the Conservative *
The railroads of
KAIMtOADS AND tj Unite(1 gtatcs
Til Kill FHIKNDS. , . . . .
have primarily the
friendship of every good citizen who has
freights to ship or land journeys to
make. In every new country the value
of railroads as a means of development
is estimated to bo above the value of all
other methods of modern times. Dur
ing the last half of the present century
the railroad has in many states and
markedly in Kansas and Nebraska , pre
ceded the population. Since 1806 the
locomotive and the passenger coach have
pioneered the prairies and plains and
opened the way for the emigrant. Since
that date new lands have been offered
for occupation , after being connected by
railroads with all great commercial cen
ters , at very moderate and alluring
prices.
Land in and of itself has no more
value than water and air. The value of
land depends entirely upon some human
effort put forth upon it or in relation to
it. The best and most fecund lands of
eastern Nebraska when THE CONSERVA
TIVE first saw them in 1854 had no ex
changeable value. The United States
government had not then surveyed and
plotted those lands. But their survey
was completed in 18C6 and in April 1857
the land office at Omaha , John A. Parker ,
of Virginia , register , and Addison R.
Gihnore , of Illinois , receiver , opened for
business. First came the pre-emptors.
known " . " Before
They were as "squatters.
fore the surveys many of them had lived
upon their "claims" more than two years.
The editor of THE CONSERVATIVE was
among the first pre-omptors to reach the
new land office and purchase the quarter
section now known as Arbor Lodge
where he had then been residing for two
years , at two hundred dollars. Then
land adjacent to Nebraska City was one
dollar and twenty-five cents an acre.
Subsequent to that year prices improved
very slowly. Agricultural College scrip
was on the market at from fifty to sixty
cents an acre. It was receivable for
land at any United States land office.
After that homesteads were given to all
settlers. And oven in 1865 lands in
eastern Nebraska , in Otoo and Cass
counties , was offered in New York City
by the writer of this article , at one dollar
lar an acre and declined.
The land was easily cultivated , very
productive , and as sure of annual frui
tion in profits and satisfactions as any
soil , in any climate which this great
globe has ever offered to mankind. But
people came tardily and reluctantly.
There had been no efforts put forth in
relation to these lauds for the purpose oi
connecting them by railroad transporta
tion with those world-markets which
could take all their surplus products.
But in 1868 the first railroad , the
Northwestern , touched these lands 01
the west bank of the Missouri and awoke
their values , with the electric thrill o :
the great grain market of Chicago on the
east. Then came the Rock Island , the
Burlington , the Illinois Central and the
"VVabash until now these lands and their
products are connected directly and in-
lirectly with everj' great market in the
vorld from Chicago to New York , Paris ,
London , Berlin , Vienna and Rome.
Therefore values for Nebraska and
other trans-Missouri farms are a result
of incorporated capital which built rail
roads and furnished accessibility to mar-
cets for the products of those farms.
Without the means of sending corn ,
vheat , hogs and cattle , or their pro-
lucts , to consumers in other states or in
Europe , who would farm in Nebraska ,
vesterii Iowa or Kansas and how could
people live and prosper in Colorado , Wy
oming , the Dakotas , Idaho and Mon-
aua ?
If any class of citizens , any profession
or gainful occupation , in America
should be the friends of the railroads it
s the agricultural class , the farmers of
the republic. For them the railroads
mve made markets possible and the pro
duction of a surplus profitable. The solid
and substantial identity of interest that
obtains between farmers and railroads
should not be sundered either by per
sonal prejudices or popular fallacies.
Railroads can be profitably operated
only where agriculture is successful and
agriculture can be successful only where
railroads are profitably operated.
The little paper
things very neatly ,
and when it wishes to call names does
so without using any harsh language.
It commiserates the unpleasant posi
tion of Colonel Bryan , who sees himself
obliged to remain at the front with
sword and gun when he would much
prefer to be at home , busied with his
liigh and holy mission ; and then it
prints a tiny picture , showing a fine
proud goose leading away a Plodding
Ass by means of a string.
MONOPOLY.
we derive the
English-American word "Monopoly. "
To say that an individual or a corpora
tion has a monopoly is to declare that
the sole power of dealing in a certain
commodity , an exclusive right to buy
and sell a specific merchandise , is vestec
in that person or company.
In the United States there is verj
properly a popular prejudice against al
kinds of monopolies. This prejudice
has been largely a product of the dis
cussions between protectionists and free
traders.
The protective policy means legal ob
struction to the importation of certah
goods into the United States in order to
give a monopoly to the home producer
of such goods.
Free trade permits all to buy wher
the goods they demand are cheapest and
sell whore the tlu'ugs they wish to dis
pose of are highest. Free trade does
lot compel anybody to trade anywhere
jut merely permits everybody to trade
verywhero.
But the populist party and the repnb-
ican party in Nebraska advocate mon
opoly as to the right to receive votes for
; ho United States senatorship in the
icxt legislature.
The populists proclaim Allen the
nonopolist of their organization. They
leclare that no other mail than Allen
hall be voted for by the populistic mem-
> ers elected to attend the coming legis-
ative session at Lincoln. Allen has the
ole and exclusive right and he is promoted
meted in that right by instructions to
all nominees.
The republicans in some counties , if
lot all , are pledged to John L. Webster
and he claims the sole and exclusive
right to be voted a United States senator
by republicans.
All the populists in all counties are
irecluded from the privilege of being
voted for by their representatives or
even named for the United States sen
ate.
ate.And
And if Webster has his way all repub
lican legislators will be forced to vote
for only Webster for United States
senator.
For anti-monopoly these two and only
political parties in Nebraska make a
very paradoxical showing.
Allen monopoly ! Or Webster monopoly
ely ! Which ?
The president of
th ° VnM st"te9
CAHINET. nlll " 1S constitu
tional advisors
were present on the grounds of the great
Transmississippi Exposition at Omaha
on Wednesday , October 12 , 1898. And
besides those officers of the government
of this one-hundred-
- - - twenty-two-
years-of-age Republic there were ninety-
seven thousand other American citizens
in attendance.
The president of the exposition , Mr.
Wattles , welcomed the president of the
United States in a very patriotic speech
and the president of the United States ,
William McKinley , of Ohio , replied.
In the remarks of President McKinley
may be found the significant sentence :
"The men who endured in the short
but decisive struggle its hardships , its
privations , whether in field or camp , on
ship or in the siege and planned and
aclu'eved its victories , will never tolerate
impeachment , either direct or indirect ,
of those who won a peace whose great
gain to civilization is yet unknown and
unwritten. "
TIIE CONSERVATIVE calls that a signifi
cant sentence and yet the significance
of the last clause thereof is the most
strildng.
Did President McKinley mean to say
that the soldiers of the American army
will not tolerate criticisms of the secre
tary of war nor submit to denunciations
of the methods which it is said failed
