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About The Wealth makers of the world. (Lincoln, Nebraska) 1894-1896 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 7, 1895)
L LINCOLN, NEB., THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1895. I VOL. NO 35 VI- f" 4 i ; , . 1 I ii i i i i mi I-i . I I SO MOVES THE WORLD. " We sleep and wak and aleep, bat all things mom The Bun dies forward to hla brother Sun ; The dark Earth follows, wheeled In br ellipse; And human thinKS, returning on themselves, Mots onward, leading op the golden year." A famine is threatened in the west of Ireland. A rebellion has broken out in the United States of Colombia. The Union Pacific car shops discharged 390 men Jan. 21st. Japan has captured Wei-Hai-Wei, and panic reigns at fekin. The A. P. A. is reported breaking up. " Two councils are eeceders. M. DeGiers, the Russian minister of foreign affairs, died last week. Lord Randolph Churchill for some time Conservative parliamentary leader, is dead. , Mrs. Lease has written a book. Its title is, "The Problem of Civilization Solved." , A quarter of an acre of land in Chicago - that was worth $50 is now valued at $1,250,000. The Industrial Christian Alliance pro vides daily 5,000 Irish stews at 5 cents a bowl for the poor of New York. Dr. Parkhurst's new book, "Our Fight with Tammany," is just off the press. Published by Charles Scribner's Sons. , t The Debs second trial is proceeding. Judge Grosscup has made one ruling which shows his bias and determination to convict. . The Armenian massacre is likely to lead V to the fall of Turkey. Gladstone made a .notablespeech on the butchery horror on his 85th birthday. ' Defalcations and embezzlements in 1894 preached the amount of $25,234,112, . whieh was three millions more than any T previous year's record. More than a third" (34.1 3 per cent) Of the farm-families of this country in 1890 were tenants. In 1880 the percentage of tenants was 25.62. Wheat dropped to 49 cents in the Chi cago market January 30th, the lowest price on record. And the supply un precedentedly Bhort, too. Gold bars for jewelers have advanced in price, and the increasing premium will lead to iucreased purchases which will further advance the price. It is charged that $150,000 of the pub lie funds of Minnesota have been "mis appropriated," and a committee of in vestigation has been called for. Mexico is likely to declare war ogaiust Guatemala, and as all the Central Ameri can republics side with the latter, looks like quite a destructive fight. Nearly 350 people were drowned in the sinking of the German Lloyd steamer Elbe a week ago. The sinking was caus ed by a collision with another vessel. A terrible wreck on the Vandalia rail road resulted in a nnmber killed and mnnv iniured. It was the work of train wiwkera. who Dulled all the spikes of one rail. The Consolidated Coal company of Illinois is one of the trusts we read about It directs legislation in that great state, controls the once of coal and fixes the price of labor. Tracv R. Morgan, an old bank cashier of New York has by stealing $100,000 (Caused theclosingof four banking houses in hinghamptou New York. One wash savings Lank. John 1). Rockefeller has been sued by Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Potter. It is supposed the suit is to obtain a subscription pledged to the Baptist tabernacle where Dr. Potter oliiciates. Alabama has iust refused to pay its bonds in gold, the phrase, "payable in 'gold," having by a vote of 48 to 40 been stricken out of the bill to adjust the bonded state indebtedness. The clergy of St. Johns, Newfoundland, bave issued an appeal to the outside world for assistance to the starving peo pie. "About a thousand families are uow starving in that city." Mrs. Mary Hoop, a widow, and her three-year-old child were found frozen to death on Wednesday at Warsaw, lnd. They lived in a single room and when found were without food or fire. Hundreds of people destitute apply r daily at 25 Clinton Place, New York city, v for work. It is a freepublic laborbureau. They are from every walk in life. Thirty to forty thousand in that city are re ported fnce to face with starvation. A Mexicun'cotton ball weevil did groat damage in 6,000 square miles of country in Texus last year. It is a new insect, and seems to be rapidly extending its ravages. The damage to last year's crop was 50 to 90 per cent of its value. The members of Parliament to the number of 354 have signed a memorial addressed to the president and people of the United States, proposing that all differences of opinion between the two countries be submitted to arbitration. Three men died of starvation in one day recently in New York. A great num ber die from exposure and insufficient nutrition and diseases made fatal by poverty, that are reported under the head of diseases which attract no atten tion. Henry George, Jerry Simpson, Jos R. Buchanan, Thos. F.Ryanand Charles H. Mitchell spoke from the same platform as the Brooklyn Athenaeum a week ago Sunday. Resolutions denouncing the street car corporation were unanimously passed. The 4,912 suicides in 1894 in the Unit ed States, reported in the daily press, shows an increase over the preceding year which year was also an increase over '92. The increase is all out of pro portion to the growth of the population, suicides having grown in five years from 2,224 to 4,912. The city of Glasgow, Scotland, con taining about 1,000,000 inhabitants, owns and operates its street railways. It constructs its own cars and manages the whole system in the most economic and efficient manner, and saves to the people the profits which nnderprivate ownership are drawn from the people. Dr. Loomis of New York recently died and by will disposed of $1,000,000 acquired, it is assumed, by the practice ol his profession. But if investigation were made there can be no doubt the bulk of this vast sum would be shown to have come to him as "unearned increment" upon investments in monopolies. Almost a panic in grain and provisions was the report of January 30th. The gold monopolists are trying to force a half billion of gold bonds upon Congress. They ought to be all rounded up and shipped to some island in the Pacific and their gold with them, and be forced to live there. They are the chief curse of civilized countries. The anthracite coal barons have de cided to restrict the February output to 2,000,000 tons. Less work for starving miners, higher prices for coal consumers, power in the monopolists hands to re duce the labor and increase the expenses of the people, power to starve and freeze and rob the people to enrich themselves, and alt done bv a stroke of the pen. So moves the world toward the climax of a great struggle. The Southern Pacific was held up Jan. 30 by bandits and a large amount of money taken, $10,000 in Mexican dollars being only a part of what they got. The engineer and firemen were covered by pistols and forced to cut the express and mail carsout and hold the train two miles farther on. The safes were then blown open. The loss Is estimated at $50,000 to $75,000, and the robbers are believed to have crossed into Mexico. A census expert has been investigating the reports since 1850 and finds that labor's share has been growing less. In 18t)0 it was less than 1880, and still less as compared withinl850. It istheintro duction of machinery which is doing it, capitalists claiming that the forces of nature that run the machinery belong only to them as the favorites of heaven. In i850 labor's paid share was 53 per cent of the product, capital's was 47 per cent. Now labor gets 43 and capital 57 per cent. The Nionragua canal bill has passed the senate by a vote of 31 to 21. It is another scheme to get the government credit to back up bonds, $70,000,000 in amount. The canal should be first sur veyed and the cost carefully estimated by government engineers. Then if from a business point of view it should be seen to be a certain profitable or econo mic enterprise the government should construct and own the canal. When the government's credit and capital are needed it should never mix up with pri vate capitalists in any great enterprise. They consider it their legitimate business to so conduct the business as to rob the government and enrich themselves. The sturdy, self-respecting American farmer is giving place to, or rather is being ground down into, that most piti able class of homeless people, renters. The census figures furuish proof positive that this is bo. Less than half of the families in the United States own their own homes. Thirty per cent of the re mainder are under mortgage. Between 1880 and 1890 the number of land own ing farmers decreased in every New Eng land state and the number of tenant farmers increased. In the western states it is the same way. The men who got western laud cheap twenty to forty years ago have very many of them moved to town and rent their farms. And the tendency of rent is upward, keeping the poor renter in a hopeless treadmill. If the laud increases in value the rent is correspondingly raised. And with no new lands to go to land monopoly is in creasing and must in the course of a generation bring about a condition in America like that, in Ireland, provided no anti-monopoly legislation checks the present land concentration movement. Notice our cheap clubbing rates witt 'The Prairie Farmer" and "The Pictun Magazine." Send in your subscriptions, You will want good reading matter foi the family during the long winter even ings. Land and Home. f Iters' tixcnrslon February 12th the Elkhorn R. R. will sell tickets to all points on its lines in Nebraska at one fare plus $2.00 for round trip. No rate to be les than $7.00. Limit 20 days. City office 117 So. 10th St. Depot corner S and 8th Sts. 84t2 Dr. Davis, fine gold fillings, 11th 0. L Two Kinds of Republicans Discovered oi Alleged to Exist 00N0EENTNG TEE BELIEF WORX Appointments, and Discourtesy of tbs Senate Rumoied Defalcations Ed misten, Oil Inspector, Makes Two Appointments, Hilton Said to Be Short "Napoleon Bonaparte, With hundred thousand men; He marched them np the hill And marched them down again; And when they were np, they were np; And when they were down, they were down; Bnt when they were halt way np the hill, ' . They were neither np nor down." The Nebraska legislature have evident ly had the above quotation in mind, for they have been on dress parade ever since they met, marching up the hill and marching down again; and once in a while, when suspended between the devil and the deep blue sea, they are "neither up nor down." The Republicans proudly boasted when they came down here that they would squelch the Pops. 0, yes, how they would skin the Pops. Why, according to these self-conceited Fridays of Czar Holdrege, the Pops would never be heard of. But since these fellows have got down here, they find that the Pops are pretty much in evidence at pretty nearly every juncture. They have found that the Pops have parliamentarians superior to any of their own. This is true at least in the house. They have found also that the struggle in this session is between populism and railroadism; and while the railroads have usually succeeded, they have found that many of the brainiest Republicans in the house have openly al lied themselves with the Populists. For in the house, it must be understood, there are RELIEF WORK. , The clamor and complaint concerning the relief commission is becoming greater everyday. If reports received here are to be believed, the condition of some of the western counties is truly terrible. The complaint comes in that while the commission promises to send provisions, it fails to carry out its promises. This complaint has become quite general. One thing is certain: A great, portion of the perishable provisions, such as potatoes, etc., have stood out on the tracks, or lain in the warehouse, until frozen up and rendered worthless. The reason assigned by the commission for this is that they had no money with which to pay freight to get the provis ions out. It is known, however, that the commission has received about $12, 000 in cash donations. What has become of this? It is claim ed farther that the U. P. and other roads offered to haul out the stuff free; but that the commission preferred to wait until it could pay I lie li. & M. for doing it. It is safe to say that most of th $50,000 appropriated for relief will be used to pay freight to this company. I do not mean to unjustly censure this relief commission. 1 know its members have a hard place to fill. But in the work of relieving human suffering and privation, this dilly-dallying and incom petency is no less than a. crime. And the commission is certainly guilty of incom petency, if nothing worse. The Republican legislature is directly responsible for this state of affairs. It elected Mr. Ludden to his preseut posi tion and practically rendered powerless the governor, who should have charge of the matter. TWO KINDS OF REPUBLICANS. . In order to illustrate this, a story is in order. The other day they had one mnn before the ways anil means committee who, in asking for an appropriation for his institution, really acted ns though he didn't want to steal. This was so unus ual that Uncle Barney Johnston wanted to take him to his bosom as the first honest man he had seen. In talking with the chairman ol the committee after ward, uncle Barney remarked that "that fellow must be a Pop." "No," answered the chairman, "he is a conscientious Re publican." "0," answered Uncle Harney, "youy have two kinds of Republicans, have you conscientious and otherwise?" That so well illustrates it that I shall hereafter refer to the two kinds of Repub licans in the house as "conscientious Re publicans" and railroad Republicans. Once in a while the Pops and conscien tious Republicans combine and run things. In this way two or three good bills have already been recommended for passage. One of these was to compel in tersecting railroads to build transfer switches. Another was to prevent a cor poration from discharging an employe simply because the latter belonged to a labor union. I hope to tell you of further good deeds of this combination in future reports. In the senate unfortunately they have no "conscientious Republicans." APPOINTMENTS. Hon. J. II. Edmisten assumed his of NEBKASKA iWLUKDS fice of Chief Oil Inspector on the 1st. Im mediately he appointed two deputies Warwick Saunders of Columbus, editor of the Platte Cou n i.v Argus, and Ed J. Hall, editor of the Grand Island Free Press. Both are well known Populist newspaper men. On February 1st also the Governor withdrew the appointment of Judge J. W. Wilson for Commandant of the Soldiers' Home at Grand Island. The senate had been in possession of the appointment for three weeks and the Governor became convinced that the de lay was a studied discourtesy to himself. The course of the senate has been gener ally denounced as bojish, even in Repub lican papers, and the action of the Gov ernor" is commended. ' -j RUMORED DEFALCATIONS. Ever since this appointment of Judge Wilson was made, there have been ru mors of a shortage and a scandal in con nection with the present Commandant of the Home, who is a Republican. It has been said that this was the reason the senate did not confirm Wilson. Last week a Republican committee was sent out to investigate the matter. They came back with a whitewash report. .There is one shortage brought to light, however, on the part of a Republican of ficial, that cannot be whitewashed. L. Hilton, Ex-Chief Oil Inspector, is short nearly five thousand dollars in his ac counts, His last rt port, made on No vember 30th, shows nearly $4,000 of a shortage. When Mr. Edmisten took charge of the office he did not get the books. Mr. Hilton has promised to turn these over this week, when the exact amount of the shortage will be made known. J. A. E. Tbe Progress of Poverty "I can starve to death easier and with more comfort in Colorado than in New York. Send me there and I won't bother you anymore, I have tried both places," said the ironical product of the Far West, and when it comes to a 'show down' I'll takeColorado. Snowballs are morenour ishing than cobblestones, and the cli mate's better." He was sent home. There are 30,000 to 40,000 men, women and children this winter in New New York city brought face to face with starvation. The cold months al ways give renewed strength and activity to this ever-present spectre among the poor, and the present season is noci ception. It has brought with it its usual heritage of hunger and cold and sickness, and the epidemic of the grip has added a new misery and made the problem of ex istence more difficult to solve. The dis ease finds an easy prey among the ranks of the poor, and the free dispensaries at Bellevue Hospital and other institutions are thronged each day with its poor and destitute victims. The restricted immigration during the last eighteen months and the unusually large emigration during the same period have further tended to decreuse the num ber of appeals for help. The actual suf fering, too, is less acute now. The people, having borne with it so long, havegrowu accustomed to their poverty, and here lie the deep pathos, the real misery and the grave seriousness of the question as it is today. Those who a year ago shrank from receiving aid have grown hardened, and have lost their respect and man hood, and whut twelve months ago they would have winced at receiving they now demand as their due. Among the better class of the poor, the industrious and the sober workingmuh who has by the long industrial depression been kept out of work, the condition is infinitely worse than last winter. The "rainy day." in anticipation of which he had put aside a comfortable sum, has been of so long and apparently endless duration that the little store put by has melted away, and the workingmau, through no fault of his own, finds himself face to face with pauperism. New York Tribune. No Tragedy Like Poverty There is no tragedy like that of poverty No pain can grind the human heart like that which comes to the husband and wife when they face the cold fact that he 1b out of work, and then look at the ten der faces of the little ones, so confident that the father can take care of them Yet we know that in thousands of homes in the happy land of America this tragedy is beiug enacted. If we knew that some fiend was passing from house to house, killing women and dashing children's brains out, how long would the good people permit it to continue? Yet pov erty is worse. The slow, dull agony at heart, the faint flicker of expectation when returning feet are heard, the death weight on the heart when phe reads on his face, "no work!" This is a pain which no rich and happy woman can under stand. One muht feel it one must know how cruelly precious a dollar can seem to understand what real suffering is. One must realize what it is to be cold and hungry in a city full of happy, careless people, who waste their precious money, who revel in and grow tired of the light and warmth and food; for want of which little children are dying, in order to know the meaning of a real heart ache. Rockville Tribune. Hall's Hair Renewer is pronounced the best preparation made fdr thickening the growth of the hair and restoring that which is gray to its original color. mi in imrnmrn, .nni nniTiPUT HVflfi UHS VMM The Following Article Is Taken from th. January) 1895, ENGLISH REVIEW, WEIGH SAFE Investors Depend on for Advice and Re liable Information The Financial and Commercial World as It Is. Is Trade Going to Revive ? "A revival of trade ought to take place now," everybody is saying. "The con ditions which have hitherto preceded re. sumptions of business expansions in the past are all present, not only in our own money market, but in those of the conti nent and of the United States. At all important centers of credit, money is cheap and abundant; everywhere the prices of commodities are so low as to tempt both the speculator and the man ufacturer to enlarge their operations in preparation for rising markets." This is a summary of the universal agreement, and we have had these favor able conditions with us in the United Kingdom for at least two years back. Yet trade has not "revived"; we still crawl along doubtfully; prices give no indication of a change for the better, but the contrary. As Mr. Sauerbeck has again and again demonstrated by bis valuable barometric index numbers and diagrams, the tendency has been steadily downward. Wheat is lower in price at the present time than it has ever been be fore, and cotton is also at, or near, its lowest, fihe hopes which Australian wool-growers entertained, that the plac ing of raw wool on the free list in the United States tariff would enable them to secure less ruinous prices for their crops, have so far been disappointed. We are in little better condition with most of our staple British industries; with hardly an exception prices are lower than they were twelve months ago. Since the new tariff of the United States came into force there has been a slight improve ment in the hopes rather than the actu alities of the woolen trade, but it has not lifted prices; and the linen trade of Belfast, which was hoping so much from the tariff, has as yet only filled up the gaps which the long delay in passing that tariff created. Our iron industries would be quite as depressed as ever save for the lavish expenditure of the government on new ships of war; and even that has not been great enough to hold prices up. The tonnage of merchant vessels under con-, structiou at the present time is lurger than it was twelve months ago; but we are assured that the profitableness of the work done has not increased, although wages are in many instances lower, and 1 raw materials certainly cheaper. In nearly all instances the point of recoil in prices does not yet appear to have been reached; still less has any general recov ery begun to show itself, such as men look for when trade is really going to ex pand. The truth, however, is that the com mon expectation of a revival of business as a result certain to flow from large ac cumulations of idle bankers' capital or "money," is founded on a confusion of ideas. What these accumulations gener ate is a revival ot financial speculation. Increased industrial production always follows outbursts of speculation in "new outlets for capital," because the objects of such speculation always to some ex tent involve the outlay of money upon raw materials or machinery, on new buildings, new developments in manufac tures, and so on. For instance, at the present time the small outbreak of specu lative energy in the direction of floating companies to "develop" goldfields in Western A ustralia swindles though they mostly are will have some little effect in augmenting the production of machinery for crushing and washing ores. In like manner, and on a large scale, every tar antella dance of speculation in the past, whether devoted to lending money to foreign and colonial governments, to covering the waste places of the earth with railways, to building tramways, providing towns with gas and water, or digging for gold, silver, or precious stones, has reacted upon our industries as a stimulant to production. The for eign governments have spent part of the money in British-built warships or British-moulded guns, the railway construc tion has given us an enlarged market for our iron and steel, and so on. Industrial expansion always follows upon the heels of speculations in finance, no matter how frantic or unsubstantial these spec ulations may be. Unquestionably the conditions of all money markets, of our own, in some re spects, most of all, are at the present mo ment favorable to fresh speculative out breaks; and, just as unquestionably, these would have occurred before now had there been no other influences at work to keep them back. But there are such influences, and most powerful ones, which hold the market down, and cause loanable capable to accumulate in bank ers' hands to an extent which is positive ly become almost as dangerous to the eoundness of our banking credit as a scarcity would be. It is unnecessary to hark back always to the Baring crisis. The effects of that horrible event are still with us in spite of a "successful liquidation," nay, perhaps , because of that, and will be with us these many years to come, for it was an epoch-marking crisis; but the distrust it generated no longer ties upon the market like a nightmare. We have come back to the mood which welcomes adventure: and could a field, or fields, be found wherein the instinct of speculation com mon to all mankind, and peculiarly a characteristic of Englishmen, might again expand and develop energy, a "re vival of trade," as, it is colloquially -called, would soon be again in full sw ing, hurrying the nation forward to u new crisis. Unfortunately for those who hope to profit by such a change, most of the channnels into which the accumulated means of the people have in the past been wont to flow and be dissipated are choked up or tilled up choked with the ruins of past enterprises which bave failed, or filled because the work which whs to be done is complete to the fullest present requirements of the country, or industry formerly taken in hand. There are still, perhaps, places on the earth where railways might be built with ad vantage to some generation, if not the present one; but these countries have fallen into disrepute, either because they have borrowed too much in the past, or because of their dishonesty and internal disorders, or for these and other causes combined. For this reason the whole of Central and South America is shut off from us, with perhaps the single .excep tion of Chile, and Chile is a country which, at best, gives but a limited scope to the schemes of the financiers in Lon don. North America is at present in lit tle better plight. The United States are filled up with railways far beyond the capacity of the trade of the coun try to make profitable; Canada is sodden with debts, and with enterprises which, it not already bankrupt, appear on their waj to become so; Mexico is a state whose resources may be great, but whose institutions are in too fluid a con dition, too dependent for their stability upon President Diaz, to afford scope to the romantic and romancing imagina tion of the financial world-renovator. In Europe the position is no better. It is unnecessary to dwell on the condi tion of Frauce or Germany, of Italy or Spain; and even Austria and Hungary, in better economic health though they seem to be, require none of our money. The healthier countries, in Bhort, do not want our assistance; the poorer and sicklier cannot be made to look tempting enough to draw money from us. Where they might, perhaps, benefit by our pe cuniary help, they deliberately shut US out by their tariffs. Of our Australian settlements it is un necessary to speak. According as we view them, their position excites the deepest indignation or the most pro found pity. Slowly but relentlessly they are being forced downward into the po sition of helpless defaulters. Nor is there room in India, in spite of the valiant res olutions of the bureaucratic government there, to go on building railways. The British state there is like a weary Atlas, crushed to the earth with debt as with a world all too heavy for his shoulders. For a few years more it may hold up its head by borrowing, for a few years more the British public will lend, but the debt which is contracted to stave off bank ruptcy is in no sense an industrial stim ulant. It merely sustains the victim's life, and throws an aspect of abflity to pay over a condition of hopeless iinpecu niosity. ' In the Farther East the possibility of opening up China may peihaps afford room for hope that the old methods of generating trade prosperity may there be resumed ouce more the method of the tailor who lends his customer the money to pay for the clothes he furnishes him with. But it would take a little time to awaken in regard to things Chinese the money-lending zeal of even so simple minded a being us the English investor. There remains, then, South Africa alone as a spot where the stimulating and ex hausting manure of borrowed capital may be applied, and already that part of the world is in some respects over drugged with money. A crisis is rather to be looked for there than a fresh leap forward. The "Chartered" Company's bubble seems nearly ripe for bursting; and although gold and other mining in dustries here aud there may prosper, these never yet permanently sustained a country's prosperity. They are too del-( eterious and mushroomy. , Thus on all hands we are led to the in ference that the scope for an expansion of trade wnh'tTiTZrrFirt-frhnft''! has been either swept away or much re stricted' by the already excessive employ ment of that aid to the development of civilization. The victims of it are par tially or wholly exhausted, and our masses of banking credit lie idle because there is really no outlet for them. From this it is to be inferred that any growth of business which conies must be slow a tion Pricey iRyvJJvMli'ilM'fe-' -to drag as they have done, because the capital poured by us and other lending (Continued on 5lta pane.)