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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 22, 1905)
iwWMi ywwwtt wplii '" '" JWWllW'ffWWWPWPP ,.., - , ,,! FJ''''M5T"9r''R'M' 7v" 12 The Commoner. yOLTJMB 6, NUMBER H ' j- , jc - -r-- . -vw'i: t"H'(i.' (wr iwv rft TftJi" ' . f - $1 M KW?0? 'j The Theory and the Fact I love to sing o happy days of days down on the farm. (Tis easier to sing, you know, than hold a breaking plow.) I love to dwell in ecstasy upon each rural charm. ('Tis easier to dwell, you know, than milk a stubborn cow.) I love to lend my ears to hear the music sweet and clear Each morning when the air is pure and rosy dawn aglow. But on the square, good friends, I'll say I very greatly fear The concert is too early let me sleep an hour or so. "Quack, quack, quack!" goes the pretty little duck; "Ba, ha!" goes the little sheep. The roosters "cock-a-do," and the milk cows "boo" High time now to wake- from sleep. I've noted in my brief career that those who sing the most Of happy days upon the farm are those who live in flats; That those who to the farmer drink the deepest brimming toast Are those who wear boiled linen and the slickest of silk hats. They wake up in the morning in the neighborhood of nine With heads that feel like footballs and with eyes chock full of glue; And then they will imagine that for rural life they pine, But" they don't they merely think so, but they never really do. "Gobble, gobble, gobble!" goes the old turkey cock; w Fuzzy little chickens "peep" peep!" The hungry horses neigh at the early dawn of day No use trying now to sleep. There's a blooming lot of diff'rence getting up at 4 o'clock And dressing in a room so cold you fairly freeze your nose, Then hustling out beneath the stars to feed and water stock It's diffrent from 'the city way as every farmer knows. It may be full of poetry when one has but to write, ,But full of gooseflesh pimples when you're Johnny-on-the-spot. 'Tjs easier to sing than to arise at dead of night The city man may like it till he tries it then he'll not. "Bow, wow, wow!" says Towser at the gate. "Woof!" goes the porker, loud and deep. Gee whiz, it four o'clock! Hustle out and feed the stock! No use wasting time in sleep. May heaven bless the farmer he's the man who feeds us all; He rises mighty early and he works away till late. We sing his hearty praises in the summer, winter, fall And then are mighty careful that he has to pay the freight. I love to sing of rural charms, of corn and waving rye; Of gentle cows, of woolly sheep, of horses and of swine. But, honestly, I'd rather be allowed to gently lie Upon my downy couch and sleep until it's nearly nine.-"Wah-he-wah!" is the donkey's hungry .wail Just when rosy dawn doth creep. To the farm I'd love to flit and enjoy its pleasures nit! It don't give a fellow time to sleep. &$,&&&&& && &&&&&&& & J J 'J fk i2r U& when you sheepishly reached for them and slunk back to your seat. You sneaked a look across the aittle and saw something that almost broke your heart, for even "she" -was laugh ing. You never pulled on those boots without feeling a sinking of th,e heart, and long after everybody else had for gotten it you felt embarrassed about it. Of course father thought he was doing the right thing, but it takes fathers a long time to realize that their boys are growing up, and when a boy is fourteen he is getting pretty big or at least you thought so then. Next Monday morning you are go ing to call your children down into the front room and show them the little tree you have erected for their pleasure and entertainment, and you are going to get more real enjoyment out if it than you ever got out of any Christmas tree in the old days. But, after all, you would like to have one Christmas tree for your very own again. Not for the tree alone. O, no! But with it might come the play mates of those departed years. It might bring back with it Arthur Me carta, who is sleeping somewhere in the island of Cuba. With it might come Jack Murphy, the freckled-faced Irish boy who stuck to the throttle of his engine and went down to his death rather than desert his post and leave two hundred passengers fn m,i with his always smiling kZZk merry pranks, and you'd give anvthS to see Hon. William Welch S n? the district court, unhen 1 onie m0r ' and "Jag from taw," With it S come into your range of vision once more a fair-faced little girl with w tawny curls, whose rigidly wri ten and surreptitiously passed notes used to make the long hours of 6Uh00i seem shorter, And just as you tlilai of that little girl you see her min as she comes into the sitting room-. a little older, her hair no longer hanging in curls, but far sweeter and better looking tha she was in tha old days. Then, you come out of your reverie with a .start and hear a couple of sweet little toddlers talking about what they want Santa Claus to bring them, and you begin figuring on get ting those very things evo.i if JOu have to go without a uew pair of trousers or a new hat Yes, sir-ee! It would be great fun to live again just one more of thoso Christmas days. But you can not. So make the best of it by trying to make the present Christmas just as pleasant for your little ones as those old Christmas days were to you, and in doing it you have enough pleasure for any man. WASHINGTON NEWS Washington dispatches say that two midshipmen will be expelled from the naval academy on account of hazing. JUST SOME THOUGHTS What would you give, you gray haired boys and girls, if the Christ mas trees next week looked as good as ' the Christmas trees did about thirty or thirty-five years ago? Give? Why, you'd give anything, almost. Of course the Christmas trees look pretty now, and you get a lot of pleasure out of them by watch ing the pleasure of your own little ones. But wouldn't you just like to have one4 Christmas trees like those you had when you were about ten years old? The very mention of it carries you back almost thirty years. You see a gorgeous tree set up in the little village church away down there in Missouri, and you see the smiling and shining faces Df your boy and girl friends, many of whom have long since passed over to where it is Christmas every day. You see the caiidles gleaming through the cotton batting and powdered glass "diamond dust," they called it and you dee the candybags made out of mosquito net ting, the autograph albums, the muf flers, the knit scarfs, the neckties, and all the host of presents tftat Hos somed and grew upoi that wooderful tree, m your mind you nro w ing if ever the superintendent is ing to call your 'name, and when ho does you shuffle down the aisle in an embarrassed way and take the pres ent he hands you. Remember how every boy wore boots in those days? Of course you do. And that reminds you of an awfully embarrassing minute or two one Christmas away back in that now dim and distant age. You were just uufeiumilK LU SIC lin Jinri tnl- ,. and "she" sat just across the aisle With a look of supreme indifference on her face, just as if she didn't know that you had scurried around for three weeks hunting old iron to sell for money enough to buy that gaudv autograph album for her. You had for two or three weeks,' but father only shook his head and said. "Wait ray son." And you waited. But horrors! Jim oo TitM , , , - vi. uo tmiigu were quietest yon heard the superintendent am Ti rtsam- u snuffled down the aisle once more, wondering if It really could be something "she" had put on the tree for you And right there before all that huge crowd LldIing "he" thG superintendent King f?" the b0tS yU had been They looked no iio. i.... dldnt they. And everybody laughed "Under date of Washington, Decem ber 11, Walter Wellman, Washington correspondent for the Chicago Record Herald, said: "Friction between the Roosevelt administration and the re publican leaders in the senate became more than ever apparent today. These two wings of the republican party In Washington seem to be drifting apart and no one can foresee the outcome. President Roosev61t is seriously dis satisfied because senators are holding up his nomination of Mr. Lane of Cali fornia to be a member of the inter state commerce commission. The president knows he can not force the senate to confirm a nomination, but he does think he and Mr. Lane are entitled to a vote and not to be kept hanging in midair. In administration circles the opposition to Lane is as cribed to railroad influence in the upper branch. On the floor of the senate this afternoon the railroad rate question was unexpectedly precipitat ed, and there followed a most inter esting debate in the course of whicli the constitutional power of congress to delegate the ratemaking power was seriously questioned by leading repub; lican senators. All the indications are that when the senate lawyers get well into this legal and constitutional discussion it will go on for months. And finally the senate by a vote of 40 to 23 decided to refer the Pana ma canal emergency appropriation bill to the committee on appropriations in stead of to the committee on inter oceanic canals generally considered a rebuff to the administration. Prom inent republican senators openly crit icised alleged extravagance in canal management and insisted upon hav ing all employment under the commis sion taken out of the hands of Presi dent Roosevelt and fixed by law. It was noteworthy that among the ten republicans who voted on what Is gen erally regarded as the administration side of the opposition not more than one or two could be classed among the leaders of the body. The old guard, the veterans, the men of com manding influence and position, were almost unanimously on the other side. The younger republicans' only rallied to the support of the administration." duced a bill providing that when tariff duties amount to more than 100 per cent of the value of the articles im ported, such duties are to be reduced to 100 per cent. Referring to Mr. Wil liams' bill the Washington correspond ent for the Chicago Record-Herald says: "There are plenty of duties which run over 100 per cent; there are duties which run as high as 1,800 per cent, and yet it is perfectly safe to assert that the Williams hill to cut them down will repose in a deep and dusty pigeon-hole in the room of the committee on ways and means throughout the remainder of this con gress. The republican leaders are de termined to do everything in their power to keep the tariff question in the background. They will permit no tariff bill or amendment to get before the house. Many members, even re publicans, would like to increase the revenues by putting a small lax on coffee. But the speaker and his lit tle squad who rule the house with a rod of iron are afraid to let the cof fee question come- up lest it precipi tate the whole tariff question." A spirited debate took place in the senate when Mr. Tillman presented a bill authorizing the Interstate com merce commission to fix minimum rates. Mr. Foraker said that the bill (Continued on Page 14) Representative Williams has intro- You Know that if you havo faintins, smothering weak and hungTy spells j if 5'ou no a shortness of breath when walking or go Inff up stairs; if your heart Is irregular, flutters or palpitates; if you havo palna around the heart, In sldo and under shoulders, cannot sleep on left side; havo difficulty In breathing when lying dovin. that you are suffering from heart troubles, and that It Is liable at any minute to prove fatal. . ,, Then don't delay. Commence at onco to take Dr. Miles' New Heart Cure This famous heart and blood tonu will cure you if taken in time. t The time is when you notice an oi the above symptoms. , , . . 11P "I anTglad I was persuaded to JO JS Miles' Heart Cure. I suffered fKUtiy from shortness of breath, PftV.rr ?mAh.cr'n?.?RGsd "nffiSv cured, This was two years ago, and I hae -no symptoms since." . .,a -llo. JOHN K. TODD, P. M., Uniopolis; , ni. Tho first bottle will benefit, if not, druggist will return your money. 4' ' s m A,., 2S-L?i!.gtt iimfrL. i: iJt&&t ,