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.
