Che Conservative
VOL. i. NEBRASKA CITY , NEB. , THURSDAY , JUNE 22 , 1899. NO. 50.
PUBLISHED WEEKLY.
OFFICES : OVERLAND THEATRE BLOCK.
J. STERLING MORTON , EDITOR.
A JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE DISCUSSION
OF POLITICAL , ECONOMIC AND SOCIOLOGICAL
QUESTIONS.
CIRCULATION THIS WEEK 6,000 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 postofflce at Nebraska City ,
Neb. , as Second Class matter , July 20th , 1808.
BEFORE AND AFTER.
During the tumultuous campaign of
1896 , in the city of Richmond , William
J. Bryan declared :
"I want to warn you who are contem
plating deserting from the democratic
party at this time , that the man who ,
in the face of such an enemy , either
goes to the rear or is found in secret
conference with the enemy , is a traitor
upon whom the brand shall be placed
and HE SHALL NOT GOME BACK. "
The capitalization of the last declar
ation was very sonorous , solemn and
inexorable when vehemently proclaimed
by the splendid lung-and-tongue power
of the orator. The dictatorial and ma
jestic manner in which Mr. Bryan , by
his own authority , thus banished from
the privileges of association with the
sanctified silverites , all those who had
adhered to the diabolism of the gold
standard , was lofty in its imperialism
and unparalleled in its modesty. But
that cruel remark , calculated to intimi
date and bulldoze the cowardly and
the weak , was made before the election
of 1896.
Mr. Bryan is better inclined to for
giveness and mercy now , for in a speech
made at Louisville , Kentucky , during
the last six weeks , the defiant and the
dictatorial were erased and in their stead
were served up the following persuasive
sweetmeats. There is nothing of the
bravado in this :
"I have been told that there are here
a number of people who were demo
crats prior to 1896 , but who , iu 1896 ,
wandered away into the repub
lican fold or waited for awhile at
that halfway place known as the gold
democratic party. Now , the people who
were all right in 1896 are all right now.
I do not need to talk to them. Those
who went through the fiery furnace of
criticism in 1896 are not apt to be dis
mayed now. But I want to talk awhile
to those who left us in 1896 , because I
want them to come back and help us iu
this fight. "
Really , can this be a true report of
the speech ? THE CONSERVATIVE clips it
from The Richmond Times and hardly
credits "I want them to come back and
help us in this fight" to the same supreme
dictator of the Chicago platform abom
ination who rampantly yelled in 1896
that whoever differed from that agglom
eration of fallacies and blunders "is a
traitor upon whom the brand shall be
placed and he shall not come back i"
Is it possible that Mr. Bryan would
accept enough of the ballots of those
recusants to elect him to the presidency ?
After the last can he see better before
the next election ? If sixteen-to-one was
beaten in hard times how can it win in
good times ? If it failed with money
scarce how can it win with money
plenty ?
A railroad com-
LABOR UNIONS
CORPORATIONS. Pany ls capital m-
corporated. A
trades union is muscle incorporated.
Capital works for profits. Labor works
for wages. Bryanarohists condemn the
former combination and commend the
latter.
Cosh capital must not combine to
maintain profits. But muscle capital is
justified in consolidating as a trust to
put up wages. Cash capital whenever
it attempts self-preservation by incor
poration is damned by Bryanarchists as
plutocracy. Muscular capital is praised
by the same herd of statesmen when
ever it pools itself to put up wages , re
duce the hours in a day or prevent non
union laborers from accepting a scale of
wages which it has rejected.
How consistent are the Bryanarohists I
To combine cash capital to maintain or
advance profits is wicked oppression.
To organize the muscle capital of labor
to demand and secure more wages is
Christian beneficence I
The profits of capital are only the
leavings of wages. When the latter
leave nothing the mills shut down ,
INDUSTRIAL
COMBAT.arohists of the
United States who
propose to create an issue of antagonism
to corporations upon which to allure
votes to their candidate for the presi
dency of the United States would do
something more than phrase-making
and platform-building in the way of
warding off the alleged dangers from
largo combinations of capital they
would show Bin&erijty and determination
of purpose better than they do or can by
mere mouths full of words. If those
exasperated and hysterical citizens who
are still suffering from the political
prostration which paralyzed them in
1896 would chip in and establish compet
itive corporations and manufacture pro
ducts to put on the markets as rivals of
the products of the big combines they
would exhibit more sense , and more
courage , for a practical industrial com
bat. But mere gab will not cheapen
anything except the imitation statesmen
who evolve it and words and wind will
never correct commercial abuses.
The refrigerated
CREATING ISSUES. .
impertinence with
which self-constituted leaders of the
consolidated appetite for office known as
"the fusion party" declare their inten
tions of making new issues or withdraw
ing old issues from the presidential
campaign of 1900 is rather refreshing.
These automobiles in politics are
ready to travel any road surveyed or
marked out for them , provided it leads
to an office and a salary. They talk of
no principles. They are for free trade
in some things. They ore for protection
to silver. They oppose trusts because
things are made higher by trusts , while
they approve protective tariffs which al
ways aid trusts. And these saints of
statesmanship all stand up for the free
of silver at 16-to-l without
coinage - - re
gard to any other nation on earth , in
the moon or elsewhere among the plan
ets. The head men and braves of the
tribe of issue-creators however all agree
to the insistence of the silver issue.
And Webster's Unabridged defines one
kind of issue as "an artificial ulcer , to
produce the secretion and discharge of
pus for the relief of some affected part. "
Oan the silver 16-to-l issue be better
depicted ? If flabergastio oratory is not
secreted and discharged as pus where
can pus be found ?
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