige socially. Over 100,000." The field being thus systematized, many news paper men, always those of high talent were hired away from the business of unbiased chronicling of public events, and set to writing railroad propa ganda. From Washington a regular service ot two and three letters a week was sent to the minor newspapers of the country, newspapers too poor or too unenterprising to maintain Washington cor respondents of their own, but eager enough to print an interesting Washington letter. And the Publicity bureau's letters were and are Inter esting. Infinite pains were taken to make them appetizing to individual editors.' For Kentucky and Tennessee papers, for example, as the Lexing ton Leader tells, the letter would begin with a story about one of the local congressmen, Ollle James, or John Wesley Gaines. Always, of course, somewhere along in the middle of the letter, would appear the carefully sweetened and artificially colored pro-railroad, anti-Hepbuin bill "doctrine." Here Is one of these Washington letters!" It was printed in the Record of Russell, Kansas. There Is a harmless paragraph about the presi dent's family on a holiday, another about a pro posed monument to confederate soldiers, one about the Weather bureau and one about rural free delivery. Then comes a very nasty slur at President Roosevelt, including a parody of a pop ular song, which reads: "Everybody lies but Roosevelt, And hi lies around all day. They think he's made of iron, But he's only common clay." Flrslly, there is the "doctrine" paragraph, containing a vigorous protest against some clauses X Continued on Page Four.).