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VOL. II. NEBRASKA CITY NEB. THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 21 1899. NO. ii.
PUBLISHED WEEKLY.
OFFICES : OVERLAND THEATRE BLOCK.
J. STERLING MORTON , EDITOR.
A JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE DISCUSSION
OF POLITICAL , EGONOMIO AND SOCIOLOGICAL
QUESTIONS.
CIRCULATION THIS WEEK 6,542 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 29th , 1898.
VOUCHERS.The calm brazen-
THOSE VOUCHERS.
face dn ess with
which ex-Governor Holcomb admitted
that all of the money which he had
drawn from the state treasury to pay
rent for an executive mansion had not
been used for that purpose , but for per
sonal profit , is only equaled by the
effrontery with which the same voucher-
maker now asks to be elected a member
of the supreme court of Nebraska.
The petty trick of throwing three card
monte is a magnificent triumph of honest
art when compared to Holcouib's little
vouchers for house rent. And. the justi
fication which he gives i. e. "others did
the same thing , republican governors
got more than I did , " is peurile. Sup
pose they did. Are you or are you not
a reformer ? Did you or did you not
promise to remedy all republican abuses ?
Many of them were bad. Joe Bartley
was wholesale badness. You are retail
wickedness. You knew then and
you know now that Judge Orounse a
fairly reputable lawyer who had been a
member of the supreme court of the
state , while governor refused to take a
cent for house rent because he held the
legislature had no constitutional right to
make an appropriation for that purpose.
Why did you fail to follow Orounse ?
At Chicago last
A BBYAN TRUST.
week , in the con
ference on trusts , Colonel Bryan made
a very telling oration. It told par
ticularly of his misconception of the
relations of the states with their ex
pressly reserved rights to the general
government , and especially when he
proposed to have all corporations , in
each state , licensed only to do business
by the federal government. "Who else
would , as a candidate for high office ,
assume such imperial power for the
general government ? Who among im
perialists has proposed anything more
imperial than this ?
The fact that natural monopolies exist
is ignored by Colonel Bryan. Adeliua
Patti has a vocal trust in song. By her
natural monopoly in vocal melody she
extorts a thousand dollars an evening
from the public. Colonel Bryan him
self has a monopoly in a certain style of
very popular oratory whence he easily
derives a fat income. But human law
makers can not abate , nor create these
monopolies , and all the combines in the
commercial world are merely composites
of integral natural monopolies. They
are made by fusion of brains , skill ,
ability and money into active and
aggressive war for markets. If licensed
by the federal government would they
change their human nature ?
. . A recent number
, , ,
TAKE A SEAT. . . . _ _ _
of the Daily Nor
folk News remarks in a compassionate
sort of way :
"J. Morton that
Sterling says com
bined capital has driven out the man
with the 'hoe. ' It is wondered if the
ex-secretary of agriculture believes the
man who sits on a two-horse cultivator
and hoes two rows of corn at a time has
had anything to do along this line ? "
Certainly ' 'the man who sits on a two-
horse cultivator" has a function to per
form. But who invited him to ' 'take a
seat" and plow corn , except combined
capital ?
Take a picture of old John Deere's
blacksmith shop , where he began to
make famous plows , and compare it
with the vast shops which his able and
active son , Ohas. H. Deere , has developed
at Moline with incorporated capital.
Individual effort could not do it : the
father , though a most remarkable and
forceful man could not , at his shop , turn
out two-horse and two-row cultivators ,
but the son with massed capital , incor
porated , says to the plowmen while
he points to the riding , two-horse and
two-rows-of-corn-at-a-time cultivators
with the utmost politeness "Be seated ,
gentlemen ! "
"Take a seat ! "
THE CONSERVATIVE
DISHONEST
TIVE knows a quar
ter section of very
beautiful and fertile land adjoining
Nebraska City. That half mile square
of superior soil when first sold and
deeded in 1857 forty-two years ago
bought only two hundred dollars in
gold. But the laud is , like the gold dollar
lar which Colonel Bryan describes ,
"dishonest. " It is "dishonest" because
its purchasing power is constantly in
creasing. Today one acre of this dis
honest land will buy two hundred gold
dollars. Honest land , like an honest
dollar , can not buy more at one time
than at another !
Think of the diabolism of this wicked
ly enhancing land contemplate the
nefariousness , the innate rascality of a
soil that has risen in purchasing power
in forty-two years , so that one acre buys
as many dollars today of gold coin as a
hundred and sixty acres bought in
1857 !
What is Colonel Bryan's remedy ? Is
it the coinage of desert land farms at
10 to 1 ?
Will Colonel Bryan permit people
holding lands that cost one dollar and
twenty-five cents an acre to demand and
get interest on fifty dollars for each
acre thus bought ? Will this kind of
watered stock be tolerated ?
State government
.
THE COST.
ment costs too
much. Never in Nebraska , except by
Governor James E. Boyd , have the laws
of business been applied to the manage
ment and handling of the executive
office and its functions. Governor
Boyd reduced expenditures in each and
all of the public institutions of the state
over which he had any influence or con
trol. The state needs frugality and
economy in administration. There is no
reason why the commonwealth should
be extravagant in employing more
people than are needed about the state
house or anywhere else. Thus far popu
list promises have been unfulfilled in
reductions of the cost of running a state
government. Never has there been any
marked lessening of the number of
political pot-hunters on the pay rolls of
populism. Instead of abolishing asy
lums for political dependents , instituted
by the republicans , the populists have
increased them and added length to the
pay rolls of several state institutions by
billeting their relatives and other par
tisan parasites on the public treasury.
