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About The Wageworker. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1904-???? | View Entire Issue (Sept. 23, 1910)
WAGEWORlSRo THE 3" VOLUME 7 LINCOLN, NEBRASKA, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23. 1910 NUMBER 27 firiTRRFWT j COMMENT Before congratulating Messrs. Gooch and Tobin upon their acquisition of the Daily Star, I want to congratulate the community The change in the owner- ship and .the management oi tne star will be a good thing for Lincoln. As long as Mr. Thompson was connected with the paper its usefulness was dis counted. Not because Mr. Thompson exercised any particular control over its policies, but because it was well understood that Mr. Thompson found ed the paper to "get even" with cer tain people. The time when such papers cut any figure has gone, and Mr. Thompson's connection with the Star was an incubus that it would not overcome. Mr. Gooch is a keen, shrewd levelheaded man of business who is wise enough to know that the Star must stand for something sonstructive if it would win. lie knows that it must be a newspaper, and that it must stand for measures, not for persons. No "one rejoices more than I to see Col. Tobin "land." Mr. Tobin is a unionist of the right calibre. Many months ago he went out on strike against the Associated Press, and he stuck like glue. He could have gone back at a good salary after the strike was lost, but he wouldn't and didn't. He began practically at the foot of the telegraph ladder again, and he showed the stuff he's made of by work ing right back to the top. I not only congratulate Mr. Gooch on having such a man alongside him, but I con gratulate Tobin on being fortunate enough to have allied himself with a man like Gooch. ..... The Star has a golden opportunity before it, and I expect to see it take advantage of it. The Star's editorial and reportorial staff has always been a craekerjack. The trouble with it was that it was handcuffed and leg chained to a very great extent. That will no linger be true under the new management. In J. W. Cutright the Star has a man whose newspaper abil ity is 100 plus. As editorial writer and gatherer of news "Cutty" will meas ure up with the best of 'em every where. Cline, Mosshart O, the whole ' blooming bunch! If the new manage ment will just let "that staff go its pace the Star will be a wonder. What Lincoln needs is a daily newspaper that will give the news without bias and will not undertake to regulate the sun, moon and stars in their courses, 1 the personal habits of men and women, and the business activities of the city and its citizens. It needs a daily news paper that will not blow hot in the morning and eold in the evening, but will stand hitched, or go straight. Among the big improvements in Lin coln during the year 1910, I count the acquisition of the Daily Star by Messrs. Gooch and Tobin as the equal of any of them. The benefits of the change .1 r- t a 1 1 in tne mar s management are aireauy becoming apparent. The inains?ment of the Lincoln Trac tion Co. shows a deficit of about $20. (KK) for the last six months, and there- upon announces a decrease in the ser vice. It excuses the decreased service on the ground thait compared with ' other cities of similar size it gives Lin coln a greater service per car mile than any of them. This is doubtless true, but under the circumstances it is an unfair comparison. From Ninth street to Twenty-seventh street is eigh teen blocks a mile and a half, or three miles for the round trip. ' Over the tracks between those streets are operated the Cemetery cars, the East S street cars, the University Place cars, the Havelock cars, the Vine street cars, the State Farm cars and Khe Twenty-seventh and Y street cars cyen ljnes in all. Every time these ' i ven cars make a round trip between ZViz'A and Twenty-seventh they make twenty-one miles. Yet of what partic xlxt service is all thi to the points teen those two streets! The trou- " t i, there is too much "trunk line'' service and not enough "branch line" or outside line service. One may stand at Tenth and O streets and see seven or eight cars hiking eastward on O all in a bunch, but only one of the number will take one where one wants to go. Yet we are asked to consider that the mile and a halKjnade by those se.ven or eight cars is a part of a grand total and two ears would take care of all the traffic originating between Twenty-seventh and Ninth street going westward. Lin coln Could get along with a reduction of one-third in the miles of car ser vice if it could have the service spread out instead of bunching three-fourths of it on one street in the distance of a mile and a half. We know of a Lincoln home owner who has absolutely refused to mort gage his place in order to purchase an automobile. We'll give his name to any reputable showman upon pay ment of a liberal reward. HOW NEBRASKA EXCELS One of the "jokes!' of each session of the Nebraska legislature is the appointment of a commit tee on "Mines and Minerals." The joke consists in the fact that there are no mines and therefore no mining industry in Nebraska. In the legislative session of 1907 Senator VanHousen of Colfax was made chairman of the senate committee on Mines and Minerals. On the last day of the session Senator VanHousen startled the senators by submitting a comparative report the first ever made by the committe. That report astonished the people, showing as it did that Nebraska, without mines of gold or silver, coal or copper, iron or lead, was still producing more cereal crops bring ing gold from the "grass roots" than her sister states produced in metals. The report was commented upon from one end of the land to the other. It must have astonished the men who journeyed across the plains of Nebraska in the early days to test fickle luck in the gold and silver mines of the Pacific coast. They little dreamed that at the "grass roots" in Ne braska lay more gold and silver in the way of potential crops than has ever been,vor ever will be, dug from the bowel of the earth in the shape of minerals. . ; . Astonishing as was the report of Senator VanHousen's committee, it is not to be compared with the report that the same committee of the legislative session of 1909 could have made had it under taken the same task. The Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics has endeavored to supply the omission of the committee on Mines and Minerals, and begs leave to report to the world the following comparison, the products of Nebraska being reckoned from the reports made to the Bu reau of Labor and Industrial Statistics, and the figures of production of other states being taken from the World Almanac of 1910. NEBRASKA'S MINING INDUSTRIES As miners the people of Nebraska dug from the soil of their state during the year 1909 gold in the shape of the following crops and products: From Nebraska com mines..: $ 98,123,871 Gold mines of United States and Alaska 94,560,000 ' Balance in faver of Nebraska 3,563,871 From Nebraska wheat mines .. $ 45,287,483 Total sufrar production of the United States J 39,000,500 Balance in favor of Nebraska i , $ 5,787,483 From Nebraska oats mines . $ 23.861,389 Texas cotton J..... 19,440,000 ...- Balance in favor of Nebraska... i..a.i!:. . . $ 4,421,389 ' From Nebraska egg mines 18,360,000 Kentucky tobacco , 17,799,600 Balance in favor of Nebraska .". $ 560,400 From Nebraska live stock mines $ 106,771,163 Crude Petroleum of United States fc. 97,651,326 Balance in favor of Nebraska . 9,119,837 From Nebraska wild and tame hay mines .$ 68,600,652 Illinois coal 64,396,000 Balance in favor of Nebraska : $14,304,652 From Nebraska live stock, srrain, poultry, butter, eggs and fruit mines .$409,413,454 Coal of United States except Illinois ; 407,258,776 Balance in favor of Nebraska... $ 154,688 From Nebraska butter mines . $ 31,500,000 Colorado srold and silver mines . 28,305,000 Balance in favor of Nebraska $ 3,195,000 From Nebraska potato mines $ 5,909,202 , Arizona irold and silver mines 4,051,200 ' Balance in favor of Nebraska $ 1,858,002 From Nebraska alfalfa mines $ 17,745,930 Nevada gold and sliver mines , ; 16,775,500 Balance In favor of Nebraska $ 970,430 From Nebraska wild hay mines '. $ 29,760,010 Alaska grold and silver mines 19,968,200 Balance in favor of Nebraska i . $ 9,798,810 To:al agricultural, dairy, live stock and manufactured products of Nebraska $650,000,000 Total cotton crop of United States 552,000,000 Balance in favor of Nebraska $98,000,000 From Nebraska corn mines; $ 98,123,871 Total tobacco crop of United States 74,130,185 Balance In favor of Nebraska.: $23,993,686 From Nebraska cereal mines $171,000,000 Copper mines of United States 127,058,329 Balance In favor of Nebraska $40,214,414 From grass and sprain mines and refined into beef and pork.: $106,771,163 ' Iron ore of United States 60,821,976 Balance In favor of Nebraska $45,949,187 SOME ODD COMPARISONS If the eggs laid by Nebraska hens in 1909 were laid in a double row, end to end, they would ex tend 19,318 miles, which is more than treble the railroad mileage built in the United States in 1908. If the total agricultural, poultry, dairy and live stock product of Nebraska in 1909 were loaded irto standard freight cars it would make a train 10,004 miles long. The railroad mileage built in the United States in 1909 woul d accommodate less than one-half this enormous train. The train itself would stretch three times across the United States at its widest part. The permanent school fund of Nebraska holds $950,000 of Massachusetts state bonds. Converted into dollar bills and laid end to end this amount would reach north and south across the state of Massachusetts. If the permanent school fund of Nebraska were converted into dollar bills and the bills laid end to end the ribbon of money would reach from Omaha to Salt Lake City, with several miles of dollar bills left over. It would take 110 modern freight locomotives to haul the butter to market that Nebraska manu factures in the course of single a year. Cherry county is big enough to accommodate the inhabitants of the globe, and allow each one room to swing comfortably in a rocking chair, ... One may breakfast at 8 a. m., eat lunch at 12 m., eat dinner at 6 p. m., all the while traveling at the rate of 35 miles an hour, starting westward from Omaha, and then have two hours of travel in Nebraska to enjoy the beautiful sunset. A pound package of butter is six inches long. If all the butter made in Nebraska in 1909 were placed in pound cartons and the cartons stacked up end on end, it would make a column of butter the best in the world 6,826 miles high. Laid end to end it would parallel every mile of railroad track in the state of Nebraska. , FACTS TO CONSIDER The above figures are stupendous but correct. As a state Nebraska is considerably less than fifty years old. Less than forty years ago what is now Nebraska was designated upon the maps of the school geographies as "The Great American Desert. " .' Nebraska produces the abundance above set forth with less than one-half of her tillable land un der cultivation. Nebraska raises more of wheat, corn, oats, rye and barley per acre than any oth er state in the union. In addition to having the smallest percentage of illiteracy of any state in the union, Nebraska has the largest permanent school fund of any state in the union. On Jan. 1, 1910, the banks of the state contained deposits amounting to $185,080,005.56. an aver age of $142.00 per capita. ABOUT POLITICS I J If fairness towards organized labor . entitled a man to the votes of. union men, then Gilbert M. Hitchcock is en titled to the vote of every union man in Nebraska. He has paid out millions to union men during the last two de cades ; he employs more union printers,' pressmen and stereotypers than any other man between Chicago and Denver; he is always ready to sign ah agreement, and always ready to re-, ceive a committee and do business with it on a business basis. And in congress his voice has time and again been raised in protest against wrongs inflicted up on organized labor, and in support of measures proposed by the leaders of the labor movement. And wben Gilbert M. Hitchcock is-elected; to the United States senate, as we believe he will be, we may be sure that we have a sena tor who will not forever be "gumshoe ing" or straddling in an effort to chase with the regular hounds or run with. ithe progressive 'hares. ' " Here's hoping that Prof. Crabtree is elected superintendent ' of public in struction by better than 30,000 major ity. Not because we think that Prof. Crabtree is any better fitted , for "the place than his democratic opponent, but because the (bigger Crabtree 's ma- , pority the more stinging the rebuke to a little coterie of low-browed partisans who sought to discipline 'him because he would not assist them in prostitut ing the public school system to parti san purposes. .This coterie got a good 'blow between the eyes when Crabtree was nominated. Now let. each mem- v ber! thereof -have one on the , political solar plexus next November. : One year ago the fair was a financial failure or nearly So. It rained four days out of the five; 'but the fair's fail ure was attributed to the , fact that Lincoln was a "dry" city. - This year the; weather was ideal and the fair broke all records for attendance and Lincoln is as "dry." now as it was a year ago. "We are patiently waiting for the detractors of , Lincoln to ex plain. ' - s - ' Mr. Workirigmian, don't you let 'er.i fool you this year on the senatorial situation when you come to vote for members of the legislature. You vote ; for your choice for, United States Sena- tor, and then absolutely refuse to vote , for any legislative candidate who has refused to subscribe to "Statement No. 1," ; When you are told that "Lincoln is full of empty houses," you tell your informant that he is uttering an un truth. There is one good place to get a line on the empty house question, and that is at the office of the Lincoln Gas & Electric Light Co. Manager Adams will tell you that there are fewer empty houses now than there were a year ago, or two years ago. He will tell you that desirable residences, modern or even partly modern, are hard to locate. He will also tell you that there are more occupied houses in Lincoln today, by several hundred, than ever before in the city's 'history. Lincoln is growing, despite the "knocking" of the disgruntled on the one side and the fanatical performances of rattle- brained reformers on the other: The idea of a city like Lincoln ex pecting to get a competent business man to discharge the onerous duties of mayor for the paltry salary of $1,000 a year it is to laugh.' Now and then the city is fortunate in getting a man, like Francis W. Brown, who is willing ... to sacrifice private business in order to advance the public welfare; but such' men are, rare. Lincoln is a business ' institution doing business amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars every r year. Men competent to handle that volume' of business 'can command sal aries' in thefive figures. Lincoln ought to pay ' its'" mayor $2,500 a year, and then insist, on ,hving, a $2,50 man to 1 . '