Che Conservative.
VOL. i. NEBRASKA CITY , NEB. , THURSDAY , JANUARY 19 , 1899. NO. 28.
PUBLISHED WKKKliY.
OFFICES : OVERLAND THEATRE BLOCK.
.T. STERLING MORTON , EIHTOH.
A JOURNAL UNVOTED TO T1IK DIBOUS81ON
OF POLITICAL , KCONOMIG AND 8OUIOLOUICAL
QUESTIONS.
CIRCULATION THIS WEEK 5,425 COPIES.
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION.
One dollar and a half per year , in advance ,
postpaid , to any part of the United States or
Canada. Remittances made payable to The
Morton Printing Company.
Address , THE CONSKHVATIVK , Nebraska
City , Neb.
Advertising Rates made known upon appli
cation.
Entered at the postolllco at Nebraska City ,
Neb. , as Second Class matter , July 29th , 181)8. )
A gentleman
THKTOKKBNH
named Pence , liv
ing in Chicago ,
gives warning that he believes that the
Torrens Land Act , which has been up
held by the supreme court of Illinois ,
will shortly be a dead letter. Not over
a hundred persons will register their
titles in the first year , Mr. Pence de
clares , and then the number will rapidly
decrease until nothing is left for the
examiner to do but to play golf.
The utterances of him that girdeth on
his harness have never carried the same
weight as those of him that putteth it
off. An Englishman who has held a
high political and commercial position
for twenty years in Australia , where the
Torrens system originated , testifies thus
before the house of "
commons : "Regis
tration of title is almost universal ; for
one transaction under deeds there are
a thousand under the Real Property
Act ; it is a curiosity if you get a person
with deeds. To a person wanting to
borrow money of me ( on real estate se
curity ) I should say first , 'Real Property
Act , I suppose ? ' " Further along ho
says : "The Torrens Act is just ns pop
ular in the other colonies as it is in ours.
I notice in the Sidney papers that at the
'bottom of advertisements for sales of
laud , 'Torreus Title1 is always put. "
The examiner of titles at Adelaide
says : "Up to the present time ( twenty
years ) no difficulty whatever has oc
curred ; there can bo no question that
the Torrens system is a complete suc
cess. "
The register-general of New South
Wales says : "The popularity of the
act is so well assured , and the public
generally have become so accustomed to
our certificates , and have such faith in
their undoubted value , as in many in
stances to decline accepting a property
unless the title is registered under what
is universally called Torrens' system. "
Another New South Wales man says :
"The working men 'are almost univer
sally becoming landed proprietors ; but
hardly one of them would over attend a
sale of land if it were not announced
'that the title was that of Torreus'
Act. ' "
As to the causes which lead persons to
oppose the system , it is no secret that
lawyers are human , and have grocery
bills like the rest of us ; and we have a
statement of the agent-general for South
Australia , in regard to laud transfers
and mortgages , that "there is no neces
sity for the intervention of a lawyer ;
such a thing is never heard of. " More
over , if the people of. Illinois are to
save the ten million dollars that they
are said to spend every year for ab
stracts and examinations , it is evident
that somebody who is now earning that
money will have to go without.
POWBK.
power which
moves great ships across trackless wat
ers and vast trains across continents.
When either the ship or the locomotive
explodes and kills people , damn steam
power !
There is water power which turns
wheels and spindles , grinds grain into
flour and irrigates vast stretches of arid
lands. When floods destroy crops ,
waves wreck fleets and the merciless
waters drown people , damn the water
power !
There is electric power which propels
cars , runs dynamos and lights up square
miles of space with its incandescent and
sun-like glow. But when , by accident ,
electricity strikes and kills animal and
human organisms , damn electric power !
But does steam power or water power
or electric power purposely and with in
tent perpetrate wrongs ? Can there be
found a motive in either power for do
ing either good or evil ?
Tin" Itronc.v 1'owtT.
The money power however is the everlasting -
lasting bogy by which the good populists
and the sixteen-to-one friends of silver
and the plain people are made hysterical
and tremulous all of the time.
This money power is a very old power.
It began business in Nebraska in 1854.
It first plowed and planted these plains.
Then the money power built innumer
able steamboats which came snail-paced
puffing and blowing along the channels
of the tawny Missouri and bringing
pioneers and all the rudimentary uecessi- | i
ties , implements , utensils , lumber , glass , i /
salt and cereals , required for founding a
new commonwealth. , . „
* < * * 4 i
Then a steamboat , by the rates of
freight charged , could earn its cost in a
single summer.
But the money power soon loaded
steamboats with steel rails for roads in
Nebraska. And the money power flung
out into the plains its vast network of
car-paths as easily as the spider spins its
*
gossamer threads and floats them into
space. Lands which were valueless and
desolate , solitudes which were unpeopled
and voiceless , sprang into value and
beauty , became human homes a-id filled
with the melodies of contented industry.
The money power , taking steam power
and water power and electricity into its
kindly and compensatory service , has
with a swift magic converted Nebraska
from wilderness and wigwam to fields ,
orchards , gardens and homes.
The money power is the monarch un
der whose banners all the power agents
of the earth enlist for the advancement
and elevation of the human race. Even
those who revile and denounce the
money power are intent upon getting
money. They would rifle the pockets of
industry with the larcenous fingers of
idleness while denouncing the stuff they
would steal :
These fanatics however are not analyt
ical. They never dissect the alleged
money power bogy. They never tell
whore , how and when it has arranged
to kill off labor , squelch industry and
convert prosperity into famine. They
never have shown why the money power
could bo advantaged by breaking down
all the industrial and producing classes
of the citizens of the United States who
work \ipon farms , in factories , counting-
houses and banks.
But they tell bugaboo stories of
schemes concocted somehowsomewhere ,
by somebody , for locking up all the
money in the country so as to make
panic , ruin and distress for the money
power to fatten upon.
But these portrait-painters never give
us a picture of the engineers of the
money power plotting ruin. They
never tell us why men who loan out
money at interest desire to destroy the
credit 9f those who borrow. They .