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To Be Built for Racing at Minne tonka Next Summer, ALL WILL BE EXACTLY ALIKE Owners Will Sail Series of Ten Races to See Who Is Best Skipper. Yachting will be given a great impetus at Minnetonka next summer by the addi tion of ten fast cat boats. Ten well known lake dwellers have placed their or ders with R. C. Moore, the Wayzata build er, for the construction of car boats along identical lines. The yachts will be of ex actly the same model, size and finish, and are to be completed May 1. They will then be put in the water at Minnetonka, where the ten owners will pick their boats by lot. It will be a unique departure on record at the lake, and should result in an in fusion of that old-time racing spirit which in years past has made the Minnetonka Yacht Club famous among inland yachting associations. It will be the man, not the boat, who will be depended upon to carry off the honors. The men who have placed orders with Moore are: Russell M. Bennett, A. M. Robertson, Charles Gluck, E. L. Carpen ter, Roy Thompson, E. S. Hicks, A. C. Paul, W. K. Morison, C. 8. Hulbert and one other. Instead of vying with each other to see who can secure the fastest cing ma chine, it will be entirely a contest of sea manship between the ten enthusiasts. All other things being equal, they will see who among them is the cleverest skipper and who knows best how to take advan tage of the wind and wave. The plan now is to sail ten races on ten successive Saturdays. Each owner will sail his own boat in the first race. In succeeding races will alternate with the other boats. The boats will cost $265 each. The keels will be of selected white oak, properly sided, moulded and rabbitted to receive planking. The stem and gotern posts will be of clear oak, all securely bolted together. The ribs will be,of white oak. The frame will be handsomely fin ished with an idea to comfort and con venience without too great a sacrifice of speed. The dimensions of the boats will be: Length over all, 26 feet; beam, 7 feet 6 inches; length of water line, 20 feet; draught, center board down, 4 feet; sail area, 450 square feet. Request, Desiring to Join His Regiment. From The Journal Bureau, Room 465, Post Building, Washington. Washington, Dec. 13.—Captain W. A. Mercer, Eighth cavalry, will be relieved of his duties as Indian agent at Leech Lake, Minn., by Major George L. Scott, of the Sixth cavalry, about Jan. 1. He is directed to report to Ad jutant General Corbin for orders. It is believed that he will be assigned to duty with his regiment, with possibly a short leave of absence. Captain Mercer has been relieved at his own request, ac cording to war department officials. The latter are especially emphatic in declaring that this is the only reason for his go ing back to his regiment. Secretary Hitchcock could not be seen, but in his office a statement was given out that there had been no friction between him and Captain Mercer. On the other hand it is said that their relations have been most cordial and that he has car ried out the secretary’s instructions to the letter, and the latter regrets exceed ingly that he is forced to part with a most efficient subordinate, Indian Commissioner Jones, with whom Captain Mercer has been more intimately associated in an official way than with the secretary, said: Captain Mercer has been relieved at his own request. He is a young man in com paratively low rank in the service and felt it to be to his own interest to be with his own regiment. When an officer is on detail duty, as Captain Mercer has been, he loses touch and probably impairs his chances for promotion. Officers in active service are dis posed to find fault because any one of their number is allowed to stay away from his command. There was a disposition to do this in Captain Mercer's case. This criticism is un just, however. When the Spanish war broke out Captain Mercer filed a request to be relieved from de tail and sent back to his regiment. He had just gone to Leech Lake, where he was sent from Nebraska to carry out a definite policy of this office. On my advice, therefore, Sec retary Bliss specially urged that Captain Mercer be allowed to remain in Minnesota, and his application was denied. Several times since then he has asked to be relieved, the last time about three months ago. He was then winding up his investigation of dead and down operations and no action was taken because Secretary Hitchcock asked the sec retary of war to allow Captain Mercer to re main in the Indian service until that inves tigation had been concluded and the contro versy with the lumbermen settled. That has just been done, and no other objection was made to his leaving service. Captain Mercer has made a good agent. He has administered the law strictly and without favor to anyone. We regret losing him, but realize that it is to his interest to go back to active service, Was Between Two Fires. The foregoing is the first reason for Captain Mercer's relief. A secondary con sideration, however, is the fact that he found himself between the upper and nether millstones toward the latter part of the dead-and-down operations. He was being ground by the Indians on top and the lumbermen on the bottom. At the conclusion of the dead-and-down opera tions last spring the Indians declared that the lumbermen had cut a large amount of green timber. They declared Captain Mercer was permitting the fraud and passed resolutions condemning his admin istration. He made an investigation and found the Indians’ allegations as to green timber were true. Then he got after the contractors. He found out by special in vestigation that they had cut millions of feet of green timber. He demanded pay ment for this and forced nearly all of the contractors to pay for the illegal cut. This made him unpopular with him and certain of them have, it is said, attempted to circulate stories reflecting on his ad ministration. Officers of the department say that these stories were investigated before consent was given for his transfer and found to be untrue. Between these two forces Captain Mercer has had an un pleasant time lately, and was all the more anxious to get away on that account. Captain Mercer is thoroughly disgusted at the way in which his attempts to reach an honest and fair settlement of the tim ber question have been received in Min nesota, and will be glad to shake the dust of Minnesota off his feet. Major George L. Scott, his successor, is familiar with logging operations. He was agent at La Pointe for some time and was sent from there to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, about four years ago.
Newspaper Details
Minneapolis journal
Minneapolis, Minnesota, US
Fri, Dec 13, 1901
Page 21
Full Page
Clipped by
Daniel L.
USA 26 Jul 2026
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