slipper that the aforesaid little daughters will eat standing for sev
eral weeks.
Horrible ! We hear it rumored that the new Y. M. C. A. building
is actually going to contain two or three of those develish contrap
tions designed to seduce young men. to the downward way billiard
tables! And still more horrible, that a well-intentioned and fairly
wealthy citizen of Lincoln is going to provide the tables ! Shades of
Peter Cartwright, "Raccoon John" Smith, and all the circuit riders of
a past and gone generation ! The first thing we know these tireless
iconoclasts will have succeeded in amputating from the devil all of
his instruments for the seduction of young men, thus depriving min
isters and deacons of a certain class of their texts and opportunity
fpr springing their "hair hung and breeze shaken over hell and dam
nation" theology.
Is there any reason why the manufacture of automobiles in De
troit should be very 'much cheaper than in Lincoln or Omaha? The
difference in freight between Detroit and Lincoln would very nearly,
if not quite, make up the difference in the cost of fuel and raw ma
terial. And if all the money expended by Nebraskans for automo
biles were expended for machines made in Nebraska, we would
have a splendid industry built up in less than no time.
Suppose we tanned Nebraska hides in Nebraska, and man
ufactured in Nebraska the shoes worn by Nebraskans; and
spent our insurance premiums with Nebraska insurance com
panies ; and bought our shirts and working garments from Ne
braska maufacturers; and painted our buildings with Nebraska
made paints ; and made all of our Nebraska baked bread from Ne
braska made flour; and smoked only Nebraska made cigars say if
we did all of these sensible things instead of spending our money
with people who have no other interest in Nebraska than to get as.
much of our money as they can, w ouldn't we be building up a mag
nificent indutsrial commonwealth? And why not do it?
While deprecating the throwing of bouquets at one's self, The
Wageworker can not forbear to sling one or two at itself on account
of its Christmas edition issued last week. We are more than willing
to compare it with any weekly publication issued last week any
where in the Trans-Mississippi country. And it was. printed from
The Wage worker's own type, on its own presses, in its own hand
some office at 1705 O street. Any good kind of job printing done on
short notice.
Another bouquet: The Wageworker job department has just
completed a little job for the Armstrong Clothing Co. It is a circular,
18x22, printed on both sides, with four folds. The proofs were re
turned Saturday noon, December 17. On December 24 the job was
delivered. There were 75,000 of the circulars. Any good printing
job, from a four-sheet poster to a visiting card,, printed while you
wait.
Last week The Wageworker reprinted from the Omaha World
Herald an article under the caption, "What Nebraska Needs." We
are in receipt of a letter from a business man in an eastern Nebraska
town thanking us for the article and commending its suggestions
most heartily. The letter is written on a letterhead lithographed and
printed in Akron, O., and enclosed in a envelope printed in the gov
ernment printing office at Washington, D. C. These two little facts
rather take the flavor from the complimentary words of our correspondent.
The Sioux City Tribune is publishing some interesting editori
als on Nebraska affairs, the same bearing the ear marks of Col. J. W.
Johnson. The initials may be unfamiliar to many who could place
the name much easier if the words "Whisky Ridge" replaced the in
itials. The editorials in question are couched in Mr. Johnson's well
known and always readable style, but as usual they play fast and
loose with the facts. A recent one deprecated the w'ork of the Ne
braska Railway Commission, asserting that the commission's activi
ties were confined to compiling useless statistical matter to cumber
the dark and hidden recesses of the state house basement. The best
leply to make to this assertion is to say that the commissioin as now
constituted accomplishes more in one month for the best interests
of the Nebraska freight paying public than was done during the
whole term of Mr. Johnson's service upon the late unlamented "board
of secretaries" of the illegal and unsavory commissioners of former
years. One of the foul chapters of Nebraska's political history deals
with "railway regulation" in the old days when Mr. Johnson and
others held down soft snaps as "secretaries" to a commission that
was most active in securing free passes in bulk -and working hand
in glove with the railway corporations in the task of adding heavier
and more galling burdens to those already borne by a patient and
long suffering people. We would advise the esteemed Sioux City
Journal to send an unbiased and unprejudiced investigator to Lincoln
to look up the railway regulation history of the state before publish
ing any more editorials thereon.
The Nebraska Railway commissi ion is not yet four years old,
yet it has done more for the people in those four years than was ac
complished in all the former years of Nebraska's history as a state.
True, it has not done a vast amount of good, and possibly not all that
it could have done ; but wisdom comes of experience, and as the com
mission grows older better results may be expected. We have some
personal knowledge of the politicial history of Nebraska, and of
some of the men who have served her for a salary, but strive as we
may we can not recall that Mr. Johnson, while a secretary of
the so-called "railway commission" ever showed such a keen desire
for the public welfare as he now evidences, after having been ampu
tated from the pay roll.
Some men, however, are constitutionally so constructed. They
never realize what should be done while they are in a position to do
it, and only awaken to a realization thereof after they have been pried
loose and some other man tackles the job. In view of all past history
concerning regulation of the railways, Mr. Johnson in our opinion, is
the last man who should be caught throwing rocks at the present
commissioin.
A whole lot of people who claim to be Christians are balking at
the idea of having Christmas trees this coming Christmas day be
cause it happens to fall on Sunday. Chrismas is really a holiday of
pagan origin, but it has been adopted by the Christian world, and
having been so adopted it strikes us as peculiar that there are those
who object to its celebration because the date accepted as the anni
versary of the Christ-child's birth happens to come .upon the day
whereon the Christ-man arose from the dead. We may not be wholly
orthodox, but it seems to us that all the circumstances demand that
this coming Christmas day be celebrated with more joy and happi
ness and good will than usual. If the angels rejoiced on the morning
the Babe was born in Bethlehem of Judea, and all mankind was freed
from the bondage of death and the grave on that first day of the week
when Christ rose from the dead, then let us doubly celebrate the dual
anniversary when both happen to come upon the same day of the
week. Those who object indict their own expressed faith.
Postmaster General Hitchcock is trying to make a record for
economy in his department by working the postal clerks overtime,
doubling their work and lengthening their runs. Naturally, of course,
he fails to see that the. place to economize is in the payment to the
railroads for transporting the mails. The government pays the
railroads eight times as much, pound for pound, for carrying the
mails, as the railroads ask from the express companies. Besides, the
railroads furnish cars free to the express companies, while they charge
the government from $1,500 to $2,500 rent for mail cars, the yearly
rental amounting to practically 50 per cent of the original cost of the
cars. One cent postage could be provided, the postal deficit replaces
by a net profit and the service vastly bettered by the simple and pos
sible expedient of making the railroads carry the mails as cheaply as
they now carry express, by making the various governmental depart
ments bear their pro rata share of the expense for their use of the
mails, and by abolishing the many abuses of the present franking
system. To decrease the deficit by taking it out of the overworked
and underpaid postal clerks is an outrage on decency and a violation
of every rule of business sense.
What a bully business town Fairbury, Neb., must be. We
render judgment to this effect after seeing the argument put up by
the last issue of the Fairbury Journal. No handsomer or better look
ing weekly newspaper was ever issued in any little city in Nebraska
It gave evidence of the fact that Fairbury merchants are enterprising,,
progressive and full of the spirit that makes a community famous for
big business. Fairbury. isn't doing much boasting, using her time to
far better advantage getting there with both feet.
Now what do you know about wooden shoes ma.de in Nebraska!
That is. shoes with wooden soles and leather uppers. Yet one of the
really thriving industries of Nebraska is the manufacture of just such
shoes, Columbus being the seat of manufacture. Last year the fac
tory had a total output of upwards of $30,000, and the shoes were
shipped to all parts of the country. They are used chiefly by scrub
women, miners and street cleaners.
And Nebraska has the only silica mines in the United States.
The silica, or pumice stone, is volcanic ash, and it is used in the man
ufacture of soaps; talcum powders, and other toilet preparations. All
the silica used in the United States and not mined in Nebraska is im
ported from Italy and Sicilly.
H. H. Wilson of Lincoln is being boosted for a federal judgship
by his many admiring friends in Nebraska. Mr. Wilson is such a
good man for the place, and so well qualified in every way from the
standpoint of the people, that we are quite certain he does not stand
the ghost of a show to secure the appointment.
