Just one more, a sample of a criminal action. Those were the days of tramps. Many were heeding Greeley’s injunction, “Go west, young man, go west!” And they were traveling on the railroad, too—counting ties. I then lived three-eighths of a mile north from the Kansas Pacific, now the Union Pacific, railroad track, and the travelers did not pass me unnoticed—not much. It was almost an everyday occurrence that some of them came to ask for a “bite to eat,” occasionally two or three together. One morning a bunch of nine hungry men—all young—came. Of course we were in the habit of turning no one away hungry. They ate and went on their way rejoicing. In a few hours word was sent me that Ben Fowle, a deputy sheriff, had arrested a bunch of tramps, and wished me to come and give them a trial. I held court in town—short and sweet. A German kept a saloon in Wilson, and those same fellows we had fed in the morning went into it to treat each other, but none wanted to foot the bill, and the old German in trying to collect made some of them so angry that a row and broken bottles resulted. I examined the tramps one at a time and sent them to the county jail to be boarded by my friend Sam Hamilton, my fellow “courthouse rat,” as the county officers were called sometimes. But the county commissioners got tired of boarding free so many able-bodied men, so they sent them on their journey.
Marrying young couples pleased me best of all my official duties. That was easy money. “I pronounce you man and wife”—three dollars and good luck! Here are some of the couples I had the pleasure of putting under the yoke: Václav Oswald and Miss Mary Kyasnicka; Václav Vanis and Miss Katerina Zamrzla; Václav Zvolanek and Miss M. Urban; Ján Cizek and Miss Mary Krejci; Frank Branda and Miss Anna Urban.
Societies in the colony were organized from the first. In the fall of 1875 the first local association was formed by my urgent efforts. I called a meeting one Sunday at the house of Mr. Adolf Honomichl, where the settlers assembled in good number, and we organized a union of the Bohemian-American settlers, and called it “Blahobyt.” The following were elected officers for the first year: Francis J. Swehla, chairman; Jos. Klima, secretary; Jakub Jedlicka, treasurer. A committee of three was appointed by the chairman to draw up a constitution.
The object of the union was mutual aid in sickness and distress caused by misfortune; the cultivation of a fraternal feeling; mutual up-lif ; mental, moral and physical cooperation, and the burial of dead members. There being no public hall, no schoolhouse or church building, the society adjourned its meetings from the home of one member to that of another, generally upon invitation. The meetings were held regularly each month, a special meeting being called by the secretary only upon urgent necessity and at the request of some members. Dues were twenty-five cents per month, but in case of emergency a collection was made at a meeting. This union did a great good while it lasted, and it was active five or six years. Perfect harmony prevailed in its meetings, as all religious propaganda was forbidden by the constitution. We aimed at temporal welfare only, leaving freedom of conscience to all.
Besides the good services this union did locally to its members, we sent all the money we could spare to aid the widows and orphans of the Bohemian settlers who were massacred by the Northern Cheyennes in September, 1878,
