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About Will Maupin's weekly. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1911-1912 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 15, 1911)
white lead and shot are a few of the many products which might be enum erated, ranging in value of annual production from $23,000 to $1,000,000 each Many products of the Omaha fac tories are shipped all over the United States and into foreign lands. Large shipments of the "Little Red Wagon" manufactured by Stroud & Company are made into Cauada, Mexico and South Africa. Kirkeudall & Company ship their shoes into Alaska and the ONE OF OMAHA'S MAMMOTH RETAIL STORES Klondike and all up and down the Pacific roast of the United States. Omaha incubators hatch chickens all over this country, Canada and several European countries and Omaha stock food is fed to sheep and horses In Australia and New Zealand. One of the mills has shipped large quantities of flour made from Nebraska wheat to Denmark and England. The Mc- r- - i li IN THE PACKING HOVSK DISTRICT Keen Motor Car company, with a cap ital of $1,000,000 ami employing about 400 men, is sending its railway motor cars for iuterurban service not only to all parts of the United States, but into Europe, Japan and Australia. Butter made in Omaha is exported al most every day from New York. The name of Omaha is seen on ' packing house products in all parts of the world on bacon and hams, salt pork, vanned beef, lard, soap and scouring powders. The Raker Ice Machine com pany ships its refrigerating machinery to South America, Europe, Mexico, South Africa and the Philippines. As for the territory directly tribu tary to Omaha in a trade way, the Omaha-made products go into every eorner of it. On the sheep ranges . of Wyoming, in the wheat fields of Da kota, in the mines of Colorado and in the irrigated sections of Colorado, Ida ho and Wyoming, one finds the Omaha made shoes, Omaha-made overalls, crackers, saddles, canned goods, soap, butter, meat, cigars, brooms, beer, flour and a hundred other articles. The Omaha Commercial club's in- Lr SECTION dustrial committee stands always ready to get in touch with "infant in dustries" or large ones, seeking their first location or a better location than the one they have, and will do all in its power to assist them in suitably locating in Omaha. The club does not offer bonuses to new concerns; it works on the idea that the concern, if it really means business, will locate - -w2 - L - in the city when properly informed of its advantages its low price of power, its favorable railroad rates, both on the raw and manufactured products, and its facilities for distribution through the network of railroads which center in the city. These facts are the arguments which win and when once a manufacturing concern has conferred with the club about lo cating in the city, it usually ends by selecting a site, unless its prime object is a stock selling scheme and not the manufacture of goods. Industrial Omaha cannot be passed by without a few words as to its grain . T - V THIS IS THE KIND OF CORN WE RAISE IN NEBRASKA market. Prior to 1903, Chicago and a few Nebraska line elevators, with headquarters principally in Omaha, had a "cinch" on the grain business of the state. A. B. Stickney saw the possibilities for the development of a grain market and when he built his Great Western railroad into the city, successfully encouraged the organiza tion of the Omaha Grain exchange and started a rate cutting war which at once insured the future of the market. The first year the receipts of the mar- OF OMAHA'S RETAIL. DISTRICT ket were comparatively light, but they have grown by leaps and bounds until now the average receipts of all kinds of grain run between 43,000,000 and 44.000,000 bushels a year, and the number of dealers has increased sev eral fold. At present Omaha is the world's second largest corn market and is well up among the other mar kets in respect to wheat and oats. Two IN THE SHOPPING DISTRICT big flour mills have sprung np since the foundation of .the market and two big cracker factories have come into being to consume a part of the Ne braska flour. In closing, it might be mentioned that Omaha's bank clearings have reached the $840,000,000 a year mark, placing her among the first fifteen cities of the country in this respect; that she did a jobbing business this year of $140,000,000 to $150,000,000; that her bank deposits are over $55, 000,000 and that the population to be reaehed by trolley within six miles of the Omaha postoffiee is 1S6,594 by the 1910 census. THE PRIMARY LAW Disguise it as we may, the primary law as now operative in Nebraska is a delusion and a snare. Neither party has the nerve to demand its repeal, yet every thinking man knows that the law is a breeder of trouble, that it pro duces perjurers by the score, that it does not give us the best candidates and that it is more easily manipulated by gangsters than even the old-style party convention. The law" is a clumsy attempt to do away with corruption. That it has failed signally of its purpose is evi denced every time a lot of candidates file their sworn statements of expendi tures. That it fails in giving us the best candidates has been evidenced within the past sixty days. It is an enormous expense that is not produc tive of results commensurate with the expenditure. Not having any political axes to grind, and being at perfect lib erty to voice its honest sentiments, Will Maupin's Weekly dares to say that seven out of ten Nebraska voters con demn the primary law, and six out of the seven haven't the nerve to say so. The people may be determined to nominate good men for office, but un fortunately it is not given to the whole people to know every man who may be seeking ofSee. A eouple of good men may file for an important state of fice, and not being acceptable to those having selfish interests to serve the aforesaid selfish interests proceed to file a dozen or more men for the same office. Between the big fight among so many candidates the selfish interests always solid slip in their candidate. At the state primary next year the voters will be asked to make choice for about twenty important offices from among perhaps 200 candidates. The result is going to be cot only the nom ination of many unfit men. but in every instance it will be a plurality nomina tion. There are just two ways of cur ing the evils of the primary system either abolish it or resort to the double primary and thus double the already AN IMMENSE FACTOR. There is not a Lincoln owned insti tution that plays so prominent a part in the industrial life of Lincoln as the Lincoln Traction Co. Few people who have not given the matter considera tion have any adequate idea of how immense this part is. It is the largest employer of labor in the city no other institution being in its class. During the year ending December 1, 1911, the Lincoln Traction Co. paid in wages to its employes, exclusive of office sal aries, the immense sum of $300,000. Of this amount $125,000 was paid to mo term en and conductors. A large num ber of men are required in the traek service, another large body of men is required in the shops and engine rooms, and still another army of men in the electric service. What this im mense wage roll means to Lincoln would be better realized, perhaps, if it were suddenly to cease for a time. But $25,000 a month spent with the merchants of Lincoln, in the building of new homes that is a vital factor in the city's growth and prosperity. A little study of statistics will show that the wages paid by the Lincoln Traction Co. average higher than the average wage of the industry in the United States. The wage scale of the men in the ear serviee varies with the length of employment, the scale start ing at 21 cents an hour and increas ing until a maximum of 27 cents an hour is reached. The employes are encouraged to join a voluntary relief association with is in large part main tained by the company itself. The management now has under considera tion the establishment of a pension sys tem that will insure the competent and faithful employe a competence in old age. This pension matter is now being investigated with a view to securing the best data, and when the investiga tion is completed the best from the experience of others will be taken and put into practice. enormous expense. From among the primary candidates select the two high men in each party for eaeh office, hold a seeond primary and give the nomina tion to the high man. This would give the people an opportunity to choose carefully but it would double the ex pense, already too great. ,. 1 The primary is all right in theory it is working badly in practice. It works well in some states in the sooth where the nomination is equivalent to election because there is but one party Even there a resort is had to the see ond primary in the event that no can didate receives a majority at the first primary. Senator Stephenson frankly admits that his election cost him $.100,000. The admission did not invalidate his elec tion, but such an admission would in validate an election in Nebraska. Gov ernor Dineen of Illinois admits that he spent $35,000 to secure a re nomina tion, but claims that it cost Richard Yates $80,000. Yet we are asked to believe that it costs less than $) to get a senatorial nomination in Nebras ka and less than $700 to get a guberna torial nomination. It is to laugh. There is another indictment against the primary. It alienates friends. Again, it disrupts party organization. Again. it has failed utterly in carrying out the promises of its advocates. As between the old convention system and the present primary, Will Maapin's Weekly prefers the convention system, bad as it was. At least the convention system gave us a far better opportunity to choose between candidates for the re ason that after the convention there were not so many candidates to con sider. The charge that the conventions were run by a few men was trne, but that ttsis the fault of the people, not the fault of the convention system. Either let us make up our minds to double the expense and have the dou ble primary, or let us admit that the system is a farce and abolish it with out any more hypocritical pretense. H. O. BARBER & SON. Elsewhere in this issue the milling industry of Nebraska is mentioned in detail. One of the milling firms con tributing to the immense total Soar output of the state is that of IL O. Barber & Sons, whose "Liberty'" flour has made a reputation that is vastly more than state wide. This firm has been engaged in the milling- industry in Lincoln for a number of years. Prior to the Barbers engaging in the manufacture of flour a number of at tempts along that line in Lincoln had been failures. But the Barbers, fath er and sons, felt sure that a mill that would turn out a high grade of flour, and would see to it that it was prop erly introduced to the people, would succeed- Their first move was to over come the handicap former failures had put upon them by making a Soar that would stand the test Soon it be came noised around that the new mill ing company was putting out a super ior product. This fact onee established suecess was assured, and the fame of "Liberty Flour" began growing. To day stills are among the largest in the state. Barber & Sons own - and operate their own elevators in the best wheat sections of Nebraska, and this enables them to select the best milling wheat grown. Cleaned and purified in their own elevators, then shipped direct the mills in Lincoln, this wheat is ground into flour by the most im proved methods operated by expert millers. From time to time the mills have been enlarged to meet the grow ing demand. This institution is one of the largest industrial establishments in Lincoln. It plays a prominent part in making up the immense total of Lincoln's man ufacturing output. Its flour is equal to the best made anywhere, and aa it is a Nebraska institution, owned and operated by Nebraska men. it i titled to the support of Nebraskana.
