CURT COMMENT OF THE TIMES
The employer's liability law asked for by
the Nebraska State Federation of Labor on
behalf of the 150,000 wage earners of the
state, is fair, equitable and just, and should
be enacted without delay. Admitting- that
Nebraska's basic wealth is agriculture, aiid
thit agriculture should receive first consid
eration, Will Maupin's Weekly insists that
it should not be the only interest considered.
The farmer could, of course, get along after
a fashion without the markets furnished by
the large industrial centers, but because of
Nebraska's growing manufatcuring inter
ests the farmer is profiting today as never
before. With mutiplied industries running
full blast and an army of well paid me
chanics steadily employed, the farmer's mar
kets are enlarged. And the mechanics who,
working amidst dangerous machinery, in
unsanitary buildings, shut out of communion
with nature and removed from the ennobling
influences of country life, are making these
larger markets, certainly are as much en
titled to protection against disease, accident
and death as the hogs and cattle of the farm
er. The man who runs the machine is en
titled to as much kindly consideration as
the machine he tends; the man who fashions
by the skill of hand and brain the many im
plements and necessaries of modern indus
try is entitled to fully as much protection
as the hog in the farmer's pen or the cow
in the farmer's dairy herd.
As employers of labor make allowance
for depreciation and breakage of machinery,
so should they be compelled to make allow
ance for depreciation and breakage in the
man-machine. We have multiplied laws for
the protection of man-made property; little
for the man. The proposed employers'
liability law merely puts the worker on a
par with the dollar ; it merely provides for
his depreciation or breakage. Today it is
cheaper to endager human life in the mills
and factories than it is to provide safe
guards for dangerous machinery or ap
paratus. With such a staute in force as the
one ?skcd for, accidents will decrease for
the simple reason that it will be far cheaper
to prevent accidents than to pay for them.
It will compel employers to take quite as
much thought of men as of machines.
products a duty that is of na effect whatever
so far as the farmer is concerned. The
sooner the American farmer gets some of
that tariff-protected wool out of his eyes
and votes the tariff off the things he must
buy, instead of voting it on under the mis
taken notion that the tariff on his wheat
helps him the sooner the American farmer
sees through that little gold brick game the
better off he will be.
We have conveniently forgot the name of
the lawmaker who proposes making a state
game preserve in the sandhill country. Ne
braska needs a game preserve about as much
as Hades needs fuel.
Speaking on this question, what do you
think of the good sense of spending $15,000
a year to preserve the suckers and german
carp and mud-hens, and not a penny to pre
serve the life and limb of the thousands of
men and women who are toiling in our shops
and mills and factories. A state game pre
serve! Fudge ; also heck !
Glory be! Here comes the great Kansas
City Star with an editorial that gives evi
dence that the Star is bitten by the single
tax bug. Says the Star: "The Island of
Manhattan was bought for $24 when it first
passed into the hands of white men. To
day the land of that island is valued at 166
million times the original purchase price
nearly four billion dollars. What gave the
land that vast increase of market worth?
People. What people? The people who
don't own it."
Some of these days we'll quit fooling
away time over the little things, thinking we
are solving real problems, and we'll get right
down to brass tacks. When we do we'll
tackle this land question from the right
angle. Instead of putting a premium on
land idleness and congestion in the cities,
we will put the premium on land tenure
and desertion of the slums and sweatshops.
We will see to it that the men who make
the values get what they create. Our pres
ent system is doing just the opposite. When
a great newspaper like the Kansas City Star
begins seeing this question in the right light,
there is hope of speedy reform.
aware of the methods used to secure his elec
tion is to indict him for idiocy, incompetency
and moral obliquity quite . enough to de
prive . him of a seat in the senate of the
United States. :
The truth is, a lot of senators who don't
give a tinker's dam for the farmer are mak
ing a big howl about the damage that will
be done to agricultural interests by the
adoption of Canadian reciprocity because
they see in it a blow at the whole iniquity
of the protective tariff. A number of states
are laboring under the impression that they
are being represented in the senate, when
the fact is they have merely elected to the
senate the pliant and servile tools of pro
tected interests.
Mr. Carnegie says that as soon as uni
versal peace is established through the me
dium of his big peace fund, the money may
be used to bring about the abatement of
other evils. So far as observed the "other
evils" haven't batted an eyelid over the announcement.
Governor Carroll of Iowa just how it
came about that such as he were elected
governor we know not has vetoed the
"Oregon plan" of electing United States
senators. His reasons were the same as
those advanced by other and abler oppo
nents of the people's rule. The best evi
dence of the fact that Iowa needs just such
a law as the one vetoed by its reactionary
governor is that Iowa is one of four states
now squandering several thousand dollars a
day in senatorial fights. We used to do
that over in Nebraska until we learned
better. What Iowa needs now is a governor
who thinks more of popular rights than of
partisan advantage ; more of the public wel
fare than of the welfare of a political ma
chine. Iowa, with a seven and five-eighths
head, is wearing a five and three-eighths
governor. Its headpiece doesn't look well.
, A man recently visited Topeka, Kansas,
and spoke eulogistically of the Republican
Progressive League. Whereupon, a lot of
standpatters got together and resoluted at
some length in opposition thereto, saying,
among other things, the following: "Re
rolved, that the association sees nothing but
hope and promise in its appreciation of
present conditions or of prophetic visions."
Other's offers a prize of a dog-earned copy
of a textbook on composition to anyone who
wilt tell it what the above means. Will
Maupin's W eekly will bounce a brick off the
head of the first man who tried to tell it
what the sentence means. We've no time
io waste listening to men trying to explain
a thing like that.
Rumor has it that when the democratic
primaries arrive, Senator Bailey will an
nounce his decision to retire to private life.
The rumor, we fear, is unfounded. But
however that may be, the people of Texas
should see to it that he does so retire,
whether he desires it or not. Texas needs
a senator to represent it, not the "big interests."
Not only should the proposition to in
crease the salaries of federal judges to $7,500
a year be defeated, but the federal judiciary
as now constituted should be wiped out en
tirely. Not that we should be entirely
without a federal judiciary, but we should
at least have one that is in sympathy with
the whole people; not the representatives of
Senator McCumber of North Dakota, is
bitterly opposed to the Canadian reciprocity
act. fie cited the case of a North Dakota
farmer who visited New York and pays his
expenses in products of the farm. "Cab to
hotel, six bushels of oats ; tip to driver, fif
teen cabbages; breakfast, a quarter-ton of
hay ; dinner, four bushels of rye." and so on.
Quite unique, isn't it? Then the senator
served notice that the adoption of the Can
adian treaty would lead the farmers to de
mand a general revision on manufactured
products. If this be true, then heaven
quickly send the day! Will Maupin's
Wreekly would like to supplement Senator
McCumber's illustration a bit. The paper
on which this newspaper is printed is com
monly known as "book paper," weighing
GO pounds to the ream of 500 sheet. It takes
a full sheet to print one copy. It costs 6
cents a pound and it takes just 330 pounds
to print one edition. In other words it costs
just $19.80 a week for the blank paper on
which Will Maupin's Weekly is printed
one-third of which is in the shape of a tax
levied in the interests of tariff-fed lumber
interests and papermakers. Senator Mc
Cumber would have this little newspaper
taxed $6 a week, and other newspapers in
proportion, mererly to keep upon farm
Just think of millions living from hand to
; mouth- if even doing that well in our large
cities, while millions of acres are being daily
enhanced in value for the benefit of those
who neither toil, suffer nor produce, and the
value added, too, by people who never get
a tithe of benefit from it. What fools we've
been for these many years !
Senator Beveridge performed a distinct
service when he punctured the Lorimer plea
for sympathy. Lorimer told, with tears in
his eyes, of how "Hinky Dink" Kenna be
friended him when he was a poor litle news
boy. Sure! And the editor of Will Mau
pin's Weekly owes several square meals and
a chance to thaw out frozen extremities to
that same "Hinky Dink" Kenna, all at a time
when thousands upon thousands of me
chanics were out of work, when Chicago
was a vast pauper house and the organized
charity societies practically helpless in the
face of the demnads made upon them. But
just the same this editor is not condoning
the "Hinky Dink" political methods because
of it. "Billy" Lorimer has not come up out
of any lower depths than many other, nor
has he risen any higher than many others
. who have come up with clean hands and
clean skirts. To say that Lorimer was un-