j
BASE BALL
BOOSTER DAY
JULY 16
BE A BOQ8TER
BASE BALL
.BOOSTER DAY
JULY 16
BE A BOOSTER
3
"VOLUME f
LINCOLN, NEBRASKA, JI'NE 28, 1912
NUMBER J5
SAfEGUARUING THE PUBLIC'S HEALTH
This week Will Maupin's Weekly presents to its readers some
information relative to the groceries and markets of Lincoln. Let
it be borne in mind that the business houses referred to have not
paid, nor will they pay, one cent for the articles published herein.
The publicity is given to them freely because they have evidenced a
willingness to co-operate with the city's health department in pro
tecting the health of the general public by protecting their perish
able goods from contaminating influences and by using every rea
sonable effort to maintain sanitary premises.
Until some great epidemic of disease ravishes a community it
is difficult to arouse the attention of the people and convince them
that it is their duty, always and all the time, to insist on municipal
cleanliness and scientific sanitation. Lincoln people knew for years
that the municipal water plant was inadequate and that there was
danger of contamination, but they gave no heed thereto until last
yar's epidemic of typhoid appeared. Then everybody got busy.
Precious lives would have been saved and the city saved some un
desirable publicity if the people had attended to their duty at the
proper time.
The health officers of the city labor under many handicaps.
Let some scavenger be arrested for using a leaky wagon, and the
chances are that a dozen men will exert themselves to get him out
of the difficulty. Let some retailer be haled into court for selling
rotten meat or fruit, and immediately the cry of "persecution"
arises.
.Instead of heartily co-operating with the city's health depart
ment, the public gives it no support at all, not even enough money
to carry on its work. Yet the health of the entire community is
endangered by one small source of infection. Dr. Spealman is do
ing a splendid work, but he could do much better if he had the
proper support and encouragement.
Perhaps some wise head knows what the health ordinances of
Lincoln are. If there' be such a man he has an almighty good head
on his shoulders. But the minute a man who has made a study of
the subject of guarding a municipality's health undertakes to draft
a comprehensive health ordinance, immediately other men who do
not know an angleworm from a colon bacilli jump in and begin
Amending and opposing. (
The city's present health officials, few in number, illy paid and
without proper support, are doing good work. They are arousing
public interest in the matter of safeguarding the public's health.
There is better co-operation today than ever before but not yet
enough,
Deputy Labor Commissioner Guye has issued a b
veys the information that there still remains in Ne
program being arranged
Pack a basket of lunch
The ."Safe and Sane" Fourth of Julvj
for Lincoln should appeal to every citizen
and spend the day at Capital Beach, at the City Park, or in some
shady nook along Bait Creek. Shun the deadly toy pistol and the
infernal dynamite cracker. Send up paper balloons, and in thft
evening join with your neighbors and have a nice neighborhood
display of fireworks. Let's get back to the old-fashioned Fourth!
A recent newspaper article asserts i;that during the twelve
months ending June 1, 1912, the life insurance companies outside of
Nebraska paid to policy holders in Nebraska the sum of $4,000,000.
This represents approximately two-fifths of the amount of money
Nebraskans sent out of the state in the shape of premiums on life
insurance during the same period. In other words, we foolish Ne
braskans sent $10,000,000 of Nebraska earned money out of the
state for something that could and should have been bought in the
state, and got $4,000,000 of it back. The other $6,000,000 is being
used to build up other states and other communities. Yet, every
time any man advocates the enactment of laws that will enable our
own insurance companies to grow and prosper, he is dubbed a "tool
of the insurance combine," an "insurance lobbyist," or something
equally obnoxious. It is costing Nebraska not less than ten or
twelve million dollars a year to starve home insurance companies
and build up big insurance companies east of the Allegheny moun
tains.
' SOME HEALTH HINTS.
Soap and hot water have not yet been entirely superceded as
disinfectants.
Flies are an evidence of filth as well as carriers of disease
germs. If your house is infested with flies the chances are that
you maintain a breeding place for them and flies breed in filth.
Avoid ice water as you would a plague. Men take a gulp of
scalding hot coffee one minute, and a gulp of ice water the next
then wonder that the machine known as the stomach gets out of
gear.
If your butcher has to drive a cloud of flies off the meat be
fore he can cut your steak, cancel the order and buy something in
a can.
If the boy who delivers your groceries hops back into the
wagon and gives the horse a cut with the whip call up his em
ployer. Such a driver can not possibly be careful about keeping
your groceries free from contamination while en route to your home
Do not wait until the grease trap in your kitchen sink clogs
tip before you clean it out. Keep it cleaned out. Strong lye will
lo the trick.
MEN AND MATTERS
We have often felt that Mr. Bryan has been unfortunate, many
times, in the selection of his friends. Some of his advisors have
been false to him by playing crooked politics a fact not unknown
to ' auite a number of Nebraska democrats. Others have remained
close to him just so long as they could profit by close personal con
tact with him. Still others have denied him after they have secured
what they went after. With nothing more tangilble to offer than
our own limited powers o deduction, we believe that Senator John
W. Kern, in refusing to stand as a candidate for temporary chair
man of the Baltimore convention, was guilty of a gross betryal of
friendship, of cowardly bending to opposing forces, and of about as
Revere an attack of political "cold feet" as has come to our notice
Thf current issue of McClure's Magazine contains an interesting
article on "Political Press Bureaus." It cost a couple of millions
t rvllara t.n civfl diift mihlinitv to the Clark. Underwood. Harmon,
rnantTa nnrl Tuft pamnaiflTis Brvan has been nominated three
times. We defy any man to show that a dollar was ever spent in
behalf before nomination by any "press bureau," publicity
agent" or other influence. William J. Bryan is the one big man
iu America today whose popularity with the people is in no wise
tu,e to a personally equipped or salaried press bureau.
bulletin which
conveys the information that there still remains in Nebraska some
thing like 1,200,000 acres subject to homestead entry. But do not
get excited. The Nebraska land subject ;o homestead entry isn't
worth very much not worth what it would cost in privation and
sacrifice and money to obtain. The work and money that it would
cost to get a homestead now would secure less land, but the land
thus secured would be worth several sections of the government land
we are hearing so much about. It is passible to secure Kinkaid
homesteads that were filed on years ago, lut since abandoned. But
why fdol away precious years, hard work
that as good a man as you found utterly
twenty or thirty acre patch of ground and farm it intelligently. It
vill pay far better than any quarter section you can homestead in
Nebraska now.
(and some money on land
hopeless? Get hold of a
E. G. Maggi has been reappointed by Governor Aldrich as a
member of the board of pardons. The reappointment is a recog
nition of merit, for Mr. Maggi has performed his duties faithfully
and well.
So they are going to send Samuel Gompers to jail for contempt
of court again! All right. But if they jail every man who en
tertains a supreme contempt for that District of Columbia judge
there won't be enough people left at liberty to feed the prisoners. ,
THAT GAS FIGHT.
This gas issue, like the liquor issue, will not be settled sensibly
until the fanatics on both sides are sidetracked. Five years have
elapsed since the dollar gas ordinance was enacted. And we haven't
got dollar gas yet. All we've got is a big bill of costs and' cam
paign thunder for aspiring ward politicians. In the meantime, the
Gas Co. is collecting about $50,000 a year more than it would be
collecting if we had dollar gas. If it is putting this excess out at
interest and drawing 6 per cent a rate it can easily get, it has
already made $45,000. The Gas Co. can use our money to finance
is legal battle with the city. In the meantime we must foot our
own legal bills and our gas bills, to boot. The Gas Co. wins this
fight even if it loses in the courts. It doesn't take much gray mat
ter to realize that fact.
Jjet us keep a few facts in mind while trying to arrive at a
satisfactory settlement.
First, the Gas Co. will not agree to any settlement contemplat
ing a refund of all the excess charged since the enactment of the
dollar gas ordinance. i
Second, the Gas Co. can afford to fight the case to the bitter
end for the simple reason that it can finance the fight with the
money of gas consumers.
Third, the Gas Co. wins, no matter hqw the case is finally de
cided.
Now, why not try to settle on some middle ground ? Last week
Will Maupin's Weekly offered a suggestion. Here is another one:
Let's get together on the basis that the Gas Co. will put the
dollar gas rate into effect at once, and rebate the excess it has
charged since December 1, 1910, the date it made its first offer of
compromise. This excess to be rebated either in one sum, or at
some agreed rate per month based upon a percentage of the gas
bills of the consumers.
The gas consumers are losing vastly more than the Gas Co. by
this interminable delay. Suppose we shove the cheap ward polit
cians to one side and settle this question for ourselves!
ROOSEVELT ON OTHER PRESIDENTS
To attack a living president is "anarchy." We have Theodore
Koosevelt's word for that. To attack a dead president, however,
must be an evidence of "statesmanship." We have read consider
ably from the books written by Mr. Roosevelt, and if he ever said
a good word for any of the presidents therein we overlooked it.
But we can find plenty of attacks on presidents therein. In Roose
velt's "Life of Thomas H. Benton" we find the following estimates
Mr. Roosevelt put upon some of the men who have occupied the
chair as chief executive of this nation: V :
He called Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of
Independence, a "shifty, timid and scholarly doctrinaire; the father
oi" nullification, therefore of secession ; constitutionally unable to
put a proper value on truthfulness." ,
He said of Martin VanBuren: "Faithfully served the mammon
of unrighteousness; succeeded because of and not in spite of his
moral shortcomings." -
He said of Franklin Pierce: "A small politician of low capaci
ty and mean surroundings, proud to act as the servile tooL of men
worse than himself." j .
He said of President Monroe, author of the Monroe doctrine:
Colorless, high-bred gentleman of no' especial ability, but well
fitted to act as presidential figurehead.''
He said of President Tyler: "He has been called a mediocre
man, but this is unwarranted flattery. His chief mental and moral
retributes were peevishness,- fretful obstinacy, inconsistency, in-
?apacity to make up his mind, together with inordinate vanity."
Think of Theodore Roosevelt accusing any man of "fretful ob
stinacy" or of "inordinate vanity!" '
Compare what Roosevelt said of Jefferson with what James G.
Blaine said of him. Blaine called Jefferson "the great philosophic
statesman who laid so broad and deep the foundations of his coun
try's growth and grandeur." , ,,
Neither was Mr. Blaine's estimate of James Monroe the same
as that of Theodore Roosevelt. It was Monroe who negotiated the
agreement whereby we bought the Louisiana territory of Napoleon.
BJaine says of that: ."Monroe and Livingstone both realized that
hesitation would be fatal ; and they boldly took the responsibility of
purchasing a territory of unknown but prodigious , extent, and of
pledging the credit of the government for a sum which, rated by
the ability to pay, was larger than a similar pledge today for five
hundred millions of dollars.'? That was scarcely the act of a
"colorless, highbred gentleman of no especial' ability," was it?
By the way, does anybody know Roosevelt's position on the
tariff! The only recorded utterance of Roosevelt's on that subject
that we can find is in his "Life f Thomas H. Benton," pages. 66
and 67. There he says: "Political economists are pretty generally
agreed that protection is vicious in theory and harmful in prac
tice ; but if the majority of the people interested wish it, and it af
fects only themselves, there is no earthly reason why they should
not be allowed to try the experiment to their heart's content. The
trouble is that it rarely does affect only themselves. In 1828 the evil
was peculiarly aggravating on account of the unequal way in which
the proposed law would affect different sections."
What "evil" was "peculiarly aggravating?" Clearly the "evil
of protection." If anybody can make anything else out of Roose
velt's words we would be glad to see it.
BACK FROM THE MOUNTAINS.
Mr. and Mrs. E. M. Righter returned to Lincoln Tuesday from
their "honeymoon" trip. They visited Colorado points while away
They will be at home to friends in a short time. Mr. Righter is asso
ciated with his father, C. B. Righter, in the Righter Linotype Com
position company. ...
BOOSTER DAY.
The preparations for "Base Ball Booster Day" are being
pushed. The business men of the city are taking hold in fine shape,
and the baseball enthusiasts are whooping things up in great style.
The indications point to the biggest crowd on July 16 that ever
turned out to a ball game in any city in the western, loop. In the
meantime President Jones is making good on his promise to
strengthen the Antelopes. Be a booster and buy a lot of tickets for
the Booster Day celebration. It's July 16, and the attraction is a
doubleheader with Isbell's bunch from Des Moines.
After all, we don't blame the owners of political steam rollers
for getting the most out of their machines this year. By the time
the next national campaign rolls around the direct primary will have
put the steam roller boys on the blink..
Will Maupin's Weekly is considerably more interested in a
200,000,000 bushel corn crop in Nebraska than it is in the election
cf any man to any public office.
Give us some big public utility corporations to regulate by mak
ing it possible to interest capital in the promotion of big public
utility corporations. - ( .
The steam rolling of Roosevelt at Chicago has left quite a
number pf aspiring republican candidates in Nebraska hanging in
the air. . ' . " ' , : .
We opine that Victor Rosewater got a lot more compliments
vhile in Chicago than he has received since he returned to Ne
braska. -
This newspaper thinks a lot more of the clatter of the reapers
than it does of the clatter of the politicians.