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
