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PAGE SIX
PLATTSMOUTH SEMI - WEEKLY JOUENAL
Sample Ballot
General Election November 4, 1930
Proposed Constitutional Amendment
SENATE FILE NO. 149
"FOR amendment to the Constitution fixing individual
liability of stockholders in banking corporations or bank
ing institutions, and providing for the immediate collection
of such liability upon the failure of such banking corporations or
banking institutions," and
"AGAINST amendment to the Constitution fixing: in
dividual liability of stockholders in banking corporations
or banking- institutions and providing for the immediate
collection of such liability uuor. the failure of such banking cor
porations or banking institutions."
Proposed Constitutional Amendment
SENATE FILE NO. 189
-FOB unending Section 3 of Article XIII of the Con
stitution of Hebreska, to read as follows:
"Section 2. The credit cf the state shall never be
given or loaned in rid cf any individual, association, or cor
poration. The state legislature, however, in order to help pay
any deficit in the Depositors Guaranty Fund and to discharge
the cbligaticrs thereof to depositors in banks closed by the De
rtavtrnent of Trade and Commerce prior to December 31, 1931,
may appropriate out of any money in the State Treasury not
otherwise appropriated the sum of eight million dollars or as
much tlierecf as may be deomed necessary, and such appro
priation shall be deemed to be for a public purpose, namely,
to relieve cistrees and prevent suffering a;:d to stabilize and
strengthen the state banking system."
AGAI2TST amending Section 3 of Article XIII of the
Constitution of Nebraska to read as follows:
'Section 3. The credit of the state shall never be
given cr leaned in aid of cr.y individual, association, or cor
poration. The state legislature, however, in order to help pay
any deScit in the Bpcsitors Guaranty Fund and to discharge
the obligations thereof to depositors in banks closed by the De
partment cf Trade and Commerce prior to December 31, 1931,
may appropriate cut of any money in the State Treasury not
otherwise appropriated the sum of eight million dollars or as
much thereof as may be deemed necessary, and such appro
priation shall be deemed to be for a public purpose, namely,
to relieve distress and prevent suffering and to stabilize and
strengthen the state banking system."
Certificate of County Clerk
I hereby certify that the abve is a true ad correct sample
cf the "Official Fallot" to be used at the polls in Cass county, Ne
braska, at the General Election on Tuesday. November 4th. 1G30.
Witness my hand and the seal of my office at Flattsmouth.
Nebraska, this 28th dav of October, 1930.
GEO. B. SAYLES,
(Seal) Cass County Clerk.
General Election November 4, 1930
Proposed by Initiative Petition
sssssssss
This Act relates to cities and villages and
public electric light and power districts which
own or operate electric light and power plants,
distribution systems and transmission lines. It
authorizes the extension of such lines and sys
tems for the purpose of servine farmers and
others living outside such cities and villages and also authorizes
the owners of such plants to provide means for financing same.
322 Q YES
323 r NO
Proposed by Initiative Petition
This law (1) gives cities and towns owning
YES electric light and power plants the right, pro
vided cost is paid out of net earnings, to ex
e I j tend their lines beyond their border to serve
j I NO farmers and others, and (2) the right to pay
for power plants, etc. by pledging future earn
ings instead of by taxation, and (3) provides that no publicly
owned plant may be sold except upon approval of sixty percent of
voters and filing of statement of original cost, etc. with Department
of Public Works, and limits amount of money which may be spent
in campaign fog, sale of plant.
Proposed by Initiative Petition
326 Q YES
327 Q NO
This is an Act relating to cities, villages,
and public electric light and power districts
which own or operate electric light and power
plants, distribution systems andor transmission
lines; prohibiting the sale of such plants, sys
tems, or lines, except for cash, and unless auth
orized by a vote of the electors; regulating such election; forbid
ding the giving or receiving of anything of value in connection
with such sale or purchase for such plants, systems or lines, and
to fix a penalty for violation thereof.
Certificate of County Clerk
I hereby certify that the above is a true and correct sample
of the "Official Ballot" to be used at the polls in Cass county, Ne
braska, at the General Election on Tuesday, November 4th, 1930.
Witness my hand and the seal of my office at Flattsmouth,
Nebraska, this 28th day of October, 1930.
GEO. B. SAYLES,
(Seal) Cass County Clerk,
Cass County's
Part in the
State History
Rock Bluffs Vote Would Have Chang
ed Complexion of State Politics
in Election of 1866.
If a group of election officials could
have restrained their noon appetites
60 years ago. the political complex
ion of Nebraska might have been of
different hue than it is today and the
territory's statehood possibly post
poned an unknown number of years,
the following from the Lincoln Star
! gives as a part of early Nebraska his
tory.
But the men were hungry. And
when thed inner bell sounded, they
picked up the ballot box and depart
ed for food.
Never did hungry men make a
; wilder gesture.
Rock Bluffs isn't in the postal
guide. The map gives it a population
iol! forty-fire. Those may be precinct
figures. There's little left of the
town that once hoped to be a metro
polis. In the day of river traffic. Rock
Bluffs was a formidable rival of
Flattsmouth, laid out abut the same
t'iie. But the railroad went to
I Plattsmouth, and as it builded west,
.the flourishing river commerce dwind
led. and the story of Rock Bluffs Is
the story oi many another bright
: prospect just missed by the rails.
All But Disappeared.
Rock Bluffs, not much more than
ja single store, a school house, a few
houses, six miles from a railroad,
lrss from a good highway, lies in a
little valley, formed by Queen hill on
the north and King hill a trifle be
yond. One of the earliest settlements
iti the territory, it has all but disap
peared, but its history will keep the
name alive as the name of many of
these early ventures will never be
preserved.
King hill, far older than Rock
Blufrn, is a commanding site on the
I river, a great outcropping of solid
rock, jutting into the water, it is
he highest point up or down the river
for miles, and the Otoes occupied
both King and Queen hill for years
before any towns were organized. The
Indians signaled from these hills
along both shores, and on them built
-.heir beacon fires. An old cemetery,
one of the oldest in the state, lies on
-.he edge cf King hill, and both red
men and white sleep there. A wind
ing road leads up the heavily wood
ed hillside.
Flan Preserve Townsite.
The Nebraska Daughters of the
American Revolution are sponsoring
a plan to preserve the old townsite
and the older hills. If their cam
paign is successful, they hope to see
I King hill, Queen hill, and Rock
; Bluffs, one representative of the old
Indian days and the other of the
young Nebraska and its white pro
moters. Benedict Spires was the first white
settler to cross the river and majte a
i J 1 . . . . k- . . . . u . a V J V- . . . i . 11 L I , i ' 11 .
ing the same year, F. M. Young, sr.,
j William Young, N. R. Hobbs, Wil-
liam Gilmour, sr., Abram Towner,
Benjamin Albin, and J. McP. Hay
! good came. A couple of years later,
I Thomas Patterson, Robert V. Stafford
and H. H. Fowler were among those
who laid out the town. Rock Bluffs
was organized June 10, 1865, and
North Rock Bluffs the following year.
Nebraska's first annexation was the
consolidation of two towns, follow
ing a special act of the legislature
approved November 3, 1858, and in
corporating the two settlements as
Rock Bluff City.
Founded Newspaper.
The Cass County Sentinel was
founded there about that time. In
1870, J. D. Patterson, a well known
educator of the time, erected a two
story brick building, 25 by 50 feet
in size, at a cost of $3,500. It was
virtually the first high school build
ing in the county, but it was closed
three years later, through lack of
support, as the day of Rock Bluffs
was drawing to a close. It was re
modeled into a district school.
In 1870, a Methodist church was
erected. It stood until it was burned
in 1916. Not as a church, however.
It was of brick and stone, one of
the finest in the town, 20 by 40 feet
in size. The church was taken by
the mortagee in 1883, and later it
was sold for a hay barn. While filled
with alfalfa, it burned in the winter
of 1916. William and Eben Graves
manufactured the brick and later put
up the brick work on the church.
Had 450 In 1863.
Rock Bluffs had a population of
450 in 1863, a number that had drop
ped to 172 in 1880. The town had
numbered considerably more people
in the years between. By 1880, the
natural advantages of the location
and the faith of its citizens had prov
ed inadequate to save Rock Bluffs
from certain failure. The iron horse
had proved greater than the side
wheeler.
Rock Bluff City had been involved
in an unsuccessful county seat con
test in 1861. The special election of
April 15, resulted in 368 votes for
Plattsmouth, 223 for Rock Bluffs,
and 109 for Mt. Pleasant.
The town flourished for another
dozen years, however, and it was not
until 1874 that its commercial life
was doomed. The Shera family kept
store there for many years to follow,
and it was only eight years ago that
one of the show places of the early
day was burned. Robert Stafford
built a log house with rock founda
tion and a second story, the height
of luxury in the frontier days, and it
still had its traditions to the day of
its burning.
Lived in Memories.
What was once the livest town
along the river west of St. Joe lived
much in its memories by 1877. Its
residents, however, still hoped and re
tained their interest in the vicinity s
agricultural products. A Rock Bluffs
correspondent, writing in the Platts
mouth Journal, March 13, 1877, said:
"We are still here, and hard at
work; nearly everybody and their
children are busy picking corn. Corn
is yielding on stalk ground from 30
to 40 bushels to theacre, and from
50 to 60 bushels to the acre on stub
ble ground, which is a difference that
some farmers should make a note of,
and hereafter rotate their crops a
little more.
"We are very much in want down
here, we want somebody to buy, re
pair, and run our grist mill, we want
a doctor down here to cure our ills,
we want some men who will build up
our town in the place of those who
are tearing it down for in a few
months four houses have been taken
down and hauled to Plattsmouth."
Center Political Interest.
It was in 1863 June 2, exactly
that Rock Bluffs became the center
of the territory's political interest.
Upon the counting of the vote in
that village depended under what po
litical banner Nebraska would come
into the Union. And that, although
it wasn't suspected previously, de
pended, as has been said upon men
who wanted their dinner.
There's quite a story to it.
April 10, 1864, Congress passed the
enabling act, wheih also provided
for a May election of members of a
convention to assemble July 4. This
convention was to frame a constitu
tion Cor prcscmation to the people in
October. When the constitutional
convention met in July it organized
and adjourned permanently before
business had been transacted, two
thirds of the members being unfav
orable to statehood and expressing
their will and that of their constitu
encies in that fashion.
Because of the marked anti-statehood
sentiment, no mention of the
question was made at the October,
1865, election. Following this elec
tion a plan was developed to resolve
the legislature into a convention to
draft a constitution and to organize
a state government. This idea was
eventually accepted and worked out,
and an election held June 2. 1866.
Question of Statehood.
The question of statehood was the
most important facing the voters.
When voting upon statehood, they
also voted upon the officers, in the
event statehood carried, and upon
the legislature, which would elect
two United States senators. The
democrats were in favor of retaining
the territorial status. The republU
cans believed in statehood at once.
David Butler was the republican can
didate for governor and J. Sterling
Morton was his opponent. The peo
ple were rather equally divided upon
the question.
When electioday was over, it was
officially announced that the consti
tution carried by a majority of 100,
3.938 to 3.838 which ended a long
struggle between the republicans and
the democrats over statehood. The
state officers, the council, the Cass
county officials were all republicans.
When the legislature met, John M.
Thayer and T. W. Tipton, republi
cans, received 29 votes and J. Ster
ling Morton and A. J. Poppleton were
given 21 each.
Rock Bluffs the ballot box, and the
dinner bell were important causes, it
is said, in this result. The democrats
spoke warmly of this transaction, the
minority in the legislature prepared
a long report, and proponents of both
sides fought back and forth for
months to come, after the election.
Field for Maniuplation.
One historian writes:
When it was ascertained that
manipulation of local election returns
somewhere was necessary to insure a
republican majority on a joint ballot
in the legislature, Rock Bluffs pre
cinct was selected as the most prom
ising field of operation.
Rock Bluffs precinct cast 107 votes
for the democrats and forty-nine foi
the republicans. The democrats
would have six members of the leg
islature from Cass county, with this
voting. Naturally, without them, the
republicans stood in the ascendancy.
Dr. A. E. Sheldon in his "History
and Stories of Nebraska" explained
the election in this manner:
"It was found that the election of
ficers who had charge of the ballot
box in Rock Bluffs precinct had gone
at noon from the house where the
election was held to a house a mile
away to eat dinner and had taken
the ballot box with them. The box
should be in sight of the voters on
election day from 9 o'clock in the
morning until 6 o'clock at night. The
county clerk and the men who help
ed him to canvass the votes at Platts
mouth threw out all the votes from
Rock Bluffs precinct because the bal
lot box went to dinner instead of stay
ing at the polls. This gave the six
republican candidates a majority in
Cass county."
Effected Election.
Morton and Poppleton would pre
sumably have gone to the senate in
place of Thayer and Tipton had the
Rock Bluffs vote been counted.
Some of the comments are amus
ing, 64 years later. Some of them
are stated in no uncertain terms.
One frank soul believed that no two
Judges had been together at the noon
huur, when the ballot box location
was causing such a havoc.
A Nebraskan on the other side stat
ed that: "There is a question wheth
er of the legally polled votes there
was a majority of 100, or a majority
at all."
THURSDAY. OCT. 30. 1930.
?T.r?J!J 5 " S LU-!
THE RAILROADS IN 1930
DUR0C JERSEY BOARS
I have some excellent husky Duroe
Jersey Boars for sale. Address me
at Nehawka or come see them. Otto
Schaffer, Nehawka, Neb. ol6-8tw.
For Job Printing call the Journal
The railroads of the United States
have done a fine work this year in
maintaining employment and busi
ness progress.
It is reported that capital expendi
tures by the lines during the first si.:
months ot 1930, for new equipment
and additions and betterments to
railroad property, totaled $46S,305,
000 $118,000,000 more than in
1929. Yet, during the same period,
railroad traffic was less than at any
time rince 1924 and railroad revenues
were greatly reduced. The return to
the lines during the fx months' per
iod was at th rate of but 3.61 per
cent, as compared with 6.52 per cent
last year.
We have- had a business depression
but it would have been a greit deal
more serious had it not been for the
public spirit of the raiircads. They
have gone ahead, in the face of de
clining revenues, improving service
and doing a fine work not only for
the benefit of their employes and
customers but for the nation as a
whole.
It is impossible for any industry,
no matter how willing it may be, to
progress indefinitely without receiv
ing an adequate profit for the work
it does. The railroads are the life
blood of industry and of agriculture
and essential to community prosperity.
(Political Advertising')
(Politico.! Advertising)
(Political Advertising)
I
j ; IK
I have lived in Richardson county for more than
forty-four years. Being engaged in private as well as
public business, the people are familiar with my ability
as a business man.
Many Eastern states re-elect their Congressmen
for many years, thus giving them advantages of Com
mittee assignments and the opportunity to do more
constructive work for their states and districts. My ex
perience as Representative in Congress better qualifies
me than one who is not familiar with the duties of the
office.
I always take the same interest in the affairs of
the First District that I do in my personal business.
My home county has always given me a large
majority, making me feel that those who know me
best appreciate my services.
My ambition in public life is to guard, closely,
the taxpayers' money, and keep expenses down to the
lowest point consistent with good government.
Living all my life in an agricultural country, and
engaged in farming and stock-raising, I know the needs
of the farmer.
I helped to secure the Veterans' Hospital at Lin
coln for my district; also franchises permitting the
building of bridges across the Missouri river; new rural
routes and extension of old routes; increased Federal
appropriations for good roads; liberal legislation for
Civil, Spanish-American and World War veterans; and
other constructive pieces of legislation beneficial to
Nebraska.
The greatest reward in public life is to be able
to contribute something toward making this a better
Government in which to live, and to be of assistance to
the people.
If re-elected, I will do as in the past, give my
entire time to the duties of the office.
If my service has been satisfactory, your votes
on November 4th will be appreciated.
JOHN H. MOREHEAD