Omaha Sunday Bee
PART I1L
A Paper for the Nm
THE OMAHA DEC
Best West
I!,.lf-tc::e sectioii
PAOXS 1 TO 4.
VOL. XJOLVU NO, 39.
OMAHA, SUNDAY MORNING, MAReCII 15, 1908.
SINGLE COPY FIVE CENTS.
COURTLAND S. CARRIER VETERAN IN RAILWAY SERVICE
Something About the Man Who Has Sold Millions of Dollars Worth of Tickets to Millions of People Who Sought Entrance to the Greatest Show Ever Visited by Mortal Man.
COURTLAND 8. CARRIER baa been a ticket teller and Kate
keeper at the entrance to the biggest how on earth for
thirty-seven yeara of his We, yet he la not connected with
a clrcua. The ahotr with which he hae been connected needa
not the aid of glaring postera portraying the most astonish
ing feata of acrobaU, the most marveloua acta of trained animals,
tho greatest display of wild beaeta and blrda; It needa not the aid
of gigantic type In Betting forth the prodiglty of lta Taatneaa and
the greatness of 1U eclipse over all competttora; It requires not the
help of hyperbolic presa agenta to keep up lta popularity. If It called
into use these ordinary claptrap devices of the showman It would
be able to make such statement aa In their very truth would be
so wonderful that the public would not believe them. Look: "Four
million square mllea of apace, 4,000.000." "1,000.000 buffaloes
1,000,000." and bo on down the line, almost ad Infinitum. And Ahen
at the bottom the atartllng atatement to cap all. "Admission free
and a fine farm add all the fresh meat you can shoot free Into the
bargain." '
It was to this great show that "Court" Carrier was ticket seller
end gatekeeper at the main entrance, Omaha, for so many years.
Tho admission was free, as stated, In the veracious advertisementa
and the tlcketa Mr. Carrier sold were for a ride on the Union Pacific
railroad through the big show after the patrona had "passed upon
U.e Inside."
He came to Omaha in 1871. very soon after the main line of
the Union Pacific had been opened for traffic. He put In many years,
a'h made np of 365 strenuous days of wrestling with the great
horde of human beings coming from the east, from across the seas,
froi all parts of the world, to see the "Greatest Show On Earth."
Tho Mg show extended from the Missouri river westward across tl. J
p:alng, across the mountains, and down to the blue Pacific, embrac
ing millions of square miles of the most fertile soil, the richest
mines of metal, the greatest hunting preserves. It was aa yet un
inhabited. It was like the great circus Just after the tent have been
plated and the seats erected. It had been prepared by the Almighty
in ages long pant. It had lain deserted, unpatronized except by the
mound builders and their successors, the Indians, for hundreds of
years. It was utterly unknown to all the civilized world nearly all
tho time since history began, and when it was discovered it was
despised " the "Great American desert." The people thought it waa
not a good show, not worth the price of admission, even though that
was free.
Big Show Gets Crowd
And so the big show whlsh waa later to prove Itself, Indeed, the
greatest on earth, lay unseen until the middle of the nineteenth
century, when, because the populace had seen and tired of the side
show which lay to the east of the Missouri river, some of the bolder
spirits or some of those-who had brought more money with them or
sought to take back greater experience stepped up to the gate and
paid the admission fee and went In to aee what the show was like
anyway. Then out from the big show came the word from these In
vestigators that there waa gold in California. Those who were linger
ing at the sideshow immediately set out for that promising place.
They went in greater and greater numbers and most of them went
In by the main entrance, which waa at Omaha, though some crept
under the canvas atther places or carried water to the elephant and
got in by way of Panama or the cape.
Aa the attraction became more and more popular and the people
flocked from the sideshow the main entrance waa often crowded with
people from all parts of the world, all bent on seeing the big show
and identifying themselves with It If possible. Then a road waa
built to accommodate them In seeing the sights of this great, un
rivalled prodigious, unsurpassed marvel of the nineteenth century.
The railroad was built from Omaha westward and pushed In aplte ot
untold hardships on acrosa the .plains, across the mountalna and
down to the very edge of the ocean. '
By the time thta waa completed Uncle Sam'a great show waa little more than a boy, working for Markel. who picked up enough street, where he turned it over to Nathan Shelton. the cashier,
acknowledged to be a marvel. Those who had been upon the Inside of the varioua languages to talk to nearly everybody." Some days he walked up this street with 6,000, $8,000 or $10,000
came back to get their wives and children and relatives or wrote There waa always one big emigrant train out from Omaha every in the pocket of his overcoat. The only protection he had was a
letters to the folks at home in the east urging them to come out and day and aome times It was In two sections. The emigrant rate of revolver. He never lost a dollar of it, though one day a desperate
see the real thing. fare to Reno. Nev.. and all points west of that was $45; second class, character, who saw him put the money in his pocket at the station.
About this time "Court" Carrier became ticket eeller at the $75, and first class. $100. These rates remained in force for years, followed him. and was intimidated only when Mr. Carrier allowed
main entrance to the big show. It waa at a time when the attend- An emigrant train took about nine days to run from Omaha to San him to aee the size of his revolver.
ance was breaking all records. With a working knowledge or teie- ranclsco, while the first class train made the run in about five
Mr. Carrier. "Some of them were very desperate characters and
most of them had killed at least one man during their shady and
checkered careers. 1 had a personal acquaintance with a number
of thein. 'Sandy' was an especially desperate character, who had
put a knife into a brakenian whom I knew. 'Canada Bill' waa a
skillful player and always came In from bis trips with a bag of
money. Yet he was a man of peculiar character and if after he had
'cleaned out' some fellow the victim would put up a story sufficiently
pitiful 'Canada Bill' would restore his money to him. He waa a most
unsophisticated looking fellow, and his appearance was probably
largely Instrumental In bringing him his auc-esa in the business.
In the end the roads put special detectives on the trains aud drove
the bunco men out of business."
Trades With Chambers
One day in 1884 Mr. Carrier after a particularly hard day'a
work at the station, met J. K. Chambero, city agent for the Mil
waukee road. Mr. Chambers remarked upon the ennui from which
a city ticket agent suffers In midsummer, when business is slack.
"Do you really want a good hard Job?" inquired Mr. Carrier.
Mr. Chambers said that was what he was looking for.
"I'll trade jobs with you," said Mr. Carrier. The half Jest waa
carried out in earnest and within a month the two men had traded
positions. Mr. Carrier has been with the Milwaukee road since then.
Mr. Chambers stuck to the Union station until his death a few
months ago.
During his early days he used to take some trips through the
real wild and woolly vest and on one of these tours he had a hair
raising experience on a rough mountain trail while going by stage
over the Saw Tooth mountains from Muldoon to Arco. Idaho. He
was seated on the boot with the driver and Inside were four "gents"
playing poker. The driver was a man skilful with the "ribbons,"
but he was also skilful with the bottle, and on this particular trip
he had devoted his attention chiefly to the 'atter of the accomplish
ments named. When the road led down a steep declivity and half
way down curved around the precipitous cliff on a narrow ledge
with a drop of several hundred feet on one side the driver did not
realize his danger. The coach plunged ahead and the wheel horses,
nearly run over, became frightened and then plunged down the hill.
Mr. Carrier was on the side of the coach next the cliff and he placed
a foot convenient to make a leap for life toward the cliff If the
coach went over the side. But by a seeming miracle the coach was
saved, though the "gents" Inside lost most of their money, which
was fairly blown out of the window as the stage pitched down that
awful hill.
COURTLAND S. CARRIER.
Married and Happy
Mr. Carrier, in July, 1875, married Miss Clcmmie Bassett in
Nevada, Ma. They have lived In their home, 1424 Park Wild avenue,
for twenty-six years. They have two children, Rusten, 16 yeara old,
and Mary, 14 years old.
Mt. Carrier is a member of the Elks, the Masons, Royal Ar
canum and Modern Woodmen lodges.
Hobbies? Well, rather. Base ball, first, last and all the time,
lie learned the game when he was a little shaver, and when the
family moved to Illinois he played on the same team with C. O. Lo
beck, now city comptroller of Omaha. Time has letired him from the
diamond, but time will never retire him from the grandstand until
time shall be no more. He is a familiar figure at all the league gamea
In Omaha and he knows all the gossip and talk .nd records and that
sort of thing which is the confession of faith of the genuine fan.
"A survey of forty years In a city like Omaha and during a
time such as the last forty years have been Is a privilege for a
man," says Mr. Carrier in looking back over his career. "In the
early days we looked on the emigrants as more or less adventurers.
They were going into a new country, (where everything was doubtful,
and we never foresaw then what those poorly clad people were going
to become merely because the land to which they wera going wai
so rich and fertile that It poured fortune into their laps. Some people,
you know, are born rich, others acquire rlchesand still others havs
riches thrust upon them. I think those early em'grants had It thrust
upon them, though, of course, they acquired It In a way. Today
I am selling some of them and their children not only bertha In
sleeping cars, but whole sections, drawing rooms if you please, and
breaking all recorda. witn a wonting -r"' ,e lM nr8t claM the run in about five No well regulated circus could be considered complete without first-class tickets for whole families to some distant foreign countrv
graphy. Mr. Carrier arrived In omaM inwii ' P! 7. " WM "Cketed 8tlalght th bUDC m8D- And Uncle Sam'B monster "tton west of the And when they peel the price off their 'wad' you can hardly, notice
as operator ana asBisiam to v. juww, " Missouri river was well provided with them. They Infested every
for the Northwestern and Rock Island lines, with an office on During these ten years Mr. Carrier carried millions of dollars train that steamed away Into the interior of the great show.
Farnnm street between Ninth and Tentn aireeis. wn j. n. naray mim up "una street rrom the atatlon to the office on Farnam "I used to see them often, plying their nefarious trade."
uiiouitit Mr MrKirnv von ne uarner remameu wuu uim u u
saya
that any has been taken off. It looks as big as ever and still quite
large enough to choke a cow."
Truly, it was a good show for which Mr. Carrier sold tlcketa.
OME, Feb. 29. The tombs of only about
ninety of the 260 successors of St. Peter
on the papal throne exist today. About
sixty are In Rome, most of them in the
Basilica of St Peter and a few others
assistant and operator. In 1874 Carrier went to tne union racinc
station as assistant to Joseph Bell, who was then agent There he
remained and ahouldered the work of handling the heavy emigrant
traffic for ten years. . '
Work Came Naturally to Him
His previoua history, In a word, was this. He waa born la
Columbus, Warren county, Pennsylvania, where his father waa a
farmer. When he waa 6 yeara old the family moved to Geneseo, 111.
in 1S6 tne young man aianea ous u ieru w i.u.uau WuDlu-. ltt alfferent churches. Mor than twenty are
beginning in Geneseo aa an operator. Later he moved on to DeSoto, BC4ttered over Iuly ,n Florence Perugia, Viterbo.
la., anj-then to Omaha, where he arrived Juat in time to become Njtple8 Bologna, etc. T" j six Avignon popes are
r.cqualntd with conditions connected with the flocking of the crowda burIed ,n Frace( and one German pope clement
through the main entrance In Omaha Into Uncle Sam's big show. n (1046-104). la burled in the cathedral of
Now, the man in the "ticket wagon" of the circua must be a man Bamberg.
of lact and a man of patience. Mr. Carrier possesses these qualities In tna earliest daya of Christianity the popes
and he was a man in the right place at the union station. But It waa were burled be8lde tne tQmb of gt peter OHg
ha: d work. lnally this was a plain sarcophagus turned toward
"I used to go down at 6 o'clock In the morning and often the et on the VJa Cornei,ai close to the place
would not leave there until 9 or 10 In the evening." he says. "And whers th, apogtle Buftered martyrdom. ' Later it
It waa all one long grind of hard work, a contlnuoua struggle with wag TfDifliCei by a memoriam or oratory built by
the more or less ignorant class of foreign emigrants who had come St Anacletus. the third pope. Finally Constan-
f rom all parts ot the world and talked all aorta of languages. We tlno 'caused to be erected on this spot a vaulted
picked up a good supply of foreign tonguea and aome of us were chamber the B0-called confession of St. Peter,
ac. ompllshed linguists by the time we had struggled with the pas- whlch( Burrounded by a marble balustrade, illu-
ie-er traffic for a few yeara. miaated by ninety-three golden lampa and adorned
"The Union Pacific waa the only line west from Omaha at that wlth precloUB Btoneg jasper( porphyry and agate.
tl,ue. The emigrants came in from the east over different linea. The ,B the mo8t hailowed Bpot ln tne wor,d.B chief
transfer waa In Council Bluffs. There each road had a little ticket CDurch.
fhsrk erected on a long platform and each road had lta huatlera. From the time of Leo the Great (410-161)
and they were hustlers, too. They pretty nearly pulled aome pas- untll the nlnth centUry the Vatican again became
Bongera In two when business was especially slack and they all taB offlcia, burlal pjace of popeg and the por.
panted to land aome fare. I remember one day seeing two agents tlco or atrlum of old ba8lI7;ca wa8 U8ed for
ckle a man who looked like a miner. He had a big carpet bag. tnlB pUrpoBe. Here for over two centuries they
ji-jacn or tne agents graooea aoia 01 mis. 10 tne struggle mey puuea
it open and a big horse pistol fell out. The miner grabbed this and
you eight to hate seen those business bustlers scatter.
' From Council Bluffs to Omaha a dummy ran every hour, bring
ing the passengers over. The fare from the Bluffs to Omaha waa
5) rents, which was paid In cash to the conductor.
Resting Places of Many Ancient Popes Not Known
R
Task Endless and Tremendous
"Th big part of my business in Omaha waa the exchanging of
the tlcketa of emigrants. This was an almost endless task. The line
was always formed and moving monotonously p-.st me all day long
and often far into the night. There waa all the trouble of struggling
with the untutored mlnda of many of the foreigners, who suspected
they were being buncoed when we took their old tickets from them
and gave them tickets with which to go on west Old Captain Paine
used to be the depot policeman ln those days and he did good service
keeping the people lined up. Later J. E. Markel built what was
called an 'emigrant house' east ot the depot He did a thriving
business there, boarding and lodging the emigrants who came in
from the east and had to stay here over night to catch the Union
Pacific emigrant train put in the morning. The interpreting diffi
culty was remedied also after a time. There was a young fellow.
were laid Bide by side under the floor, until every
available foot of space was occupied and it was a
task even for the learned to distinguish each tomb
and read its epitaph.
During the tenth, eleventh and twelfth cen
turies the pontiffs were generally buried ln the
lateran basilica, the cathedral of the pope as
bishop of Rome. Very probably more than 200
popes were buried in St. Peter's and in the lat
erao, but hardly one-fourth of the original num
ber remain today.
Eighty-seven tombs of as many popes were
destroyed In old St Peter's during the sixteenth
century, when the ancient basilica was replaced
by the present structure. The monuments of sev
eral popes burled in the lateran were destroyed
in the great fire of 1308, which raged for three
days and during which the basilica was almost
totally burned down.
The remaining tombs perished in different
wsys and owing to various causes. Several were
lost sight of and very likely are hlddea dees down
ln the foundations of the two basilicas of St. Peter
and St John. Others may have been desecrated
during the barbaric invasions, while the rest dis
appeared through the ravages of time.
From the fourteenth century to our own day
the tombs of the Roman pontiffs exist in almost
unbroken succession. The marble sarcophagi
taken from the pagan baths and the slabs which
served to cover them and record the namea of the
popes burled underneath were gradually replaced
by specially constructed monuments, rich in sculp
tures and precious marbles or cast in bronze rep
resenting the effigies of the dead popes, with the
triple tiara and clad in flowing, stately robes, with
their hands raised aloft in benediction.
St. Peter's became the papal mausoleum aud
its walls and chapels were gradually covered with
tombs which equaled and sometimes excelled in
the splendor of their decorations the richness of
their material and their artistic perfection the
monuments that ancient Rome raised to Its
Caesars. Although the many and considerable
breaks in the chain of papal tombs prevent one
from tracing the dynasty of popes bac, step by
step to the dim distance of apoHtolic times t the
aid of purely monumental evidence, still those
that are left today ate so full of associations and
memories of the past and recall so many episodes
and characteristic events of the lives of both the
popes in whose honor they were erected and of
the artists whose work they are that, though
meant to commemorate death, they serve to keep
history alive.
Almost every tomb has Its own story. On the
left of the tribute of St. Peter's there is the tomb
of Paul III, Alepsandro Farnese, who died ln 1550
and who founded the Order of Jesus. He was the
first Roman who had occupied the throne for 103
years, since Martin V. and he was learned and
witty and adored by the people ln spite of bis in
tense nepotism.
His tomb by Guglielmo Delia Porta Is consid
ered the finest ln St. Peter's. It cost 24,000
Roman crowns, was originally erected In the old
basilica and was removed to its prebent place in
1629, when two of the four statues which adorned
the pedestal were removed.
Those that remain represent Prudence and
Truth, and they are supposed to be portraits of
Farnese. A Spanish student is said to have fallen
ln , love with the splendid statue of Julia
Farnese. He hid himself in the church when it
was closed for the night, threw himself ln a frenzy
upon the marble and was found dead beside it the
next morning. The statue, which had previously
been nude, was afterward covered with Inartistic
draperies of painted metal.
Canova's masterpiece, the famous monument
of Clement XIII, was uncovered in 1795. it rep
resents the pope kneeling in prayer upon a pe
destal beneath which is the entrance to a vault
guarded by two lions, while Religion and Death
are on opposite sides.
There is a characteristic monument in St.
Peter's, and that is the kneeling statue of Pius
VI Mown in the chapel of the confession. 1 So lite
like and sad is the pose of this statue that the
first impression on seeing it Is that it is human.
Among the tombs in the lateran basilica the
most interesting is undoubtedly that of Martin V,
Oddone Colonna (1417-24), who was elected in
the council of Constance to put an end to the
schism and was a wise and Just pope. "Tem
porum suoruni fellcitas" (the happiness of his
times). His tomb consists of a bronzn slab which
bears the figure of the pope in low relief and is a
nne work of Simone di Ghinl.
There are two magnificent papal tolnbs in the
Church of St. Mary Major, those of Paul V. and
Sixtus V. Paul V was the pope under whose
reln the building of St. PeU-r's was finished. Ilia
toitb is gorgeous with marbles and alabastors,
plunder from the Temple of Minerva, and It rep
resents the herculean figure of the pone kneellug
within a niche, while baa reliefs represent the
'principal events of hi3 pontifl'-ate the reception
of envoys from the Congo aud Japan, the building
of Ferrara. the sending of troops to Hungary and
the canonization of St. Francesca Ftoniana and
St. Charles Borromeo.
The tomb of Sixtus V (1585-90), Felice Per
retti, who aa. a child herded Bwine and as an old
man commanded peoples and kings and was con
sidered one of the most remarkable popes of the
sixteenth century, who within the short space of
five years renewed Rome almost entirely, Is quite
as gorgeous as the other.
Among the papal tombs scattered throughout
the churches of Italy that of Adrian V in the
Church of St. Francesco at Viterbo is perhaps the
most pathetic Just as it is the most perfect speci
men of Gothic architecture. He was elected ln
1227 and when his relativea came to congratulate
him he said: "Would that ye came to a cardinal
ln good health and not to a dying pope." He was
not crowned, consecrated or even ordained priest
and only lived long enough to choose his name.
After 1870, when the popes lost their temporal
power, it was thought that the old custom of bury
ing the successors of St. Peter in the first church
of Christendom would be discontinued and that
the papal tombs in St. Peter's basilica would be
left as monuments of past, better days.
Plua IX expressed the wish after the invasion
of Rome to be burled among the poor in the cem
etery of St. Lorenzo outside the walls, with a sim
ple monument over his grave which should not
cost more than 500 scudl. His wish waa realized,
but the piety of the faithful of every land found
means to transform the dim vault where he waa
burled Into a shrine covered with marbles and
mosaics, gleaming with artistic' beauty.
His successor, Leo XIII, selected the lateraa
as his burial place and the cardinals created un
der his pontificate erected a monument in hia
honor which has been held to equal those in the
best Renaissance style. But the monument ia
still empty and the body of the pope cannot be
removed from its provisional tomb ln St. Peter'a
for fear of a popular outbreak like that which
occurred during the funeral of Plus IX. Plus X
lias therefore decided to leave his predecessor's
body where It is and he has also abandoned the
Uf a of being burled ln his beloved native Venice,
as 1 e promised the people the day he left it to
attend the conclave In which he was elected pope.
"Come back to us, your Eminence:" they cried,
old men and young women holding their children
aloft to be blessed poor, simple-minded, loving
people all, like the man who was called to be pope.
"I promise that I shall," he said; "If not alive,
dead." 1
And he Intended to return, and perhaps looked
forward to the day; but gradually he realized
that a nope today is a prisoner not only during
hia life, but also after he Is dead, and that he must
remain forever inside the Vatican, the church,
palace and garden which constitute his kingdom.
Therefore ho decided to break the promise he
luuda and to be buried ln St. Peter's.
No new monument will cover his grave. It
will ulir.ply be marked by a marble slab with his
name recorded on it, down In the crypt where so
many popes were burled and forgotten and lost
when the new church waa rebuilt