VOL.. 10, No. 19.
PRICE FIVE CENTS
LINCOLN, NBB., SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 1895.
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FREE SILVER
IN
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; Per annum $200 I Three months 50c.
Six months 100 One month 20c.
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For sale at all news stands in this city and Omaha and on all trains .
, A limited number of advertisements will be inserted. Bates made known on
application.
Early last year, at the state convention of the
league of republican clubs, held in this city,
there was an out-cropping of free coinage senti
ment. Only the presence of such sound money
republicans as G. M. Lambertson and Allen W.
Field prevented a declaration along the lines laid down by W. J.
Bryan several years ago. Later, at the regular state convention in
Omaha there was a second free silver demonstration, though the
showing made was not very formidable. Mr. Lambertson, who is
particularly well posted on the financial question, and whose advo
cacy of sound money is always earnest and enthusiastic, was a dele
gate to the state convention, and the sound money republicans
secured his selection as chairman of the committee on resolutions.
The result was that while the republican party in a number of
f western states allowed itself to be forced into a position of accessory
to the populist propaganda, the party in this state proclaimed in
unmistakable terms its fealty to a kind of money that needs no
excuses, a kind of money that passes current everywhere at itB face
value. Nebraska got a long credit mark in the campaign of 1891.
The people of the east who had heard doleful tales of crop failure
and of a consequent growth in the philosophy of the faddists noted
that the ruling political party in this state was still committed to
those ideas and policies that mean political and business stability,
' as opposed to the chimeras of the destructionists that were the
' vogue "in' Kansas and Colorado. The campaign was very largely
'made, 'on the money question, and the big republican victory was
'due, in no Bmall degree, to the firm stand taken by the party on the
'logical side of the 16 to 1 proposition so eloquently upheld on the
sentimental side by Mr. Bryan. The speeches of Mr. Bryan and the
other free coinage advocates made, apparently, but little impression,
though they were much enjoyed at the moment on account of their
artfulness Since election, however, there has been a weakening
among Nebraska republicans, and regret it as we may, it is never
theless a fact that free coinage sentiment is stronger, considerably
stronger, in this state today than it was a year ago. The converts
have not been made by the smooth eloquence of a silver tongue, but
by a little yellow covered book filled with cheap pictures and flabby
sentiment, presenting the old arguments in favor of free coinage in
a novel and more or less attractive manner. Hervey, otherwise
Coin, has drawn thousands into his school, and some of the Nebras
ka pupils have been graduated in faith. The sentimental brochure
has invaded the precincts of the silver specialist, Bryan, and won
over many on whom Bryan's oratory had made no impression. But
it seems to us that this boom in free coinage doctrine is but a passing
manifestation. Sentiments of this sort do not endure. A good crop
in Nebraska and a return of prosperity will dispose of a good deal
of the guff in the silver aiguments, and rationalism will take the
place of rant. In the campaign of '06 Nebraska will again be found
on the side of stable, honest money. Free silver will doubtless con
tinue its dominance in the ranks of tho democratic party, but there
is not much prospect that the democrats in this state will cut any
considerable quantity of ice in 96.
SOCIALISM
AND
INDIVIDUALITY
It is a pleasure to find in a daily newspaper
such an honest, intelligent treatment of the
question of socialism as that which appeared
the other day in the Kansas City Star. Very
frequently the press is intimidated by the
clamor of the cranks, and editorial expressions are more often tho
echo of the demagogue than the honest opinion of a logical mind.
The Courier commends the following to the thoughtful considera
tion of the socialists of Lincoln and Nebraska, who, since the incep
tion of the hard times, have exhibited a pernicious activity. These
revolutionists are fond of flinging Christ' and the Bible in the teeth
of those who protest against their vagaries. The Star meets them
on their own ground:
"The so called Chrietian Socialist quotes the metaphor of the
rich man going to heaven and the camel going through the eye of a
needle; he quotes the story of the rich young man who was told to
give his goods to the poor; he dwells upon the incident of Christ
driving the money changers from the temple; he distorts the mean
ing of 'they toil not, neither do they spin; he is full of quotations
to prove that the rich man and the bad man in the sight of the law
are synonymous. And lo! he has evolved a system of sociology from
the New Testament which makes the rich responsible for the poverty
of the poor, and the strong responsible for the weakness of the weak.
Christ never made excuses. He never laid any man's sin at another
man's door. He never said that the poor man who sinned was bet
ter than the rich man. He never said that there would be less sin
and suffering if the rich man gave his goods to the poor. That
injunction to the rich man was clearly for the rich man s benefit, to
curb his pride. It was not to help the poor. The latter were never
