ate
Conservative *
TIIK DANGKItS OF mi'KUIALISM.
The Omaha Bco of Sunday , January
15 , 1809 , contains a superbly analytical
article upon the annexation and expan
sion doctrines of the McKinley admin
istration. It was written by that , dili
gent lawyer , Mr. E. J. Cornish , who
has been for some years among the
younger leaders of the Douglas County
bar. Tun CONSERVATIVE did space
this week permit would reproduce
every line and word of this thoughtful
and unanswerable argument against the
fallacies of jingoism expansion and im
perialism. But for the present issue we
select the following , which , to a free
trader , is especially refreshing :
AH to Commerce.
"First , it is said that 'expansion is in
the interest of commerce ; that the East
is awakening from the sleep of centuries ;
that we must have foreign markets. '
' The morning papers announce that
we are about to send our troops to the
Philippines , via Europe and the Sue/
canal as the shortest and cheapest route.
We have been taught to believe that in
our own country we cannot compete
with manufactured articles in Europe ,
and have therefore protected our own
markets from European competition by
means of a protective tariff. Can wo
send our goods to a distant market ,
through Europe , to compote with Eu
ropean nations , on equal terms , under
the policy of the 'open door ? ' If so , the
people have been deceived. If the man
ufacturing interests of our country have
grown to such an extent that they are
willing to hazard our institutions in
order to obtain a foreign market in
which they are to compete on equal
terms with European producers , giving
the latter the advantage of distance and
assuming themselves the disadvantage
of increased taxation , then we have out
grown the desirability of a protective
tariff.
"The smallest estimate of the expense
of governing the islands is several
times greater than the value of the total
imports thereof. What they buy froir
civilized nations cannot materially in
rrease except as the inhabitants become
more educated. Every one who be
comes educated to the extent of reading
the Declaration of Independence wil
become an incipient rebel. As he pro
ceeds in his studies he will read the
Magua Charta , the Bill of Rights , the
speeches of Chatham , who said : 'If I
were an American as I am an English
man , while a foreign troop was landed
in my country , I never would lar down
my arms , never , never , never. ' He
must become familiar with the speeches
of Burke , Fox , Erskine , with the utter
ances of Washington , Jeff018011 , Ran
dolph , Patrick Henry , the Adamses ,
Franklin , Monroe , Daniel Webster ,
Sumner , William Lloyd Garrison , Wendell -
doll Phillips , Henry Ward Beecher ,
Emerson , and Abraham Lincoln , who
said that he received the inspiration of
all his political conduct from the Declar
ation of Independence. He would learn
how the Declaration of Independence
triumphed in the civil war and brought
about amendments to the constitution.
Ho would read the resolutions of our
labor organizations and the words of
Sherman , Edmunds , Hoar , Hale , Car
negieSchurz and other leaders in shaping
the policy of the United States during the
last twenty years. Pie might oven read
the words of President McKinley that
'forced annexation is not to bo thought
of and under our code of morality would
bo criminal aggression. ' There never
xisted a people cut off from other people
ple by well defined boundaries that did
lot have national aspirations. Witness
.lie . experience of England in Ireland ,
India and the United States. Witness
Mexico and the South American ropub-
ics. Witness Cuba and the Philippines.
With such natural aspirations , with
nich education , we cannot hope other
wise than that as the people of the
slands become more educated in their
wants they will become more rebellious
n their conduct , and the expense of
keeping thorn in subjection will increase
faster than their commerce.
"The food supplies sent to European
narkets by India , Australia and other
countries much nearer the Philippine. '
than ourselves have been one great cause
of the fall in the market price of our
foreign products. Surely , therefore , the
farmers cannot sell their produce in an
Asiatic market and will lose by reason
) f the increased taxation. The argu
ments made by Andrew Carnegie
against expansion , from a commercial
point of view , remain unanswered and
are unanswerable. "
Curious and
SUMK OL.I ) . , , ,
WOKWS.amusing , though
not meant to be so
arc the struggles of the early missionary'
monks to turn the scriptures from the
Latin which they loved so well into the
vile jargons that our barbarian fore
fathers spoke. Many a word has
changed its meaning since then , ant
some passages are understood differently
from the way the good fathers inter
preted them. As a rule , they knev
nothing of Greek , and their monastery
Latin was not that of Cicero's time.
The beverages mentioned in the New
Testament narratives seem to have
bothered them ; not for paucity of vocab
ulary , our ancestors always had drinks
in sufficient variety , and names enough
for them ; but to decide which of the
fluids of their acquaintance probably
corresponded most nearly to that desig
nated by Holy Writ.
In the book of Luke , certain liquids
are named from which John the Baptist
was to abstain. Tyndale's translation ,
in 1520 , uses the same words that
have prevailed since : "Ho shall nether
drynke wyno ner strongo drynke , "
says Tyndale. Wycliffo , in 1880 , thought
"wyn and sydir" were probably about
what was meant ; the Anglo-Saxon
translator , 400 years earlier , gave his
voice for "win nebeor ; " and Bishop
Ulfilas , working at it in the 4th century ,
set down besides "woin" a liquor no
doubt popular among his Gothic flock in
that hoary antiquity , called "leithu.1'
"Boor" was certainly a good deal in
; ho minds and on the tongues of the
tVnglo-Saxons ( the real Anglo-Saxons ,
o came over from Schleswig-Holstoin
ifter the Romans left Britain ) and it
eems to have sat in their councils on
ho day of the battle of Hastings , or the
Normans might not have come off so
ivoll. Anyway , no assembly had any
; iir of joyousness to them , from which
hat cherished beverage was absent.
This is why a feast is called in their
: ranslations a "beership , " but the effect
s funny sometimes. "Beware of the
scribes , " wo read , "who love the fore-
nest settle at beerships ; " "when thou
nakest a beership , call the poor , " and
io on. It is said that the Lord's Supper
s called a beership , but the writer haslet
lot seen the place.
Our word whiskey is the Gaelic uixtju ,
which means water ; nimjebeath is living
or lively water , and that is how the
word came into our language. It is a
little startling to come upon it some
times in a Scotch bible. "John bap-
tizeth you with H/S//C / / ; " "who drinketh
of the nixi/i- that I shall give him shall
never thirst ; " "lot him dip the tip of
his linger in itixyi- , " are a few such
places.
For the fertilizer in the case of the
fig tree in the gospel of Luke , the trans
lators had only to turn to the husband
men of their acquaintance , who were
not at a loss for suitable words. "Till
I digge rounde aboute it and donge it , "
says Tyndale ; "bethrow it with wma1 , "
says the Anglo-Saxon version , a mixen
being a dung-hill in Somerset to this
day ; and "til I delve aboute it and sende
toordis" is the language of Wycliffe ,
the morning-star of the Reformation.
Wycliffe's expressions are often
strange and weird. Ho says it is prefer
able to enter "gogil ygl-ed" into the
kingdom of God in some cases , the later
rendering being "having one eye ; "
after the miracle of the loaves and
fishes , he says that "xii coffyns full" of
fragments wore taken up ; his use of
"Nay , I gesse" is exactly equivalent to
the colloquial "I guess not" of today.
IAVK INSUKANCK IS AN ASSET.
Judge Shiras of the federal court at
DCS Moines , la. , has decided that the
life insurance of a voluntary bankrupt
becomes an asset , and that a sum equal
to its cash value must bo turned over to
trustees within thirty days or the policy
listed as an asset. The Standard.