THE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT
' APRIL 11, 1907
THE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT
ESTABLISHED 1889
Published Every Thursday
f iiOO P St.,
Lincoln, NebraMkM
Entered at, the postoffice at Lincoln.
Nebraska, as second-class mall matter,
under the act of congress of March 3. 1879
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THE INDEPENDENT,
Lincoln, Neb.
Tlie term "fake reformer" has sud
denly gone out of use in Nebraska. The
legislature was made up of the real
article.
A good sound law prohibiting the
donation of campaign funds by corpor
ations will naturally bo one result of
the publication of Mr. Harriman's pri
vate correspondence.
' . :
Last year's furore over the cost of
government printing 'resulted In an
order that each department should be
charged with the cost of its own
printing. The direct result has been a
drop in the nation's print bill from
$7,500,000 to about $5,500,000 a year.
The White Star liner Suevic which
went on the rocks a couple of weeks
ago has been torn in twb parts with
dynamite and the after part has been
towed into port. This demonsration of
the value, of the j watertight compart
ments in . modern, ship construction Is
worth years of argument. It is a de
monstration that demonstrates.
The complete dropping out of sight
ure it at two cents a gallon, or about
one sixth of the price that formerly
prevailed. At this figure It Is possible
cess has been discovered to manufact
of liquid air Is recalled by the an
nouncement from England that a pro
that a few of the promises made when
the substance was new may be fulfilled.
The World-Herald is "frank to say
that the best legislature Nebraska has
ever had, judging from results, Is that
which is just passed Into history."
Next to the record of the legislature,
this word of non-partisan praise is the
iViOal gratifying political incident of re
cent years. An "era of good feeling"
and political sanity is certainly upon
us. - .
The two American telegrarh compa
nies after twenty-five years of un
changed rates have simultaneously
clapped on a substantial raise. Whether
the coincidence is due to telepathy or
telegraphy we cannot tell. The te'e
rraph companies 0 - not Issue public
statements of their affairs although
they are public service corporations and
common carriers.
House roll No. 102 was passed with
out tho emergency clause, so tt will
become a law on or about tho first
day of July. It prohibits the sheet
ing of lk, deer, beaver and antelope.
It is a good law, but It comes a few
years late. The harvest was gathered
while previous legislatures slept. No
need to lock the barn; the hope is
rot there.
Charles P. Murphy, New York Tam
many boss, has been fried loose fro n
a public contract worth $330,000 which
he wan able to get as a perquisite of
M lvrtlilp. This Illustrates the high
price jald by pood people for tho hmr
a year they ave by not going to the'
primaries. The man who. Ilk Mr.
Murphy, spnd alt hl time at the
primaries, makes what they lose and
the others who must suffer with thuri
for their neglect. , '
That unusual sound rolling down
from the north is the Union Pacific
railroad calling in its last issue of an
nual passes. The minor tone is the
voice of Hen White performing a simi
lar duty for the Northwestern. The
Burlington isn't saying much just now;
it reformed in a large measure before
the law made It obligatory.
The Omaha railroad man who be
lieves that the anti-pass law can be
nullilled by selling ti3kets foi a dime
to favored people does not know that
this sort of thing "has been covered by
the discrimination clause in Ihe rail
road commission bill. The compajiies
must sell at the same price to every
body or suffer prosecution and the
prospect of large penalties.
Minnesota prides herself on having
built a four million dollar capitol with
out a suspicion of graft attaching to
the work. The Hstory of this building
ought to be written. With it should v.o
a history in full detail of the Pennsyl
vania capitol, this latter containing an,
appendix showing the number of years
in prison assigned to each thief. . The
two volumes would make an exhibit
that ought to be in every public li
brary. Senator Foraker appears to have th
active assistance" of John M. Thurstoi.,
formerly a senator from Nebraska, in
his campaign for the defeat of the
'Roosevelt policies in the next presi
dential eltction. His slogan is some
thing to the effect that this is "not a
one man country." But John"will find
that it is pretty unanimously a one
idea country just now, and that ida
will cause the election of a man who
represents the Roosevelt idea of gov
ernment. The state salutes Speaker Dan Net
tleton, and congratulates him upon the
zeal and ability with which he watched
the interests of. the people during the
entire session of the legislature. Mr.
Nettlctonhas a long and honorable
record in the service of the public, all
of it of such a nature that it led up
logically to the square deal triumph
of this session. It Is given to few citi
zens of a state to labor so long for a
cause and then to be permitted to par
ticipate in the victory as Mr. Nettle
ton was in his occupancy of the speak
er's chair.
Senator Raynor's talk of a southern
democratic candidate for president
next year is d part o the complimen
tary pre-convention voting with 'which
the south is wont to be taffled et this
stage of the proceeding. As long as the
south makes tho negro its paramount
political issue it will have to support
whatever democratic candidate and
democratic platform the northern
states decide upon. And it is not the
custom for a minority party to manu
facture candidates from states that are
already locked up in that-party's burg
lar proof safe.
Who killed Cock Robin? There he
lies dead, now in the stark form of the
free pass, now the still corpse of the
convention manipulator, again the dead
shape of the arbitrary dispenser of
railroad rates and service. What true
eye aimed the lucky arrow? There is
no doubting the identity of the arrow,
its name is the legislature, and a
straight, well . pointed, well feathered
arrow It was. Rut who was the bow,
and most important of all, what arm
bent the bow and what eye aimed the
arrow? Was It tho politician, the
farmer, the laborer, the preacher, the
governor, the newspajer? Inquests
are profitless things. Tho great fact
is not disputed, Cock Robin is dead,
and that suffices. Rut if It Is noce.
sary to know who Wiled the pass and
the convention boss and the Irrespon
sible transportation power In Nebraska
the nnswer In not far to seek. No
body killed Cock Robin. Everybody
did.
"Money on call easy, time loans very
easy;,, bonds, government steady, rail
road very stre.g; a material expan
sion of the volume .of transactions in
today's rising stock market," these are
a few excerpts from yesterday's New
York financial reports. If the railroad
presidents have been right In their
diagnosis of the cause of the late panic
this sudden return to easy money and
prosperity can be ascribed to nc other
cause than the adjournment of the
Nebraska legislature.
Fifteen per cent of the wheat anJl
twenty-five per cent of the oats crop of
Oklahoma have been destroyed by the
"green bug," according to a report cf
th secretary of the Oklahoma millers'
association. The green bug is probab'y
tho wheat louso which occns'onall
may be found as far north as Nebraska
but its ravages have" not hitherto been
of sufficient importance to gain it i
place among the wheat enemies de
scribed by Professor Bruner in his re
cent report on tho subject. The Okla
homa bug has begun to fly, doubtless
in quest of juicier pastures, and the
Kansas farmers will be in a state of
anxiety for awhile. '
Secretary Taft was met at Colon by
a deputation of citizens who protested
against the "unjust and intolerable
conditions imposed in the carrying out
of the sanitary improvements" in that
city. Just as we should no doubt send
delegations to protest if anybody were
to enforce the sanitary requirement in
Lincoln with regard to the defilement
of sidewalks, or the requirement of
public safety limiting the speed of
automobiles on streets and particular
ly in swinging around corners. The
difference is that the protesting part
of the people of Colon do not have
political control of the sanitary author
ities, and must submit to a bath how
ever' strong their. attachment to tiie'.r
old friend filth.
We will have to hurry if we are ever
to see in its beauty the only, serious
competitor of Niagara falls. - A New
York engineer who is connected with
the Victoria Falls Power company re
ports ' that plans have been laid for
extracting 200,000 or more horse power
from the falls and transmitting it to
the gold mines about Johannesburg and
the Witwatersand, seven hundred miles
distant. These fall are a thousand
yards across, two-thirds the width of
Niagara, and have a drop of 360 feet
to Niagara's 164. With millions' of peo
ple pleading for the salvation of Niag
ara our great waterfall i.-s still in
danger. The falls of the Zambesi have
no defenders, and are likely in time to
bo entirely exhausted.
American indifference to the small
leaks Is ' exemplified in the immunity
of the express companies. Passenger
and freight rates and railroad divi
dends are criticised, but the express
companies, taking their toll in driblets
have made more money than anybody,
discriminating between patrons with
perfect freedom, .with nobody to say
them nay. Not even when their in
fluence in keeping postal merchandise
rates abnormally high is realized, do
they receive serious attention. A
change In this respect is indicated by a
grand jury investigation in Chicug;
held to call several express companies
to account for alleged discriminations
in franking express matter Tor f-ome
people free of cost. Express compa
nies are now common carries and sub
ject to the same restrictions as rnlLoau
companies.
It will soon appear whether or not
Governor Hughes of New York Is equal
to a really great emergency. After
three months of give nnd take contest
with the political ringmters. in which
the rovemor. Imektj bv onIM ..kh
sentiment, has given a good account of
himself, the situation has resolved it
self Into a deadlock. The governor de
mands the dlsmlm.il of Otto Kidney,
the ptate insurance rniumlrfidnner wh me
chief function has been to shield the
life Inxuianco grafter. He demands
the pawage of the public utilities olil,
a measure Intended to be to New York
what the rate bill was to the Uri'ed
States and the Nebraska railroad com
mission bill to Nebraska. He asks also
for a ballot law which shall not put a
premium on ignorant or corrupt vot
ing. The old guard in the senate las
set its teeth against all these demands,
and the governor proposes to appeal
from 'the senate to the state. If ho
demonstrates the quality of bringing
down such a storm of public rage about
the heads of the black horse crew as to
force a stampede, he should do Tor
the presidency or for any other politi
cal work to which he may turn a is
hand.
One part of the plan to nominate
a hostile successor to President Roose
velt is believed by the president to
have its reliance in the popular de
mand for his own re-nomination. The
anti-Roosevelt men in pro-R oscvelt
states will join the Roosevelt chorus.'
secure instructions for Roosevelt,
meanwhile taking care to select dole
gates whom they can control alter
Roosevelt has refused to accept '.the
nomination as he says he would do
in such case. That is to say, they win
seek to name as the messengers whom
we send to the bakery for bread, per
sons who can be relied upon to lapse
into a saloon and spend the money
for beer. To be aware of such a
scheme ought to be enough to beat it.
Jean Finot in his book on the sub
ject of race prejudice makes an in
teresting contribution to the argument
that races are only fictions, and that
the designation of serine as inferior in
jnly the excuse of one man for ruling
another. That the blonde, square-headed
Aryan is not the foreordained mas
ter of tho earth, Gobineau, Virchow.
Huxley and Taylor to the contrary
notwithstanding, is a sweeping asser
tion of the writer. The races are the
produce of their environments; change
the environment and you change the
race. This view opens the prospect that
our negro problem may be settled by
assimilation without ultimate harm .o
anybody, annV takes square issue with
Spencer's advice to the Japanese V
avoid mixing their blood with other
races as they value their national effi
ciency. The era of political good feeding has
been marred by an era of ill ree'
in a quarter where it had been sup
pressed though hardly absent before.
The letter of ex-President Perkins of
the Burlington condemning Colonel '
Harvey's attack on the president prob
ably expresses the view of ma -, in
a similar situation. "For years I have
felt that Roosevelt was a very serious
menace to the nation's welfare;
through his talent as an actor and his
unscrupulous use of public patronage
he' has so far beeu able to carry the
people with him; he has done an enorr
mous amount of harm." These are a
few of his sentences. They remind one
of a time when a writer in the Rich
mond Chronicle declared that "Hamil
ton, Jay or King Are devils incarnate,"
and of Thomas Paine writing Wash
ington: "The world will be puzzled
to decide whether you are an apostate
or an impostor."
Europe spent last year about $1,400..
Oi'O.OUfl in military operations or prepar
ation.'?. This does not include the inter
est on public debts, the greater pnri
of which represents past expenditures
for th same purpose. Thevc expendi
tures are nearly one third more than
they were a decade before. The Mili
tary xtiense of the United States
have increased at a greater ratio in
the same time. The Idea of putting a
stop to this growth. If pot to the ex
cfthsive expinditure, has made norne
headway In this period, Tr the ques
tion 'f limits! Ion of t. r t v '.!
be dlscuscd at tho cnmlitft confer i n 'o
If Circa Britain and the t'nited S(.t;
hivo their way. It wa not mentioned,
extept by llu!a, eight year ngo. I. jt
nothlnif Is likely to come of the matt.T
this year. IUii!a and Germany nf
not now represented by navies roiu.
itero-urate with their ambition, and