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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 4, 1898)
T3bc Conservative. CONCKKN1NG The last imniber iionsox. of 0110 of the big weeklies contains a picture , showing how young Mr. Hobsou is interfered with on the streets by people who wish to shako his hand and give three or more cheers for him. There is also a series of portraits of Mr. Hobsou at var ious times , from the ago of two years onward ; there are portraits of his father and mother , and a view of the Hobsou residence ; and there is a display of these and many more Hobsons on the Hobsou front door stops , together with the Hobson - son family-servants , who are black , and the young lady visiting at Hobsous' , who is white. So far as the public is concerned , this is all very well. If wo are to have war , wo want our fighting to be as well done as possible. And if the young men who are doing it arc encouraged in their ef forts by looking up to Hobsou , as we may suppose Hobsou to have looked up to Gushing , Gushing to Decatur , Decatur - tur to Jones , and so on , then the more ado we make over Hobson the better for us. But as to its effect on the young man himself , such a course of treatment may not be by any means so desirable. It may be doubted if he will return , after some weeks of it , to the duties for which we have educated him , with a mind so well attuned as before to the consider ation of problems of naval construction , or if he will bo as comfortable to deal with for those whoso duties call them into contact with him ; in a word , if he will bo as valuable an assistant naval constructor as he is said to have boon before ho blow up the MoiTimac. And if not , what is to become of him ? Clearly , ho nmst either bo straightway forgotten ( which would be hard on him and all the Hobsons ) or ho must bo made a personage of , with a prospect of ultimately coming to the position now occupied by those venerated leaders ol the Civil War , whom we have been ac customed to seeing led about , like fal oxou , for occasional exhibition in smal towns. And is this a career that wo woTild like to see lie before any youiif man in whom wo feel an interest ? Then there is the matter of glory , am' the inevitable descendants , in when pride of race is observed to increase di rectly with the distance from the glor ions ancestor. The more the glory now the greater will bo the uplifting of the remote progeny , and the great grand children of young Mr. Hobsou will bo quite unapproachable to the great grand children of us , who remained quietly a homo in 1898 and blew up nothing more noteworthy than , say , the icuiimu. A SPANISH Iu the year 1040 suimi/rv. when Spain' ? American colonies were perhaps the leas prized of all her holdings of land , i French army was laying siege to th < town of Arras , which had been takei and garrisoned by a Spanish force from icross the Belgian border. The follow- ng singular episode of this siege appears n a narrative of the time , which has ust been ropublishcd , and which has lover been translated into English : "These failures excited the insolence of the besieged. They placed upon the vails pasteboard rats , which they conTented - Tented with cats of the same material , nid the besiegers asked themselves the signification of those emblems. Well , uiving taken some prisoners in a sortie , ihey requested of them the explanation. These prisoners wore real Spaniards , and is such possessed the wit that is ob served in people of that nation , espeo- ally in the soldiery , and much more ; han among the officers ; for in those lines , when a merchant became bank rupt , he purchased with his last pennies an officer's commission , and brought ivith him into his now calling all the jlownishness of his first trade. How ever this may bo , these prisoners were icither stupid nor bashful. They re plied boldly to Marshal do Chatillon who was questioning thorn , 'That they were surprised that a man of his capacity should not have understood at once that that meant , when the mix shall cut this /s / , the French will lake Arms. ' The marshal dared not laugh at this allegory , as he would have done if the conduct of the siege had been in better shape. Ho pretended .not to have understood their speech , as if scorn had been the only re turn he could make to so impudent a response. ' ' The American nation is as honest in peace as it is valorous in war. It will not bo long before the truth will come homo to the minds and hearts of the people that Cuba , by which is meant a great majority of its home-loving , pro perty-owning people , had as good a gov ernment under the Spanish monarchy as- they were capable of maintaining. It will also bo likely to occur , indeed it is already occurring , that wo shall como to know that the organized cries oJ "Spanish oppression , " "Spanish cruelty' and "Spanish crime , " largely omauatec from as merciless a gang of brigands a * over infested the Italian Alps. If thif is not so ; if it is as true as the Proctors Masons , Thurstons , and other profes sional patriots would have us believe that Garcia and his blood-thirsty "pat riots" have been oppressed by bad laws and government , why does the presi dent refuse to change the laws or dis trust the courts , or private rights , as Spain long since ordained and estab lished them ? And why , oh , why does ho outlaw Garcia from all part in the now order ? THE CONSERVATIVE , Hon. J. Sterling Morton's now paper made its first appearance pearanco from the now oifico of publica tion , at Nebraska City , July 14. It is a neat sixteen page , three column paper devoted largely to the discussion of ceo lomic , political , agricultural and horti- jultural topics. It is ably edited and till of good thought. Mr. Morton has ilways been a persistent advocate of the ; old standard , and has been favored nany times by his party in his state , vith the nomination for governor. Ho vas then regarded as the most able ex ponent of democratic principles in this state. Ho is today as strongly advoca- ig the same principles that ho did in 'ormor days but the great bulk of his party have gone off with the pops on the l(5-to-l ( business and loft him and a few others to fight the battles of the old-timo lemocracy alone. Mr. Morton does not seem discouraged however in this whole sale desertion for ho advocates as per- iistently , those same doctrines , as ho did fifteen or moro years ago. Some of the wanderers are returning to the domo- iracy of old and Mr. Morton is not with out hope. Sterling Sun. "Oh , Liberty , what criinuH Imvu boon com- inittud in thy nuino. " If Madame Roland did not say ex actly those words , she did say something very like them. The curtain begins to rise on Cuba. The American people , through the pres ident and General Shaftor , are already beginning to see what "liberty" means to General Garcia and other freebooters 011 this island who have been waging barbarous warfare on the property-hold ing and law-abiding subjects of the Spanish monarchy who constitute a largo majority of the people of Cuba. Cubans would neither fight nor work in the late campaign , but the moment our gallant troops captured a coast city , they fell to plundering , robbing and talcing murderous revenges upon their loyal , industrious populations. And was it to give "liberty" to these bri gands that the flow.or of American youth laid down their lives at Santiago , and thousands of millions of money is being expended by a patriotic people ? DisTKiiiUTioN THE CONSEU- OF PRODUCTS. VATIVE IS Under renewed and increased obligations to its active and efficient friend , Mr. Edward Atkinson , of Boston. Ho has just pre sented ( with the compliments of the author ) ' ' The Distribution of Products , ' ' published by G. P. Putuams' Sons in Now York and in London. This book has already entered upon its fifth edi tion. It treats intelligently and lucidly of three subjects , viz : 1. What makes the Bate of Wages ? 2. What is a Bank ? . The Railway , the Farmer , and the Public. It would bo a good teacher in every farm house , factory , bank and railway reading-room in the Um'ted States. From time to time THE CONSERVATIVE will quote this instructive and useful volume. , ' KJ :
