Che Conservative *
A GENEROUS ADMINISTRATION.
It is easy to expend money generously
when it does not come out of one's own
pocket. Congress constantly illustrates
the pleasure of giving away cash which
is not from the store of the donors. The
McKinley administration has recently
paid twenty millions of dollars for a
second-hand war in the Pacific archi
pelago. This war , although it had been
run by Spain for about three hundred
years , seems to still wear fairly well ,
and it may prove as tenacious of life as
that of the Semiuoles in Florida. But
as wo are benevolently assimilating
Filipinos ar the rate of two hundred
corpses a day the war may end at any
moment.
The more recent , and decidedly the
most beautiful and bountiful piece of
McKiuley generosity , is the payment of
three millions of dollars of United
States funds , raised by taxing the
American people , to Cuban greasers to
compensate them for having fought to
attain their own liberty.
Nobody , not even France , paid our
ancestors for freeing the United States
from the dominion of George the Third.
There is no parallel in all history for
this last piece of governmental McKiu-
leyistn extravagance.
The United States declared war
against Spain when an armistice was in
force between that government and its
rebellious subjects in the island of Cuba.
It declared war ( pending peaceful nego
tiations ) for the purpose of securing to
the Cubans their natural rights of life ,
liberty and the holding of property.
And during the armistice between Spain
and the insurgent Cubans somebody ,
probably enemies of Spain , and possibly
Cubans , blew up the Maine.
And now the Hanna-McKinley crowd
magnanimously steps to the front and
insists upon the Cubans receiving three
millions of dollars out of this people's
treasury as a sort of subsidy or bonus to
pay for the license permitting the
Americans to fightdie and waste money
in behalf of that island full of hybrids ,
greasers and cut-throats.
Are all purchasers
GOING HIGHER.
ers of farm lands
fools ? For more than six years there
has been an organization of politicians
and idiots in Nebraska preaching the
impossibility of making even a living
upon ordinary farm lands in this state.
The populist party has proclaimed
from every schoolhouse , courthouse and
platform that the farmer in Nebraska
is a down-trodden , moneyless serf , over
whose prostrate person the plutocrat and
the corporation hold gleeful orgies.
And yet this same supine son of toil
pays his debts , schools his children ,
buys carriages , organs , sewing machines
and pianos and- wears a smile brighter
than an Easter morning.
Everywhere the farmers in Nebraska
are paying off the mortgages which ro-
presented the larger part of the purchase
money which was to be paid for their
farms. These payments are created out
of the sale of the products of the lands
themselves after paying for the mainten
ance of the farm and family.
In every county courthouse records
show a steady constantly increasing re-
reduction of the
TinRecords. . . , . ,
in o r t g a go debts
upon farms. This is the truth. Those
records are facts. They stand up with
moral courage , and with unflinching
eyes look the populist press and orators
of 1896 in their brazen faces and say in
almost angry tones :
"How you all did lie in 1896 ! Nota
single forecast of calamity has been ver
ified. The gold standard has been up
held. There is now a bigger amount of
circulating cash in May in the United
States than ever before ! "
And are people buying lands at ad
vanced and advancing prices upon which
no man can make a living and much
less profits over and above a living ?
How is it that farmers in Nebraska
have nine times out of ten , paid for their
lands out of the surplus products of the
lands themselves , if populism teaches
truth ?
Was there ever before a constant and
rising demand for land upon which nobody -
body , according to the populists , could
make a decent living under the gold
standard ?
Where is the farmer who wishes to
find a buyer for his Nebraska farm at
the same , or a less price , than it cost the
present owner ?
Where is there a man , with ordinary
sense , in Nebraska who does not hon
estly think farming lauds in this mirac
ulously fertile commonwealth arc going
higher and higher ? TIIE CONSEKVATIVE
has seen them grow from nothing an
acre , to fifty , one hundred and two hun
dred dollars an acre right here in Otoe
county and in the immediate propin
quity of Nebraska City.
Laudations are easy. Senator Mark
Hanua declares Demosthenes an infer
nal old humbug in eloquence when
compared to Doctor Depew and Doctor
Depew admits it and proclaims that
Thomas Jefferson and Henry Clay and
Stephen A. Douglas were infants in
partisan leadership and political sagacity
when compared to the Honorable Dollar
lar Mark Hanna. THE CONSERVATIVE ,
while not in perfect agreement with
that mutual admiration duet , calls at
tention to the fact that Barnum's Great
est Show on Earth was never better
managed and exploited than the present
administration circus at the White
House. As an advertised perfection in
statecraft , a paragon of wisdom and an
imposing incarnation of Pecksiiilflau
piety McKiuloy thanks to Manager
Hanua is without a peer in the history
of the world.
Everybody is
i ' - , , . . .
that the
VEK TRUST , aware
earliest and most
successful trust in the United States
was in pig silver and organized under
the Bland-Allison act , and successfully
continued undfr the
compulsory-pur-
chaso-of-bulliou act of John Sherman ,
which was repealed in 18913. Said re
peal prohibited further enforced sales of
silver to the government at artificial
prices.
The great smelting and refining works
of silver had a monopoly. The govern
ment was their manacled and mulcted
customer. For years the silver product
of the mines of a few men was put upon
the government at fabulous figures.
Biit the repeal of the Sherman act ended
the flush prosperity of a syndicate
which sold , as the treasury records will
prove , millions upon millions of ounces
of silver to the government at about
one dollar and five cents an ounce.
The silver trust in 1896 combined the
elements of discontent nominated Bryan
( three times ) and financed the cam
paign with millions of dollars. And
now the men whom the trust in sil
ver created and sustained are fiercely
denouncing trusts posing as the only
crusaders against trusts.
A populist legis-
lature in Nebraska
CONSISTENCY.
not many years
ago denounced all kinds of protective
tariffs. And then it proceeded to pro
tect by direct legislation the product of
the creamery against the oleomargarine
product of the packery. That body of
lawmakers made it a penal offence to
manufacture and sell butterine in Ne
braska because it could be used as a sub
stitute for butter. And the same se
lected bolous passed at the same session
a law giving a bounty of one cent a
pound for chicory raised in Nebraska
and chicory is an adulterant or a sub
stitute for coffee always and every
where.
It is wrong to put a wholesome article
of butter-substitute on the market. It is
right to cheat coffee drinkers with chic
ory. Nebraska crushes out oleomargar
ine while it subsidizes chicory , as it
did sugar beet schemers. Of the latter
a recent number of the esteemed State
Journal while trying to get the rancid
flavor of protection out of its mouth
causticly remarks :
"Having worked Nebraska for every
available dollar the beet sugar syndicate
has bands of hired singers over the state
of Colorado giving the same song and
dance we know so well here. They ex
hibit the same beautiful pictures of the
immensely wealthy beet sugar farmer.
A bounty equal to the cost of the sugar ,
land enough to raise the beets and
money to erect the buildings is all they
ask for inestimable blessings that follow
in the train of Oxuard. No less thaii
