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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 11, 1898)
'Cbe Conservative * PEACE. Evoiy father and mother in the United States who has a son in the army invading Cuba , in the West Indies or with the command of General Merritt among the Philippines will rejoice at returning peace. Brothers , sisters , sweethearts of the patriotic boys in blue will everywhere thank God that peace is assured ! Cicero said : "Peace is liberty in tranquillity. " A" modern civilization , in its right * % , nolds that peace is the happy natural state of the humanity of the XIX centiiry and that war is its wretchedness and degradation. To make one corpse is murder and to make myriads of corpses is not glory. The contentious and slaughterings earned on by savages in a state of abso lute barbarism are condemned by civil ized men and women. How can they then applaud those tremendous contests in the butchery of human beings which are euphemistically termed battlefields. How can they applaud these interna tional expositions of the art of murder by improved machinery ? EXAMPLES AND The young and ASSOCIATIONS. the old alike are exalted and inspired by the study of the lives of illustrious men. The history of the world is only the biography of the light-giving souls in each age. Plutarch more than seventeen hundred years ago wrote of the great personalities which had even then illumined the world's progress and been merged into the dark ness of the past. And when Plutarch had finished his task as to those who had lived illustriously in the times which he depicted he wrote : "I under took this work for the benefit of others , but I have continued and completed it for niy own personal benefit. Gazing as it were into the mirror of history , I have been forced to conform my own life as best I could to so many beautiful examples. " Tims is it shown that the records of useful and noble men and women trans mit firm resolve and moral vigor to their substitutes in that great army of hu manity which is constantly on the march from a beginning to the end of a life. Human existence is so short that it could be neither useful nor enjoyable if one could not strenuously labor to ad vance and elevate his fellow man. The inspiration of lofty exemplars in the annals of the world evolves heroism oven out of mediocrity and also develops strength where weakness is inherent. On the other hand associations with base comrades , and affiliations with the vicious , deform and dwarf even the best and largest minds. But to develop good mental and moral character youth should study the lives of the useful , the good and great of other ages , and con sort only with the decent , the intelligent and the practical of the present ; exam- plars and associates tend to either buili up and ennoble or to tear down and debase. ( From Prof. Charles S. Sargent , Direc tor of ( he Arnold Arboretum. Har vard University and Special Agent in Charge of Forestry Statistics in the U. S. Census. North American Review. ) TIIE PROTECTION Forest prcscrva- OP FORESTS. tion , as a national question , must soon occupy public at tention. The problem involved is one of grave import , and its solution is not easy and cannot bo immediate. The part taken by the forest iu the economy of nature , and its relations to the wants of man , are complex , and the American people are still ignorant , not only of what a forest is , but of the actual con dition of their own forests , and of the dangers which threaten them. The fu ture prosperity and development of the country , however , are so largely depen dent upon the preservation of the forest that these lessons will in time be learned , although , judging from the experience of other countries , they will 1 > Q learned only at the cost of calamities which a better understanding of the subject might perhaps have averted. # * * * * * # * Fatal inroads have already been made into the great pine forest of the North Atlantic region. Its wealth has been lavished with an unsparing hand ; it has been wantonly and stupidly cut , as if its resources were endless ; what has not been sacrificed to the axe has been al lowed to perish by fire. The pine of New England and New York has al ready disappeared. Pennsylvania is nearly stripped of her pine , which only a few years ago appeared inexhaustible. The great northwestern pine states , Michigan , Wisconsin , and Minnesota , can show only a few scattered remnants of the noble forests to which they owe their greatest prosperity , and which not even self-interest has saved from need less destruction. The belt of red-wood forest along the California coast has already suffered severely at the hands of the lumberman , and many of its finest and most accessi ble trees have already been removed. A large amount of this valuable timber is still standing less , however , than has generally been supposed ; and at the present rate of consumption the com mercial importance of this forest will have disappeared at the end of a few years more. * * * * * * * * In Professor Sargent's paper , read be fore tJie Massachusetts State Jioard of Agriculture , the following important statement respecting the white pine is made : The entire supply ( white pine ) grow ing in the United States and ready for the axe , does not today , greatly , if at allexceed 80,000,000,000 feet , and this es timate includes the small and inferior trees , which a few years no , would not have been considered worth counting. , > t The annual production of tliis lumber , s not far from 10,000,000,000 feot.and the leinand is constantly and rapidly in creasing. The publication of these facts a few months ago has greatly increased , and in some cases more than doubled the value of pine lands ; and it does not re quire any particular powers of foresight ; o bo able to predict that the price must advance to still higher figures. Enough is now known to permit the positive statement that no great unex plored body of this pine remains ; and that with the exception of the narrow red-wood belt of the California coast , no North American forest can yield in quantity any substitute for it. GRATITUDE FOll TllO 81111111101" is * TIIE HARVEST. going swiftly. It has been _ a bewildering magician in Ne braska. With deftness it has im'xcd the shiuo of the sun , the downpour of the rain , and the fall of the dew with the fertile fields through which labor has * . pushed its plows. The result is com pensatory. Wheat twenty to thirty- * , five bushels , oats forty to sixty-five an / aero ; and corn , which has been well tilled , promising forty to seventy-five. "Every prospect pleases and only man is vile , " in places , and in partisan poli tics. Thus ingratitude to God is expressed - pressed in the wails of populistic plat forms , and the puny legislative enact ments of man are invoked to rectify the alleged mistakes of Providence. In time eternal salvation will bo sought by the "Bo it enacted" of populistic legis latures. Hon. John F. Kinney , the first chief justice of the great state of Iowa and now a resident of the prosperous and progressive city of San Diego , Califor nia , is visiting his daughter , Mrs. J. S. Ware , at her attractive home adjacent to Nebraska City. The judge hopes to view the exposition at Omaha before re turning to his Pacific home. Few men now living have seen Western develop ment and its wonders in the Transmis- sissippi country for a term of more than fifty years ; but Judge Kiiiuoy has that distinction , for he settled in Iowa during 1844. Judge Kinuey's legal acquirements and native ability made a strong and commanding citizen. His influence for good in Iowa , Nebraska , Utah and Cal ifornia has been constant during a whole half century. And now , at eighty-two years of age , ho may truth fully say relative to the wars of civiliz ation against barbarism 011 these plains what JEneas said of those of Troy : "Magna pars.fni. ' Mr. A. B. Hepburn's address before the State Bankers' Association draws at tention to one of the crying and appar ently incorrigible evils of our time the pardoning of bank defaulters and bank robbers by governors of states and by '