*
-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