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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 2, 1899)
Mjjill Che Conservative * for years , without pny from cither state or national government , been doing a corn product trade , and handling vast quantities of the output of the Argo Starch works and the Nebraska City Cereal mills with satisfaction to cus tomers and consumers constantly in creasing. THE CENTENARY OF BEET SUGAIl. A letter to a Vienna paper draws at tention to the fact that yesterday was the hundredth anniversary of the creation of the beetroot sugar industry. The text of a short petition , dated January 11 , 1799 , is given , in which Franz Karl Achard , Director of the Royal Prussian Academy of Science , lays a memorandum before his sovereign , Frederick William III. , showing how sugar might be made from beetroot , hitherto used only as fodder , and also submitting samples of the new article. Four days later , on January 15 , 1799 , the King replied by ordering experiments to be made in all the provinces on a large scale , and awarding Achard a grant of money for the continuation of his studies on the subject. Sugar at that time , and for a short while afterwards , cost 200 to 800 thalers per hundredweight retail , and the consumption of sugar in all Europe at the end of last century was between 200,000 and 250,000 tons. Today , 4,500,000 tons of beetroot sugar is pro duced in Europe alone , besides 8,000,000 tons of cane sugar. Achard , who re fused a bribe of 200,000 thalers , offered him by the cane-sugar interest if he would publish a statement that he had made a mistake , and that beetroot was not adapted for the purposes he proposed , died a poor man , although he was the first practical beet-sugar producer in the world. In another column of the same paper a revolution in the beetroot-sugar indus try by the new electrolytical process , which is already adopted in Belgium , Egypt , Germany , and elsewhere , is described in detail , and its speedy adop tion recommended to manufacturers in Austria-Hungary , lest they should be unable to compete with other countries. [ Vienna Correspondence London Stan dard , January 18. ] The continued TOO MUCH TALK. garrulousness of Miles , Alger , Eagau and other leading actors in the play of the McKinley ad ministration is becoming wearisome. The historical reader may recall the wonderful similarity between some of the generals and other high officers of the Hanna-McKiuley administration , and a few of the minor and more talka tive personages who surrounded Napol eon at the beginning of the first consul ship. It was about the time he was pre paring the path which he proposed to tread leading from the republic up to the empire and the throne in the year 1800. He ordered a vast funeral pageant in honor of George Washing tonwho had died in December , 1799. He utilized the death of Washington and the mourning which ensued as a mask to hide his intention to destroy the re publican form of government. It was while he was maturing his schemes for personal aggrandizement that he was most annoyed by the loquacity of some of the executive officers immediately connected with his person. It was then that ho said to Bourrieuno , his confi dential secretary : "I want men with more head and less tongue. " McKiuley seems to experience a sim ilar necessity. CANNED ORATORY. , tention of the American people has been so steadfastly fixed for some time upon canned beef , as embalmed for military rations , and discussed by those distinguished war riors , Miles , Eagan and Alger , diversion to canned eloquence and embalmed oratory tory may be restful and refreshing. At Asheville , North Carolina , on Sep tember 16 , 1896 , Colonel Bryan , then running for the presidency , fervidly said : 1 'If you convert fifty cents' worth of bullion into a fifty-cent dollar there is no profit to the mine owner. " If free coinage does not make cheaper dollars then how can prices be raised by that free coinage ? And if the silver dollar , so coined , is not cheaper and easier to get , but jumps at once to a par ity with the detested gold dollar , how have the plain people , or any other people , except the money-grabbing plut ocracy , been benefited ? At Columbus , Ohio , September 1 , 1896 , Colonel Bryan declared with ardent vehemence : ' 'I call your atten tion to the fact that no party in this country has ever in a national conven tion commended the gold standard. Its effects are so bad that no party has dared to uphold it. " This last chunk of canned eloquence , placed alongside of the following his torical facts , looks like a piece of mil dewed , moulded , putrescent , embalmed beef , as described by Miles , alongside of freshly dressed stall-fed steaks of the same kind of meat. In 1806 Jefferson , by executive order , suspended the coinage of the silver dollar lar and the order remained in vigor tliirty years. Did that order uphold the silver or the gold standard ? The act of 1884 placed the United States on a gold basis. It was signed by Andrew Jackson. What party did he belong to and did he not uphold gold ? The act of 1853 demonetized seventy- five millions of silver. Was that then undemocratic ? The act of 1878 merely dropped the silver dollar from American coinage. And this last act was pending in con gress three years. At St. Louis , September 12 , 1896 , Col onel Bryan said : ' 'The gold standard then means falling prices , and falling prices mean hard times to everybody , except the man who owns the money or trades in money. " This specimen of embalmed prophecy seems a trifle tainted in the light of the trade and business prosperity of the lost twenty-four mouths. At Madison Square , however , on August 12 , 1896 , Colonel Bryan re marked : "We contend that the free and unlimited coinage of silver by the United States alone will raise the bul lion value of silver to its coinage value and thus make silver bullion worth $1.29 per ounce in gold throughout the world. " That seems as fresh and juicy as any embalmed substance uncorked up to this present date. On August 81 , 1896 , at Ashtabula , Ohio , Colonel Bryan hopefully asserted : "We do not expect the silver dollar to be a fifty-cent dollar. We expect that with the opening of our mints to free silver that every ounce of silver will be worth $1.29. " And at Ripley [ the same day : "We believe the opening of our mints to the free coinage of silver will create a de mand for all the surplus silver of the world. So there will not be a man who can buy an ounce of silver for less than $1.29 in gold. " Great expectations do not seem to have kept very wholesomely as packed at Ashtabula and when the can put up at Ripley the same day opens up there is an odor of goldbugism about it alto gether too suggestive of an equality with that diabolical metal to be appetiz ing to the average populist. From time to time THE CONSERVATIVE will serve up cold canned finance from the "pack" of fusion as put upon the market , by Colonel Bryan , and other distinguished and able advocates of the money fallacies , during the exciting and fervid campaign of 1896. There are many varieties of food for the physical man which taste better served hot , and much mental pabulum which is popular when fervid , but very flat , stale and unpalatable when passed around cold. The truth is that in the United States the people eat all the fruits and meats they can , and the sur plus which they can't eat they always can ; and so they take in as much oratory tory and eloquence as they can under stand and that which they can't is like wise canned. Of cold , well-carved cut lets of canned financial vagaries war ranted to be of the established brand of 1896 THE CONSERVATIVE will from time to time invite its readers to par take.
