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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (March 16, 1899)
* -V Che Conservative. VOL. i. NEBRASKA CITY , NEB. , THURSDAY , MARCH 16 , 1899. NO. 36. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. OFFICES : OVERLAND THEATRE BLOCK. J. STERLING MORTON , EDITOR. A JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE DISCUSSION OP POLITICAL , ECONOMIC AND SOCIOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. CIRCULATION THIS WEEK 5,651 COPIES. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. One dollar and a 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 CONSERVATIVE , Nebraska City , Neb. Advertising Rates made known upon appli cation. Entered at the postofflco at Nebraska City , Neb. , as Second Class matter , July 20th , 1808. UNHAPPY WEALTH.the world can show the impotency - tency of wealth as the source of happi ness so clearly and convincingly as Cali fornia. Here the newly rich were the only rich for a long time and the first families of California even today , are not heyond the third generation , in their descent from the original founders. When the wealth first came up to them out of the ground , and rose about them in a golden flood , they were a simple flock , of frugal habit , temperance and industry. But with money came new needs ; with wealth wants swarmed around them , like bees about a bed of roses , and all their schemes of life wore changed. The happiness of the olden tune was dissipated. Contented compe tence was driven out by discontented wealth. And the new tastes and new desires for ostentation , which wealth suggested , began at once to gnaw upon their ambition. Hence we see the cas tles built in San Francisco upon Knob Hill out of famous fortunes which fate formulated for men of a low-browed pedigree in a single day. And going into suburbs , like Palo Alto , we find palaces of ostentatious architecture lo cated amidst beautiful trees and flower ing shrubs of exquisite fragrance. But they are locked up and silent and ten- antless. The Flood mansion , which is ol wood , in imitation of marble , is the most elaborate and vast of any of the monuments ments to unhappy wealth in this section of California. It is also the most typi cal. It is so because it is a pretense , an imitation marble. Thus it is a reflex of pretended taste , pretended culture and pretended character for intelligence and good breading. Like many others , this flaring and vulgar display of dollars lasily and quickly acquired , is giving shelter and comfort to no one. The man who accidently got money , and from sheer love of show built it , is dead. His family are scattered. It would cost two hundred thousand dollars a year to run and care for the establishment and grounds ; and none of the family has that income to bestow in that manner. Unhappy wealth is more common and noticeable perhaps , in California than elsewhere , because suddenly acquired riches are the ones which of tenest bring discontent. The accumulations which come slowly are those most prolific in human satisfactions. Their arrival is lit tle by little , day after day and year after year , so that their owner becomes ac quainted and familiar with them , with out a sudden and unexpected introduc tion , just as one comes to know his own children and see them develop from in fancy to manhood. There is much more comfort , much more that is ennobling in cottages all the world over than there is in palaces. Poets , orators , historians ; the men who record the visions , the exaltations , and advancements of humanity are not the children of the palace. Modest compe tence gives to the world more good im pulses and high thoughts than luxurious wealth. The man who has the fewest habits is richest. The family which rears the most self-reliant , self-denying and self-respecting brood does most for the race. There is no unhappiness so incurable as that of enormous wealth in the hnnds of those without intelligence and taste to direct and utilize it. OHIO AND THE PRESIDENT. As a manufacturing monopolist of iron and presidents of the United States the Hon. Marcus A. Hanua , a senator from the state of Ohio , is known to all the people of all these mundane hemi spheres. The manner in which , by a debt-paying device , Senator Hanna's skill and generosity made it possible to obtain the raw material for a republi can presidential candidate in 1896 from Ohiois a matter too delicate for particu lar discussion. The fact accounts for much which has not escaped public attention in respect to the proprietary relations o : Senator Hauna to President MoKinley and in equal respect to certain incidents which closed the public career of John Sherman , who was forced to retire from ; he senate that the Hon. Marcus A. rlauna might take his seat , and in his resignation as secretary of state , where le was not long in finding out that he was never seriously wanted , in that de partment of the public service , or any other. That these incidents in the eminent life of John Sherman were the result of a plan , and that this plan was the'part of a plot to make way for the ambition of Senator Hanna is all per fectly understood in Ohio , at least by the friends of John Sherman , as well as by the president's implacable enemies , Senator Foraker and Governor Bush- nell. nell.The The popping of small arms on the skirmish lines is already opening a war of factions in Ohio which promises to be both ferocious and historic. That it will be a battle royal for supremacy and control in the next republican national I convention , and for future still more important purposes , between the op posing forces of a party which is at this time , supposed to be founded on a great imperial idea , may be safely taken for granted. Hereunder will DRY UP . be found a communication SALT LAKE. munication from Mr. W. P. Anderson , an esteemed friend of THE CONSERVATIVE , who is a careful and wise watcher of all phenom ena connected either remotely or directly v/ith arboriculture and forestry. The possible erasure of Salt Lake is a new question for discussion and THE CONSERVATIVE will be pleased to receive and publish the views of some of its Salt Lake City friends relative to the theory advanced by Mr. Anderson. CHICAGO , February 21,1899. "J. STERLING MORTON , "Dear Sir : During a recent visit to Salt Lake City I noticed that an irrigation scheme contemplates taking from Bear River about one-third of the water from that stream out through the valley of the Portneuf , wasting the water through the Bed Rock Canon , the old outlet of the Great Salt Lake basin down into the Snake river. Should this occur there is great danger of the Salt Lake drying up and becoming an arid plain through the lack of evaporation that the present volume of water now affords at the rate of about sixteen inches per annum. This evaporation without other provision for