r
Che Conservative.
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\VOL. i. NEBRASKA CITY NEB. THURSDAY FEBRUARY 2 1899. NO. 30.
WEEKLY.
OFFICES : OVERLAND THEATRE BLOCK.
J. STERLING MORTON , Emo-ou.
A JOUHNAL DEVOTED TO THE DTSdUHHION
OF VOIiITIOATj , ECONOMIC AND SOOIOTXKHOAh
QUESTIONS.
CIRCULATION THIS WEEK 5,465 COPIES.
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION.
> One dollar and n 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 CONBEKVATIVE , Nebraska
City , Neb.
Advertising Rates made known upon appli
cation.
Entered at the postofiico at Nebraska City ,
Neb. , as Second Class matter , July 29th , 1808.
NEW THINGS WHICH ARE VERY
OL.1) . .
Among the old things winch , during
the lost ton years , have been masquer
ading as new things not one has been
better disguised than the sugar beet.
The American people generally , the
agricultural periodicals particularly , and
the taxpayers at large in Nebraska and
throughout the union , have been
charmed with the saccharine and financial
possibilities of sugar-beet culture and
the manufacture of sugar from beets.
Promoters have preached profits and
planned plants hi almost every county
in Nebraska and in nearly all Western
states , from Michigan , Indiana , Wiscon
sin , Minnesota , Kansas , Missouri to Cal
ifornia. The whole subject matter has
been dressed up in now garbs and the
old craze , of more than forty years ago ,
for beet-sugar manufacture and sugar-
beet growing at Springfield , Illinois , and
in other sections of the United States ,
hidden from view or forgotten.
Even Commissioner Ellsworth , who ,
in 1889 , began the free distribution of
garden and flower seeds at government
expense , talked up sugar beets , the man
ufacture of sugar therefrom , and dis
tributed sugar beet seed among the people
ple for experimental trial. For more
tlian forty years the sugar beet has been
a boon to vagarists and promoters. For
nearly half , a century 'the agricultural
department of the United States has
been emitting bulletins , instructions and
seeds , for gratuitous distribution , with
on eye single tow the exaltation of the
sugar beet and the establishment of
great plants wherein the governmentally
encouraged and sweetened beet afore
said should bo made into toothsome
sugar.
In Nebraska two sugar-beet factories
exist. One is at Norfolk , another is at
Grand Island. The
Two Factories , . . . . ,
in Nciinmuii. subsidies in lands
and cosh which
each of those good towns gave for its
sugar factory would build a factory.
Up to date THE CONSEKVATIVE has
hoard of no continued and sustained
enthusiasm among the farmers in the
neighborhoods of Grand Island and Nor
folk who entered upon beet production
for profits.
The truth is that the beet grower was
forgotten , as to his interests , in the very
outset of the materialization of this old
industrial ghost. The manufacturer
was the central and principal personage
to be considered. Right in this line , it
will be remembered , acted our two able
and distinguished senators , Paddock and
Manderson. They were both radical
protectionists ; they voted for and main
tained high tariffs to shut out the pro
ducts of pauperism and ignorance from
American markets. But when it came
to letting in the machinery for beet-
sugar plants to be established in Ne
braska , lo , and behold , very patriotically
and wisely our senators became free
traders.
These senators , Manderson and Pad
dock , passed the special legislation
through congress which permitted the
importation duty free of all the ma
chinery intended to go into the Ne
braska sugar factories. The plows , har
rows , shovels , hoes , rakes and pitch
forks of the yeomanry who were to raise
the beets , however , remained on the
dutiable list. The free trade benefit
was only to the Oxnards and other sugar-
trust gentlemen who were erecting the
Grand Island and Norfolk plants more
for direct political than for direct finan
cial results. And it is only fair to ad
mit that those two factories have caused
to be given many votes , favorable to the
sugar trust , by senators and representa
tives from this state , while their benefits
to fanners have not realized the prom
ises of their promoters. The plowmen
and planters who have continuously ,
satisfactorily and profitably grown sugar
beets in Nebraska do not seem to be
very numerous. But the promoters
and sugar manufacturers who have enjoyed -
joyed hundreds of thousands of dollars'
worth of local donations from Grand
Island and Norfolk while drawing un
constitutional bounties from the treasury
of the state of Nebraska seem satisfied.
The sweetest sweet however , as yet pro
duced by the Nebraska sugar factories ,
in the estimation of the sugar trust , is
the solid senatorial support , which that
gigantic confection of the protective sys
tem always gets from Nebraska.
Another old thing which now , with
beet-sugar schemes seeks aid from the
state and national
Corn
treasury and atti
tudinizes as something young and frol
icsome is cornbread , cornmush and corn
food generally. A corn-praising , corn-
food-appetito-inspiring propaganda has
been oi'ganized for the world in general
and the Paris exposition in particular.
These corn philanthropists are however
not too coldly patriotic. They spurn
not government funds as the only sort
of lubrication to make their tongues
swing melodiously in their meal-praising
mouths. And the novelty of johnny
cakoand pone-bread and hominy , hulled
corn and hasty pudding is talked about
as seriously as though corn-food , cornstarch -
starch and even canned corn had never
before been heard of any whore on earth.
Nearly all of the prominent persons now
fervidly preaching for corn and a great
exhibit of corn products at the coming
Paris exposition either have already secured -
cured , or expect to secure , a government
position , with expenses and per diem ,
for that exposition in France.
It affords THE CONSEHVATIVE satis
faction to inform these zealous friends of
corn and corn starch , these patriotic
promulgators of a dietary of the pro
ducts of Indian maize , that the great
corn-food manufactories of Nebrasloi
City , Otoo County , Nebraska , U. S. A. ,
making eight to ten 'thousand bushels
of cereals into foods each day , are now ,
and have long been , efficiently repre
sented at Nximber Sixteen (10) ( ) East
Cheap Street , London , England. Their
goods are there in demand.
These ardent promoters of foreign
markets for corn foods , those who , for a
small stipend and expenses paid by the
government of the United States , are
willing to visit Europe , and , in poor
English , teach Parisians how to prepare
and cook corn starch , corn meal , corn
hominy and to generally encourage an
appetite for all corn products , are re
spectfully directed to call at 10 East
Cheap Street , London ( Joy Morton &
Company ) , where they will .find an es
tablished American agency which lias
