MEN AND THINGS
(Continued from page 3)
grabbing off the choice mineral lands of
Alaska, the syndicate's agents were
quietly getting hold of harbor concessions
that will make the mineral lands worth
less to anybody else. And Charles P.
Taft seems to be the man who has been
doing the fine work down at Washington.
Just . about the time, however, that the
government sleuths were getting "warm,"
a lot of the correspondence disappears .
Brother Charley seems to be the real
busy little boy down Washington way.
A long time ago long measured by
the life of Nebraska Jason Smith of
Harlan county decided to be a candidate
for the legislature. Having so decided
lie mounted his horse and started out
campaigning. About the first man he
struck was Tom Harlan, for whom Har
lan county was named. "Well, Tom,"
said Smith, "I've decided to run for the
legislature this fall." "The hell you
have!" said Smith. "Yes, and of course
you'll vote for me, won't you?" said
Smith. "Not by a blankety-blank and
umpty-de-dum sight I won't !" yelled Har
lan. MWell, Tom," said Smith, reaching
down into his pocket and pulling forth
the stub of a pencil and a patent medicine
notebook, "I guess, then, I'll just have to
put you down as 'doubtful.' "
Ex-Congressman Stark of Aurora has
filed for the supreme bench as a democrat-populist,
which rather complicates
matters. Some of the democratic man
agers had sort o' framed up to have only
three filings and thus prevent a contest
at the primaries. This would allow a lot
of democrats to slip over into the G. O. P.
primaries. But along comes Judge Stark
and upsets the skillet. The Alberts-Old-ham-Tibbetts
combination will now have
to tighten up a few screws. .
When Col. Ed Marshall decided to be
a candidate for county treasurer, provid
ing tlie republicans saw fit to nominate
him, lie was not impelled to do so by rea
son of urgent requests from his friends.
He frankly admits that no friends urged
him to become a candidate. Neither was
he impelled to do so because he needs
the money. He wants the office because
it is an honor, because it means work in
stead of loafing around after forty-five
years of active life, and because he is a
business man who wants to look after the
business affairs of the county. He is
not a politician, he isn't around shaking
hands with everybody, and he is not wast
ing his time or the time of other men by
personally asking them to vote for him.
But. in a business-like way he is letting
the fact of his candidacy be known, and
he is willing to have his competency
judged by his record as a business man
in Nebraska for a third of a century.
Somehow or other, after having had years
of experience with the other species of
officeseekers, Colonel Marshall's plan of
campaign strikes us rather favorably.
Having known Colonel Marshall for
many years we are quite free to say of
him that if he is elected he will play no
favorites, he will have the nerve to say
"no" when "no" is the word to use, and
lie will transact the county's business in
the same businesslike and successful way
he has conducted his own business for
years. If Lancaster county wants that
kind of a man to handle its finances, then
Col. Marshall is the kind of a man Lan
caster county wants.
Cyrus Black of Hickman has filed for
the republican nomination for county
clerk. Mr. Black is so deserving of rec
ognition from the party he has served so
well and faithfully, and there are so many
reasons why there should be some new
blood in that particular department of
the county, that we greatly fear he will
not be nominated.
J. C. Baer will have no opposition for re
nomination for clerk of the district court.
Neither will he be opposed at the polls.
This is due to two facts first, it is cus
tomary to give an efficient and faithful
official a second term; second, Mr. Baer
has been so efficient and faithful that to
merely hint at his having opposition
would be to laugh.
APPALLING IGNORANCE.
We have- favored the "See America
First" campaign from its very inception,
but we are more enthusiastically for it
now than ever before. The average New
Englander or New Yorker of wealth is
much more familiar with Europe than he
is with that portion of his own country
lying west of Pittsburg. Doubtless one
half the .people living east of the Alle
gheny mountains believe all the country
west of the Mississippi river to be thinly
settled, overrun with buffalo and still the
habitat of the fierce and bloodthirsty In
dian. A party of sixty automobilists will
soon start from Philadelphia, and to ad
vertise themselves they have sent a hand
somely printed itinerary to the newspa
pers of the west. The one received in the
office of this Household Comfort has been
carefully read, some portions with pleas
ure, some with unconcern, and some with
disgust. One paragraph therein says:
"Fifteen days will be spent in the
mountains west of Omaha, Nebraska,
where it is a different task to reach a
hotel in a day's running."
At first we laughed; then we were
filled with disgust to think that there
were Americans rich enough to take such
an automobile jaunt who, are so damnably
ignorant of their own country.
"The mountains west of Omaha!"
There are mountains nearer Philadelphia
by half.
"Difficult to reach a hotel in day's run
ning!" Philadelphia automobiles must
have speed quite in keeping with that of
Philadelphia. The autos we use in Ne
braska can reach a first-class hotel from
a standing start in any thirty minutes of
running, and in the mountains "west of
Omaha" first-class hotels and summer re
sorts are a blamed sight more numerous
than honest politicians in Philadelphia.
And if it will take a "day's running" on
the part of a Philadelphia auto to reach a
hotel "in the mountains west of Omaha,"
that bunch of Philadelphia motorists will
be 2,000 years motoring from Omaha
westward to the aforesaid mountains.
We hasten to assure the Philadelphia
motorists that they will have a long and
pleasant drive westward from Omaha be
fore they see a mountain. They will pass
through the most fertile sections of the
world. They will see an agricultural sec
tion so rich, so progressive and so enter
prising that it will startle them. They
will see never a buffalo, nor any other
wild animal larger than a prairie dog.
They will see silk hats galore, and never
a shot taken at one of them. If so be they
should stop at some hotel, found in much
less than a day's running, they may hap
pen upon a social function and actually
see Nebraskans in swallowtail coats, in
stead of buckskin breeches. In the whole
450 miles across Nebraska they will see
less poverty than they may see in a single
voting precinct in Philadelphia, less ig
norance than may be found in any one of
a hundred Pennsylvania mining towns,1
and more happiness than a half million
wage slaves in Pennsylvania ever
dreamed could "exist on the face of , the
earth. They will travel through-the-gar?
den spot of the world, see a state less than
a half-century old that doesn't owe a dol
tar of state debt, possesses an $8,000,000
school fund, spends more money per cap
ita for education than any other state,
raises more corn, wheat and oats per
capita and per acre than any other state,
is not afflicted with a political boss like
Quay was and Penrose is, has more pro
gressive laws than any other state and
got them with less fuss and feathers, and
which in forty-seven years has made more
progress than Pennsylvania has in a cen
tury. . .
We hope the automobiles of that Phila
delphia party are as slow as their city is
reputed to be. In that case the Philadel
pliians will be such a long time crossing
JNeuraska that even they will be able to
soak up a lot of valuable information in
formation that every American should
have, and which every American should
be ashamed not to have.
"The mountains west of Omaha!
"Hotels not easily found in a day's run
ning !"
And they have schools and colleges and
newspapers in Philadelphia, too!
Food Inspector Harriet MacMurphy
personally superintended the dumping
into the Missouri river of five tons of
spoiled canned tomatoes. What this state
needs is more women attending to the
business of conserving the health of the
people. Then men are too darned busy
playing politics. . . ... . . .... . ; .