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About Will Maupin's weekly. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1911-1912 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 29, 1911)
W Mkwws w; 7isrn v A Weekly Journal of Cheerful Comment whose mission it is to reflect sunshine and pilot people around and behind the dark clouds. It believes in the Ultimate Good and strives for it Until it runs out of Good Words to say about men and women it will say no Harsh Words and there isso much of Good to be said that Will Maupin's Weekly expects to be Very Busy on the Good End of the job for many years to come. May we have your company along the way? BOOSTING NEBRASKA ALWAYS That is one of the best things we do and thepleasantest Just say "Nebraska" to us and you've got us going. Nebraska is inspiration for song and symphony, for oratory and optimism. Will you join our Grand Chorus of Nebraska Boost ers, instructed and conducted by Will Maupin's Weekly? Initiation fee and one year's dues, One Dollar the more dollars we get the better we sing THISIS A GOOD TIME FOR SINGING LESSONS the water plant to a private corpora tion, but to choke off the growing de mand for the municipalization of other public service corporation. If there be those who imagine that it will ever be possible to give over the duty of supplying water to the city to a private corporation, or that it will be possible to check the demand for municipalization of other public serv ice plants if there be such who so imagine they should hasten to some Tputable surgeon and have their heads bored fro the simples. The commission form of government has received a great impetus by rea son of the situation in the water de partment. Will Maupin's Weekly is wholly in favor of the commission plan. Not some hare-brained plan de signed by some idealist who wants to give to the world a "Lincoln plan," but a safe, conservative plan. It favors the election of five commissioners, each to be the head of a department of the municipality, with po..-r to appoint all subordinates, and each absolutely responsible to the people for the con duct of his department and subject to the recall. It favors paying these commissioners good salaries. It fa vors the absolute elimination of poli tics by forbidding party designation on either the primary or election ballots. It favors the double primary, making it easy for any man. to be a candidate in the first primary, but confining the second primary to the four high men in the first primary, and putting the two high men in the second primary on the regular election ballot. Lincoln may now make her own charter without asking the legislature to sanction it. Let's have no more un wieldy "charter commissions," but let a half-dozen representative citizens get together and frame a common sense charter, one suitable to the needs of a growing city of 50,000 people. A PALPABLE ERROR. Labor Commissioner Guye's estimate that only 13,000,000 acres out of Ne braska's 47,000,000 are under cultiva tion is, seemingly, an error. The error is due, however, to the habit aul care lessness or incompetency of the as sessors who are required by law to gather the acreage statistics. Mr. Guye's own acreage figures, contained in his crop report, will show upwards of 15,000,000 aeres under cultivation, not taking into, account the fallow fields, the orchards, vineyards and gar dens. Nor will his acreage figures, as shown in his annual crop report, show the acreage devoted to many miscel laneous crops, such as popcorn, hemp, sweet potatoes, onions, or the many acres cultivated by men who raise gar den seeds. His recent acreage bulle tin merely gives the acreage as re ported by the assessors, and experience has taught us that the assessors are notoriously careless about that part of their work having to do with the Bureau of Statistics. Several of them had to be threatened with prosecution a couple of years ago before they would report to the bureau. They say they are not paid for that work, con sequently will not do it. When com pelled to make return they guess at it. Taking the returns made for crop esti mate purposes, and then estimating according to rules followed in other states, and by the government, it is more than likely that Nebraska's total cultivated acreage is in excess of 17, 000,000. But even admitting that this esti mate is not too high, the fact remains that far less than one-half, of Nebras ka's tillable area is cultivated. Mil lions of acres will never be worth cul tivating; other millions will not be cultivated .with profit until after years of experimentation to ascertain how to get results worth while. But it is safe to say that Nebraska has not less than 15,000,000 acres of fertile land awaiting the plow. THE LINCOLN POSTOFFICE. It is fit and proper at this time that due recognition be given to the very efficient work of the Lincoln postoffiee force during the unusually large holi day rush. . Not only were all previous records for amount of mail matter handled broken, but so also were broken all previous records for speedy handling. , It required almost super human effort to keep up with work, together with executive ability of a high order to see to it that the huge force a goodly part of it new to the work worked to the best advantage. We are so accustomed ' to . getting our mail on time that we. are prone to take it as a matter Tf eonrse, over looking the faet that it requires organ ization of the most efficient kind to make the postoffiee machinery work smoothly. Postmaster Sizer and his force gave us a holiday service that could not have been surpassed, and to him and his assistants is due the grate ful acknowledgements of the public. Of course they were' paid for doing the work. But, just the same, they are entitled to a word of appreciation. Will Maupin's Weekly was late during that terrific Christmas rush, but the Lincoln postoffiee handled the big Christmas issue without losing a min ute's time. The papers went into the office late at night, and Lincoln sub scribers were served before noon the next day. That's going some, consid ering the fact that this was right in the middle of the Christmas rush. Just as soon as we add a few more paid-in-advance subscribers to the list we are going to send the postoffiee bunch enough cigars to go 'round. A GREAT BIG BOOST FOR GRAND YOUNG NEBRASKA. Will Maupin's Weekly, the best single-handed booster Ne braska has or ever had, came out in a blaze of glory last week with its "Nebraska In dustries Number." Twenty four pages carried an immense amount of highly interesting matter regarding- the resources, attractions and opportunities of Nebraska, and also numerous ad vertisements of manufacturing concerns who make good goods in Nebraska and are not afraid to let people know it. Omaha Trade Exhibit. THINK IT OVER. The 1911 production of cotton in the United States was, in round num bers, 12,000,000 bales, worth $600, 000,000. The United States produces practically all of the cotton of the world. - But the eotton production of the whole United States in 1911 was worth but about $50,000,000 more than Ne braska's production of agricultural and live stock wealth in the same year. Viewed in the light of that compari son you begin to get some idea of Ne braska's wealth producing power. Any year's production of agricultural and live stock wealth in Nebraska would practically pay for the same year's production of cotton in the entire United States and cotton is the most valuable single crop, by long odds, raised in this country, outside of corn and wheat. And adding our manufactured pro duet to our agricultural live stock product, Nebraska eould buy the world's, cotton erop and have a few millions left for small change. Great state, Nebraska. And you ought to be making the facts known to all the world. RUSSIA AND THE JEWS. It is declared that Russia, in retal iation for the abrogation of the treaty between that country and the United States, will exclude all American Jews from the empire. That will be an awful blow to Uncle Sara not. We can not imagine what any American Jew, or Russian Jew Americanized, would want to get into Russia for. Russia's treatment of the Jews, cou pled with Russia's condition financial ly, morally and industrially reminds us of a story. . A Jew traveling man entered a smoking car and seated himself by the side of a big man. The Jew attempt ed to open a conversation but was snubbed by his seatmate. He kept it up until the grouch finally turned and with a scowl asked: "Say. you're a Jew, are you notf" -The Jew admitted it. "Well," said the grouch, "I am proud to say that in the little Maine village where I live there is not a single Jew." "Yell, dot's vy it vos a village," re torted the Jew. Russia's treatment of the Jews may be taken as a pretty good reason why Russia is Russia. THE COST OF LI VIS G. So many things contribute to the "increased cost of living" that it m difficult to enumerate them. One cause is that the number of producers is sot keeping pace with the number of con sumers. The drift towards the ehks is increasing with marked rapidity. Another cause is that the average man's necessities now were luxuries a few years ago. The faet of the nat ter is, we eould live as cheaply now as our fathers lived a quarter of a cen tury or forty years ago if we were willing to live as they lived. And, af ter all, didn't they enjoy life about as well as we enjoy it now! James J. Hill has given utterance to many good things, but one of his best utterances was when he said that the cost of high living, not the high cost of Evmg, is our greatest trouble right now. A GREAT BIG BOOST FOR GRAND YOUNG NEBRASKA. Wffl Maupin's Weekly, the best single-handed booster Ne- braska has or ever had, came out in a blaze of glory last week with its "Nebraska In- dnstries Number." Twenty- four pages carried an immense amount of highly mteresttng matter regarding the resources, attractions and opportunities of Nebraska, and also numerous ad- vertisements of manufacturing concerns who make good goods in Nebraska and are not afraid to let people know it. Omaha Trade Exhibit.