V.
8
THE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT.
FEBRUARY 26, 1903. ,
lUbrasha Jndependent
Lincoln, tltbrasha.
UDERTY BUILDING.
J328 0 STREET
w
it
L
8
Entered according to Act of Congress of March
j, 1879, at the Postoffice at Lincoln, Nebraska, aa
second-clas mail matter.
PUBLISHED 3SVERY THURSDAY.
FOURTEENTH YEAR.
$1.00 PER YEAR
When making remittances do not leave
money with news agencies postmaster, etc,
to be forwarded by them. They frequently
forget or remit a different amount than was
left with them, and the subscriber fails to get
pi oper credit.
Address all comtuuuications, and make all
diafts, money orders, etc, payable to
tl)t tltbraska Indtptndent,
Lincoln, Neb.
Anonymous communications will not be
noticed. Rejected manuscripts will not bt
returned.
There was an unanimous vote for
bimetallism in the United States sen
ate last week. Think, of that!
The Independent acknowledges re
ceipt from the census office, through
. courtesy of Congressman Shallenberg
er, of a copy of the census abstract
The famous republican trust-buster
bills were passed.. The next week the
bituminous coal operators met and
. formed a trust that ' equals any that
exist
Bryan's attitude toward the pluto
. cratic democrats as expressed in re
cent interviews and speeches is emi
nently satisfactory to populists. As
, far as The Independent is concerned,
' It never had a doubt as to what he
would do when the time for action
came.
"Robust personality," is the way
Harper's Weekly refers to Mr." Cleve-
land's physical condition brought
about by his persistent refusal to take
the Ginseng Chemical Company's fam
ous preparation "Reducto." "Robust
personality" is good; very good.: But
the late lamented Brann would have
likened it to a certain indispensible ar
ticle of laundry machinery filled with
, the raw material out of which Swift
. and Armour manufacture an exceed
ingly valuable plant food.
The Independent acknowledges re
ceipt of tentative articles of incorpor
ation of the "Artluvian Cooperative
Railroad, Steamboat, Manufacturing,
Farming and Home-building Associa
tion," which is being boomed by our
old friend, S. P. Gibson, Star, Neb.
Mr. Gibson talks of beginning work
as soon as 'a hundred million dollars
Is subscribed and expects to build 115,
000 miles of railroad. He has certain
ly hitched his wagon to a star!
. The two cents a hundred increase on
oats, wheat and corn west of the Mis
sissippi, made by the railroads with
in the last sixty days, will far more
than recoup them fcr their expenses in
buying the election of a republican
legislature. Part of this money comes
out of the pockets of those men in the
western part of the state who con
cluded that "there was nothing to vote
for" and stayed at home on election
day.
That the daily, newspapers do not
want facts is shown by the way they
have treated the Bryan fortune to
which they have devoted so much
space during the last year. Mr. Bryan
made a detailed statement of his prop
erty and income and published it in
The Commoner. Since that, not a daily
has had a word to say about the Bry-
an fortune. The facts were furnished
them, but as they are not In the
habit of publishing facts when It can
be avoided, they all shut up like clams. ,
WE STAND PAT
In reply to one or two populi3ts who
have come all the way over the trail,
The Independent must again say what
it has often said before, that its col
umns are on open forum for every
man who believes he has a plan for
the betterment of mankind, but The
Independent is not responsible for the
political econor- of its correspon
dents. It holds to the same principles
that it has always taught To satisfy
one, long a worker in reform, we re
iterate; : i 1; ' ,
1. Price is value expressed in
terms of money. .
2. All money is fiat money regard
less of the material upon which the
edict is printed. Gold, silver and pa
per have all been made money by the
flat of the government, and without
that fiat, whatever of value any of the
three might have, it would not be
"money." -
3. The purchasing power of money
depends upon its quantity and not on
the material of which it is composed.
4. If there is a general rise in
prices that simply means that money
has become cheaper.
5. The populists advocated the
coinage of silver, not because it was
one of the God ordained money met
als, but becaute it would increase the
amount of money in cirpulation.
6. There is an easily comprehended
distinction between "value" and "util
ity." To confound them produces a
never-ending series of errors.
7. Value is human estimation
placed .upon desirable objects, the
quantity of which is limited.
Whatever correspondents may argue
in the columns of The Independent
does not alter the position of this pa
per upon the above propositions. So
the old populist that "came all the
way over the trail, starting on the
journey when the greenback party was
organized," need have no fear about
this paper. It is going to "stand pat. '
LINCOLN DAY ORATORY
1 The editor of The Independent has
waded through scores of columns of
Lincoln day oratory. Dinners, public
meetings, school exercises and ser
mons without number in almost every
part, of the union have been devoted
to the celebration of the life and
character of this lover of the" common
peofile, of whom, he, himself, was one.
The republicans made extraordinary
efforts of their party, but in all the
addresses that were delivered by dis
tinguished men of that party, never a
quotation from Lincoln's letters or
speeches was made, because of the
impossibility of finding even a para
graph in them that would give coun
tenance to modern republican policies.
The Bryan democrats made as much
of Lincoln day as the republicans, but
in their addresses extensive quotations
were made from Lincoln's speeches,
especially from his Beardstown speech,
which has so often been printed in
The Independent.
Many of the problems that now
press for settlement were foreseen by
Lincoln, and quotations from him
would exactly fit. Not only is that so
in regard to imperialism, but also it
relation to the tyranny and extor
tions of the great corporations. Lin
coln had principles by which he
judged every public question, and re
ferred to them, just as the mathe
matician refers to his axioms when
reasoning out his problems. They
were not new principles discovered by
himself, but principles as old as the
moral law. In the main they were
the Jeffersonian principles, as formu
lated in the Declaration of Indepen
dence and other documents of revo
lutionary times. Right is right and
never change, so those rrinciples are
just as applicabb to government and
the conduct of mankiud r.ow, as they
were a hundred or a thousand years
ago.
As soon as Lincoln was dead the
republican party began to abandon his
principles and policies and adopt oth
ers in their stead. His plea for char
ity toward - all - and malice toward
none, was abandoned immediately, and
hatred and oppression became the pol
icy of the party for many years. The
horrors of the reconstruction period
was .he result of this change.
Lincoln's idea of reconstruction was
contained in his letter to Michael
Hahn, the first governor of Louisiana
of the reconstruction period. The plan
was couched in the modest terms that
was natural to Lincoln and was as
follows:
"Now you are about fb have a
convention which among other
things will probably define the
election franchise. I barely sug
gest for your private considera
tion whether some of the colored
people may not be let in, as, for
instance, the very intelligent, and
especially those who have fought
gallantly in our ranks. They would
probably help in some trying time
to come to keep the jewel of lib
erty within the family of freedom.
But this is only a suggestion, not
to the public, but to you alone."
The men of voting age in Louisiana
at that time were the ex-confederates,
a very few northern men and the
blacks. Lincoln recommended that a
very few of the black men, compris
ing the most intelligent, should be
given the franchise along with the
others. Instead of that being done,
the ex-confederates were disfran
chised and the ballot given to all the
blacks, most of whom were in a state
of savagery from their long servitude,
none of whom could read or write and
whose language consisted of a few of
the commonest words, of English used
in giving instruction in the lowest
grade of common labor.
Lincoln knew what would follow
turning over "the government of great
states to a few million of black men
who had been degraded to the lowest
station that mankind can reach by
hundreds of years of slavery. The
blacks were not to blame for their
condition. That had been created by
white men, those of the north as well
as those of the south.
If Lincoln's advice had been fol
lowed, the race question as it exists
today would have been unknown. We
now see looming in the future a most
threatening problem, caused by the
apostacy of the republican party from
Lincoln's principles. Not only is this
true in regard to the race problem in
the south, but also in regard to aban
donment of the Declaration of Inde
pendence, by which Lincoln tested ev
ery policy of government as it arose
during his lifetime.
REPUBLICAN ANARCHY
Several republican legislatures are
now in session and the reports that
come from them indicate that the men
whom the corporations have selected
to make state laws are becoming more
vicious, tyrannical and anarchistic
than ever before. Over in Illinois
the presiding officers refuse to call
thVyeas and nays on the steals, al
though the constitution of the state
requires that the yeas and nays shall
be called upon the application of five
members. Lawyers are in doubt, at
least they say they are, whether this
plain violation of the constitution can
be punished. Some incline to think
that the speaker might be indicted for
the violation of his oath to support
the constitution after the legislature
adjourns. Out in Colorado the house
undertook to expel enough members
who were legally elected to send a
corporation and trust defender to the
United States senate. From arbitrary
and unreasonable construction of the
laws by plutocratic judges, to plain
and undeniable violations of constitu
tions has been the advance made by
the republican party during the" last
year. In Nebraska the party has
only gone far enough to exempt the
corporations from paying taxes and
adding to the taxes of the poor what
the railroads ought to pay. By an
other two years it will be up to the
front ranks of republican anarchy and
repudiation.
In the better days that shall coma'
to this natjpn bye and bye, when men
will no longer vote for trusts because
Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves,
when that insanity that comes from
devotion to a party shall be known no
more forever, those who inhabit the
earth will look with as much horror
upon the cruelties now practiced up
on the poor as we do upon the bloody
deeds of Nero and Caligula.. It is not
the ignorance, the want of sufficient
food and proper clothing, nor the long
hours of severe labor in foul atmos
phere in the dark caverns of the
earth where men are sent to toil to
pile up millions for the hypocrites
who proclaim themselves God's agents
on earth, that will most excite emo
tions of those who will contemplate
these wrongs, but pity for the little
ones, who to earn a pittance of bread
are deformed and. ruined for life.
When the strike was declared in the
anthracite regions, the godly Baer and
his colleagues undertook to freeze the
women and children so as to bring the
nusoanas and fathers into subjection.
They would sell them no coal and
when the shivering women and chil
dren went to the mountains of waste
from the mines, called culm heaps, to
pick out what little coal they could
find, they were arrested and sent to
jail for theft When Francis H. Nich
ols went to .the coal regions to de
scribe the condition of affairs there
for McClure's Magazine, he relates
that he came upon a woman and a
little girl who had found a sheltered
place at one of these culm heaps and
were picking coal. His account is as
follows: ...
une aay, m a nonow 01 a culm v
pile near Audenried, we surprised
n. mnthr with hor VoW an? o
. . . v ... . MUJ Ud
seven-year-old daughter. The J
baby was rolling on a shawl, while'
the others worked. The girl rose
quickly as she saw us, and started 4
away, but she was so frightened '
uiat sne ien Dack again beside
her coal-scuttle. She pointed to"
all MJo'l'ft tnlrtn T'U 1 x
back if you'll let us go."
"We haven't got no money for
to pay fines with. We'll have to
go to jail," pleaded the mother.
It was some time before we could
convince them that it was not
our intention to place them under
arrest.
"Why does the company guard
all this coal so carefully?" I asked
of the girl.
"All the people round here is "
striking," she replied. "So, of
course, the company wants them
to starve, and if they can't get
coal to cook their food with, they
will starve faster."
Little boys by the thousand work;
in the breakers and they are con
stantly watched by a slave driver who
carries a whip in his hand which he
applies whenever he thinks one of
them is not working up to his full
capacity. The little girls work in the
silk mills which have been estab
lished near the mines and get the
benefit of cheap child labor. ThAir
ages vary from nine to sixteen years,
90 per cent of whom he declares are
under thirteen years old. The fol
lowing is a case among the girls
which Mr. Nichols says was related
to him by one of the girls. This little
girl was employed to operate a treadle
and the foreman of her union made
this statement:
"She had to work all day long, i
and as she was growing pretty
fast, she began to get kind of
crippled-like. She was lame ill
one leg, and she was lop-sided, one
shoulder being higher than the
other. By and by she got so bad
that she had to lay off for a week
and go to bed. While she was -away
the boss hired a big boy to
work the treadle, and paid him, of
course, considerable more than she .
was getting. But when she came
back to work, he fired the boy and
put her on the treadle again. Our
grievance committee waited on
the boss and asked him polite, as
a favor, to give her an easier job,
because she was getting deformed.
But he said that he wouldn't have
no interference with .his business."
Mr. Nichols says that the nine coun
ties in Pennsylvania where hard coal