Cbe Conservative. VOL. i. NEBRASKA CITY , NEB. , THURSDAY , JANUARY 26 , 1899. NO. 29. WKEKTiY. OFFICES : OVERLAND THEATRE BLOCK. , T. STERLING MORTON , EniTOit. A .lOimNAfj DEVOTED TO TIIK DISCUSSION Of 1'OMTIOATi , ECONOMIC AND SOOIOI.OOIOAT , yUESTlONR. CIRCULATION THIS WEEK 5,439 COPIES. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. Ono dollar and a hnlf per year , in advance , postpaid , to any part of the United States or Canada. Remittances niado payable to The Morton Printing Company. Address , THE CONSERVATIVE , Nebraska City , Neb. Advertising Rates made known upon appli cation. Entered at the postottice at Nebraska City , Neb. , as Second Class matter , July 29th , 1898. AN INTKKNATIOXAI , COMl'MMKNT. Some years since , in a conversation , relative to the sale of American meats in Germany , Baron Von Thielman , then representing that country at Wash ington , was informed that it was diffi cult to portray a more exalted confi dence reposed by one nation in another nation than the generous and wholesale consumption of its sausages. The Baron smiled and said : "You know we have a very witty pro verb among our people which runs thus : 'The sausage is food fit for the gods because - cause only the gods can tell what it is made of. ' " Then , as now , all the charges against American pork , pork products , and American beef and beef products , origi nated with the protectionists of Ger many. The producers of meats in that country denounced pork and beef as in fested with parasites , because they wished the German market a monopoly for themselves ; they thus endeavored to shut out competition. Trichinae and other long Latin-named parasites were the disguise of German McKinleyism European tariff for protection. T ° become verv . . , , , popular and to at tract and retain , even for a short time , the unanimous acclaim of the multitude in the United States , negativism is es sential. The complaisant , non-comba tive man who can agree , or seem to agree , with almost everybody , on almost every question , is always a popular man. The public life of the United States dur ing the last seventy-five years has been luminously illustrative of the success of negative men. Colliding was a positive , able , accomp lished statesman and as a student of statecraft had few equals among his contemporaries in congress , either while he was a member of the house or senate. To Colliding all the tricks and compli ancy , the pretense and the subserviency of the more place-hunting politician were disgusting and nauseating. He never descended to the level of the nega tive class of statesmen. B\it his bitter rival , James G. Blaine , seldom rose above it. Blaine was never anything else than negative at the dawn of a new question or condition. Blaine oi.ly be came positive after a seemingly strong public sentiment had concentrated and expressed itself among members of the repiiblican party. In that way he some times posed quite successfully as a posi tive character. But as a rule ho never intended to be positive upon any question which had not been positively answered either affirmatively or negatively by the republican party. Even today there are men before the American people who , though naturally negative , seem very positive. Men sometimes misinterpret the mind , trend and intentions of the people and com mitting themselves in accordance with the erroneous interpretation are too negative to recant. Such men hang on to all sorts of fallacies , long after their repudiation by the mass of the people whom they first sought to conciliate and to follow , while posing as their leaders. The men who have no records are usually the most successful in partisan politics. The man who has a life as blank as a sheet of unwritten paper is not so easily criticized as one whose en tire existence has been of strenuous en deavors and ceaseless struggles. A lawyer without a client , a states man without a statute , a soldier without a battle , a financier without a dollar , a philanthropist without a single human being bettered by his works , or a gen eral counsel and solicitor giving advice never asked for , is always invulnerable to assaults , because ho has made no pos itive and only a negative record. Encouraged no doubt by the example of Colonel John Hay , the pope an nounces that ho will write a poem. His theme , however , will be a religious matter - tor and ho will express himself in the Latin language. Many populists . AVATKKKI ) STOCK. and communists constantly talk , write and publish the wickedness of watered stock. They never define it. None of them over tells just what the iniquity consists of nor why it is so malevolent and unpardon able. _ - - THE CONSERVATIVE , however , is in formed that the owners of railroad and other corporate property sometimes is sue new mortgage bonds or new certifi cates of stock to represent increased val ues in their property. These increased values have boon evolved by increased capabilities for earning money by carry ing freight and passengers or by other improved earning capacities. Fre quently the state has 'marked up the values of corporate property by assess ments and collections of taxes for the public revenue and there has never been any reason given as to why the state should not do that. And if the state may see , recognize and fix an enhanced value for the purposes of its revenues no reason has been assigned as to why the owners themselves may not also have certificates representing the greater selling value of the property. In Nebraska , Iowa , Kansas , Illinois , Missouri and other "Western states laiul owners along the Lmxl Owners. . . „ . . lines of many rail roads have also marked up the values of their real estate. In Nebraska THE CONSERVATIVE has witnessed the rise of raw prairie land from ono dollar and twenty-five cents to twenty-five and fifty dollars an acre. And this enhance ment has come not because of any effort or expenditure upon , or about , these lands on the part of their owners. In fact THE CONSERVATIVE has observed lands mortgaged to secure cash loans for sums aggregating ton and twelve times more than their owners paid for those lands. Have laud owners then differed very much from the owners of railroads in raising their values for the purposes of borrowing money ? Have they or have they not been watering their stock 'i Along every railroad track in Nebraska lands have steadily advanced in selling prices for more than twenty years. And this advance has been largely founded upon the fact that the products of those lands could be and would bo taken to market at a reasonable rate of transpor tation. Hero in Otoe county within twenty- five miles of Nebraska City in 1800 lauds were offered for sale , by advertisement ,