v
I'OL. ATI, NO. XLV
LIN
M..r.
L ""
tCOLN, NEBRASKA, SATURDAY, XOVEMBElp&ffi' &
ESTABLISHED IN ISStt
OBSERVATIONS
BY SARAH B. HARRIS
Tmst Stocks
A tabulation of the highest recent
prices of stocks by the New York
Journal of Commerce is interesting
and indicates that the trusts have not
everything their own way and that
they get as near dissolution as the oc
casional business owned by one or two
individuals. The table in full:
Highest Recent De
1901. prices, cline.
Amalgamated Copper 130 So -JO
American Bicycle 84 3 ji
American Bicycle pfd 35 10 23
American Ice 43 2S 13
American Ice pfd 77?i 61 VFi
American Linseed 30& 15 15
American Linseed pfd C6 'la 21
American Locomotive 32 26 6
American Locomotive pfd S3 S2 3
Am. Smelt. & Refln 69 44 25
Am. Smelt. & Refln. pfd.. 104"i 9S 6-k
Am. Sugar Refining 153 119 3
Am. Sugar Refining pfd.. 130 116 14
American Woolen 21 "4 15 GTi
American Woolen pfd.... S2 '73 9&
Anaconda Copper 5IU 37 17U
Colorado Fuel & Iron.... 136 93 43
Colorado Fuel & Iron pfd 142 '127 13
Continental Tobacco pfd. 124 114 9
Diamond-Match" 152 123 27
General Electric 2G9 259 10
Glucose Sugar G3 47 IS
Glucose Sugar pfd 107 100 7
National Biscuit 48 42 4
National Biscuit pfd 103U lrt 2,
Xatlonal Lead 23 20 5
National Lead pfd 93 'S3 STi
National Salt 50 30 20
National Salt pfd S4 62 22
Pressed Steel Car 52 39 13
Pressed Steel Car pfd S3 79 10
Rep. Iron and Steel 24 15 9
Rep. Iron and Steel pfd.. S2 67 15
Rubber Goods Mfg Co.... 3SU 27 11U
Rubber Goods Mfg Co. pf 90 75 15
Tennessee Coal and Iron 764 61 15H
V. S. Leather le 12 4H
lT. S. Leather pfd S3?4 SO 3i
T. S. Rubber 34 15 16
t S. Rubber pfd S5 52 33
T. S. Steel 53 43 12
f. S. Steel pfd 101:6 s
This table would appall the unsophis
ticated who know nothing of watered
stocks and of the furious energy with
which organizers, promoters and brok
ers push up new stocks. "What goes
up must come down," and holders of
trust stocks anticipate their decline
from original quotations. The rapid
combinations of crackers, linseed oil,
steel, paper, matches, shoes in short
the amalgamation of the manufacture
of every article of household and com
mercial use took place a matter of a
year or so ago. They were organized
into trusts of national extension within
a few months' time. There was an en
thusiasm and a confidence of immedi
ate large returns about the organiza
tion of the various trusts which the
Passage of time has failed to justify.
The fall in the market quotations of
the various stocks does not argue their
valuelessness or loss of real value. It
was certain from the first that when
the anniversary of their organization
arrived and no dividends were declared,
the market value of the trust-stocks
would drop.
Trusts are the only demonstration
of the principle of socialism ever put
'n practice by practical men. If the
Principle works it will be the only com
mercial administration ever accom
plished of the possibility of getting
along without competition. To be sure,
't Is not done In the elevated spirit of
fraternity and unselfishness taught by
socialism; but there is more than one
striking parallelism In the means of
manufacturing and distribution adopt
ed by the trusts and recommended by
socialistic writers. Whether trusts or
socialism will pay is yet to be demon
strated. Electricians have taken pow
er from Niagara, but in transmission
every detail us he did in the pre-nmal-gamation
days. "Very likely the other
fellows are taking things easy: playing
golf, going to football games and
races." This sort of schoolboy reason
ing is going on and Influencing conduct
in everyone of the one-hundred bak
eries which have been absorbed by the
cracker trust whose stock has fallen
from 46 to 42. There is no human en
ergy so strong as selfishness; but it is
an energy which can not be piped very
far from its source without losing much
more than half of the power.
tf
Public Schools
Only eight per cent of the children in
the public schools of Lincoln go into
"4
Ctyf::
JrW-mb j&rft
.MRS. HEXKIETTA IIOLLOWBUSII HONEYWELL.
a tremendous portion of the energy is
lost. In combining. let us say, the
cracker bakeries all over the country,
great energy is lost. Before amalga
mation each bakery was under the di
rect, careful supervision of its owner,
a man who could not have attained his
position or held it for any length of
time after attaining it without the pos
session of an exhaustive knowledge of
cracker recipes and baking, as well as
their ever-changing market values and
relations to production. Under the sys
tem of trusts this manager-owner lias
no more interest in the local bakery
over which he may still preside than in
a hundrer other bakeries whose owner
ship lie shares with a hundred other
men. He reasons that there is not
the same object for him to supervise
the high-school. A very much smaller
percentage are graduated by the high
school faculty, and a comparatively
Inconsiderable fraction go from the
high-school into the state university, or
into any higher school. More pupils are
registered at the university from the
Lincoln high-school than from any oth
er in the state. And on account of the
educational impulse emanating from
the university and from the other
colleges located In Lincoln, probably a
larger proportion of public school pupils
take the full high-school course here
than in any other city in the state. A
photograph of last year's senior class
or the Omaha high-school at first
glance resembles the picture of the
graduating class of a girls' boarding
school. A close examination of the
background uml end foregrounds of the
Omaha high-school class discovers
about twenty boys. Accepting Lincoln
and Omaha as representative cities of
Nebraska, a comparison of the size of
the classes that are graduated with the
thousands of pupils In the grades Indi
cates that the common people nre pay
ing for the higher education of other
children which they can not afford to
give their own children.
It wns a long time ago that Lord
Bacon advised his generation and all
who should come after him to observe
facts and reach conclusions In accord
ance with them. He Is said to have
had a great influence upon his time
and upon all subsequent philosophy and
philosophers; but upon the public
school curricula and the boards which
arrange them his advice has had no
effect whatever. The course should be
arranged from the bottom upward anil
with direct reference to the needs and
conditions of the greatest number. In
stead of which the university dictates
a dogmatic course to the high-schools
of the state. The result is that ninety
two per cent, finding that they cannot
get in the high-schools the education
which will fit them for the duties or
life, withdraw from the schools alto
gether. The eight per cent remain at
the expense" of the parents of the other
ninety-two.
Dr. G. Stanley Hall, a most eminent
and sensible student of adolescence,
deprecated at a recent meeting of Mas
sachusetts teachers the growing In
crease In he number of Latin
students In recent years. He
considered the physical and mental
Incidents of the period of ado
lescence, its changes, modifications,
hazards and opportunities. It Is, he
thought, the golden period of life; the
period in which the greatest progress
may be made. He thought It was the
popular science period or life and that
its opportunities are by no means im
proved as they should be. In current
teaching of youth form is too much
considered and substance neglected.
He declared that the high-schools of
the country are not doing the work they
should do and show no prospects of Im
provement. Dr. Hall thought the high
schools are too much dominated by the
colleges. They fit youths for college In
stead of fitting them for life. He
thought that secondary teaching should
throw off the shackles of the colleges
and regain their own independence, and
his main practical reason for thinking
so. Is that the process of fitting for col
lege is essentially different from the
processes of fitting for life.
Dr. Hall has a singularly candid
mind. He has made a long study of
education with special reference to Its
effect upon youth and Its preparation
for life. Several years ago a member
of the Lincoln school board decided
that the ninety-two per cent who left
schcol when they had finished the
grades were not getting out of their
seven or eight years of schooling what
they might if the courses were revised
with special reference to the short time
that the overwhelming majority were
to spend In school. On this account and
because the average boy may be kept
longer in school if he be allowed to
study the natural sciences, he reduced
the required amount of Latin. But his
outline, which conformed to the needs