SOME CURT CURRENT COMMENTS
Far be it from us to be hypercritical;
also far be it from us to lay ourselves open
to the charge of contempt of court, lint
the temperature impels us to make a few
pertinent remarks concerning the recent
action of Judge Frost, of the Lancaster
district court. It seems that during one
of the exceptionally hot days of last week
a jury of twelve good men and true 12 ,
count 'em 12 all peers of every other
man and picked because they could not
reveal their knowledge, therefore appear
ing to be hopelessly ignorant, entered the
jury box in Judge Frost's court room,
sans coats. In other words, these jury
men, being only human and desirous of
securing whatever relief possible from un
bearable weather conditions appeared in
the box without coats to hide their sus
penders. Whereupon Judge Frost waxed
wroth and vented his judicial displeasure
upon the recalcitrant jurymen by com
pelling them to retire and put on their
coats. Thus clad they suffered during
the remainder of the day.
Again reiterating our unwillingness
and lack of desire to be put in the at
titude of feeling somewhat contemptuous
of court, we declare, whomwhat hesitat
ingly, to be sure, that when a judge must
preserve the dignity of his court by com
pelling twelve men, already suffering the
tortures of the damned by reason of be
ing compelled to act as jurors: when,
as we say, a judge must preserve the
dignity of his court by compelling men to
swelter unnecessarily in coats on a
blistering hot day, the dignity of afore
said court is in parlous straits. We hasten
to declare that with one or two exceptions
we have never met up with a judge who
did not have our deepest respect as a
man, providing he was a man, but for
some courts and court decisions we have
often felt that which would have sub
jected us to heavy fine and imprisonment
in the donjon keep had the court been
a mind reader. We are not saying just
what we think about Judge Frost's order
that jurymen wear their coats and sweat
and swelter and suffer in his august pres
ence. If ever we serve as a juror in his
court and he orders us to wear our coat
on a blistering hot day, or appear in shirt
sleeves on a frigid day, certainly we will
obey the judicial decree. But we defy
any judge to fine or imprison us for the
contempt we feel and carefully conceal.
While demanding that wool be put up
on the free list, we are not contending
that this will have any particular effect
upon the price of woolen goods. The
duty on the raw material entering into
the manufacture of an ordinary man's
hat we mean a man's ordinary hat, of
course amounts to about 3 cents. He
is foolish who imagines that free raw
wool would lower the price of a hat that
much. But with free raw wool and the
abolition of the tariff on woolen manu
facturers the wool trust would get a
knock-out blow. And the wool trust is
an octopus that catches us all. The
woolen schedule of the Payne-Aldrich bill
catches us on about everything we use,
edibles alone excepted. Of the wool used
in American manufactures approximate
ly one-half is produced in America. In
addition to the tariff on raw wool of from
11 to 44 cents per pound, there is on ad
valorem duty of from 30 to 55 cents. Now
figure it out. You buy a $4 hat. The raw
wool duty scarcely effects the price, but
there is the 55 cents ad valorem duty.
Say the material and labor in the hat
as manufactured in England amounts to
$2. Before it can be brought into the
United States the manufacturer must pay
$1.10 duty, making the hat cost him if
put on sale in New York, $3.10, plus
ocean freight, insurance, etc. Adding
say 10 per cent profit little enough
these days $3.41 is the price he must
charge the retailer. The retailer must
have 20 per cent in order to keep in busi
ness. Thus the hat must be sold, if sold
in the United States, at $4.09. But the
American manufacturer, taking advant
age of this situation, manufacturers an
inferior hat, admittedly paying somewhat
higher wages, that costs hint $1.50, the
same as the cost to the English manufac
turer. Bulwarked behind the indefens
ible tariff he mulcts the home consumer
$4 for the hat, then ships exactly the
same kind of a hat to England, and after
paying ocean freights, insurance, etc.,
actually sells the hat in competition with
the English hat in London and Birming
ham. And what is true of hats is true
of every article into which the item of
wool enters. Yet there are democrats in
congress, elected on a platform pledging
free wool and a downward revision of
the tariff, who are now pettifogging on
the plea that "we must not disturb the
revenue !" It would seem to the unpre
judiced observer that the democratic
party is again giving ample evidence that
the man who selected the jackass as the
democratic party's emblem, knew full
well what he was doing.
The esteemed Blair Pilot asserts, and
the Auburn Herald repeats with unction,
that Lieutenant Governor Moorehead,
mentioned in connection with the demo
cratic gubernatorial nomination, is a
"standpatter of the most approved corpor
ation type." Of course neither of these
esteemed contemporaries has a peg upon
which to hang such an assertion. It is
quite true that Mr. Morehead, being some
what reserved mentally and not given to
undue frothing at the mouth, has. never
sawed the circumabient atmosphere with
his arms while yelling loud denunciations
into the surrounding scenery with a view
to tickling the ears of the groundlings,
but during his nearly thirty years of citi
zenship in Nebraska he has always been
found standing pretty close to the people.
a public official, that gives any excuse
for declaring him to be a "standpatter of
the most approved .corporation type?" He
landed in Nebraska without script in. his
purse. Until he engaged in the banking
business a few years ago he never held
any stock in a corporation. He is not a
. lawyer, therefore has never been "retaini
ed" as counsel by a corporation. He
never worked for a corporation other than
Morehead against such charges, but hav
We hold no brief for the defense of Mr.
II 'papaUllOD ST 3I TOIITA. TI1TAV SUTJ( 31
ing known him personally and somewhat
intimately since before the legislative
session of '91 we feel impelled to resent
any such unfounded charges against him.
What has John Morehead ever said or
done ; what vote has he ever cast while
in the legislature, what act of his while
has made money, it is true, but no one
has the temerity to charge that John "If.
Morehead ever handled a dirty dollar.
As a schoolteacher, as a farmer, as a
stockman and as a banker, he has secured
and holds today the confidence of every
man with whom he ever transacted busi
ness. The vote he received when he was a
candidate for the senate last November
is an evidence of his standing at home,
and a man's standing in his Own com
munity is always a good iiidex of his
worth as a man. It is the opinion of this
Journal of Cheerful Comment that the
time is come when there should be an end
put to the too prevalent habit of making
unjust and unfounded charges . against
men who have become prominent in poli
tical affairs. .',
- .
-,
The Auburn Herald intimates - that
Judge Frost's dictum that jurors in his
court must wear coats, no matter how
torrid the weather, is due to the fact that
his cognomen keeps him cool enough to
be comfortable.
Fire Commissioner Randall talks like
a man who not only possesses common
sense to a great degree, but like a man
who has not yet forgotten that he was
once a boy. In his bulletin concerning
the dangers incident to the celebration of
the Glorious Fourth, with advice thereun
to touchin' and appertainin,' as our old
friend Bill Deveery would have said, he
does hot go to the length of advising the
abolition of the firecrackers and other
things dear to the heart of the American
boy. Quite the contrary. He rather in
timates that he wouldn't give three
whoop in the place which Col. Ingersoll
was wont to declare had no existence
which declaration might now be amended
somewhat were the Colonel permitted to
revise his opinions for the boy who has
no desire to shatter the Fourth of July si
lence with loud noises. Nor wouldhe give
any more for the father of the boy, if that
father didn't also exhibit a desire to go
along with his son in the noise-making
business on that Great Day. Therefore