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. From one of them
