3
APRIL 4,1907.
THE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT
GROWLING AT TUG Pltnss.
There is no denying that the Ne
braska country press, about 95 per
cent of it, is in utter disgrace in cer
tain quarters. That fact crops out
in every debate between the old and
the new in Nebraska politics. The
odium H deserved, too. The facts
stre about these: According to im
' memorial custom the county news
paper has been an organ of one party
or the oilier. If the editor was "go-Hi,"
and supported the ticket from top to
bottom with sufficient frenzy he was
rewarded in case his party won, with
the county printing, with a fair
scattering of legal notices, and per
chance, if he did the "right" thing
in national affairs, the local postoffice
was bestowed upon him. The danger
in this situation lay in the fact that
the editor became subservient not to
the party, but to the men who con
trolled the party, a very different
thing. If he showed a tendency to
oppose the interests of the party
organization, even though he acted in
the real Interest of the party, he was
punishable by the withdrawal of his
public patronage.
The country press of Pennsylvania
is a notable example of the way news
papers are held in line for a domi
nant machine by postoffice, appoint
ments. The way the Iowa news
papers, or a large proportion of them,
went down with the bid machine when
Cummins won, illustrated the case
nearer home. The Nebraska editors
were of a different breed. When the
issue arose between the parties and
the machines, the editors with one
accord, the exceptions being so few
as to emphasize the unanimity of
the rest, elected to stand by the
parties. The machine has never ween
able to get over it, and wherever a
machine man is heard there is heard
a growl at the newspapers. They
say the newspapers favor the direct
primary because that will mean gov
ernment by newspapers. The private
interest of the newspapers in the
direct primary lies altogether in the
facilities it gives them to serve their
subscribers without interference from
or punishment by political machines.
COSTITCTIO.VAIi AWEXOMKNTS.
The biennial bill for a constitutional
amendment has met with considerable
favor this winter, so much so as to
result in holding back good meas
ures for amending the present con
stitution. The supporters of the con
vention idea seem to overlook the fact
that the principal argument in favor
of a general revision has been, nulli
fied completely by the supreme court
decision on straight party voting,
which permits the constitution to be
changed now whenever needed. The
success of the railroad commission
amendment last fall paves the way
for other amendments without waste
of time or- great expense. If an
amendment is offered at the election
of 1908 increasing the number and
pay of the supreme judges it will be
adopted without a doubt, for the ne
eessitv for this change is admitted
on all sides.
If only one amendment is submitted
by each legislature, the constitution
can be easily kept abreast of the needs
"of the state. The old document has
some defects, due largely to its adop
tion during a time of enforced econ
omy, but on the whole it remains
about as satisfactory as anything the
present generation would be likely
to "produce. In its provisions for the
control of corporations, now the mqst
vital i?f?ue before the public, the con
stitution of 1875 seems to have been
prophetic. All the power the legis
lature needs to keep the railroads m
the place of the 'servant, and not mas
ter of the state is found there, granted
in unequivocal terms. Until con
ditions change radically the old con
stitution, with perhaps a biennial
amendment, will serve every purpose.
President Roosevelt has issued the
order for an election in the Philip
pines. In July each 100,000 of the
nonulation of the islands will elect an
assemblyman and the eighty-five or
thereabout so elected then form the
lower house of a Philippine legislature.
The Philippine commission will be the
upper 'house. It is a rare thing to find
iff Try Till You'ro
?j oausiiea
Tf ! f iva D t to J
J diy trial. I want
I jrou to knowtiiit
know bfoi ou b"r.
Nothing la hide about
Jatmaaa
OLD TRUSTY
rralM
Incubattrt
! Rrvtri, T b Old Tfw'r p! U til rt,-M.
ii 4 i rlf k4 ni.1 llt i nt
(ri frt,u1 V. rn r m, I'?
rr MUi'i Vault h lntrotixi.
M. M. JOHNSON,
an American interested in or informed
upon the affairs of such of our terri
tories as Hawaii, Porto Rico ; and th
Philippines. This !s unfortunate for
the territories. For example, Ameri
can indifference has made possible the
exploting of the Philippines in behalf
of the American sugar and tobacco in
terests. And yet their affairs are
eminently interesting. Americans who
enjoyed as students studying the
growth of the colonies our forefathers
founded, their various stages in gov
ernment and their feeble firs steps as
a nation can find an absorbing study
in changes now under way in the
Philippics. The Filipinos never had
a vote or dreamed of one on even the
smallest local matter before the
United States entered the land. They
have now had four or five jrears prac
tice in voting for members of their
town councils. This new electorate
ranges from the educated Filipino
capable of putting the brighest Ameri
can on hi,s mettle, through all degrees
of civilization down to the thinly dis
guised savage. What will follow when
this deeply stratified population begins
to express nationality at the ballot
box? It is worth any American's time
to watch and see.
SANITY,
Professor Grasset of the French uni-
vesity of Montpelier has published a
book on the sane, the insane and the
half sane, whose dull pages at this
time glow with reflected light from the
Thaw trial. The professor adheres to the
oft expressed belief in the madness of
most forms of genius. Intellectual
superiority is not a disease, but the
touch that turns it into genius is
likely to -have a pathological aspect.
There are all degrees of mental dis
order, he urges, and it" is no small
part of the proper task of society in
dealing with Its eccentrics and
criminals to determine to what extent
they should be held responsible as ra
tional beings and to what extent
treated as victims of disease, in cas5
of actions that require public atten
tion. Since there is no way of tell
ing except investigation on which side
of the line a person stands, it would
seem that as a preliminary to every
criminal trial the accused should be
put through an examination to deter
mine whether he should be tried or
comitted to a hospital. It is certainly
not economical to wait until after the
trial as in the Thaw case. It might
be even better not to wait for the
commission of an unlawful act, but to
require every man to pass a periodical
examination before an official insanity
board as every well regulated man has
his teeth tested once a year. Of
course it would be essential in this
case to have the insanity' board it
self examined frequently.
r R K S I n E T I A L P O PI L A K I r V .
If the history of the United States
has proved anything it has proved the
partiality of party managers, con
gressmen, and special interests for
presidents who have the homely pri
vate virtues so popular with the
American people, are good tempered,
good intentioned, and lack iir great
personal force. Their ability to serve
their preference can be judged from
the lists of presidents. The mini in
stinctively leaps from Jackscn to Lin
coln, and from Lincoln to Roosevelt,
three in seventy-five years. The rea
son is not far to seek. The ties of
party and the pressure of personal in
terest that bind a president of the
United States arc so tight and so in
tricate that only a man of tremendous
force and personality can free himself.
That means ordinarily a president
under the thumb of congress and the
managers of his party, and a govern
ment run in their interest. The con
duct of President Roosevelt which has
endeared him to the American people
has ben distasteful to most of tMse
who have been in the habit of '.( ;
ing strings on the presidents. So
Mr. Roosevelt is nut really popular
with congress nor with the managers
of his party, except that they ap
preciate his value as a vote getter,
The politicians of both political
parties prefer the colorless candidate.
If they have their way next year the
democratic candidate will be a misty
gray, the republican candidate a de
licate drab.
1 mtmy Funeral.
"It I early for th (t lple,"" aaid a
countable. "We don't imually (In. I them
hereabout till the sprins Is wU ad
vuncfl. I naw arlpay bawd the other
day, tbotii'li. and what H more, I daw a
Kipsy fun ral.
Th odvl IHlnsc about this funeral was
I he burning tli.it aeenmpanted lt-th
burning of lb dea.l luan'a effect. They
burnM evrrythlngr, hi wagon, hta ti&rnesa
M clothes, hla beikllnjr. hi eooltlnc
utensil'', ami hi Addle. N i ilotibt thar'a
bnv(! tttrrnt hta hers, Inu the ao'tj tluit
to pay lb- funer! menses.
' I tuilerfand that f?pv funeral burn
ing are of fraat antlqdtjr. Tha UJ
urvl.Tlyir tnniu la thai thra hall be no
quarrel In a: union relation an. frenJ
over the ffet of tha (lead.
If a a r-irted to rximtna; r,t HU Kind
w miHt a gjihi nto aii vwo-
Dogged By Cunning Wolves
A Pestered Trapper Back From the Far North
LACHINE, Canada "The wolves
were howling terribly about Bark,
Lake all winter," said Jules Godden,
an old trapper who has just come in
from the upper Gatineau country.
'"They had bothered me badly on the
trapping lines up near the height of
land in November when the snow was
only a few inches deep on the level.
"Every round I made a big pack
would be ahead of me and everything
would be torn out of the traps. Where
I had set for . mink, so that when
pinched the creature would get into
the water and be " drowned by the
weight of the trap, the wolves would
pull on the chain, drag up the dead
thing and eat ft cleanout of the steel.
And I never saw the mink better and
larger than they are this year.
"I got a paw belonging to one little
wolf pup out of a fox trap. 1 brought
it along, for that is about all I got in
two weeks, with more than three
hundred traps, besides nares and
deadfalls. It cost enough to be worth
as much as a jaekrabbifs foot, any
way. ,
"Yes, I guess the wolves took a good
hundred dollars worth of fur out of
my traps. Watch for them? Why,
man, I sat up in trees all night, I dug
holes in the snow and buried myself
for hours and hours, I 'most poisoned
myself with animal musk to . kill the
human scent, and the nearest I ever
got to one of those brutes was when
they would set up howling two or three
hundred yards away from where I was
hiding for them.
"Oh, yes, come to think of it, one
day I saw nine of them, great big
brutes, seven feet long, chase a deer
the whole length of White Deer lake.
The poor thing was loping along easily,
half stopping every half mile or so to
look back and see if they were still
on her tracks.
"I ran down a ridge to the outlet,
where It had only frozen over the
night before, to see how she would
take off, whether by the old log road,
which ran 'round to near where I was
or into the scrub. She did a mighty
neat trick there. . .
"Right on the edge of the glace tee
she turned sharp off, headed across the
lake and jumped into the bush, into
an old greatly used deer pad. The
wolves came lumbering along with
their heads well down, and first thing
Hot Kasjootio.
1
TT t i h I
WSim! Knabsra af
aajyss :j i
they knew were trying to stop and
wheel around on the new slippery Ice.
"Two of them went sliding on clean
into the outlet and had quite a time
of it crawling out of the current again.
All of them got ugly fall and lost timo
getting their footing.
"I was too far away to hurt them,
but I fired two or three shots to
frighten them and give the doe a
chance. But they stunk off after her,
and I shouldn't wonder if they got her
some time that day or the next.
"They are perserverlng. are wolves,
when they get on a fresh track. I
have known them to chase a cow
moose for five days, giving her no rest
day or night till she was dog tired
and got pulled down at last. .
"It was mighty poor business for me,
though, and the second week in De
cember I up stakes and made south.
It is pretty much of a contract to
take up three or four hundred traps
and snares when they are scattered
over fifteen or twenty miles of country
and then portage them with chains and
springs all frozen thick with ice and
snow.
"About New Year's I got them all
down again, around the Bark lake
country, and had first rate luck. My
camp was in an old lumber shanty,
and when the wolves howled every
night. I was not sorry to have the
heavy logs between me and the
weather. j
"No, they didn't bother the traps
very much about those parts. There
were so many rabbits they had no
need. All the old hunters say they
never saw so many as there are this
year, and the way the wolves picked
them up was something cruel.
"I got one little wolf, the smallest
one I ever saw, m a snare. The wire
had been fastened to a birch sapling,
bent down so that when the rabbit
kicked the tree would prlnjf and hang
him up out of the wav.
"When I got there one morning I no
ticed the srHjw all around was padded
into ice by wolves. They had been
trying to catch hold of the little
brother that had been caught by
jumping, and you could see where the
cute things had been gnawing and
tearing the bark as they tried to bend
the sapling down again.
"The dead wolf seemed, to have his
teeth well grown and must have been
a dwarf. But his scalp was worth $15,
-ar- 7i -n n r- n n
-r iu. ran
mum u Miwuini
tm Infanta ana Childrea.
Tho Kind You llavo
Always Bought
n
Bears the .
Signature
Thirty Years
hf Uso
JJ For Over
