Reminiscences of sa. Wayfarer
Some of the Important Events of the Pioneer Days
of Richardson County ard Southeast Nebraska, as
remembered by the writer, who has spent fifty
ona years here.
Something More of Early Legislators.
The representative referred to in
niv last, who distiuguislc'd hints* If by
his unusual display cf learning In
the preceding session el l ie legists
ture. eatne hon.e after th adjourn
ment tOW; . ! !,e elo.-e ill toe winter
of 18r>fi nn ! I >7. and wa received
with so nit I : ad smiles by his admir
ing constraints His home was at
Winnebago, down on the Missouri,
above the present site of Rulo and a
few miles south of St. Stephens, a
town of re< i ni origin, and which was
rapidly depopulating the hamlet, com
pssed almost • ■ntiroly of mixed bloods
and Canadian gumbo Frenchmen,
that had the honor of being the head
quarters of the pseudo statesman
from tlie extreme south Platte region.
Most of Ills time for the next few
months was occupied in telling how
it came about, that ho got, his Latin
mixed, and paying for (lie drinks as
sessed as a penalty for ills laugh
able mistake. There however, was
no mistake about it it was a piece
of sheer blundering Ignorance and
was properly punished as Bitch.
Notwithstanding its ridiculous
< haracter and the fact that il had
made its perpetrator a laughing
slock of the country, he had the sand
— slang for grit to offer himself as
a candidate for re-election to the
same office at the fall election of
that year.
iii launching his campaign lie Hindi'
the speech of his life, an effort which
should not lie allowed to drift out of
the memories of men, though I urn
able to give only a very little of it
the part that would strike the ordi
nary mind in his audience with most
force. The fact is the value of any
discourse we may hear consists in
our ability to recall something the
speaker said, two or three weeks
afterwards. Otherwise, our minds
are left in tIn* condition they would
have been if nothing had been heard,
as indeed nothing had been, as no
impression was made. Public ser
vants always delight in telling the
people how much they have done for
them, and how much (hey propose to
do if continued in service. It is the
universal stock in trade of the great
er as well as the lesser politician,
and the vaporing of both, have a
striking family resemblance. But
this is not to the point. The Inci
dent was two years old before I heard
of it, but it was so characteristic of
the free and easy way of such pub
lic characters on the frontier in those
days, that I have never forgotten it.
The meeting was held in a shack
owned by a mun of the name of Cook,
in which he had some kind of store and
a barrel of whiskey among other
vendable articles. I might as well
tell the name of the candidate though
there are not many in the county who
will remember him. Me was N. .1.
Sharpe, a son of the Mr. Joseph
Sharpe, who represented Richardson
county in the upper house of the
rirst legislature that met in the ter
ritory in the winter of I85r. and who
was one of the town company that lo
cated and laid out old Archer, lie
was familiarly known as "Jonse," and
was usually addressed by that euph
onious corruption of "Johnson," by
his cronies and intimates, and indeed,
witli that class,Jonse Sharpe was not
only popular, but a "hale fellow well
met wherever lie was known. 1
knew Mr. Sharpe for several years
and until he left Nebraska, which I
think was sometime during the Civil
war. Some years after the Pacific
railroad was built, 1 heard of him
as postmaster at Ogden, Utah, to
which post he was appointed by Pres
ident Hayes. Since then, I have
heard nothing of him. He may he
living yet, as he was quite a young
man when he played law maker in
the early days in Nebraska.
Put I must get hack to the meet
ing in W innebago, where Jonse made
the speech of his life. I think he
must have borrowed his ideas of
electioneering from Davy Crockett of
pleasant memory, for the first thing
lie did was to order a gallon of
Cooks best —tile best ami the worst
all came out of the same barrel- lo
wet the whistles of the boys before
he commenced. The libation having
been disposed of in the usual ;
way. the crowd of interested voters
seated themselves on the ground and
on sir*1i empty boxes as chanced to
be found lying about, the orator
squared himself at them and spoke
to about the following effect:
"Boys, I'm a candidate for Omaha
agin, and 1 want you all to vote for
me. Last winter I done the best I '■
cud for ye, but failed on the univer
sity bill, for the reason Archer was
alied of me, but 1 shorly will get jn
next time," here a voice interrupted
Say, Jones, how about that votln
for a bill In Latin?" "Now Kill
Morgan, just hold your (latter. That
joke's gone far enough. It was just
a fix up between me and the speaker
to hev some fun. Nothing more.
And 1 want to say that the Mil for a
ferry charter at tills place will pass
shore, and we will be ahead of all the
rest, I was in my seat at every toll
call except maybe two or three, and
1 don't know wher 1 was at them
times, but 1 think 1 was off some
where takiu a quiet game of draw,"
(some of the present population of
Falls City may know what kind of
game lie meant), “with some of them
Omaha fellows, and you all know
I'm pretty good at it; ami if you elect
me this fall, 1 will go tip thar next
winter and win all the money they’ve
got, and bring it down here and
spend it among you as I did las
time.”
The speech was further embellish
ed with other statesmanlike proposi
tions of a similar nature, but for
want of an accurate report, I am I
unable to give its full text. That lie I
spoke in part substantially as 1 have i
written it above, I had the word of j
William Morgan, the one referred to
as interrupting the speaker, and one"
or two others, who were present on
hat occasion, and they were regard
'il ns truthful men. and besides,
Sharpe never denied it. I think
Hill Loan told me about It first,
though lie was not present but had
been told by those who were. There
is no kind of doubt about the fact. 1
i would give a pretty penny for a ver
; iiatim report of that speech. The
'Oration of Demosthenes on the
j Crown, would be nowhere in the
comparison, nor would that of Web
ster in reply to the South Carolina
senator, llayne, or that of the Monk
Luther before the Diet of Worms, (an
old lady remarked that in tier opin
ion such a diet would not be goofl
I for the health as a regular tiling,
and judging finiu her understanding
of the matter, I am inclined to agree
with Iter), but the speech was made
as reported, and listened to and
laughed at by the men who heard it.
and by everybody who heard of it,
and so passed into the melodramatic
traditions of the community, unique
in kind, and unrivaled in character.
I give tills as a specimen brick
I of the early legislative material at
hand for the work of government
'construction in the wilderness, but
it should be borne in mind that in
most cases the real legislators are
not members of the bodies which
pass the laws. This may sound a
little strange to some of the people,
but it is the plain truth, neverthe
less. Legislatures are little less than
ratification meetings, and the same
In large measure, is true of the con
gress of the United States. Any
distinctive measure affecting the
material interests of the people, re.
reives their attention, in the way of
discussions in the press, on the hust
ings, from the platform and more or
less fronts lie pulpit, long before it
receives tile constitutloiml legisla
tive touch that gives to it the force
of law, and yet, If we listen to the
hungry, uneasy politicians and place
hunters, we might, conclude that ours
is anything but a '‘government of the
people, by the people and for the peo
ple,” but happily for the general
weal the meaningless clatter of
those harpies is about as harmless
as it is generally senseless and silly.
three other eminent men in our
history had expressed the? same
idea, so aptly put by Mr. Lincoln at
Getttsburg, tuwtt, “government of,
by, and for the people,’’ namely,John
Quincy Adams, Justice Joseph Story
and Daniel Webster; each using his
own form of words, yet no two of
which were alike; but it remained for
the man of obscure origin to work
over the old material and produce a
patent of his own so entirely original
as to become, for all purposes of def
inition, sul generis.
Translated into the plain language
of the people, it means nothing more
than, that ours is a government, of
laws, constitutionally enacted by au
thority of the people, and for their
benefit and control. Law,
whether constitutional or statutory, is
merely chrystalized public sentiment,
the eontroling force of which, con
sists in the fact that those charged
with the duty of iis <,iifor< euienf
must themselves obey it.
the modern constitutional tinkers
and referendum law makers, inter
pret tin formula announced by Mr.
Lincoln as meaning government of,
by, and for the people in their mob
capacity. They have about as clear
an idea of what the great president
meant, and of the true nature of our
government, us the scarlet women of
Babylon, might have had of the im
maculate conception. What their
Idea would have been of that mira
cle without a parallel, can he better
imagined than expensed.
1 have observed in my wandering
through the word, that there is
hardly anything that exactly suits
everybody; that there are always a
few who, had they been consulted,
would have had things made a lit
tle different, or not made at all.
This class probably were necessary,
or they would not exist, but it taxes
the credulty and puzzles the finite
brain sometimes, in conjecturing what
possible good their creation was in
tended to subserve. They are a
curious lot, but not rare by any
means. Generally speaking, they are
long on amendment of other men’s
works, but short on construction of
things of their own. The fundament
al law must, be amended every time
a fad suggests itself, that it may
have the authority of the constitu
tion for its existence. What a patch
work instrument that would be if all
the fool thinkers could succeed In
grafting their senseless vaporings up
on It. The constitution is broad
enough in its provisions to author
ize the doing of every act and thing,
necessary to the well being and hap
piness of the people, and for the
preservation anil continued existenei
of tlm government itself; and yet the
tinkers are continually suggesting
this and that addition, to meet some
Imaginary emergency, which proper
ly understood, is matter for current
legislation, and fully warranted by thi
constitution as it row is.
I'lie income tax amendim nt now
pending before the tribunal of the
states, is the latest on the..list. It is
urged that the amendment is neces
sary because the supreme court of
the United States lias decided, that
the constitution will not support a
law of congress imposing a tax on
thi> income of the people.
Ill Hie lirst place, the court as
such, has decided no such tiling. Five
of the nine judges of the court,said
such a law was unconstitutional,
while the other four said it was not
unconstitutional, and with much the
better reasonings in support of their
position. The reason urged in the
majority opinion is, that much of
tile income of the people is derived
from rents from real estate, and to
tax the rent is equivalent to taxing
the land, which would be direct taxa
tion under the constitution and
void—unless apportioned among the
states as provided in that instrument.
The tax is levied on money that
comes into the hands of the citizen,as
yearly increment from his estate, of
any and all descriptions, and that is
all there is to it. His real estate is
susceptible of being taxed also, if
occasion require it, and then perhaps
the appoitionment question would
cut. some figure.
The most that can be said of the
question as a judicial one is, that it
is still open and unsettled. The opin
ion in the Pullock case is the law
I lave you thought about your winter's supply of Coal? If you haven’t, you’d
better get busy. Some of these fine mornings you will find out that Dr. Cook and
Captain Peary have stirred up a cold wave that may reach Falls City any min
ute, and its always better to "lay in your fuel early—you’ll not be bothered with
it when it is cold. Here you will find a full supply of all grades—Pennsylvania
Hard ( oal, Arkansas Semi-Anthracite and different grades of Soft Coal. Follow
ing are a few prices:
Hard Coa! .$10.25
Spadra ... ..... 8.00
Bernice . 8.50
Niggerhead . 8.00
Canyan City . 8.00
Sheridan . 7.00
Rock Springs Nut.$8.00
Trenton, 111. Lump. 5 50
Domestic 111. Lump. 5.00
111. Washed Egg. 6 00
Weir City Lump. 5,00
Novinger Cocoanut. 4 50
BEFORE BUYING YOUR COAL CALL AND SEE US
P. S. HE ACOCK ®. SON
FALLS CITY, NEBRASKA
of that case only, and is res judicata
of nothing else, nor is it binding on
the court, for it was the expression
of a bare majority of the judges,and
may be overruled at any time.
The foregoing reflections may be a
little out of place in these papers,
but the sign was right to make a few
remarks on the subject of tampering
with tiie fundamental law of the na
tion which the now-a-days Lilliputs
are always harping on, and right or
wrong, I have made them, though I
purposely refrain from a discussion of
the legal questions involved; as not
being entirely germane to my general I
purpose. I will say, however, in
passing, that the boy who cut open
the bellows to see where the wind
came from, was the probable progen
itor of the modern herd of constitu
tional tinkers, and referendum law
manufacturers, as their methods of
pocedure have a very close analogy
to his, at least in kind. They would
destroy the integrity of the mighty
work of the fathers for no other
purpose than to try how one of
their pigmy notions would work, as
a mere experiment to see what would
happen. This nation has thus far
escaped the machinations of its ene
mies, but it remains to be sei n
whether it can be saved from its
fools.
—That old suit, or garment of any
kind, can be fixed up as good as new
—see Stanley Stump. 38-tf
—Dr. Trumpore—Massuer and face
Massage, Phone 267. 31tf.
—Eat Sowle’s Candy.
—Dr. Wilson, Wahl’s building.
—The cleaning and pressing of
ladies’ garments a specialty.—Stan
ley Stump. 38-tf
Can You Do It?
Can you write with your pen in an upright position,
point up ?
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The Old Reliable Jeweler £k p | » ICTT
Opposite Postoffice r\m Ct. 1
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