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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 20, 1909)
The Commoner. 6 VOLUME 9, NUMBER 8J "train ninw m"ji'Mij)tiiiwi'LiiiiwJni ' .,IWHM II "ii'jliiiT 1 1 ii i MJSjwRZl-rr?'0 JWOft I L 111 It rCURR6NT GOPIGS a sr H. STIEFEL, whoso homo is at Fairviow ruin uuiuuui uvuuuwi wvi. vow, - J not far from Baton Hall College, owns a freak rosobush. Instead of bearing roses It is whito with cherry blossoms. Ho is hopeful it will boar a largo crop of cherries. Ho says ho haa no idea what caused the bush to go off at such a flower-bearing tangent. Ho has not graft ed or budded it, or done any of the other flori cultural or horticultural stunts which Luther Burbank, tho California wizard, does. It Is na ture's work from start to finish, and the young cherries already have begun to form. Tho New York Press tells tho story in this way: "It is a crimson rambler rose. Several years ago it was planted at the foot of a cherry tree in tho Stiofel garden. Now it is well up tho trunk. Never before has it homo cherry blossoms. Last year, and tho year before that, it -was aflame with roses. The display was so handsome it attracted much attention, and Stiefel gave away hundreds of tho blooms to friends and neighbors. This spring the rosebush put out its leaves and tho buds the same as usual. Stiefel congratu lated himself he soon would be in the rose dis pensing business again. Ho was surprised when ho went into his garden a week ago to discover tho bush covered with white blooms. Rubbing his eyes to ascertain whether he had been strick en with color blindness, ho hurried to it. The blossoms were white all right, and his surprise Increased when ho discovered they were cherry blossoms. Neighbors were summoned and a consultation was held. Nobody could explain what caused the phenomenon. One horticul turist suggested that the bush fed on the sap of the cherry tree until its entire nature was changed:'' ' NOW THEY have the "despair fever" in Russia'. A St. Petersburg cablegram to the Chicago Record-Herald " says: "In 'despair fevor,' Dr. Dvoretzky, a well known professor of tho Kieff university, has discovered, Isolated and given name tq a Russian disease. He says it is a disease which is spreading wUh tremeh douB swiftness and shows itself in a' vast ma jority of cases in the desire of tho patient to commit suicide. As far as the professor knows, tho disease is confined to Russia. Here all strata of society, all ages and both sexes are suffering from it. It affects the ten-year-old child and the octogenaTian alike. Dr. Dvoretzky does not maintain that it is a new disease. His contention is simply that for the first time the awful ailment with which all Russia is afflicted has been classified and named. Tho average number of those who commit suicide in Russia each month is 350 more than 4,000 each year All of these, Dr. Dvoretzky says, aro sufferers from 'despair fever. In Moscow alone there were last year nearly 600 cases, and in St. Petersburg nearly 1,500. Most of the deaths are among young men and women between the ages of 18 and 30. The most popular form of death is poison, but there are numerous other well approved forma of self-destruction In Odessa, for example, no less than six persons suffering from 'despair fever' consumed them selves with fire. Dr. Dvoretzky says he calls the disease 'despair fever because its victims' are always persons who find nothing but despair In the future, both as regards their own lot and tho fate of the country in which they live They see nothing but weariness and a stagnant life for themselves, and nothing but increasing unhappiness for tho country. This stagnant life the Russian youth fears even more than death " ROBERT WOMACK, the discoverer of Cripple Creek, who died recently, sold his discovery for a song. The story of his lifo is told by the Colorado Springs correspondent for tho Chicago Record-Herald in this way: "Bob Womack was born sixty-six years ago. Ho began riding the Requa Gulch range for a cattle company late in the '80s. The gold fever burned in his veins as ho traversed tho ground which tho owners believed almost worthless. In 1891 Womack did his first prospect digging. Finally tho foreman of the range sent complaints to the Denver mortgagees that Womack was wasting his time -- t jwt kmt m - -w m Y$Jl&mL$. tMSJpf J&JnMM '" mi i win i fa ii it ,,!,. i 'l c-'xyf honey-combing tho country with prospect holes Into which .the cattlo fell and crippled them selves. An investigation was made. Womack, tho gold hunter's look blazing In hfe eyes, tho gold digger's stoop bending his shoulders, lis tened patiently to tho order to stop digging. But tho spell was upon him. He gavo a sack to W. R. Myers to take to Denver to have assayed. By some mischance the test waa never made, but tho ranger kept on neglecting his cattle for tho shaft until one day going Into Colorado Springs with a load of rock, he came back thrilled be cause he had struck pay dirt 'We'll give you $300 for the claim,' said one of the millionaires of the future. Womack's eyes popped out. Ho had never had so much money as that before and ho closed the deal. The piece of land turned out to bo the famous El Paso mine, one of the richest In the district. Ho prospected thirty other claims and every one of them he gave away or sold for a song before half their richness had been revealed. His was the craving of discovery, not of possession. Winfield Scott Stratton was one of his companions and wanted him to follow him when tho mysterious call came from another part of tho camp. Womaxik hesitated, but Strat ton went on and discovered the Independence, which he sold for $10,000,000. The story of the returns from assays on Womack's claims started a rush to the district later called Cripple Creek from the cattle crippled In Womack's prospect holes. As others' fortunes increased, Womack's faded. Then he heard what was do ing up on the hills as he split kindling for the fires of his sister's boarding house, wash'ed dishes or did chores about the place, but his only comment was 'I knew I was right; couldn't fool me.' So Bob Womack lived in poverty until he became helpless. He always believed he would tap another vein of gold' JOHN GUNCKEL is a resident of Toledo, Ohio. He Ib called "The Benevolent Bogy man of Toledo," for he looks after wayward boys. William B. Forbush, writing in the Con gregationallst and Christian World of Boston, describes Mr. Gunckel's work in this way: "Seventeen years ago Mr. Gunckel was a ticket agent of the Lakeshore railroad. The way, he says, he got interested in boys is this: One day he was walking in a field near the city, when he noticed a boy scattering something on the ground. The day was Friday. He asked the boy what ho was doing. He said that the school children would be coming there the next day after hickory nuts, and, as the trees were nearly dead, he had 'blowed himself to fifteen cents worth of nuts, so they would not be dis appointed. Mr. Gunckel could see that he was a poor boy. It seemed to him a fine thing that this boy was doing and he was so pleased that he made an appointment to meet him there the next morning and watch the children find the nuts. At that meeting 'Jimmie' agreed to be Mr. Gunckel's friend, and the next Monday he consented to bring some of his chums to Mr. Gunkel's office to become his friends also. Be fore Monday Mr. Gunckel did some hard think ing. Few persons had studied books about boys then, and I don't believe he has read any about them since. For his Is not a book knowledge. It Is first-hand. On Monday morning the Toledo Newsboys' Association was formed, by five boys solemnly signing their names to the famous agreement which over 5,000 havo signed since. It begins, I do not approve of swearing, steal ing lying, smoking etc. Not long after this little organization was started, one of the early members broke the agreement. Mr. Gunckel was grieved, and hardly knew what to do But his friend Jimmie solved the difficulty prompt Ho took the offender out in an alley and punched' his head! This worked an instant reclamation This act gave Mr. Gunckel his first idea as to tho way to run his association for he started without any theories. This idea was, self-gov-ornment. It toon grew to another one, which Mr Gunckel states in this wise, 'To make a bad bov good, send him out to take caro of another bad boy Mr. Gunckel showed mo how his system works. When a boy has signed an application to become a member, of the association. Mr Gunckel hands his card to one of his officers of whom there aro sixty in various parts of tho city. This boy Is to report on any habits which the applicant needs to correct in order to be come a worthy member. One card I saw read, 'Ho smokes;' another, 'He uses cuss words to his mother When improvement comes, Mr. Gunckel writes across the card such a phrase as! 'Cut It out March 16, 1909 If a member falls from grace he receives a card reminder, signed, not by Mr. Gunckel, but by a boy officer, and containing a curt warning and a picture of a boy being spanked by his mother." JN TIME Mr. Gunckel's work among the boys interfered somewhat with his railroad busi ness. But so important was the work that the railroad officials told him' to keep it up, using, if necessary, the company's time. For two years now, fifty citizens of Toledo have paid Mr. Gunckel a regular salary. A building costing $100,000 has also been provided for his work. Mr. Forbush adds: "Everybody knows him. The adults call him 'John' and the boys call him 'Gunck Postmen and policemen who are too much away from home to discipline their children send them to him; and when boys do wrong their mothers make them behave by threatening to tell Mr. Gunckel. He is benevo lent bogyman in Toledo. All this work is intensely personal. 'Gunck' is the center and soul of it. To please him is goodness, to dis please him is disloyalty. It seems somewhat theatric. But boys are in the theatric stage. The Sunday afternoon meetings, with brass band and boy 'sturits' and talks by business men, do not please all the people who go to Sunday school, but 60 per cent of Mr. Gunckel's boys are Jews and most of the rest would never see the inside of a Sunday sQpol,anyhow. Some of Mr. Gunckel's graduates are now teaching in Sunday schools. He has certainly established among many boys in Toledo and elsewhere a practical code of decent living, upon which Sun day schools can build up." IN CONNECTION with the Vandeventer in junction against Nebraska's guaranteed de posits law, the Omaha World-Herald says: "S. H. Burnham is. president of the First National bank of Lincoln and one of the influential bosses of the republican state organization. We mention this by way of identification, since it throws a light on a circular letter Mr. Burnham has addressed to the banks of the state jubilat ing over the Vandeventer injunction of the Ne braska guaranty law. In the concluding para graph of his letter Mr. Burnham says: 'So far as I am concerned I have no further fear re garding the outcome of the entire proposition. Wo have knocked them out in the first round, and we will give them a body blow innhe second that will put the proposition to sleep forever.' By 'them' Mr. Burnham doubtless means the majority of the people of Nebraska who de manded, and elected a legislature to enact, a law for the safeguarding of bank deposits. That Mr. Burnham and his associates did succeed in 'knocking them out in the first round' may be admitted. This is not due to any virtue or strength in the position of those bankers and politicians who, for selfish reasons, oppose tho guaranty law. It is due simply to an extra ordinary and vicious power assumed by the fed eral courts, under which they assert the right to suspend the operation of a state law for an indefinite period, while they and tho supremo court are making up their minds whether it is constitutional or not. It amounts only to ju dicial despotism. It is a denial of the princi ples of representative government, and the es tablishment, instead, of the irresponsible rule of an oligarch. But Mr. Burnham's boast that ho will soon 'give them a body blow that will put the proposition to sleep forever' may well be taken with a grain of allowance. It is a pretty difficult thing, even for the great and mighty bankers of the state of Nebraska, to put the people, and any proposition to which they are committed, 'to sleep forever They will find it hard to accomplish even with the assist ance of the supreme court. The slave power was as stiff-necked . and -defiant in its day as