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About The Nebraska independent. (Lincoln, Nebraska) 1896-1902 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 24, 1896)
If THE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT Dec 24 1896. s i ? Xfebracka Inbepenbent OmmMaHtm f TCM WXALTN MAKERS mmd U.VCOUT OrDMnUfBMNT. tVZUSSZD EVERY THURSDAY Icdspsixijt Publijbiijg So. At U3 B Street, LINCOLN, - NEBRASKA. TELEPHONE 638. $1.00 per Year in Advance. AddfMi all oamaalcaUoat to. and mak aU traits, Boaer ordw. ttc, payabl to IMDKPKNDKNT PUB. CO., Lwooli. H11. Joe Parker's Louisville Free Republic can do more stinging than a hornet. The legislature ought to make it a panal offense to desecrate the flag in the way it was done last fall. There can never be any health in the body poiitio while 4,000 malignant can cere, in the form of national banks of issue, are eating at the heart of it. Senator Peffer nay: "If the rich are to rule let them pay the taxes." The trouble about that in, that as long as the rich rule tbey never will pay their taxes. There is not ventilationenough around the state house to remove the odor of that maximum rate case stipulation. The more it is ventilated, the worse it smells. The Missouri World don't seem so anx ious to "reorganize" the peoples party, as it was in the days of its wrath, It will soon bo all right and in the road uain. We bops the legislature will pass a bill prohibiting the sale of those vile tinkers called cigarettes. We promised a fair lady to write an editorial on the subject and there it is. The "business man's government" is shipping stone 1,800 miles to build a house in ' the center of the rock ribbed mountains of Colorado. There is noth ing like a business man's government sure enough. r The New York World says that in the next house there will be 204 straight re publicans, 124 democrats and 27 popu lists. The great "republican land slide" which has just occurred cut down the re publican majority in the house exactly 40. r In the present house of representatives there are 244 straight republicans, 105 democrats, 6 popnlit and one silver party congressman. In the next house then will be 204 straight republicans, 124 democrats, ,12 populists and 15 tusionists. ' Railroad earnings for the first week in December show a decrease of $65,000 on the Missouri Pacific 18,500 on the St. Louis and Southwestern, and $14,000 on the Chesapeake and Ohio. What is the matter with that Advance Agent? Will he have "confidence" enough in -11 to tell? The republicans created the position of political boss in this country and made the office a very lucrative one. Now they have gone a step farther, ere ated the office of boss of political bosses and installed Mark Hanna in the place. To him, hereafter, all the other bosses will go for orders. Congressman Boatner has introduced a bill to increase the salary of Congress men 12.500 a year. Boatner's head is level. He knows the people like to be robbed or they wouldn't send so many thieves to congress. That's what Joe Parker says, and Joe lives down in that part of the country. ' ; The assessors returns from thecoun ties of Kansas show that there was raised iu mat state tnis year, 373,058 acres of Kafir com, which is an increase over last year of 180,800 acres, un increase of over 100 per cent. Kafir corn in Kan sas has proved a much more profitable crop than the ordinary corn. , The dear, good people who honestly believe that the referendum is all that we need to overthrow plutocracy and bring prosperity, should reflect that we just had a "referendum" and it didn't do it. A great addition to the unbought and unbuyable populist press will have . to be made before any law can be intel ligently voted on by the people. It begins to look as if the assurances recently given by friends of State Treas- ' urer Bartly that he would be ready to . count out the cash on retiring were not based on fact. He has indicated his in tention' to simply point to the banks where he placed it, and let his successor scramble for It; Is there no Jaw that will reach art tiring treasurer who does not count out the cash? One of .the promisee of the fusion campaign was that the retiring treasurer should' be retired to do it. The people endorsed ti t ropecition. Who will undertake to i?rt tVit promise? , . SAVE THE WHECK. There is no more pleasing writer of clear cut, elegant English In Nebraska than Editor Wells of the Central City Democrat When he writes abont pleas ing nothings, be can do it in a most charming way, but when be strikes a serious or important subject there is a ring to bis sentences, that is delightful. Here is what he has to say of the fix in to which the preservers of credit and de fenders of honor have got the stae of Nebraska: "The new administration has a great work before it. . It will have to w what it can from the wreck and take a new start. The prospect ahead of them is dark and calamitous a bankrupt treasury, funds scattered in wildcat banks, the school fund the Lord knows where, and a deficiency of nearly a mil lion and a half. There must be a radi cal change in our whole system of finan cial management. Why should the treasurer have a single dollur to loan out when there are unpaid warrants stnnding against that fund? Are we going to allow bankers to have our state money and hold it forever? Let all the facts come out, regardless of couse quences. Let us see what banks .have the money and what banks refuse to pay. Let us find the school and uni versity fund and invest it according to law. There will be lively times in Lin coln in January, and God alone in the infinitude of His wisdom knows where and how we are coming out." ANYTHING BUT REPUBLICANISM. Republican papers are intimating that Senator Allen, in his speech before the senate last Saturday, showed strong in dications of being anything else but a populist and of leaning toward republi canism. The republicans are entitled to all the consolation obtainable out of that speech. If the senator were in the least tainted with republicanism, be would never have made it. That speeech was made to refute republican slander of Nebraska, which had been uttered by republicans here and elsewhere with the deliberate intention of shaking the faith of the cowardly eastern capitalist and destroying Nebraska's credit. If this could only have been accomplished by the republicans under a fusion adminis tration, the republicans would have been supremely happy. That speech was in tended to hold up the hands of the Ne braska administration in an endeavor to restore prosperity in the state. There is not a sentence nor syllable in it that smacks of republicanism, and in all his tory no republican senator has ever said or doue so much jr Nebraska. Possibly no republican ever had occasion to say as much, for in all the history of Ne braska there has never before been a time when a great political party was trying to ruin the state's credit, as the republican party has tried to do ever since the recent election. STATE FAIR FINANCES. Now comes the state fair managers with the pertinent suggestion that there Bhould be a bigger appropriation for the state fair. The suggestion cannot be made seriously. There is a well defined conviction extant among the people that the state fair ought to lay up a penny or so every year. Some way or otherthe patronage seems to increase every year, while the show remains about the same old thing. It don't make much difference whether the attendance is large or small, the associatiou'always comes out just a little in debt. There is a sus picion that if next year the attendance were to be double what it has ever before been, there would be the same de ficit when the accounts were all made up. The men who hang around this an nual exhibition apparently know how to temper the wind to the shorn lamb, so that there need never be any stuffed and congested exchequer. Possibly if a measure were enacted providing that the salaries or compensa tion of the men who run the state fair be made contingent upon the fair paying expenses, the annual deficit would dis appear. And why should not the com peusation of these stntc fair barnacles be made contingent upon the profits? ThecompeuHiition of exhibitors is more or less so, and there is no more reason why the officers of the fair and their hangers-on should be paid in full every year that there is that exhibitors should .be paid in full, nor so much. The pre ference in such a contingency would ap pear to be with the exhibitor. Another thing that suggests itself to Lincoln people is,that the Omaha people who were so full of promises in order to get the fair away from Lincoln should be made to fulfill those promises or lose the fair. Lincoln people had to make promises to get the fair in former years, and there was never a time when every promise was not more that fulfilled. If Omaha people, as alleged, owe the state agricultural society anything, they ought to be made to pay it before another fair is held under that five year contract. " Meantime the suggestion of an ad ditional appropriation by the state is decidedly cheeky. . ..5 THE SPANISH TROCHA. Each national crisis seems to bring into the current, vocabulary of the civil ized world some new term that is char acteristic of the nation and the crisis. The world has been reading for months about General Weyler'i "trocha" across the island of. Cuba. The English dic tionaries do not define the word, none of the correspondents appear to have described it and the reading public has been perplexed by speculations as to what this engine of warfare from which the Spaniards expected so much might comprise. ; , , When General Weyler succeeded Gen eral Campos in command of the Spanish forces in Cuba to prosecute a more vigor ous campaign than bad ever been carried on by his predecessor, his first formidable move was the establishment of the trocba. This is nothing more than a military line thrown across the island from Havana on the north to a point on the southern coast, dividing the island into two military divisions. This line for the most part consists of a barbed wire fence three feet six inches high, along which are strung at short intervals the sentinel huts of theSpanish soldiers. About forty vards back of this line is a trench three feet wide and four feetdeep with abreast- work of palmetto logs, and fifty yards further back are houses of logs or wood. in wuieh troops are quartered. A wall of earth and stone n some places runs from point to point of the line, and along this wall are trees which may be ascend' ed by winding staircases, thus affording an extensive outlook. The trocha itself, as described by a correspondent who passed over it by permission of General Weyler, "stands as a monument to the patience and devotion of the Spanish troops, who have toiled uncomplainingly iu the heat of a torrid sun, whose ter rors to be appreciated must be felt." To guard this line 15,000 , Spanish troops have been kept stationed. This would afford a sentinel crew of about 200 soldiers to the mile. General Maceo, who occupied the western end of the island, had about 11,000 poorly armed troops at his disposal, while General Gomez had about 6,000 men east of the trocha. Although the Cuban generals had barely more troops at their disposal than the Spanish commanders had em ployed in guarding the trocba, and al though many of the Cuban troops were poorly armed, the Spanish have been kept on the defensive by the courageous, gallant, desperate men who are fighting for their homes, their families and their liberty. According to Spanish journals General Weyler has had in his command over 200,000 well 1 armed, well trained soldiers sent from Spain, in addition to thousands who volunteered in Cuba. In spite of the disparity in number and equipment the Cubans have always presented a bold and effective policy They are proficient in guerrilla warfare, and have relied upon it as a means of harrassing the Spanish hordes. The climate has aided them, the ranks of the Spanish soldiery being continuously thinned by smallpox and yellow fever, During all this time Maceo has crossed the trocha at will, and Gomez, with his badly armed rabble of 6,000 men, with out war material of any sort, has marched at will throrgh section in which are stationed 100,000 Spanish troops. . - ' ; - . in tne lace 01 these fucts the ninny cruelties practised by the Spnnish, the murders of men, women and children and the thousands of inhumanities re ported too fully attest the cowardly savagery of the Spanish nature, and lead to the conviction that American soldiery would have nothing to fear from Spanish troops unless it were a contest of speed. The intimation by the supreme court that the beet sugar bounty act passed by the late republican legislature created a liability against the state which that accommodating body of republican cor poration servers failed t6 provide for meeting simply means that the coming session will be importuned to load down its record with something like $150,000 appropriations to pay debts contracted by the republicans, or else repudiate. Under ordinary circumstances one would have supposed that a law providing for a public expenditure would be absolutely void if it did not provide means of mak ing the expenditure, and would therefore create no obligation against the state. The manufacturers of beet sugar knew that no appropriation had been made to meet the bounty payments authorized by the legislature, and knew therefore that there was a grave question as to the ability of the state to pay any claims they might present for sugar bounty, but they chose to ignore the de fects in the bounty provisions and go ahead with the manufacture of sugar, taking 'their chance of worming their bounty claims out of the people some how or other. They seemed to know that state officials would strain a point to pay that bounty if possible, and that the supreme court would do the very best it could under the circumstances. The best it could do appears to have been to intimate that in passing this measure the legislature incurred an obli gation on the part of the state, which of course leads to the inference that the state ought to provide means for dis charging that obligation. The decrease in the death rate in Vew York from 1-8.50 to 17.50 is attributed to the use of antitoxins in diphtheria and sterilzed milk for feeding infants. The doctors naturally feel proud over this saving of life, but for, the deaths of thousands of women and children from starvation as reported in the great dailies the rate would have been much less. ' ' , 1 1 Ripana Tabulea: pleasant laxative. CONFIDENCE DAT. The Independent appoints January 1,1897 as Confidence Day. Let every body on that day have confidence, Make a desperate effort. "Restore con fldeoee." Create confidence. Steal con ndence. Buy confidence. Begconfidence. Any way, all ways, but get confidence on January 1, so that we may have some prosperity during the next year. THEV PROTEST TOO MUCH. , The frequent assertions that the radi cal element and especially the founders of tho populist party are to be relegated to the rear are entirely uncalled for, and out of order. We defy any man to point out a single radical proposition in any plank of any platform of the populist party of Nebraska, or anything that can be called radical in any legislation enacted by the populist legislature, or any executive act of the populist govern or to which that term could be applied. Everything so far proposed or done by the populist party of Nebraska has, con sidering the condition brought upon us by thieving republican officials and vicious legislation, been extremely con servative. There are some very good men who are inclined "to protest too much." The populist party of Nebraska is an ex tremely cbnservative party. Every day brings to light new ex. travagances in the republican legisla tion of this state that will call for ad ditional sacrifices ty the coming session in the interest of economy. There is lit tle doubt that it will be necessary to materially restrict appropriations for state institutions it the taxpayers of this state are not soon con. routed by. conditions that will make repudiation an absolute necessity The people of this state are not renudi- tiura,.uuu never win suomir to SUCD a 1 -ii . ... course from choice, but republican mis rule through a long teries of years has brought about conditions that seriously threaten the credit of the state. Only the most niggardly economy will enable the state1 to ever meet its obligations. Taxpayers cannot afford to forget that a recent statement from the retiring re publican state treasurer shows that the retiring administration will leave its fu sion successors a legacy of $1,000,000 unpaid claims against the general fund, and something like $600,000 with which to pay them. Here is a deficit of $1,300, 000 on top of which comes claims for beet sugar and chicory bounties aggregating $150,000 and claims for something like $30,000 for submitting the constitu tional amendments to a vote of the peo ple. What other hitherto hidden short ages may yet turn up, nobody knows, but it will be remarkable if there are not others. There is one man who ought to be thankful for the senatorial movement to investigate the methods by which the reeent goldbug victory was achieved. That man is Mark Hanna. Few renub- icaus outside of Major McKjnleyand the men who furnished the money begin to realize the magnitude of Mark's work in the campaign and what it cost in effort and cash to roll up a vote of nearly or quite two millions heavier than that of four years ago. , The influences that made the vote in Nebraska heavier by 20,000 than was ever before cast in the state can account for those 2,000, 000 votes, ; Had not these tactics been adopted in Nebraska the state would have gone for Bryan by 40,000, and had not the same methods been pur sued by the republicans all over the United States under Mark Hanna's di rections and under his pavmastershin Bryan would have been elected by over a million votes. These 2,000,000 votes in excess of the vote of 1892 elected Mo Kinley by only about half a million. Senator Sherman's denunciation of the administration policy thai has been res ponsible for the deficiencies of the past lour years as "aimost a crime" is another instance of the pot calling the kettle black. , Senator Sherman is com petent authority on political crimes; Fully half of the American people be lieve that Slicrmnn knows a political crime when he sees it Republican economists assert that the way to create wealth in Nebraska is to start factories and then support them by taxation. A beet factory in every town, supported by taxation will make us all rich. How is it that that way of getting rich was never thought of be fore? Let ns have a factory on every section. It's a dead sure thinar. Up to June 30, 1896, there has been patented to railroads in the south and west, 83,736,639 acres of land, all a free gift, and today these roads, which have always charged excessive rates, are mostly bankrupt and in the hands of re ceivers. There is the management of the business men" who want to run the government. The State Journal thinks this Cuban talk is sprung by tho free silver party to retard the promised prosperity. The Journal ought to disregard it and trv to convinco the people that prosperity is her. It would be just as easy to con vince people that prosperity is here as it would.be to convince them that any political party is responsible for the sympathy entertained by Americans for ; tho Cuban cause. The people of Hastings are nervy. They yesterday carried a proposition to issue bonds for water works. The sugar lobby and the insurance lobby are sure to be with us this winter until the corridors of the capitol get too chilly for them. There is no use of roasting the presi dent on bis Cuban record. It puts a bad taste in one's mouth to roast Grover. is a greasy job. , It Chicago s banks are popping champaign corks at a goldbug feast The press of Chicago was unanimously of the opinion that Bryan's election meant ruin, panic and repudiation. Tb ignorance of the Chicago press is bring ing its reward. What's that? Away over in Italy the movement has been started in the cham ber of deputies looking to an expression of sympathy with the Cubans, and down in Chile the other day 2.000 men marched in a parade in honor of Maceo and re solved that the insurgents should be rec- ognized as belligerents. The morning organ of political cor- ruptionists has been appealing to the people for some time to give through its columns their views on needed legisla hod, out somenow or otner, no one responds. They seem to know that the people who will do the legislation don't read the Journal much. - BU1XET-BEADED BUSINESS MEN In the early part of 1893 we heard a cry throughout the country, "Repeal the purchasing clause of the Sherman act and we will have prosperity." It was repealed, and instead of prosperity bankruptcy and ruin followed. Since last June the people have heard the cry 'Elect McKinley and confidence and prosperity will be restored." McKinley was elected and now after one month only, there have been scores of failures all Over the land. All of these failures have been large banking and business institutions, the very class that worked the hardest and cried the loudest for "sound money" and a business man's campaign. The sums involved in the failures since the election exceeds the sum involved in the failures in the early days of the panic in 1893. It does seem strange that business men will not learn that when the great agricultural army of . the nation is starving they cannot succeed, but this is true. No nation can prosper upon a constantly decreasing currency, no matter how sound or stable, and impoverished agricultural industries. Agriculture is the mill that starts and supports all other business and trades. Legislate in the interest of the farmer and you improve the condi X! e il rr.i ... uuu ui . ww masses, xne opposite is equally true. Exeter Enterprise. WHAT MR. BRYAN ESCAPED. T. J .1 . . r.very uuy as tne telegrams bring re ports of the ravages of the McKinley wave of prosperity, the casting upon the shores of the business world the wrecks of commercial enterprises and financial institutions, friends of the Hon. W. J, Bryan can only be thankful that it is not in the power of the republican pre varicators to say that these startling failures are due to the election of Bryan. That is just what they would be sav ing now if Bryan bad been elected and these failures had come aB they are coming now. Possibly they would not have come. Bimetallists ; believe that they would not. But republican leaders declard in the. campaign that Bryan's election meant a panic and McKinley's election meant an immediate return to prosperity. Too many republicans for the country's good believe them. There are people who cannot reason anything out. They are, as the saying goes, from Missouri, and must be shown. Ex perience is a dear teacher; but there is none more effective or thorough. Four years of experience will be so full of bitter experience that possibly some of our republican friends will hardly be mis led again, although one almost loses I faith in the judgment of humanity when he remember how easily thousands were misled in the recent election and how apt new deceptions and political shams are to mislead them four years hence. It should lie the aim of the bi metallists to see that no more false sig nals be bung out by the money power and its agents during the coming four years to lead the people further toward their ruin. , Already the big bankers are threaten ing to defeat State Treasurer Meserve in his efforts to give a bond in the sum of $2,000,000. Meserve should pay no heed to the bankers. Let him do bus iness with the men who elected him. Let him go out among the farmers of the state and get a bond, even if it shall be necessary to secure a thousand signa tures. If he shall fall down now and be come the servant of the bankers he will be branded as a traitor and a coward by the every-da.v people who elected him. Keep your nerve, Meserve. The people are with you. Papillion Times. The last state, New York, has pub lished its official count of the ballots, so the result .stands, McKinley 7,096.663. Bryan, including 150,643 votes cast On straight Bryan and Watson electors in ; various states, 79,936 being in Texas, received 6,509,981. McKinley majority 586,672 The gold democrats received 80,992. I GOLDITE MORALITY. The republicans have looted anJ robbed Nebraska worse than tbecarr" baggers ever plundered a southern staC Tbey have created a floating debt more man a minion and a naif. whij cetl draws interest at th rate of 7 per in the shape of outstanding unpaid war rants. They have squandered nearly $700,000 of the public school fund as i now generally conceded by leading re publican papers, not including the im mense amount lost by tne Mosher gang. They have robbed the penitentiary and everywhere and all the time, and now comes the New York Tribune and says the citizens of this state are "immoral"' because they voted these robbers and thieves out of office. Such is the gold standard conception of immorality, and goldites try to live up to it. THE SUGAR BOUNTY DECISION. There has been a good deal of confu sion in the items written about there cent decision of the supreme court in re gard to the beet sugar bounty, Th facts are the law has been declared nnT constitutional by the supreme court of that state. Warrants to the amount of $50,000 have already been, issued by the state auditor, bnt as they remain un paid, the treasury is not out a dollar. The opinion of the court was to the effect that the law was void because it did not carry a specific appropriation as re- right of the state to give a bounty does not appear to have been denied, but it was owing to the form of the law that tne court pronounced it at variance with the fundamental law. " THE VOTE FOR PRESIDENT. The A&sociated Press is a great pa triotic "instetoosbun," run on purely non-partizan lines, but it has not yet given us the vote cast for president in 1896. It's a hustler in dispensing news. Some time next spring it will send out the figures. Meantime we gather from the populist weeklies, published in the- various states, that the vote was a, follows: There were cast 13,732,498 votes, or 1,582.224 more than In the previous election, an increase of over 13 per cent. The plurality of McKinley over Bryan. was not 1,000,000 as predicted.but bare ly half that much, or 592,666 in all. IT HIT HIM HARD. A section of the Advance A cent's wnrn- of j. wtfi-a J K7 1 uva vi ' cago Monday and the great Nation bank of Illinois collapsed and disa peared. It has gone to join the lovei ones who went before. It is reporte that it took along with it. into that bourse from which no national ever returns, a good pile of the money of the Nebraska bank of w Henry W. Yates is president. Yat' the glorious goldbug Yates, got hit hit hard, so they say, after which he did not think bo much of that sort of pros perity that the Advance Agent was to bring as he did before the election. Tom Watson is writing a history of France. One Arthur Sewall is congratu lating himself that Watson is not writ ing a history of Maine. As the situation now stands the re publicans can only count on 32 senators in th nxt congress, three short of a ma jority. Strike at the Evil. The labor organization that is ab sorbed in its own selfishness and gives no time or thought to the problems of civilization or the claims of humanity, is 01 no oenent to tne laoor movement. It sees the result of a bad system, but never strikes at the origin of the evil. It can Vs. . sV anav combat bad effacta. hnt. novai mmIi nut. vSf tt ihe bad canneo wbinh nrnrlnra tha haA' I effects. There is another kind of labor' organization even more injurious to the welfare 01 labor. It reaches out so .far ou the humanity side that it tries to convert earth into heaven and men into angels all in a minute. It gives its first lesson in the school of economics from the last page of the last book. It tries to split the log by driving the biar end of. the wedge first and splits beetl inatandr Saw off their Horns. The populists don't intend to rob nnv. body, but they want to rluhorn some nf those fellows who have grown so strong by keeping the rest of the herd from getting their share of the good things the Allmighty has given us. They are now stronz and powerful enough to keep the rest of the herd from getting anything. Saw off his horns. And ho win have the, same chance that the rest do, no more, no less. The progressive stock man has found this to be a good remedy so why not apply it to the human herd' Brownlee Hornet. Rich, Ked (Blood Is absolutely essential to health. It Is Impos sible to get It from so-called " nerve tonics and opiate compounds. They have tempo rary, sleeping effects, but do not CURE. To have pure blood and good health, take Hood's Sarsaparilla, which has first, last, and all the time, been advertised as-Just what It Is -the best medicine for the blood er pruuueeu. luiact, Kl 0 Sarsaparilla Is the One True Blood Purl Her. All druggists l Hood's Pills Cousti pation. . e tits. TO V l J. 1 1 i t' ""wBnMf.i 1 1 J