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Conservative *
CALAMITY AXI ) D1SASTKK.
The standard mercantile agencies of
the United States , which keep commer
cial statistics , and tabulate trade facts ,
declare the last twelve months to have
been the largest trade mouths , manufac
turing mouths and money-making
months ever experienced by the agricul
ture , manufacture and commerce of the
United States.
In those months there has been a vast
sale of American implements to go
abroad and a tremendous output of all
kinds of American machinery for for
eign customers.
Plows , harrows , rakes , mowers , reap
ers and biuders for the farmers of Eur
ope , Africa , and South America , have
been shipped from the United States by
the thousand. The markets of all the
world have been invaded. Competitors
have been met and undersold by the
products of American invention in every
trading center of the globe. The ' 'Home
Market Club" of Boston has been
almost moribund because of the manner
in which the Spanish war knocked the
theories of protection on the head and
demonstrated that a tariff for protection
brings no revenue. When cash was
needed with which to buy old yachts
and dismantled steamers for the navy ,
and embalmed beef for the army , no
body , not even McKinley , proposed a
protective tariff , with higher duties , as
n proper means of getting that cash into
the federal treasury. Everybody at
once , upon the breaking out of war , dis
carded protective tariffs as revenue pro
ducers. Everybody recognized the ne
cessity of taxing "the home market"
and all domestic exchanges were im
mediately placed under contribution.
But in spite of stamp taxes and all other
charges , direct and indirect , for the
"benevolent assimilation" of the "half-
devil" and "half-child" of Cuba and the
Philippines , the material prosperity of
the republic has advanced and exalted
itself marvelously during the year.
THE CONSERVATIVE never approved
( * - ! either of the war for Cuba , or the war
for the conquest of the Philippines , any
more than it approved of the economic
war , made by protection , upon the mul
titude , for the benefit of a class. But
THE CONSERVATIVE is not blind. It can
see and admit the fact that prosperity
has permeated all branches of human
endeavor.
Demand.
Sunshine and shower and fecund soils
have made it possible to the husband
man. The product of his fields have
been abundant and perfect. Other
farmers , in Europe , have not been so
fortunate and as their fields have failed
foreign demand for the output of Amer
ican fields has materialized. Demand
for bread and meat , from the United
States , in the great populational centers
of the world lias enhanced the values ol
our flour , bacon and beef. Demand
creates values. "When the demand
grows values increase. The farmers of
the United States have been blessed
with a growing and importunate de
mand for their products all over the
world. Hence their prosperity ; hence
rhoir ability to pay debts , liquidate
taxes and buy more laud. Legislation
did not make prosperity for farmers or
anybody else. But demand did it ; and
all demand is the outgrowth of human
desire. Things not desired are not in
demand.
Other DcmiuidH.
Besides the farmers the manufac
turers of the United States have been
favored with an increasing and intensi
fying demand for their surplus output.
Steel rails for Prauco and even for
England are demanded from the rolling
mills of the United States. Ameri
can railway companies , having the
benefit of "the home market , " pay
more for their equipment in iron and
steel than do foreign companies. They
behold the benefit of the protective tar
iff going to the foreigner who , McKiu-
ley says , pays the tax on imports. Seven
dollars a ton more to homo companies
for rails thau to foreign.
Locniuotivcfl.
The Baldwin locomotive works and
all the largo establishments constructing
engines for railroads are overcrowded
with orders from abroad. England and
Russia , France and Finland , China and
Japan and South America have in or
ders for locomotives aggregating thous-
auds. But in the face of all these stal
wart and stubborn facts calamity howl
ers utter their dismal yells.
In Nebraska.
Even in Nebraska which has liqui
dated , under the gold standard , millions
of indebtedness for the purchase of
lauds , improved her farms aud factories
and stuffed her banks in every one of
the older counties with surplus money ,
the wail of calamity and the moan of
disaster ascendeth to Heaven from day
to day from the camps of the fusionists.
Even in Otoe county , where bank de
posits of money , almost wholly idle , go
beyond a million of dollars , Coin Har
vey and his lachrymose disciples weep
over the oppression of plain people by
plutocrats and corporation cormorants.
Money at five per cent a year , today ,
under the gold standard ! Money at
twelve per cent a year prior to the
"crime of 1873 1" Weep 1 Wail ! gnash
your teeth and cry aloud , oh ye popu
lists !
NUIJHASKA'S OPPORTUNITY.
Dr. MacLean's resignation , to accept
the presidency of the University of
Iowa , loaves the University of Ne
braska without its principal executive.
Now is the time for the farmers of Ne
braska to rise as one man and insist thai
their agricultural college be such in
fact as well as in name. Last winter the
Nebraska legislature voted to the state
university the largest per centago tax
given by any state in the union to its
central institution of learning. By this
act Nebraska notified the world that it
stood second to none in recognizing the
potency of education in the upbuilding
of the commonwealth. A generous
government has likewise dealt liberally
in providing this institution with funds
which were to bo specifically devoted to
agricultural education and research.
By the first Merrill grant made in 1863
; he University of Nebraska receives a
arge sum of money annually for agri
cultural and mechanical arts. Then
; hero is a second grant of $25,000 au-
nually for the same purpose and the
Hatch fund for experimental purposes
amounting to $15,000 annually.
Despite these generous appropriations
the agricultural college of the Nebraska
state university is languishing for lack
of funds. If anyone doubts this lot him
visit the university at Lincoln and lo
cate the funds which go specifically to
agriculture and note the buildings and
equipment of that branch as compared
with what may be seen at similar insti
tutions in Kansas , Iowa , Minnesota or
Wisconsin. The few members of the real
agricultural faculty aud the limited
equipment of buildings , apparatus and
live stock all show a poverty which is
almost beyond belief and a condition
not only unworthy of au institution so
liberally eudowed but absolutely be
neath the dignity of so rich a state.
Nebraska is marked by Nature as one of
the greatest agricultural states of the
union. Corn is produced at the lowest
cost of any place in the world , and with
alfalfa aud grasses iu abundance to sup
plement this cheap grain and with
trunk lines of railway reaching to the
great plain regions lying westward , cat
tle are available without number for
economical fattening. These conditions ,
coupled with the enormous possibilities
for the home rearing of cattle and with
a climate well suited to animal life , in
dicate clearly Nebraska's real destiny
as a great agricultural commonwealth.
Will her people now rise to the occasion
and demand of the trustees in charge of
the university at Lincoln that in the se
lection of the now president there shall
also be a new regime so far as the agri
cultural college is concerned , and that
from this time forward that branch of
the institution shall be the leader
and not an insignificant appendix toler
ated only to gain government grants
and leading a 'poverty-stricken exis
tence ?
The fact that the agricultural college
has boon hampered by lack of funds ,
properly its own , and because it has
been abused-time and again in ways
almost without number , is all the more
reason for a radical change at this
time. If the farmers of Nebraska will
awaken to the situation they will never