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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 13, 1898)
t3be Conservative. 3 ' Nebraska is full MTTMi HANKS. , , of small banks. Every village of more than n thousand population has a bank. And this bank is generally the agent of Eastern capi tal seeking long-time investment upon real estate security , so that beside mak ing commercial loans it is ready to fa cilitate loans to farmers. The rates of interest are one-third the rate which the early settlers paid , which by contract was a lawful interest of eighteen per cent per annum. And in. Otoe county farm loans for a term of years have been made even as low as five per cent during the summer of 1808. Now with these forcible facts facing them how can populists , agitators , and advocates of the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 stir up the people to wrath against an alleged money power ? Money never in Nebraska had so little , power as it has today. When TIIE CONSERVATIVE calls up 1872 and the fact that in that year farm loans in Otoe county called always for twelve per cent interest , that in 18C2 they called for from eighteen to twenty- four per cent and that in 1857-1858 farm loans paid forty per cent per annum interest it is impossible to discern the sad casualties and dire disasters which are alleged to have followed the ghastly crime of 1878 ! ! Ordinarily oneS state committee is S , enough for any political party. But the populist party in Nebraska indulges in two state com mittees. The senior or regular commit tee works for Poynter and the whole populist ticket for state officers. The junior or state legislative commit tee devotes its abilities and energies to helping elec men to the legislature who are pledged to vote to re-elect Allen to the United States senate. It is rumored that the original Poynter state commit tee has already suspected , and , perhaps , detected , the William Vincent Allen committee's infidelity. Wicked men declare that overtures by which votes may be secured to Allen candidates for the legislatxire and taken from the Poynter state ticket have already ap peared in the market. THE POSTMAfeTEU GENERAL AND THE IMPORTANCE OF FOll- EIGN MARKETS. It is interesting to read Postmaster General Smith , who always makes an entertaining speech. At Omaha on the (5th ( of October , 1898 , Charles Emory Smith , as a member of the McKinley cabinet , spoke eloquently upon the im portance of foreign markets for the sur plus products and commodities of the United States. In his remarks the Post master General made plain the policy of holding the Philippine Islands for the trade and commerce they would bring. And yet Mr. Charles Emory Smith has long been identified with the most pro nounced protectionists of this country and been always classed as one of the oracles of the Home Market Club of Boston. It is strange that competition with the eleven millions of inhabitants of the Philippines under free trade was regarded by Mr. Smith with terror and alarm ; and that now the same Mr. Smith would hold them , even by force of arms , as part of the territory of the and thus domesticate "the Republic , ig norant pauper labor of those islanders" as a permanent competitor of the wage- earners of the United States. There can be no protective duties laid against the commodities of one state by another state , nor against the products of the territories of the government by the United States. Out the Philippine products and trade were a menace ; in they are a blessing , saith protectionist Smith. \ A recent num- J RIGHTS DEFINED. ber of The Public declares : "As to the Indians and the negroes , if TIIE CONSERVATIVE is willing to rest its case upon our Indian and negro history , The Public certainly does not object. We could ask for no more pronounced : orroboratioii than that , of our conten tion that when one class arrogates to itself the power of "defining" and "de fending" the rights of another its ten dency is to define those rights to zero and defend them out of sight. " The Public then would have only the indigent define the rights of the poor and only paupers define poverty. And only ignorance has the natural privilege of defining the rights of the ignorant. The intelligent must not be allowed to define the rights of the unintelligent. Those rights may bo defined and de fended by only the unintelligent them selves who are logically better qualified to make definitions and defend rights because of what they do not know than the intelligent can be by what they do know. The Indians should have defined their own rights. The negro should make laws in the South and the whites abide by them. * * * * There illSHOP POTTER coul(1 fc bo ft ON IMPERIALISM. , , more complete or more perilous inversion of the whole moral , social , political situation ! The nation has had much , during the past few months , to blind and intoxicate it. It has won an easy victory over an effctn and decrepit adversary , in which no splendors of individual heroism , nor triumphs of naval skill and in these we may indulge a just pride ought to blind our eyes to the fact that wo have had a very easy task against a very feeble foe. And now , with unexpected fruits of vic tory in our hands , what , men are asking , ore wo going to do with thorn ? Nay , rather , the solemn question is , ] Vluit are lliey yoiny to do with us ? Upon what wild of so-called course - imperial ism are they going to launch a people , many of whom are dizzy already with the dream of colonial gains , and who expect to repeat in distant islands some such history as our conquered enemy wrote long ago in blood and plunder in her colonies hero and in South America. We have , indeed , our congress to direct this race for empire , and our gaunt and physically wrecked sons and brothers by tens of thousands at homo to show us how they will do it ! At such a time , as never before , the church of God is called upon , in the pulpit and by every agency at her command , to speak the words of truth and soberness and to reason of righteousness , temperence and a judg ment to come a judgment for nations as well as for individuals , till impetu osity is sobered and chastened ; and until a people in peril of being wrecked upon an untried sea can bo made to pause and think. The things that this community and this nation alike su premely need are not more territory , more avenues of trade , more places for place-hunters , more pensions for idlers , more subject-races to prey upon but a flawning consciousness of what , in in dividual and in national life , are a pee ple's indispensable moral foundations , those great spiritual forces 011 which : ilone men or nations are built ! For these forces , men and brethren , and for nothing less , does the church of God stand. Let us see to it that we think of ourselves with the humility that may well become us ; but let us see to it , no less , that we recognize in the august powers of which , in season and out of season , the church of God is put in trust , that one supreme force , that can alone purify and enlighten and re generate the soul of man , or the fabric of human society ! With such a trust , in such a time , how vigilant , how fear less , how faithful to God , to His truth , to our fellow-men , wo ought to be ! May He make us so by the power of the Holy Ghost ! I cannot conclude without recalling to you what I said a year ago about the church's duty to the young , and the im perative need of a thorough considera tion and a considerable reconstruction of our methods of dealing with thorn. An interesting meeting held in this city , in May last , issued the steps for the organization of a Sunday-school insti tute in which I am promised , let me gratefully record , the co-operation of many most valued brethren of the clergy and laity , of which presently we are to be told. I began this address by invoking upon you the apostolic blessing of peace. I cannot conclude it TUB c/AU's Without lifting PEACE PROPOSAL. ymi thoughts for a moment to a wider horizon than our own ; that larger circumference that binds us in one family with all the na tions of the world. 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