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About Will Maupin's weekly. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1911-1912 | View Entire Issue (April 21, 1911)
CURT COMMENT OF THE TIMES Now comes the interesting rumor that Tom Dennison will try to secure the re publican nomination for police judge of the city of Omalia. The rumor is coupled with the assertion that Mr. Dennison "is a political power" in Omaha, and that his candidacy would add , strength to the republican ticket." We hesi tate to comment on the rumor, fear ful that it is a joke, although there are surrounding circumstances that lend it the color of truth. There is no use com menting upon the personality of Mr. Den nison. Indeed, it would be unsafe, as he recently won a suit for libel against a newspaper in Omaha a newspaper, by the way,r that shows gratifying signs of being free and willing to speak its own mind on certain topics that , some other Nebraska newspaper fight shy of for some reason or other. If Omaha does really elect Mr. Dennison to the office of. police judge, it will be vastly amusing there after to hear Omaha complaining because she doesn't get a square deal from out side newspapers. "Figures will not lie, but liars will figure." The opponents of prohibition deal out a lot of figures about the census of prisoners in the penitentiaries and jails of Kansas, the intent being to prove that prohibition really makes more crime. The '"joker" lies in the fact that the figures quoted include the prisoners Kansas boarded for Oklahoma and the prisoners in the federal prison at Fort Leavenworth, none of whom is charge able to Kansas. On the other hand our prohibition friends quote the police sta tistics of a 'wet" community to prove that licensed saloons create most of the crimes- committed. The "joker" lies in the fact that most of the arrests are "re peaters." For instance, the figures show ing 750 arrests for intoxication in Lin coln during the last year of license really mean that about 150 fellows wTere arrest ed about four, times each, and the other 150 were floaters and transients. It is pretty difficult to get a proper line on the excise question by reading the statistics. Fifty years ago last Monday the first movement of troops in response to Presi dent Lincoln's call began. To Massa chusetts belongs the honor of having started the first organized body of men,, the Sixth Massachusetts. It was this regiment that was mobbed in the streets of Baltimore a few days later. A young lieutenant-in one of the companies of this regiment came to Nebraska shortly after the war, : and in ; after years became one of the best known among the men of Ne braska. He served in the state legislai ture for twelve sessions, and is now rep- resenting this government abroad. His name is Church Howe. .. that will astonish some people. It fixes the responsibility for origin of the many reforms now sweeping the country. And upon whom, think you, the responsibility is fixed? Upon the university professors? Wrong; guess again. Upon our politic vi leaders? Wrong; guess again. Upon acad emic economists? Wrong; guess again. The men who are talking loudest about these reforms, and pluming themselves upon having originated them, are !1 four-flushers. The reforms had tl: :ir in ception in the minds of the wcrld's Wage earners the organized wage H-nirs. But read the World-Herald's articV:;, for it contains the whole truth abo'.i:; the real origin of the reforms that have taken, and are taking, place. At divers and sundry times we have made mention of the weird gyrations of the Roosevelt mind. Time and space for bid the mention of each one of his men tal flip-flops, but now and then occurs one that is especially noteworthy. The chief trouble, it seems, with Mr. Roosevelt, is that he does not keep posted on what Mr. Roosevelt says, the result being that he often starts out only to meet himself coming back. As a sample of this sort of thing we have but to compare what Mr. Roosevelt said at San Francisco a few weeks ago about the Panama canal and his connection therewith, and contrast the same with what President Rodsevelt said about the same thing in his message to congress on December 15, 1906. At San Francisco Mr. Roosevelt said: "I am in terested in the Panama canal because I started it. If I had followed traditional, conservative methods I would have sub mitted a dignified state paper of probably two hundred pages to congress, and the debate on it would have been going on yet ; but I took the canal zone and let congress debate, and while the debate goes on, the canal does also." Disregarding the characteristic Roose veltian ego as displayed in that brief quo tation, let us turn back a matter of three and a half years and see what the same gentlemen then said upon the same sub ject. In his message to congress on De cember 15, 1905, President Roosevelt said : "The congress took the action it did after the most minute and exhaustive ex amination and discussion, and the execu tive carried out the direction of congress to the letter. Every, act of this govern ment, , every act for which this govern ment had the slightest responsibility, was in pursuance of the act of the congress here." Elsewhere in this issue is printed an. editorial from the Omaha World-Herald The usual reply to charges of crooked ness and double-dealing in the Panama canal matter is always to this effect: "Well, Teddy started the canal, anyhow." To the minds of those who condone any method of making-profit this answer is always satisfactory. A brief paragraph will explain the crookedness of that Panama canal purchase deal. William Nelson Cromwell, paid attorney of the French company, for years successfully blocked every effort to build a canal on the Nicaragua route. That would have ruined the French company. While acting as attorney for the French com pany Mr. Cromwell was' allowed by Presi dent Roosevelt and the state department to initiate and draft a treaty between this republic and Columbia. Columbia re fused to ratify the treaty, whereupon the revolution in Panama was financed by American gold. Knowing that this revo lution was to be pulled off for it was through connivance with the state de partment that it was pulled off Ameri can troops were ordered to the isthmus in advance by President Roosevelt. These American troops prevented Colum bia from suppressing the revolution. Then the United States paid the French company $40,000,000 for its canal prop erty. This was followed by a payment of $10,000,000 to the subtle Panamanians who had engineered the revolution and se up another fake Spanish-American re public on the isthmus. And the eminent American financiers who had options on the French company's bonds at 30 or 40 cents on the dollar proceeded to make their "profit." And this is the sort of a deal about which Theodore Roosevelt tells two such dissimilar stories. The subtleties of the judicial mind are not to be fathomed by the average man. Everybody remembers the justice of the supreme court who rendered a written opinion upholding the income tax, and then over night changed his conclusions, using the same identical argument to deny the constitutionality of the law that he had used the day before to uphold it. The Nebraska supreme court has just ren dered a decision that recalls the income tax decision to mind. A few years ago a Nebraska woman was adjudged guilty of having murdered her husband. The de cision of the lower court was confirmed by the supreme court and the women sent to the penitentiary, later being pardoned. While unable to state it in legal phrase ology, it is a well known rule of law that one may not legally profit by one's illegal action. After this woman was pardoned she brought suit against a fraternal in surance society to recover on a policy of $5,000 carried by her husband and made payable to her. Of course the society fought payment under the rule above stated. The case finally reached the su preme court that had pronounced her guilty of having killed her husband. Then that same court decided that she was en titled to the insurance. If she was guilty of the murder she was not entitled to the money, and the. supreme court said she was guilty. Then the same supreme court decided she was entitled to the money, thus pronouncing her innocent.