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VOL. i. NEBRASKA CITY , NEB. , THURSDAY , MARCH 23 , 1899. NO. 37-
WEEKLY.
OFFICES : OVERLAND THEATRE BLOCK.
J. STERLING MORTON , EDITOH.
A JOUUNAT , DEVOTKD TO THE DISCUSSION
OF POLITICAL , ECONOMIC AND SOCIOLOGICAL
QUESTIONS.
CIRCULATION THIS WEEK 5,671 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 CONBEKVATIVE , Nebraska
City , Neb.
Advertising Rates made known upon appli
cation.
Entered at the postofilco at Nebraska City ,
Neb. , as Second Class matter , July 20th , 1898.
IM. 1IIRD THAT FOULS ITS OWN NEST.
This is the proverb naturally brought
to our mind by a certain portion of the
comment often visited upon Grover
Cleveland. It is well to remember how
far a man may be speaking of his coun
try when he is speaking of those who
are grown into the very substance of the
country's history. They are responsi
ble , and they alone , for their acts , but
the nation is involved in its voluntary
adoption of their acts.
How widely the critic may bo ac
quainted with American history does
not always appear , but he will probably
know that in no single case has a man
been honored by the American people , as
Grover Cleveland has been honored ,
without eminent merit.
No man has ever been elected to the
office of president whose character can
be said to have dishonored that office ;
and certainly no one has ever been
chosen to a second term , who was not in
great regards an honor to it. Perhaps the
least in personal historic importance
among these may have been Monroe ; yet
he was one of the best of presidents , and
he is worthily associated with weighty
passages of our history.
Even less likely than in other cases
would it be that this last winner of the
double garland could have had the
honor without the desert , and even
more a libel on the country to suppose
it.
Not one of the two-term presidents
was nominated three times in succes
sion to receive every time a steadily in-
creu ing plurality of the whole people's
vet for nt Jackson's first run in 1824
FM g j T y ? * *
nearly a third of the states'did not vote
popularly the last increase by far the
greatest.
Not one of them was serving as presi
dent twelve years after the beginning of
his service , the whole blaze of public
light beating upon him from beginning
to end of that period every moment of
the time , whether in public or in pri
vate station ; while in spite of all fogy-
ism there has been more thinking , nioro
readiug/more intelligence and conscience
in the laud than ever before. These are
not facts of sentiment but of history ,
and they express not what the man but
what the nation did , of its full and delib
erate judgment ; let the comment bear
itself accordingly. Let a man revile his
people if he will , they are not immacu
late ; but let it be known just when and
where ho is doing so. If comments void
of truth and sense in themselves appear
equally regardless of intelligent patriot
ism , in this wo may find a tolerable fit
ness of things , such as it is.
NEBRASKA'S TIUST KING.
When good King Louis ruled this
land , he was a goodly king.
A certain king of France named Louis ,
the fourteenth , by actual count , who
bore that name , was what his subjects
called a great king. For the greatness ,
he reigned seventy-two years in one
spot , and lived nearly as well as the
average American citizen of today dur
ing that time , being able to pay most of
his debts , and having a good Chouse to
sleep in , three meals a day and plenty
to wear ( after he outgrew Cardinal
Ma/arin ) , which was glory enough for
those days. And for the kiuguess , ho
enjoyed the privileges , denied to the
American citizen , of clapping his friends
into the Bastile , ordering his enemies'
heads off , and leading armies up and
down the map on various discreditable
errands , according to his own sweet
will.
will.This
This monarch's dominions were quite
extensive , and included the state of
Nebraska. It is quite possible , however ,
that Louis did not know this , any more
than did his subjects of the Pawnee and
Otoe tribes. Certainly they sent no dep
utations to display their untutored elo
quence to him , nor did he make them
presents of blankets and bull-beef , nor
even enumerate Kansas and Nebraska
among the domains over which ho held
sway. Possessions in the interior of
North America brought no more glory
to a potentate of that clay than would
holdings in the interior of Greenland at
present , mid as for revenue , Louis novel
had a smell of any from this territory ;
not a red scout , in fact.
But such ns it was , Louis XIV was
the first , since the world began , to hold
any kind of title to i ho land on which
THE CONSERVATIVE is published. After
his day , and when the boom in Western
land-values began to take its first faint
beginning , there was a good deal of obscure -
scuro swapping of this territory between
France and Spain ; but when Mr. Jef
ferson wished to buy it , in 1803 , ho
found Franco then in possession , or at
least willing to take the money for it.
This same King Louis had a minister ,
manager or general business man ,
named Colbert , who invented protec
tive tariffs and had the honor of having
the Mississippi river named after him.
There was no money for anybody in
calling that respectable stream the Col
bert river , so that name was soon aban
doned ; but there was so much money
for somebody in protective tariff's that
they have been maintained to the pres
ent day. The pleasant pursuit of engi
neering the funds of the community
into private pockets was as popular in
France in the seventeenth century as it
has ever been anywhere , before or since ;
but that was not wholly Colbert's de
sign. France at that time was without
industries , being entirely dependent on
agriculture , trade , gambling and money-
lending ; for manufactured goods it was
necessary to go to England and the
Netherlands. To check this drain on
the country's resources , Colbert devised
the plan of establishing manufactories
by main force. This ho effected , by im
porting laborers and encouraging native
inventors , and to divert commerce
from its old channels to those new
sources of supply he imposed fines on
purchases made abroad. These fines
composed the first protective tariff.
The Japanese are not only a clean
people , but they are ingenious as well.
Like ourselves , they have a dirty island
on their hands ; theirs is the island of
Formosa. And it is said that instead of
trying to clean up one particularly
filthy town in Formosa , they just laid
out an adequate number of streets and
squares on a neighboring hill , and gave
the town notice to move thither on a
certain day.