'P"H
Conservative Jlv
-fr
VOL. II. NEBRASKA CITY , NEB. , THURSDAY , OCTOBER 19 , 1899.- NO. 15.
PUBLISHED WEEKLY.
OFFICES : OVERLAND THEATRE BLOCK.
.T. STERLING MORTON. EDITOR.
A JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE DISCUSSION
OP POLITICAL , ECONOMIC AND SOCIOLOGICAL
QUESTIONS.
CIRCULATION THIS WEEK 6,912 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 , 1898.
The presidential
1900.
election in 1900
will be a triumph for the gold standard.
The money question is over and above
all other questions.
The government can live and main
tain its authority with or without ex
pansion , wither without war. But
without a permanently established
monetary system conforming to the
stnudard of value which all the com-
mercial.peoplesof the earth have adopted
the United States can not command and
enforce respect among the nations.
Honesty in national as in personal
character is the only safe and secure
foundation.
The railroads of
RAILROAD
EX IMSN JDITURES. the country are
paid to be alarmed
at the startling advances that have taken
place in the cost of materials.
During the last year steel rails have
advanced from $18.00 per ton to $88.00
per ton ; spliced bars have increased incest
cost from $1.00 per 100 pounds to $2.20 ;
steel bridge material has gone up from
$2.15 to $4.00 per luO pounds ; ties and
timber have advanced about 25 per
cent. ; coal is hard to get in sufficient
quantity to operate the roads at ad
vanced prices of over 10 to' 50 cents per
ton ; and all other supplies and materials
have had corresponding advances in
price.
These are the hardships of prosperity
and naturally the railroads of the
country are very much interested in
their own charges for transportation of
passengers and freight.
It is not at all unlikely that there will
be advances made in rates of transpor
Ve
tation. The railroad rates of the
United States are lower than they are
anywhere else in the world and without
doubt the service rendered is superior to
that offered in any other country.
These advances in cost of supplies and
material are estimated by careful
students of the question to approximate
$800.00 a mile of road on basis of normal
maintenance of track and equipment.
This means for a road , 7,000 milns long ,
net earnings will have to be increased
over two million dollars per year to
attain the same result yielded last year.
These things all go to show that there
is a good deal of sense in the claim , on
the part of some of the railroad officials
of the country , that it is unfair to estab
lish maximum rates. Transportation
is strictly a composite service and it
does seem unreasonable to establish a
price for the service the railroad renders
without in any degree considering the
cost of labor , supplies and other com
ponent parts. $800.00 a mile increase
in the cost of oporatio- i equivalent to
nearly sixty millions o. dollars per year
that the American railroads will have
to pay for their supplies , as compared
with last year.
The government
WHEAT AND
uns adop
ted the gold stand
ard. American wheat raisers were
told by Bryanarchists in 1896 that they
could never compete with the wheat
producers of India who were getting
twice as much for their wheat as the
Americans were getting on a gold basis.
Concerning the establishment of the
gold standard in India the Chicago
Tribune aptly observed : "The free
silverites used to contend that the India
wheat raisers were able to undersell
their American competitors because the
former had the silver standard. There
fore , Mr. Bryan and his admirers ought
to thank the India Council for having
legislated in the interest of American
farmers by removing a great cause of
cheap wheat. But free silver has be
come such a dead issue that it is not
likely Mr. Bryan or any of his follow
ers will mention this new departure in
India. An event which would have at
tracted general attention three , years
ago is almost unnoticed now. The bat
tle of thtt standards lias been won by
gold , and the few remaining silver
standard countries will change to gold
in the near future. "
State and federal
COURTS.
courts , whether m
elective or appointed , are established to
ixocute the decrees of right and justice.
When any proven criminal escapes the
penalty of his crimes the judge who , by
misconstruing the law permits it , is
himself suspected , if not convicted.
Carlyle says : "Just hatred of scoun
drels , fixed irreconcilable enmity to the
enemies of law and order ; this , and not
love of them , is the buck bone of any
religion whatsoever , let alone the
Christian. "
REFRIGERATION."When gentlemen
seeking small of
fices in their " "
"beginnings hero" in
Nebraska frankly avow their desire for
public life to be based upon "the money
that is in the office" and commit that
patriotic sentiment , with ounoflling zeal , . ,
to paper with a pen that is dipped in
ink and directed by their own hands
they should remember that letters keep
without being put in cold storage.
There is no refrigeration needed to conserve -
servo radical utterances of their desire
for cash out of public offices so elo
quently set forth by great reformers
who now pose as the only patriotic , the
only pure among the people of this
country.
Ruskin wisely
LAWS. . : * *
said that "Laws
are usually most beneficial in operation
on people who would have most strongly
objected to their enactment. "
Laws well understood , rigidly ob
served , properly construed by wise
judges are the protection of the poor
and the defenseless. Badly construed ,
twisted , tortured and misapplied as to
rules of evidence , however , by shallow
and incompetent expounders , laws
become the robbers of the defenseless
and the oppressors of the poor.
Lord Bacon wisely
JUDGES.
ly said : "Judges
ought to be more learned than witty , n
more reverent than plausible , and more
advised than confident. Above all things
integrity is their portion and proper
virtue. "
House Bent Holcomb should quote
that in every speech. Any president of
a mutual fire insurance company , run
ning for a membership of the supreme
court , should ponder this wisdom ,