TALKING OF MEN AND THINGS
We commend the action of the Poplar
Bluff, Mo., school board to the school
boards of other cities. Those hard-headed
Missourians have decided to take the mat
ter of dress in hand and fix the styles to be
worn by the sweet girl graduates of the
Poplar Bluff schools this spring. The
board will prescribe design and material,
and the daughter of the rich mail will not
be able to lord it over the daughter of the
poor man. That is what we call good sense.
There is a fearful lot of snobbery being: in
culcated into the thinkeries of the school
girls of today, and the matter of dress is
given more attention than the matter of ed
ucation. The daughter of the poor man
thinks she has to dress as well as the daugh
ter of the rich man, and as a result many a
poor mechanic and many a poor worn-out
mother are making sacrifices for their girls,
merely to make the aforesaid girls snobbish
little squirts unfit for either wifehood or
motherhood. The average high school girl
of today never will be able to get inside of
her head half as much as she insists upon
piling on the outside of it every morning- .
We sensible Nebraskans' can afford to sit'
back in our easy chairs and feel sorry for
the people of the four states whose legisla
tures are fighting and fooling away public
money over senatorships. New York, Iowa,
Colorado and Montana have been scraping
for weeks over a question that Nebraska set
tled without a ripple in a few hours. Ne
braskans merely selected their senator
among other officials, and when their legis
lature met it had only to convene, carry
out the will of the people and proceed about
its business. In the four states mentioned
the legislatures are fiddling away thousands
of dollars a day and working all sorts of
crooked schemes to elect senators riot to
represent the people, but to represent the
interests political or otherwise.
to investigate very far. to disclose the rea
sons for the wish. The chief reason is Bal
i linger and the second reason, js Hitchcock.
Some of these days the university authori
( ties of another state will come snooping
. over into Nebraska and yank away from
the University of Nebraska a man named
George Condra. And after he is gone Ne
. braskans will .begin to realize what ; a big
man he island of what splendid worth he
, was to the state. It usually takes some
thing of this . kind to , awaken us to the
value of the men who are making our
university famous. Professor Condra is do
ing more than any other one man to ac
quaint Nebraskans with what Nebraska is,
and to arouse in them an ambition to con
serve and develop those splendid resources.
His big brain is as agile as a Jap contortion
ist, and he can conceive more plans for
boosting Nebraska, then carry them out,
than any other man. And, too, he has that
valuable knack of arousing in other men
for the protection of the man who makes it.
the same splendid enthusiasm that possesses
J" him. A big and a valuable man is Condra
just how big and how valuable the aver
":' age Nebraskan will not . realize , until some
. other state grabs him away from us.
The Kansas legislature has failed and
refused to enact into law a single one of
the reforms promised before election. The
"insyrgent" republicans seem to have'woii
a hollow victory,, for the standpatters have
managed to prevent any progressive legisla
tion. The initiative and referendum, the re
call, the Massachusetts ballot system, a
public utilities law and the popular election
of senators all these have either been de
feated outright or so loaded down with
"jokers" as to make them inffective. Yet
the people by a huge majority declared for
all of them. If the people rule, why do they
not get what they want?
What a lot of slow pokes our govern
ment officials are. And what a bale of red
tape they must unwrap before they can do
anything worth while. And how seldom
they accomplish anything worth. while. Now
comes some department or other of the fed
eral government and warns us of the dan
ger of eating underdone pork. Why the
warning? Very few of vis are thus threat
ened thet-e days when the man who can
buy a pound of bacon is a plutocrat,: and
the man who can buy a pork roast for his
Sunday dinner is a dash-blanked million
aire. We do not need any bulletins on
the dangers of eating underdone pork. What
v;r need is a scries of bulletins telling us
how to gel any old kind of meat all for
skillet-greasing purposes. -
People who are surprised that President
Taff should be using official patronage to
intimidate Senator Bourne are the kind of
. people who would be surprised at almost
I anything .ordinary.. No one believes that
William Howard Taft is the biggest and
broaelest president we have ever had meas
.1 ured by mental, not physical, standards. And
ro if ever we have had a president who did
not use official patronage to secure desired
. ends we have failed to locate him. But we
have hael -presidents who scorned to use pa
tronage to humiliate men in order to wreak
petty spite upon them. Mr. Taft, however,,
seems not to be one of those. A few months
.,, ago wre were told that Mr. Taft was tired
of the presidency and had no desire to suc
. cee.d himself. Now we have the spectacle of
the president using his patronage arbitrarily
' 'to foist himself upon the people again. Be
cause Senator Bourne is not a member of
: , the Taft machine he is being subjected to
humiliation. However, - Jonathan Bourne
will be measured; properly by the; American'
people, who are much given to putting the
mental try-square on its public men instead
" of judging by avoirdupois..
i( The other day Theodore Roosevelt at
tended a big dinner, and spoke at length on
public questions. A year ago that wouid
-'have meant 'steen columns under double
' heads in all the daily papers. Today you
have to look for it under a single-line head
at the bottom of columns where the little
paragraphs are dumped to even up. The
- "big wind of 1910" has subsideel into the
- imperceptible zephyr of 1911.
The French cabinet - has .; resigned, for
reasons that may be good . enough . - but
which we do not care to waste time in in
vestigating. But we do wish the Taft Cab
inet would follow suit, and there is no need
If you have attended any of the legisla
tive sessions this winter you must have no
ted the scarcity of real orators in both house
1 nd senate. - Plenty of talkers there, to be
cure men who talk and talk and talk: But
v,by orators . is meant gentlemen who can not
only say something worth while, but who
can say it well. You do not have to agree
- with a man in order to appreciate his ability
- as an orator. The best speech yet made in
the senate was by Jensen, who explaineel his
'. vote ?on the county option bill. Jansen did
v, not mean it for a. speech, but it was a gem
cf oratory in that it gripped the attention of
l'-e hearets. In the house Prince of Hall is
; easily the, best speaker, taking into . consid
eration language, earnestness and knowi-'
edge of the subjects he .discusses J 1 But the
best speech thus far delivered in; the-house
was that , of Hatfield's, when he; stood up to
urge the .initiative and referendum bill. Hat
field tried no flights of eloquence, but .'con
tented himself with a plain but mastery ar
ray of facts and figures in support of his
bill. Prince and Hatfield- are easily -the
leaders of the two factions of the demo
cratic side. The republican side has no
speaker of more than ordinary ability But
there are scores of members who seem to be
lieve it their eluty to orate" upon every'bill
that comes up. This is taking; up i a lot of
valuable time. Glory be, no stenographic
report of legislative proceedings is taken
and printed at the expense of the taxpayers.
Political jokes sometimes work back
wards. A case in point is the working of a
political joke elown in Oklahoma, in" a county
that need not be mentioned. The county is'
republican, and lor several years a man of
parts living in the north end of the'touuty
hael been elected supervisor. He gave ex
cellent satisfaction, for he was a go6d offi-T
cial. Last fall some friends conceived the
idea of playing a joke on this official, so
they proceeded to put upon the primary bal
lot the name of a ne'er-do-well as a com-
- - -f 4- ftt- 1- t-irvMn'nnf inn Tlif rrnn nffi-.
iiv.li Lin iiji liic iiuiuiiiaLiuii. -l hv tweu vin
1
cial refused to make any campaign, and by
some hook or crook the ne'er-do-well was
nominated. The good official promptly es
poused the cause of the successful candi
date and he was elected. Now the funny
republicans of that county are kicking them
selves, and the democrats are laughing in
their sleeves. There will be no more politi
cal iokes perpetrated in that particular
county if the people can prevent it. Come
to think of it ,aren't the people very prone'
.to play political jokes on themselves?
As one' who loves Omaha, and knows it
like a book ; and as one who wishes Omaha
well, Will Maupin's Weekly devoutly
wishes Omaha would arrange for a series of
' about; 200 . funerals. Failing. that,r Omaha
ought to "shove a few more men like .Will
1 ii ; ii. . r j j. . i r 1
amppeii to tne iront to spean iur nci, in
stead of allowing her spokesmen to be of
that class that, merely . antagonize people
elsewhere. The fact of the mater is, Omaha
is the most progressive city of its size an
the country. No city is equalling her record
for commercial' and industrial development ;
no city has a greater future or a past more
. worthy of pride. Thetrouble with Omaha
-15 Lliai Ilcl UCSL ciLlcns nctvi. ucm ULioy
making a city on the west bank of the Mis
souri that they haven't had time for talk.
And while they have been busy making a
city a lot of fellows who never made any
thing but a big noise and a big stink have
been hollering until the whole state has
come to judge Omaha by their noise and
their bad smel.l.
To hear the bloviators mentioned above
one would be compelled to judge that Om
aha depended wholly for existence upon her
boozeries and her breweries, when the fact
of the matter is the booze business in Omaha,
is her minor industry, representing less than
tvvd per cent of her total business. Omaha
is the greatest butter market in the world,
but instead of parading that fact Omaha has
been so busy making money that she bas
let the booze boosters holler untiL people
think that booze, not butter, is the big thing
in Oimha. To hear some Omaha tooters
I'JUL tllC W Ui.i 1CU LJ ULUCVC LlldL Lilt O
o'clock closing law has shot Omaha busi
ness all to Hades, when the fact is business
in Omaha is on; -the boom, although early
