Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The independent. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1902-1907 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 18, 1902)
' DECEMBER 18, 1902. THE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT. 13 VOX POFULI, VOX DEI The constitution of the United States or the state of Nebraska do not amount to so much as a breath of wind, whenevar anything happens which requires their abrogation for the time being and to which no objection is made by any large body of people. When congress appropriated $100,000 of money taxed out of the American people and applied it for the benefit of citizens of the French republic at . the time of the Martinique . volcanic disaster, it was certainly done in violation of the pow ers granted to congress by the consti tution. The same may be said in re gard to the appropriation made to pay the expenses of the hard coal arbi tration commission. The supreme court commissions of the state of Nebraska and Uie payment of money to the em ployes in the attorney general's office, are in direct violation of the constitu tion of the state, as well as the crea tion of .-. debt of two million dollars when the constitution limits the debt to one hundred thousand. But no one objects and these things are done. It is only another demonstration of the fact that the people of a nation can do anything that they wish if they are practically unanimous. Constitutions would not hinder them. It is only when the people are divided in opinion that constitutions come into play. If the whole mass of the people so de sired, the government could take the railroads and run them for the benefit of the people at any time. So with any other project, constitutions or no constitutions. Vox populi, vox Dei. STRANGE THINGS IN POLITICS It has often happened in this coun try, and still more often in England, that a party has come into power by the advocacy of a principle which the logic of events and the natural prog ress of mankind has made impossible of execution. For the moment men ride into power on the prejudice and ignorance of the masses who vote for them, but when they , are presented with the inevitable ruin that must follcw if the policies which the party has advocated are carried out, they always find some method of adopting th-.se of their adversaries, and "parti san insanity" prevents a rebellion in tho ranks of their organization. The great statesmen of England men whose lives have become a part of the history of that empire nearly all v. ere exemplars of that strange thing ir part? government. Glad stone went into parliament as a con servative and was considered to be a great addition to the tory ranks. Lord Du'L'j started as a liberal and de clared that "the old and stubborn spir it of ioiyism was at last yielding to the liberality of the age." As to the work of parties, it is only necessary as far as England is concerned to re fer to the fight luat was made by the tovies rgvinst ihe extension of the suffrage. The tcne? won and then proceeded to pas what was called the "household HiiTrage" bill, a more radi cal change lta?i the liberals had advo cated. Lord Dcioj called it "a leap in the dark,'- b-'t the tories took the j;i) and a.acfed ir.to law the very thir.5 that l he party had fought with bi'lerness fcr a vhole generation. A similar instance in this country of a party enacting into law a policy which had been opposed by all man ner of means for a whole generation is the sudden change of the republican party on the financial question. It be gan by demanding "hard money," then the payment of the public debt in "coin." Then it advanced to the position that the word "coin" meant gold coin only. They wanted low prices and dear money. A United States senator made speeches all over the country and exhibited himself in a suit of clothes which he took great pride in declaring had only cost $9.00. Paper money of all kinds they de nounced, calling it "rag money" or "rag babies." The coinage of silver they cursed from morning until night every day in the year. They would have none of it. They said the coin age of silver must be stopped or the country would be ruined. As soon as that party felt itself safely in 'the saddle, it provided for the coinage of more silver than was ever coined be fore. It extended the issue of paper money by every means that it could invent, the secretary of treasury even commanding the banks to issue more paper and providing penalties by the curtailment of privileges if they did not Now he has gone to the extreme of advocating wild cat banking, the fighting of which was the one thing more than all others that put the par ty in power and has kept it there. No man who knows the facts can deny that the republican party has gone to the very extreme in adopting the fi nancial system which it fought with sarcasm, bitterness, invective and the use of money in elections for more than a quarter of a century. It has sometimes appeared to the editor of The Independent that the most effec tive way to secure a political victory is to fight the thing that you want and denounce its advocates as social ists, anarchists and repudiators. Only one other instance of this kind it is necessary to mention. Chartism and Chartists are familiar words to most men. When the reform move ment was at its height in England in 1838 a document was promulgated de manding certain reforms which wa3 called a "charter" and from this docu ment the movement took its name. The demands made in that document were denounced with all the bitter vindic tiveness that was employed against populism and populists in this coun try. They were declared treasonable, insurrectionary and so abominable in every way that they could not be de scribed. The mullet heads of England, whom the demanded reforms were in tended to benefit, were the most vin dictive of all the population, just as the same class of men in this country were the hottest in their denunciations of populism. Since that time every one of the reforms except one that the Chartists demanded have been en acted into law and the enactment of that one will not be long delayed,, and they have been enacted by the very men and parties that denounced them. They were as follows: 1. Annual parliaments. 2. Universal suffrage. 3. Vote by ballot. 4. Abrogation of the property qual ification for members cf the house of commons. 5. Payment of members. 6. Equal electoral districts. All these things except the payment of members of the house of commons has become part of the law of Great Britain, and the most important part of it was enacted under the tory min istry of Lord Derby, who had fought them all with the bitterness of death from the time they were first pro posed. From the moment that the republi can congress provided for the coinage of silver, The Independent has been calling attention to the fact that the republican party was abandoning its financial theories and was adopting those advocated by Bryan and the populists, and it has used every means at its command to get the democratic press to inform their readers of that fact. But not one of them would do it. If from the time that congress au thorized the coinage of the seignor iage and placed $50,000,000 in the hands of McKinley which was to be so ob tained to carry on the war with Spain, the democratic press had kept this matter before the people, when the last election came on, the reform forc es would have gone into the fight with a whoop and hurrah that would have swept everything before them. As it is now. we will have to go through an other term of wild cat banking and tt-y-'rr!??2rZ?!!?7!& 5s -'V . . Christmas Combination. 4 t (US I AS as w WE PAY THE FREIGHT. For orders from customers outside of the state of Nebraska add 75c to pay part of freight charges. Reference: First National Bank or The Independent, 75 lbs. Best Granulated Sugar . $1.00 V 20 lbs. Choice Prunes . 1.00 W AS 25 Bars Good Laundry Soap 1.00 W AS 10 lbs. High Grade Peaberry Coffee. ...... . . . 2.00 V AS 10 lbs. Fancy Muer Peaches. 1.00 Vjf AS 2 lbs. High Grade Japan Tea 1.00 W AS : 2 ltj-oz. Cans Best Baking Powder. . . .60 f fl 6 lbs. Fancy Japan Head Rice ... .50 W AS 6 Packages 10c Corn Starch 50 M AS 0 Packages 10c Gloss Starch 50 W 3 Packages Good Soda, 1G oz .25 M AS 1 lb. Pure Black Permer .25 M AS fife. 3 lbs. Fancy Mixed Candy .30 1 Bottle Lemon Extract 10 1 Bottle Vanila Extract .10 All the above for.. $10.00 Send P. O. or Express Money Order or Draft. We will deliver the following $10.00 combination to any town in the state of Nebraska, freight pre paid by us, any time during the month of Dec. 1902, COi; Cor. ioth and PSts. Lincoln, Neb. WHAT WE ADVERTISE WE DO. wwll r m - . dmJf SI suffer all that that means. Wild cat banking has been tried over and over again during the last two hundred years and it always ends in one thing disaster. TRIUMPHANT I'OPLLISM Populism makes its way everywhere. There are no obstacles so great that it cannot overcome them. It has brok en out in a radical form in Rockefel ler's university at Chicago. Professor Charles Zeblin has published an ex tensive work, the greater part of which is devoted to the advocacy of public ownership as the only adequate and successful method of dealing with public service monopolies. Public reg ulation is regarded as wholly ineffec tive except when it is used as a threat of public ownership. In defense of this he says: "The. difference between the cheap gas of Ohio and the expen sive gas of Massachusetts is due to public control. Although the people are supposed to be repre sented by a gas commission in Massachusetts, its failure is un doubtedly due to the limitation of its powers, so that it does not or cannot apply the alternative of public ownership which has proved so effective in Ohio." The market is flooded with books written by eminent scholars and scien tists advocating the populist demands for public ownership, election of Unit ed States senators by the people, the referendum, the income tax and other populist theories. So far, however, none of the professors has acquired courage enough to attack the money question. It is probable that we shall have to go through another experiment in wild cat banking before they come to that. Secretary Shaw recommends it and all the national bankers are demanding that the law shall be so changed that they may go off wild cating. Issuing notes on general assets is simply the old form of wild cat banks. The greatest disappointment some populists ever met was that the move ment did not develop absolute perfec tion in officeholders. The Independent is in receipt of the eleventh annual report of the charity organization society of Lincoln. Neb., together with the first number of Charities News, edited by C. E. Pre vey, and published by the organization. i-i a r iu f ; m HORSE COLLARS e mm (OURDEALERTOSHOWT BEFORE. YOU BUY. ANuFACTUBEDBt HARPHAM BR0S.C0. Lincoln. Neb. ii?.lg.llPrt'""--'-'-ra- HlilMl lull ifc Live Stock CATTLE SHEEP Corn- t missies Nye & Buchanan Go., SOUTH OMAHA, NEBRASKA. Best possible service in all depart ments. Write or wire us for markets or other information. Long distance Telephone 2305 SOKES 'lo make cowi pay, usu .sharplej orea n heparaior -Eook"iiusiDe8S Dalryinz" & Vht.'m f rea W. Cheater, t' a Do You Want a Genuine Bargain Hundred of Cpriirht Piano returned from reutln tu ba ditpns4 of at one. They Inelade Sleinway., KnaLs, fucker.. Sterlings and otliar woll known niakci. Many eannot h. dlf- ,iDitu..i,.d from eroraonri , "i"..:. , " it d.t,unt. a wm u a fx&m : - tl5eand!65. A to fully tqiial to many aa lluO. Alio beau right at $I2MK5, instrnwani as azu, 400 iiianof. Monthly paymanif aaeeptad. Trelgat only aom S. Write fof lilt and partieslar. ton maka a r.t aavmf. riaao warranted ai r.proientod. Ill ultra Wd Fiaoo Baok Ith. LYON & HEALY IOO Adamo 8t.f CMICACO. ' World'! lairmrt moiic houat; aalla Ittrythlni kaown In D OM'T Set Hens the Same Old Wiy ana let lice kin mem on tue nemj, Tiffany's tture Death to Lice PowdM will kill all vermin.and your hn will bringi. herbrood ofrfree from nee. 1 inany's Fara-1 rod Lice Killer "Liquid," guaranteed to kill , all lice and mtfa. InstanUy kills lice oft colts.calves, and hogs. By uslix? our Sprayer a very liti )e ffoeR a gr-at way. Penetrates all cracks. Spray t bottom of house for spider 1 ice. It i a povyrul dittiy. fpctanu $1 per gal. can; 65c gal One gal loo and Sprayer, 1 1.50. Can get it free wb re no agents by ft littlo wort (iv ua. Tarn Tjffany Co.. Lincoln. Ieb. Plumbing and Heating Estimates Furnished J. c.cox 1332 O Strett Lincoln, Nebresk. iV