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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 17, 1899)
' 'm r . ' . T' Hi ' - . * rw .nTv < ' iKi.X Conservative. Not loug since RAILROAD THE CONSERVATIVE . I ) RIDGE. TIVE published ail account of the organization of the Ne braska City Bridge Company and its final triumph in securing the completion , by the Chicago , Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company , of the splendid struc ture which spans the Missouri river nt this place. An interrogation relative to who in augurated the bridge project and who passed the special charter through con gress has been received. The organization of the Nebraska City Bridge Company was originated and consummated by the editor of THE CONSERVATIVE. The charter was secured through the faithful and persistent efforts of Hon. Phineas W. Hitchcock , then a member of the United States senate. No subsidy was given the O. B. & Q. for building the railroad bridge. It cost the taxpayers of Nebraska City not one penny. The wagoniziug of the bridge , about ten years ago , made Nebraska City a trading place for Fremont County , Iowa. The people paid not a cent to have the wagonizing perfected and the bridge made a highway into and out of Nebraska City. It was to another company that one hundred thousand Nebraska City five per cent bonds were voted. They were enjoined permanently by a suit brought by J. Sterling Morton. The Southern A FREE SOUTH. states , after the civil war , were for years dominated and robbed by carpet-bag statesmen. The men and women of the South were treated as serfs and beasts , fit merely for taxation. But Seymour , Tilden , Heudricks , Bay ard , Cleveland and that type of patriotic citizens at last brought about the freedom of the -white race in all those states. Logical , continued and discreet labor by Northern democrats , of the old school of free trade and honest money , rehabi litated the Southern states. Except for the efforts of men and leaders like those named , the people of the South would be this day , by the "Lodge Force Bill , " under negro domination. That would be a hereditary government descended legitimately from the carpet-baggers. And now the South seems to for get its former benefactors and inclines to still follow fallacies in money and deride and reprobate the statesmanship which re-citizenized its people and placed them on an equality with their white brothers of the North. The South alone can save itself and the republic from innumerable woes by recanting its money heresies. The South alone , by returning to a faithfa adherence to the doctrines of Benton Jackson , Tildeii and Cleveland , can in sure peace and prosperity to the United States. The South should remember ; hat boy oratory did not and that mature statesmanship and manly courage did Free the South from partisan despotism. The South should also remember that republicanism now is capable of doing what it did before in all Southern states. The South can see that its continued ad- uerence to the dogmas of populism and the money fallacies of Bryauarchy in sures a renewal of republican rule from 1900 to 1905. The South sticking to the aeresies of 1896 elects another republican president of the United States and invites a new despotism for its people ! A SECOND LOUISIANA PURCHASE. LOMETA , Texas , August 4 , 1899. EDITOR THE CONSERVATIVE : Nebraska City , Nob. Dear Sir : I have just read in a paper ihat it cost the United States govern ment $80 per foot to build and keep the levees on the Mississippi river every year. Just think of the enormity of this ex penditure , the many millions of feet multiplied by 80 1 Years ago I lived in Louisiana on the banks of the Mississippi , ran a sugar plantation , hence , I know whereof I write. The object of governments is to pro tect lives and property , and for this purpose the United Stutes spends its millions every year on building and re building levees that do neither , for wherever the "Father of Waters" be gins to rise the levees or sand banks wash , melt down or cave in. If you were to build a railroad across a valley on low streak of country and every time there was high water at certain places where you had a fill or dump the same would wash down , common sense would say ( no civil engineer about it ) "give such places an opening ; " or , as a farm er would do , "build a water gap so as to let out water. " Now I will tell you something I learned where I lived forty years ago in Louisiana. When you and I were boys our old geographies taught us that the Mississippi river had only three outlets to the gulf. Tin's was a big mistake. The old "Father of "Waters" had ori ginally a dozen or more outlets to the sea , and in the early days when they were all open the old Creoles say there were no overflows like now. Several of these arms to the ocean have been dammed up , or leveed , which is all the same. Red river is the last stream that empties into the Mississippi , not a creek or branch flows into same below the mouth of Red river. Right where Red river flows in the Atchalay flows out of .Mississippi and takes a near way to the sea. The current is swifter and deeper and civil engineers say this last stream conveys more water to the sea than the old "Father" via New Orleans. Some say in time it will be the main ihaunel , L e. , it will abandon the route via the 'Crescent City. Some of the outlets that boats navigated at all times of the year have been bound up ; hence the overflows. Now look at the map of the United States of America. The Tennessee river heads in West Virginia , meanders on southwest down the Alleghany mountains and dips low down into Ala- aaina. At about Decatur , Ala. , it turns back and runs near due north four or five hundred miles to empty into the Ohio river , via which circuitous route it goes to the Gulf. Now near Decatur , Ala. , to the head of Black Warrior river is about sixty miles. The Warrior , via the Alabama , now empties into Mobile Bay. Cut a canal and let the waters of ihe Tennessee via this route to the sea , which will unload a vast volume that would go via the Mississippi. Pearl river in the state of Mississippi runs parallel to the Mississippi river and not over sixty miles , on an air line , apart. Cut another canal from below Memphis , Tenn. , and let out consider able of a load from the Mississippi river , via the Pearl to the sea. The other canal is to turn the waters of the Red river , via the Sabiue river , to the sea. These three canals , if cut sixty feet wide , will soon cut their own way wider and deeper , and in a short time will be competitive highways of com merce , like the Erie in New York. The one in Alabama would go through the iron and coal lands and make of Mobile the great Gulf coaling station. I wrote to our United States senator about all this and his reply was : "It is the right kind of expansion. I look upon it as the second Louisiana pur chase and of far more importance and use to our government than any canal across the Isthmus of Panama. This work on the part of our government would protect millions of property and lives. Moreover it will make healthful habitable and susceptible of cultivation the richest area of the Western World , a section that would support , thus im proved , the densest population of any part of the globe. " We want to expand at home by arm ing 50,000 men ( with civil engineers in command ) with picks and spades to re claim the vast valley of the Mississippi. The $20,000,000 given for the Philippine possessions , which wo do not possess , would have done this work and we would have had the second Louisiana purchase , purse and possession , all in the United States of America. The party that has the gold standard and this second Louisiana purchase in its platform with no chinch-bugs , grass hoppers and calamity howlers as leaders will surely win next time. Very respectfully , P. C. JACKSON.