Che Conservative VOL. i. NEBRASKA CITY , NEB. , THURSDAY , JULY 28 , 1898. NO. 3. GOVKUNMKNT TllOl'O tU'0 SO1110 CKHTIITICATION. parallels between soldiers and currency , between war and finance. Authorized governments have uniforms nud insignia by which they stamp or certificate their troops and the military officers who command them. But eagles and epaulets and stars and shoulderstraps confer no qualities upon those whom they decorate. These in signia merely certify as to rank and authority. The brain , brawn and cour age of great warriors have never been bestowed by commissions. Nor has a luiowledge of war ever been put into a human head by any military commis sion acting as a force pump. But it is just as easy to construct an efficient colonel or general by the mere act of governmentally commissioning a citizen as it is to make fifty cents of bullion worth a dollar in coin. The officer will be useful because of his own brains , fortitude and proficiency in arms , or useless because of his lack of those essentials to military success. The value of the martial chieftain depends upon the fineness and texture of the hu man bullion out of which the govern ment has coined and certificated him. And as government cannot , by edict and commissions , make great soldiers out of noodles and naturals , so it can not by enactments and stamping , make silver the equal of gold. The value of the metal bullion in the coin determines purchasing power , and the character and stamina of the man determine the fighting power of the soldier. Stamps do not give value to either money or men. It does not follow that a horse des cended from standardbred trotters will make fast time on the course , without training. No owner would enter an un trained colt in free-for-all a - - trotting match because the colt had a speedy sire and dam. Money is not risked that readily , nor wealth thus recklessly staked 011 chances. But there are as many reasons for expecting equine vic tories in the speed ring from undevel- ped thoroughbreds as there are for pre dicting victories in war for military offi cers who have been commissioned because their fathers were renowned as generals. A pedigree does not make a racer , always ; nor can heredity , invar iably , insure us a great soldier. Speed is not transmitted , but the potency to bo trained and developed for speed is trans mitted. Strategy and military tactics are not transmitted but the capacity to acquire a knowledge thereof and an ap titude for the art of war may be trans mitted. THIS sciiOT.Aii Hon. William L. IN POLITICS. Wilson , the presi dent of the Washington and Leo Uni versity at Lexington , Virginia , is a splendid citizen and patriot. No man hi recent times has better demonstrated the vahio of the scholar in American politics. Recently Mr. Wilson wisely wrote : "The history of our freedom then has not been so much a history of achieve ment as a history of preservation. The task has not been to win a new possess- sion , but to defend an old one , to bear it safely along the march of human progress , through all the advancing and receding stages of civilization , amid the accidents and changes and perils which steadily increase in number and in portent tent as the world grows into that 'vast and complicated thing , ' wliich is the only definition M. Taine can find for modern society. "If one after another of the nations and peoples of the world has lost its freedom in the stately procession of the ages , some surrendering it to the 'wild and many weaponed throng that hangs upon its front and flank and rear , ' and others marring by changes 1 -all too florco and vast This order of the Human Star , This lioritngo of the past , ' it is our supreme happiness to stand in the single line down which its traditions have come with unsteady , it may bo , but never-failing progress , widening from precedent to precedent. If today and in the near future those traditions seem threatened by now perils and new temptations that spring from beneath the chariot wheels of triumphant pro gress , of our industrial advancement , and our military achievement , it is the more incumbent on patriot and scholar to clear the mind and to cleanse the bosom of all error as to the origin and history of our freedom and the organic conditions under which it must operate through the machinery of self-govern ing institutions. It must not bo for gotten that it has never been the stable creation of theories , however dazzling and magnificent , but the growth of slow , steady , and silent progress. Even its so-called founders and apostles have been men who have faithfully and lojr- ally done merely the next thing.boingsuro that the next thing was the right thing as tested by the standards of the past. By this wisdom alone have they insured healthy and consistent progress , linking freedom and order into bonds of union and escaping the anarchy and deeds of blood which have too often accompanied the hurried strides of revolution , and , in the name of liberty , driven mankind from its worship. "How many a glorious dawn has red dened and darkened into night of terror as more theory , fanaticism , intoxica tion of power or of glory , have sought to hasten or to undo the work of evolu tion and to remodel human life or so ciety by their crude and fanciful notions. "The founders of our republic were- never swept from their firm footing by any such delusive ideas. That 'creative power , ' which Mr. Bancroft attributes to them and which they possessed be yond all other state builders in history , , was , as ho further testifies , merely ex M ercised in the strong and harmonious < organization of materials that were the t > * gift of the ages , and lie might have added with equal truth , the creative I power itself was the rarest and most Ir precious of these gifts of the ages. r They understood their task and its inexorable jf * exorable conditions and therefore they i succeeded in that task. Names signify little ; written constitutions signify lit tle ; universal suffrage is no warranty. The potential energy , the soul and liv ing spirit of freedom , does not reside in any of these , nor yet in charters , or bills or petitions of right , or in statutes , but in the political training , the individual enlightenment , the individual morality of a people , and in devotion to personal liberty , in men who having these for their pole-star are not borne to and fro ' 1 by the shifting tides of popular opinion 1i or popular madness , but who steer right onward , able and willing 'to maintain the day against the hour and the year against the day. ' " * * * * * GOLD STANDARD 111 tllO first 1111111- somiows. bor of THE CON SERVATIVE was published the following extract from an eloquent advocate of the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 : "Tho promulgation of the gold stand v ard is an attack upon your homes and your firesides and you have as much right to resist it as to resist an army marching to take your children captive and burn the roof over your head. " In connection therewith a long list was published of the advancements and improvements of the wage-earners of the United States which had been made during the last forty years , notwith- t- standing the alleged plutocracy of the \ country. Then it was promised that public attention would bo called to more p ? * " gold standard sorrows. Hove are a few of them : During the last forty years railroads have been required to fence their lines or pay double damage for loss of prop erty resulting from their failure to , fence. Railroads in that time have , been required also to furnish safe places and appliances for their employees. Manufacturers and mine owners are & compelled to provide places and machin- , r