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VOLUME 9
L.IXCOIi3?, NEBRASKA, JUNE 13, 1912
NUMBER 13
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In 1911 the thirty-one fire insurance companies of the United States having a paid up capital of ne million dollars or more, paid their stockholders more than 40 per cent. Nebraska has no in
dependent fire insurance companies now, although time was when she had several, all of them showing pr mise of growing into big concerns. But through some mysterious influence conditions were made
such that these Nebraska companies ceased to exist, all being gobbled up by the big eastern companies. While other states were making it easy to build up strong home fire insurance companies, Ne
braska was making it difficult or impossible. The result is that Nebraskans are yearly sending abroad fa fire insurance premiums millions of dollars that should be kept at home to build up local
industries and develop Nebraska resources. We've driven the Nebraska fire insurance companies out of msiness, we are paying more for fire insurance than ever before and we are tending from
$7,000,000 to $10,000,000 out of the state every year--every dollar of which should be kept at home.
V MAKING NEBRASKA'S kESOUKCES ECNOWN .
Why is it that Nebraska is not better known to investors, to
homeseekers and to the world at large ? There can be but one
answer to that question the failure of Nebraskans to make known
the facts about this wonderful state.
One of the world's prominent magazines recently gave the place
of honor to an article relative to apple raising, naming various
states and dwelling at length upon their resources and possibilities
in this line. , Nebraska, where the best apples in the world are
raised, and where the possibilities for successful orcharding are un
limited, was not even mentioned.
Just now Kansas is issuing hr annual "fake" about needing
30,000 harvest hands above the home supply, and the newspapers all
over the country are taking it up. As a result, thousands will be
lured to our southern sister, only to find that the employment is un
certain and the season woefully short. Yet no mention is made of
the fact that Nebraska harvests, without issuing any plaintive ap
peals for help, more wheat per capita and more wheat per acre than
Kansas harvests.
During the decade ending with 1910 only nine states exceeded
Nebraska in the percentage of gain in agricultural wealth, and not
one of the nine gained nearly so much in the aggregate as Nebraska
In 1900 the total agricultural wealth of Nebraska was $747,950,000;
of Kansas, $864,100,000 j a balance in favor of Kansas of $116,
000,000.. Ten years later, in 1910, the total value of farm property
in Nebraska was $2,079,818,647; of Kansas,. $2,039,389,910 ; the bal
ance being in favor of Nebraska to the extent of $40,428,737. Yet
Kansas has one-third more population than Nebraska. During the
decade Nebraska's farm wealth increased $1,331,868,590, while
Kansas' farm wealth increased $1,175,289,264.
Nor is it alone in agriculture that Nebraska has leaped to a
foremost place. Along manufacturing lines the same wonderful
progress is being made. While agriculture is, and always will be,
the foundation of Nebraska's prosperity, the fact remains that this
state is becoming known throughout the manufacturing world. De
spite the common belief that we are a commonwealth of farmers, it
ia a fact that today there are more people engaged in earning a
livelihood apart from the farms than there are earning a livelihood
upon the farms. The total value of manufactured products in Ne
braska is considerably more than three-fifths as much as the total
value of agricultural products.
In point of population, Omaha, including South Omaha, is the
Wanted
I want a man a good man to act as business maneger
for Will Maupin's Weekly. I am not looking for a man with
"schemes to get the money," but for a man who has the
ability and the energy to take hold of a legitimate newspaper
proposition and push it. The field for such a publication as
I am aiming to make Will Maupin's Weekly a boosting,
building publication working tirelessly and intelligently for
the upbuilding of Nebraska and Nebraska enterprises is un
limited. I have Been enough of it to know that the oppor
tunity is here. That much has already been demonstrated,
but I can not make the newspaper what it should be, and
also attend to the business end of it. I flatter myself that
I know how to make a newspaper that will appeal directly to
men who are trying to accomplish things worth while; a
newspaper that will make its influence felt. But circulation
building and advertising solicitation are out of my line. The
right kind of a business man who knows the newspaper busi
ness from the business office end, will find here his golden
opportunity.
But he must be the right kind of a man, and come with
the proper recommendations. He need not have much capi
tal just enough to be an earnest of his intention to "stick"
and "push." He need not have even that if he can show me
the goods. I'll make the newspaper that he can offer to sub
scribers, and the medium that will appeal to expert adver
tisers. But to do that I must be relieved of all financial re
sponsibility for the paper. If you are the man, come on. If
you know the man who will fill the bill, send him along.
But I have yo time to waste on men who have "advertising
, schemes" calculated just to get the money quickly. I want
a man who can build for the future while making possible
the present. This is a legitimate enterprise.
WILL M. MAUPIN.
thirty-first city of the United States. Including South Omaha, it is
sixteenth in point of value of manufactured products, and first in
point of manufactured products per capita. And more, Omaha's
output per capita is fully fifty per eent greater than that of any
city outranking her in population and in total of manufactured
products.
During the last five years Nebraska's per capita of wealth pro
duction has been greater than that of any other state. During that
same period of time her wealth production per cultivated acre has
been greater than that of any other state.
WITH LESS THAN ONE-THIRD OF HER TOTAL ACREAGE
TINDER CULTIVATION NEBRASKA IS LEADING THE STATES
IN THE PRODUCTION OF AGRICULTURAL WEALTH!
Nebraska has upwards of 10,000,000 acres of the most fertile
land in the world waiting for the plow of the farmer.
But wonderful as Nebraska's progress has been during the last
decade, it isn't a marker to what her progress would have been
had her boundless resources and possibilities been judiciously adver
tised to the world. During the last decade her population has
been practically at a standstill. Why ? Because the arrival of thou
sands of homeseekers has been offset by the departure of an even
greater number of her own sons and daughters, who have been lured
away to less favored but better advertised communities. j . .'V.
Nebraska has been sleeping upon her opportunities. She has
been allowing other states to reach out and secure new citizens,
new home builders, new enterprises and new industries by judicious
advertising and not one of these states has opportunities to offer
equal to those Nebraska has to offer.
And when some Nebraskan does come forward with a propo
sition to develop some of the state's great natural resources im
mediately there appears those who, for reasons best known to them
selves, object and demand further delay or propose some plan utter
ly impossible to carry out.
The one great drawback to the development of manufacturing
industries in Nebraska has been and is the lack of a natural fuel
supply. But during all these years there has been at hand a
potential force that would render coal and oil unnecessary in the
production of power to turn a million factory wheels.' Men have
Talked about it and dreamed about it for a quarter of a century,
but until within the last year nothing tangible has been proposed.
But now that men able to finance a great water power proposition
pome forward and propose to develop this great natural resource,
immediately there comes objections from men who have never pro
posed anything, and propose nothing now save some theory that
will serve only to further delay a great work that Nebraska has
needed for a quarter of a century.
Wbat's the matter with Nebraska, anyway?
Absolutely nothing so far as her natural resources are con
cerned. "
What then?
It must be in the failure of her citizens to take even a slight
advantage of the great opportunities at hand.
Instead of welcoming capital to develop her resources, she
seems pleased to frighten it away. Instead of making it easy to
build up great institutions that will bring capital to Nebraska to
be invested in Nebraska, she seems pleased when she can make
such instiutions practically impossible. There has not been a mile
cf electric road, street or interurban, built in Nebraska during the
last three years. There is not a mile of interurban electric railway
in the state, despite ,the fact that thousands of miles of electric
interurban roads have been built in Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and
Oklahoma. Why is this thus? Solely because investment in such
enterprises is discouraged instead of being encouraged. We say to
capital: "Come on, and if you fail yours is the loss; but of you
succeed after years of unprofitable endeavor we will limit you to
a return equal to what you might have had from the start, with
out risk and without effort, by simply loaning on Nebraska farm
mortgages." '
Every year Nebrasak is sending from $10,000,000 to $15,
000,000 to New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts to pay for
fire and life insurance premiums, two-thirds of which never gets
back to the state, and the other one-third returns only in payment
of losses or to invest in mortgages which take other dollars out in
the shape of interest. Why is this thus? Because every Nebraska
insurance company has been looked upon as a criminal oenspiracy
against the state, has been hampered by political chicanery, and
has been subjected to onerous conditions. The result is that Ne
braska today has not a single independent fire insurance com
pany, and only two or three life insurance companies. This, too,
despite the fact that Nebraska ought to be numbered among the
really great insurance centers of the republic.
It is high time that Nebraska arouses herself. It is high, time
she began making her resources and possibilities known to the
world. It is high time she invite the capital which she herself
lacks to come to Nebraska to be invested in legitimate enterprises,
guaranteeing fair treatment and an adequate return upon the
money actually invested and adequate recompense for the risks in
curred. It is high time she began making it easy to build up Ne
braska institutions. It is high time she shunted a few professional
politicians to the rear and allow men who want to do big things
for Nebraska to come to the front.
THE COMMONWEALTH POWER CO.
"
The Commonwealth Power Co. filed articles of incorporation
with the secretary of state last week. The capitalization is fixed at
$7,000,000 and the filing fee paid to the state amounted to $3,750.
The incorporators are W. E. Sharp. E. J. Hainer, C. T. Boggs, A. .W.
Field, S. H. Burnham, J. M. Bramlett, A. C. Koenig, S. D. Ladd.
The personality of the men incorporating this company is such as
to commend it to the confidence of the people. ' They are men who
are financially able to swing such a big, proposition, and incapable
of betraying the confidence of the people.
The company purposes developing the power possibilities of the
Loup river, and while distinct from any other proposition is so
framed as to permit it to take over and include any former propo
sition. The company will not transmit power ; it will merely manu
facture power. The transmission problemwill be handled other
wise. The capitalization is not large enough to provide for both
power and transmission. Again, under the laws of Nebraska, it
would be far preferable to keep the two businesses separate. The
state railway commission would have power to regulate the trans
mission company as a common carrier.
There is ample energy and enterprise and capital behind the
Commonwealth Power Co. It is organized by men who mean busi
ness, and who could not afford to do anything but straight busi
ness. If given the opportunity work on the great power plant will
begin before the summer ends, and will be pushed as rapidly as
money and modern engineering will allow. ;
Good Old Custer County
If you had three guesses as to which are the three largest
counties in Nebraska in point of population, the chances are that
you would miss the third one every time. Few people realize
that Custer county is the third county in the state in point of
population, and ties with Lincoln county for the honor of being
the second largest in point of area.
But Custer county's claim upon fame does not rest upon her
position as to population although she is rightfully proud of
her prosperous and intelligent citizenship. Neither does her
claim to fame rest upon her magnificent area. Custer county
ought to be better known to fame than she is because of her
wonderful resources and productivity. Within the memory of
men not yet accounted old, Custer county was looked upon as
impossible from an agricultural standpoint. The most predicted
for her was that she would always be a "pretty good cattle
country." But the enterprising homesteader soon saw her pos
sibilities, and while they had a hard time getting started, their
faith was amply rewarded. Today Custer county is an agricul
tural empire, annualy adding milions of wealth to the world's
store, providing homes for energetic thousands and offering rare
opportunities to the industrious. The story of Custer county's
productivity sounds unreasonable, so large are the figures.
In 1910 Custer county produced 4,980,000 bushels of corn,
814,000 bushels of wheat, 1,23$,000 bushels of oats, 85,000 bush
els of barley, 43,000 bushels of rye, 150,000 bushels of potatoes,
87,000 tons of wild and tame hay, 105,000 tons of alfalfa, and
9,000 tons of millet, Hungarian nd kaffir. In 1909 Custer county
shipped to market 39,200 hogs, 6,300 sheep, 2,228 horses and
mules, 26,000 cattle, 31,000 pounds of dressed poultry 283,500
pounds of live poultry, 7,500 pounds of dressed meats, 298,500
dozen eggs, 376,000 pounds of butter and 97,000 gallons of cream.
Custer county's annual production of agricultural, live stock and
dairy products exceeds $7,000,000 in value.
Pretty good for a county carved from the heart of the Great
American desert- '
A.