* ' '
tlbe Conservative *
The populist
WHO FA VO1I itself
party proclaims
OOVKKXMKNT
self for the
OWNKll.sHTF OF pur
Tl A 11.110 ADS. chase , ownership
and operation by
the government of all the railroads in
the United States. Many railroad presi
dents , bondholders , stockholders and
general managers also favor such
ownership and control.
The populists are moved by political
considerations ; the railroad men who
agree with them are 7noved by pecuniary
considerations. The former wish to
buy with the money of the whole people
ple ; the latter wish to sell and got that
money for themselves. Mr. T.B. Blackstone -
stone , president of the Chicago & Alton
railroad , has made a stronger plea for
railroad ownership by the government
than Senator Allen ever made or can
make.
In Nebraska , and in fact everywhere ,
the populists assume that the federal
government could , after getting posses
sion of the railroads , operate them in
side of the lines of the several states.
But some good lawyers aver that , be
fore such ownership , management and
operation by the federal government
could come into vigor , radical changes
would have to be made in the constitu
tion of the United States and in fact
that all the existing relations between
state and national authorities would
have to be readjusted.
Whatever Senator Allen and other
agrarians may say about "forfeiting
charters" and confiscating corporate
capital , there is no other way for
government to get railroads than by
purchase. Purchase means paying out
tax-collected cash to the amount of eleven
billions of dollars , or it means the crea
tion of an interest-bearing debt for that
amount. The interest then at three per
cent would each year take from the
American taxpayers three hundred and
thirty millions of cash.
How can Allen and the populists gen
erally denounce debt-making in one
breath and howl for it in the next by
asserting that the government must
own , control and operate all the rail
roads in the United States ?
A telegram in
TO l.KAHX. the Omaha Bee of
August 26 , dated
the day before at New York , declares
that the merchants of Santiago dare not
attempt to do much business until after
the Cuban army is disbanded. The pat
riotic plunderers under the command of
our great and good friend , General
Garcia , regard war as merely licensed
larceny. Therefore they are inimical to
peace and its pursuits. It is most
agreeable to American pride and sym
pathy to observe the high character ,
moral and intellectual , of that suffering
Cuban population in whose behalf wo
have , for the sake of Christianity and
humanity , offered up the sacrifice oi
only a few hundred millions of dollars
and the lives of some of the best of our
countrymen. Cuban eiviliwifcion is
worth propagating. We must certainly
graft it on to that of the United States.
A community
IA A f
*
MAK1 ? A OOOT ) / .
COM.PO.STTU H011S who within
the limits of the
ornmon weal are all doing the best they
can for themselves , will be a model of
sobriety , industry , intelligence and pros
perity. It will need no courts. It will
support no prisons. It will bo too self-
respecting to bog for class legislation.
11 will never advocate paternalism in
government. It will never billet upon
the public service , either military or
civil , men who , failing in the handi
crafts and the professions , seek office as
a moans of livelihood and distinction.
It will measure the value of individual
lives and services by the benefits which
they , not their fathers , have conferred
upon the state , A pure democracy can
only be maintained by a people who are
individually self-reliantly making stren
uous endeavors to develop , cultivate
and ennoble themselves. When a
majority of our people become thus em
ployed the United States , as their com
posite , will have the supreme satisfac
tion of approximating fraternity , equal
ity and justice in human government.
Then statesmanship will not moan
merely office-getting for friends or ap
propriation-getting for localities. Then
Congressional Directory biographies will
recite not , as now , how much the state
has bestowed upon the statesman , but
how much in solid beneficent service ,
with self-denying devotion , the states
man has accomplished for the state
not what the people have done for him ,
but what he has done for the people.
It is then the duty of a citizen to live
and act with the lofty purpose of doing
things which shall make his native coun
try better. And thus living and striving
when the shadows begin to fall and the
beautiful things of the earth which he
he has admired and loved are dissolv
ing into blank darkness he may smile at
dusty death and be comforted in infinite
contentment , because with self-reliance
he shall have written an indelible auto
graph for good. Perhaps on some soul
that is wiser and whiter for his teaching
and example ; perhaps only on some spot
of ground that is more beautiful because
of his thoughtful tillage and tasteful
care ; perhaps by having planted a use
ful tree in some soil or a grand truth in
some soul he will have registci'ed him
self a worthy guest of this globe.
"Do you think married
women live longer than single ? "
MATKOX "It seems longer. "
Boston is building the largest railway
station in the country. Can Boston be
thinking of traveling ? Or is somebody
going to Boston ?
Woroprodncehcrc-
with n part of nn ar
ticle from that excellent clean paper ,
The New York Evening Post. . It is
written by one of the wounded of our
nrmy in Cuba , and is worth reading
and remembering , against OUT next be
nevolent impulse. This is what our
war for humanity has brought to hun
dreds of our own young men , and to
thousands of wretched Spanish peas
ants , who had no profit from the mis
rule and no glory from the war , but
who must par for it all.
hn
THAT ATIK
, ared to go the full
length of realistic
description in the field hospital. Hugo ,
with his magnificent audacity , and
Balzac , with his microscope , would
falter and wince before the confusing
deliriums of human agony and the in
describable spectacle of man tearing his
kind limb from limb with the perfected
enginery of his science , and then asking
science to keep pace with him in as
suagement and relief.
My first hospital experience must have
been that of tens of thousands. I
passed in a twinkling from the ecstacy
of physical excitement to the swoon of
death. There was a click , then an exit
of everything , as the lights were extin
guished and the soul of me fled like a
receding river.
The next second a dull light , nn over
powering smell of ether , a suppressed
hurrying of feet , and the dissonances of
human agony growing more audible and
more intolerable as the light grew , told
me that I was in hell or in a hospital.
Two hours had elapsed. They have
never been accounted for by me. Then
it was that I came slowly to the full
consciousness of what a kindly blow
was mine , that stunned while it stayed
the course * , of life.
THE
so fortunate. We
HOSPITAL.
were lying with
out order on the straw in a rude shed.
Some of it had been used as bedding for
cattle. The ambulances were at the
doorway. The curses of the teamsters
mingled with the groans of their bur
dens. There were two surgeons and
two assistants. They were in their shirt
sleeves and had napkins or handker
chiefs around their necks. I lifted my
self as well as could and looked around.
My eye fell first on what appeared to be
a collection of boots , but which I speed
ily enough saw was a pile of amputated
limbs , from which the boots and shoes
had not been removed , and from which
dripped and ran a congealing stream of
blood that was tracked all around the
narrow spaces by the slipping feet of
nurses. Instinctively I put my hands
upon my own nether limbs to feel if I
had lost them , and they made them
selves known by a convulsive wince as
I did so. They wore there , sure enough ,
bu't was I to keep them ? In the center
