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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 21, 1906)
- jnwm'vwnptiwv'w T DECEMBER 21, 1906 - "browed and long-armed but crn.lln.nf anontmnn 'masculinity responded from a distance and rap idly swung mmseiE uirougn tno trees until his family was reached. There he nArfnrmpri dmiin. antics to those that Mr. London dreamed about, enumg oy ueaiing me uyena a neat and powerful blow with a branch that he wrenched from the ;tree. The resemblance between Mr. London's an cestors (which were also my own, if ho will for- r give this claim to consanguinity) and Ab's immed iate parents is so great in appearance, behavior and surrounding incidents that the latter's story came completely to mind as I read the first in stallment of 'Before Adam.' I am sure that Jack London's wonderful perception, imagination and knowledge, as evidenced in the excellent products of his non. are ample to nroduco this nnt.nwniHiv contribution, to sav nothintr of nersonnl nlmmntov. -istics that prevent any thought of plagiarism. The error you maKe in your note and the remark able resemblances between persons and incidents depicted seem to warrant this friendly notice of a matter which I must presume will interest you and Mr. London.' " REPRESENTATIVE JEN.KINS, chairman of the house committee on judiciary, is quoted as saying: "Primarily it might be said the en tire school question is under the absolute control of the state by virtue of police power unless in terfered with by the treaty-making power. Un- I questionably a treaty can be made covering and including the question but it is not for me to say whether the treaty does or does not cover and in clude it. That is for the administration to detcr- I mine until the courts decide. There is no sense of justification in talking war. It is worse than I silly. It is cruel and un-American. We do not know enough about it even to express an opinion. All the facts are not before the public and I ap- I. prehend that but few have carefully considered the law." I MINISTERS HAVE often resorted to unusual methods in order to arouse their parish ioners, and the advertising which fills theatres and circus tents has often been used to advan tage. Among the many peculiar devices used to arouse an interest in church work the one, used by a Methodist minister at Bluffton, Ind., is not without its unique features. Discouraged by the lack of interest in church work in his community, and having exhausted the usual means of bringing the unheeding ones to a realiza tion of their " duty, the minister went to the church at an early hpur one Sunday evening and began tolling the bell. Immediately the people gathered to learn who had passed into the great beyond. Then the minister remarked that while he knew of no one who had physically died recent ly, he knew of a great many who were morally and spiritually dead, and it was for these that he tolled the bell. A number of those who gath ered to learn the news admitted that they be longed on the roster of the deceased and expressed a desire for a resurrection. MANY NEWSPAPER editors and other public men have recently shed many crocodile tears because of New York's "misrepresentation" in the United States senate. But the New York Press, republican, and wonderfully frank these dnvq. trvoa this intarfisthier reminder: "The I shame of New York is not in the miserable plight m which the senior senator trom tne state iinus himself at this moment. The shame is not more than when the election of both him and Depew was tolerated. Nothing is known about either of them now by those who were responsible for their election and for their other prominence in public affairs that was not known years ago. The fact that one of them becomes self-revealed to all the world as he was revealed to those who were willing to give him public honors to dis honor and the fact that a Mr. Hughes, in the insurance investigation, disclosed the other as doing what all his intimates and his political backers knew he was doing these facts add noth ing to the shame which has always been New York's since this state has been represented in the United States senate by Thomas C. Piatt and Chauncey M. Depew." The Common er. "vVO )-': T 7ITHIN THE MEMORY, of men who are yet VV but little .paistmiddle age the vast plains lying between the Missouri-river and the Rocky Mountains fairly teemed with buffalo. Less than twenty years ago the "bone industry" was flour- In The Children's Room 9 Sinco she had nlwavo , - .,., And ST', "fn-g wlUi tl ?cl C More t SIM Ullcs' nmkng seem She a til iJ ? Giah HttlQ chlldl8h dr"n, Mn c vfftlad "inured, "You must take My place with them, now, for the old time's sake." U to' thlfphn ?ty ,Chi;istraas corning, went qnnh w Children's Room, where she had spent WherJ miS ,h,0Ur8' SU,Ch evcnines intimate, P wait. ' Sme sh08t of I,or must Then suddenly upon his spirit weighed A sense of want that left him half afraid nr .Sin tlihouo anl s emptiness, Of all the ache his heart could not express. He, overwise, unreconciled, austere, Combating all his grim world year by vear Ann ITZ m,r0,?,0l,(1' raore scornful of'h, kind, And so, in toil, life's solace sought to find, A man who would not think, and could not wait, A lonely heart that built on work and hate, I hat sought the last but not the best of creeds, And in engulfing effort drugged its needs. But in the Children's Room he stooped above The childish heads life gave scant time to love. Wide-eyed they studied him, and bravely then He struggled with the tears that iron men Must seldom know, for, turning to the wall, There on three simple pictures chanced to fall His gaze, embittered with tho ache Of all his unillumined life's mistake. They were the simple pictures She had told Strange stories of, above each head of gold, In angel evening hours and days of rain, Crooning the same tale o'er and o'er again, Until each listening child that 'round her knelt With her the beauty of the story felt The simple history that day by day She softly told, and while she lulled away Some passing tear, some momentary grief, She left them richer with a new belief, While he, torn with his century's disease Of restless doubt, sought never dreams like these! One picture was but a shepherd boy With gazing eyes and brow illumed with joy. His sheep he saw not, nor the wide gray waste Of mild Judean midnight, for he faced A star, a strange star in the Enstorn sky: And like a little wind thoro wandorod by A breath of Ponce, and o'er the troubled earth . uw uuuiiuiiiuy nignod into birth. The second picture showed a mother bent Above a newborn Child. She was not apont . 4 Nor worn, but gazed with ever wistful love ' ' Down on the Child. The lowly roof above Their heads was but a stablo, yet tho face Of him called Jesus filled that humble place With mystic glory, and tho serried wlngH Of angels drooped to guard his sIumberingH. The last scene was that of tho wise men low Before the Child. A wonder seemed to grow Upon them as they watched, and they fell prono Before the Infant as before a throne; And as tho mother marveled, lo, on her They heaped their frankincense and gold and myrrh, (Tho wise men these, he mused, who aw afar And knew and understood their bettor star.') With what was half self-hate and half regret The man on whom tho fever and tho fret Of life had left its ashes, slowly turned Back to his little children who had learned What he had lost. ' Then to his vision came A picture like tho first, yet not tho same. It showed the Child of old with sorrows crowned: It showed a dusty cavalcade that wound By pool and rock and path, until, behold, From one high plain there suddenly unrolled The sun-bleached slopes, and on their heaving breast, In all its thousand-roofed and walled unrest, Jerusalem flashed back from tower and dome. Judca's pride, the pomp that still wns Rome! One dust-stained Man, with troubled eyes stood long And gazed on tower and wall and heard the song Of swarming street and life too feverish grown; And as he watched, in silence, and alono, Up o'er his brooding face a sorrow crept, And Christ, its Savior, o'er the city wept And strangely then the man who knew No childlike faith, his little children drew About his knee "For surely on this day Christ is re-born," he murmured, "as you say!" Arthur Stringer in Good Housekeeping. '- ishing in central and western Nebraska where prosperous cities are now located. Huge stacks of buffalo bones were piled along the railroad tracks in the then new country, and were shipped by trainloads to eastern mills to be ground into fertilizer, while almost countless horns were utilized in the button industry. A statistician has recently submitted figures to prove that fifty years ago not less than 50,000,000 head of buffalo ranged the plains of Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming and the Dakotas. In less than half a century the buffalo has all but disappeared, a very few being reared in captivity and a few wild ones still roaming the National Park under the protection of the government. Renewed in terest in the story of the buffalo has been aroused by the fact that PI. T. Martin, of the Kansas State University has just succeeded, through large patience and research, in reconstructing the skele ton of a prehistoric buffalo. The bones were found in Logan county in 1895 and shipped to the university, and Mr. Martin at once set to work reconstructing a skeleton. He asserts that tho buffalo lived 20,000 years ago. A peculiar feat ure is that an arrowhead was imbedded in one shoulderblade, and Mr. Martin asserts that this proves the existence of Indians in Kansas 200 centuries ago. The skeleton reveals a buffalo considerably larger than those which roamed the plains a few years ago. It is a foot taller and nearly two feet longer, and the horns have a length of four feet. STATISTICS ARE exhibited to show a great ' increase in crime in the United States especially crimes of violence. A-writer in the Philadelphia Record says these statistics are any thing but favorable when compared with those of other civilized - nations. The Record writer adds: "Thus it is seen" that while tbe' average number of murders and manslaughters in Canada is 15 per cent, or three for 1,000,000 inhabitants, ' i the number in the United States is 0,829, or 129 to 1,000,000 inhabitants. In Germany the average annual number of these crimes is 221, or nearly five to 1,000,000 inhabitants; in England 322, or ten per 1,000,000; in France 520, or 14 per 1,000, 000; and in Belgium 94, or 1G per 1,000,000 In habitants. These data, if correct, reveal a great disparity as to this class of crimes among the nations having the highest claims to civilization. But, assuming the correctness of tho data in re gard to these crimes in the United States, they would lead to erroneous conclusions as to the law-abiding character of thq American without a careful analysis. WhUe the average annual number of murders and manslaughters is 254 in New England, or 4.G8 to 100,000 Inhabitants, in the Middle States 8.00 to 100,000 and in the Cen tral West ten to 100,000, it rises to 22.30 to 100,000 in the southern states, and to 29.42 In the Pacifice coast states. Statistics of Mississippi and Louisiana indicate at the same time that most of the crimes of violence in the south are committed by the blacks on each other or are the processes of lynch law for shameless assaults upon women. A review of the statistics of the lower orders of crime in the United States would take us too far afield, but they unquestionably indicate an Increase in spite of the spread of pop ular education. As to tho Increase of the crimes of manslaughter and murder the chief explana tion is in the uncertainties and delays in the execu- ' tion of the laws. This condition is due for tho most part to the legislative extensions of tho power of carrying appeals and writs of error to , the higher courts for almost all offenses. Who ever has the means pf employing skillful counsel- '::- ca,n postpone his, punishment for years or finally defeat the ends of justice" . . j ' As long as the bail trusts" can keep the ad ministration worrying river dangers that threaten the "good trusts" the "bad trusts" will continue to pile up their millions of extortionate profits. i. r .M?1U hX -? JtaC WAJStb.. --.- -