A
'A
A WEEKLY
JOURNAL
OF
CHEERFULNESS
Printed primarily for people
who look upon life cheerfully and
hopefully. Also for people who
ought to do so. The promoter of
all good things and good people,
of which first Nebraska is chief
and of which second Nebraskans
are mostly.
DOLLAR A YEAR
f 1 ' ' . " ' y
A ; ; J.
A MERRY HEART
DOETH GOOD
LIKE
MEDICINE
But a broken spirit drieth the
bones. That's what the Good
Book says, and we'll bank on it,
sure. Will. Maupin's Weekly
works to make cheerful the hearts
of its readers, and thus do medi
cal duty. Fifty-two consecutive
weekly doses for a dollar.
GUARANTEED
VOLUME 8
LINCOLN, NEBRASKA, MARCH 1, 1912
NUMBER 49
riAnnr rnir TITTMAc n AI ITir & I 8
A few years ago Mr. Bryan gave
voice to a sentiment that has since
become a classic. "Harmony," said
Mr. Bryan, "is not always a desirable
thing in politics."
If lack of harmony is all that is
needed to make politics desirable at
this time, then we surely have it. Mr.
Bryan has a large meat cleaver in
hand for use upon the anatomy of one
Judson Harmon. Theodore Rosevelt,
having selected his successor in the
White house, now proceeds to indict
is own judgment by announcing that
e is out to beat the man he made.
After making a gallant fight to compel
his party to move forward, LaFollette
now finds himself shunted to one side
and the fruits of his labor claimed by
another. Harmon democrats with keen
edged and glittering knives are lying
in wait for Woodrow Wilson, and Wil
son democrats with sandbags and
slungshots lurk in dark corners, wait
ing for Harmon to come along. "Gen
tlemen may cry 'peace, peace,' but
there is no peace."
' 41 Parties t There are no political
parties today!" declared a man the
other day a man who has represented
a big constituency in the halls of
congress. "We have two organizations,
each trying to out-do the pops of saint
ed memory, while well balanced and
thoughtful men are compelled to stand
aside and make way for agitators and
popularity seekers." And so saying
he buried his head in his hands and in
dulged in a fit of near- sobbing.
Funny old world, this. Today we
see men chasing about and loudly ad
vocating the very things they were
denouncing in unmeasured terms a
few years ago. Remember the wave
of ridicule and laughter that swept
over the country a few years ago
when the platform adopted by the
"pops" at Omaha was promulgated!
And the ridicule and laughter were re
newed when the "pops" met at Ocala
and put out their revised and improved
platform. Now just read the speech
delivered by Roosevelt at Columbus a
few days ago and compare it with
the Omaha and Ocala platforms. Those
old "wild-eyed pops" were moderate
in the extreme.
Those who have time to wade
through the newspaper contributions
of Albert Watkins always found there
in something wortli while. The trou
ble witli Mr. Watkins is his lack of
terminal facilities. But as before re
market!, he always says something
worth while, even though it takes him
a long time to say it. His comment
upon Rosevelt's Columbus speech was
a gem. "He is an orator of the ob
vious," said Mr. Watkins. That's
worth remembering.
"He looks good to me," says Frank
Kennedy of the Omaha Western Labor
er," referring to W. J. Kelley, who is
Beeking the democratic nomination for
secretary of state. Mr. Kelley looks
good to a lot of us. He is a great
big, goodnatured, capable, honest, ener
getic westerner who believes in doing
well every duty that comes to hand.
He believes in keeping faith with the
people, hence his cognomen, "Plat
form" Kelley. What he says he means,
and'what he means he'll carry out or
burst a hamestring.
Either State Treasurer George
doesn't care a rap about renomination,
or he is Sleeping comfortably over a
political volcano. A couple of hust
ling republicans are after his job. The
Roosevel entry may serve to wake Mr.
George up to the gravity of the situ
ation confronting him. He cannot de
pend upon being carried back by a
Taft wave," for the simple reason
that there isn't any "Taft wave." We
opine that Mr. Hamer is going to make
it extremely lively for Mr. George be
tween now and April 19.
Floyd Seybolt of Geneva clearly has
the inside track for the democratic
nomination for state treasurer. He is
making an active and dignified cam
paign for the nomination, and he has
the proof right along with him that
he is a capable man for the important
place. For years he has been engaged
in the line of business that peculiarly
fits him for the office, and he would be
no stranger on the job.
F. M. Currie, head and front of the
Taft organization in Nebraska has this
to say: "The republican party is big
ger, wiser and has a greater responsi
bility than any individual. No indi
vidual is absolutely necessary to its
success." And he was looking straight
at Rosevelt when he said it. For all
of which Mr. Currie stands charged
with lese majeste, political mayhem,
and treason. Likewise, he is a candi
date for the first vacancy in the
Ananias Club. '
Not everybody interested in politics
understands the real situation in the
contest between Victor Rosewater and
Robert Beeeher Howell for the position
of national committeeman for the g.
o. p. Howell, a civil engineer of much
more than local reputation; is an ex
lieutenant of the navy. He crossed
swords with Andrew Rosewater, broth
er of Edward, and himself an engineer
of wide reputation. Edward took up
(Continued on Page 3)
f AN OLD TIMER'S WAIUNGS 1
v... . .. .y
The Old Timer leaned up aganst the I Rockefeller, the man who made 7-cent
tall building on the sunny side of O kerosene possible. We are paying 11
street," and gazing meditatively upon cents for gasoline, and it would be
the huge snow drifts indulged in a just as easy to make us pay 25 or 30
v spell of reminiscences. cents a gallon.
"There's a lot of things that make
me tired," he remarked. "When I
came to this state more than a quar
ter of a century ago I paid 10 cents
a mile to ride on the railroad. Now
we ride for 2 cents a mile, and every
reduction save that of the one from 3
cents to 2 cents a mile was voluntary
on the part of the railroads. We hear
constant howls about excessive freight
rates, yet there isn't a country in the
world where freight rates are so low
or the service so good. The cheapest
thing we have is freight service.
" When I was a. boy we paid 70
cents a gallon for kerosene. Today we
can buy it, delivered at the kitchen
door, for 7 and 8 cents a gallon, yet
we throw fits at the very name of
NEBRASKA'S BKTffiHAY
Forty-five years ago today, March 1, 1867, Pres
ident Andrew Johnson affixed his signature to the
congressional act that put the star of Nebraska
npon the flag of the republic. Within1; the short
span of that forty-five years this state has made
such progress, physical, mental and financial as
the world never before witnessed. Accounted then
largest wheat producing state. The seat of the
third largest cattle market and the second largest
hog market and the largest sheep market in the
world. With a permanent school fund approximat
ing $9,000,000 in interest bearing securities, with
the fourth largest state university, with the largest
average of production per acre cultivated. Her
as being but the merest desert, incapable of sup- thriving cities stand where forty-five years ago men
porting men save along the shores of the Missouri
river, it has developed into the largest producer of
agricultural wealth in all the sisterhood of states.
Forty-five years ago there was not a mile of rail
road within the borders of the commonwealth, fewer
than 50,000 people, without a town of any consider
able size further than a dozen miles from the
Missouri river, not a factory, not a college, not a
single industry worth mentioning. Today there
are 6,000 miles of railroad, a million and a quarter
of prosperous people, factories dotting the land
scape, great colleges and universities, and a busy
people engaged in producing wealth at a rate the
most optimistic never dreamed of, even a score of
years ago.
A history of Nebraska's forty-five years as a
state, written without dry statistics, but as a
novelist would write, would read like the veriest
, fiction. It would rival the Arabian Nights in its
seeming imagery, and it would prove beyond a per
adventure that truth is stranger than fiction.
There is not in all history a similar expanse of
territory that has been so rapidly developed, so
productive of wealth as Nebraska within the same
given length of time. Within the memory of men
yet hale and hearty this was the Great American
Desert. That so-called desert began within sight
of the Missouri river bluffs and extended westward
for 500 miles. It was inhabited only by the Indian,
and was the natural habitat of the buffalo and the
'antelope. Today it is a veritable orchard every
mile of the westward way across the state from
the great river. All this progress, all this develop
ment, has come within the short span of a half
century. Forty-five years ago a desert today the
fourth largest corn producing state and the third
declared nothing could exist save a state of -deso
lation.
Why shouldn't we be proud of Nebraska? And
why should we not pay our tribute of respect and
admiration to the pioneers, many still with us, who .
wrested the state from the grip of the desert and
made it to bloom and blossom as the rose. Why
should we not celebrate with acclaim each recurring
anniversary of the state's admission into the Union?
And why should we not begin now to make prepara
tions for a glorious celebration of the semi-centennial
of the best state in all the Union a state that
stands first in education, first in agricultural wealth
production, first in every reform, and first in pros
perity and contentment? -
March 1 of every year should be set aside as "Ne
braska Day" in every public school. Our children
. should be taught the glorious history of the com
monwealth and led to pay their tributes to the men
who have accomplished these glorious results.
In the broad blue field of the nation's flag no
star shines brighter than that of Nebraska. Massa
chusetts may boast of her men of Lexington and
Concord, but Nebraska may boast of her men of
the sod house and the ox team. Virginia may boast
of her lienage, but Nebraska's proudest boast is not
in the blueness of her people's blood, but in the red
corpuscles that have made her men and women the
greatest pioneers and developers the world has ever
known.
Nebraska's annivarsary. Let its celebration of
the event be but a forerunner of the greater cele
bration we are to have in 1917, just as her proud
position today is but a forerunner of what her posi
tion in the sisterhod of states is to be ere another
forty-five years have passed into the limbo of time.
"Twenty years ago I could go to
the best hotel in Lincoln and get the
best room in the house, with three
meals thrown in, for $2.50 a day. Now
I've got to pay the $2.50 for the same
room, and cough up extra for my
meals. We don't hear a complaint
about hotel rates, but the air is filled
with complaints about railroad extor
tion after reductions that have brought
freight rates down more than 50 per
cent in twenty years.
"Pullman is damned from Hades to
Omaha every day, yet you can't show
me where a man gets more for his
money in the way of comfort, luxury
and traveling safety than he gets for
the $3 he pays for a berth in a Pull
man car between Lincoln and Chicago.
And the Pullman rates have been re
duced 50 per cent within the last twen
ty years. My wife and I may have
a section in a safe and luxurious steel
car from here to Omaha for $3,. A
polite and., efficient negro servant is at
' our beck and call. We have as many
conveniences as we would have in a
first-class hotel, with a lot more at
tention. W,e have privacy, and We
are sailer than when walking down ,0
street. Yet Pullman, next to Rocke
feller, is the worst condemned man in
America. "
"Twenty years ago we could pick
up a newspaper and at a glance tell
what it stood for, what political prin
ciples it espoused and what candi
dates it supported. Caa't do it now.
The only way to tell is to go through
"the books in the counting room, 'for
where a man's treasure there his heart
is also.' We haven't any political par
ties, and we have no men of fixed prin
ciples. All of them are appealing to
unstable popular favor. . The .things .
political managers damned yesterday
are the - cornerstones of their political
faiths today.
"On every side I see hard working
men who have struggled and pinched
and saved to pay for their little homes,
and every year our beneficient govern
ment socks a fine upon them for being
thrifty and enterprising. All around
them I see drones of society who have
sat around doing nothing but look
wise, who are rich. They haven't cre
ated anything, but, because of our
damphoolishness they waxed rich by
being able to gobble up community-'
made values values that the commun
ty ought to have for its own. We still
fine enterprise and pay a .premium yto
the drones. Yet ' we talk about this
being an 'enlightened age.' It makes
me sick.
'A few months ago I attended a )
meeting in which farmers predomi
nated. They spent the entire time
damning the railroads for high freight
rates. Most of those farmers traveled
to that meeting in wagons over conn
try roads . that were the heaviest ex
(Continued on Page Four)
