V . , . ,
Conservative * ii
one another only by our Christian kind
ness in killing them ; and that everyone
who wished to give these poor devils a
show is a "copperhead" and a "traitor ? "
In the August "Den" were printed
some of Dewey's official words to the
secretary of the navy. Here follows
the pith of what he soys to the London
Daily News :
"I know the Filipinos intimately , and
they know I am their friend. * * *
The Filipinos are capable of governing
themselves ; they have all qualifications
for it. * * * I have never been in
favor of violence towards the Filipinos.
The islands are at this moment blocka
ded by a fleet , and war reigns in the
interior. This abnormal state of affairs
should cease. * * * I should like to
see antouomv first conceded ; and then
annexation might be talked about. I
should like to see violence at once put a
stop to. According to my view , the
concession of self-government ought to
be the most just and the most logical
solution. "
Can this be the real reason why
Cousin George is coming home ? And
do you see the administration papers
printing his words ? Not much ! The
readers who are so unlucky as to read
nothing else do not dream of the size
nor the authority of the opposition to
the war. As someone hns well said :
"An 'organ' ia valuable to an adminis
tration not for what it prints but for
what it leaves out. "
Meantime the American people are
not borrowing any trouble about George
Dewey's sanity. They love him and"
believe in him. He may think with or
against the administration or us as he
will ; he has quite as much chance to
know the islands as President MoKiuley
has , and we have as strict confidence in
his honesty. It would be natural for a
war hero its greatest hero to believe
in the war. If Dewey doesn't , so much
the worse for the stay-at-homes who do.
Clias. F. Lummis in October Land of
Sunshine.
TIMES HAVE CHANGED.
If Bryan is again nominated and the
old issue of the sixteen-to one coinage
of silver is thus again made the keynote
of the campaign , the silver men and
their leader will have a very different
situation to face from thac which con
fronted them with such pleasing as
surances of victory in 1806. The
country was then deep down in the rut
of a profound business depression. The
wages of labor had been repeatedly re
duced and thousands of workingmen
could get no work at all , because of the
general reduction of force in. the mills
and factories that managed to keep run
ning , and the complete closing of thous
ands of establishments that had formerly -
ly supported large numbers of employees.
Prices had fallen so thatiTiherov was no
- iJHM-t
profit in manufacturing an&thg demand
for all kinds of manufactured goods had
gone down. In the rural districts the
farmers were also suffering from low
prices. They could not pay their debts ,
and farm mortgages were being fore
closed in every direction. At the same
time there was general ignorance among
the masses of the voters as to the pri
mary truths about money and national
finance.
It was comparatively easy then to
delude the voters with the humbug that
the evils in the business situation which
were real and oppressive to them all
grew out of a conspiracy on the part of
the men who had money to make money
scarce and dear , and the first step in'
that direction had been taken as long
before as 1873 , when congress refused to
authorize the coinage of more silver
dollars. An absurd fanaticism , that re
fused to listen to reason , concerning
gold and silver coin , seized on a large
section of the voting public and spread
like a malignant disease. Men , and
level-headed men , too , became the dupes
of the shallowest demagogues and we're
actually made to believe that gold was
a curse to the world when used as basic
money and that all that was necessary
to do to make everybody prosperous and
the whole country rich was to abandon
the yellow metal and put silver in its
place. People who favored gold were
denounced as gold-bugs and money-
sharks and every ignorant and dirty
fellow who could declaim from a dry-
goods box on a street corner to an openmouthed -
mouthed crowd was hailed as a true
reformer. The maudlin stuff that was
talked in that campaign is too silly to be
read now with any patience. The stump
orators of the period were as bad as the
hnnd organ musicians , of whom Oliver
Wendell Holmes wrote :
You think they are crusaders sent
, From Homo infernal clime ,
To crack the voice of melody
And break the Ing.s of rhyme ,
Put nut the Hyen of sonkim nt
And dock the tail of time.
But what a tearing , rearing , roaring
time they made. Cobblers and tailors ,
sweeps and shovellers , saloon loafers
and tramps of every degree imagined
themselves to be statesmen and filled
the air with their mouthing1 * about the
curse of gold , the divinely ordained
ratio of sixteen to-one and the crime of
' 73. The whole craze about silver grew
out of hard times conditions. People
grievously needed some relief , and , like
a sick man , the country turned to the
first nostrum offered by the first plausi
ble quack. If Bryan had proposed fiat
paper money or copper money as the
remedy he would have had nearly as
many followers.
But what an incredible folly it is for
politicians now to imagine that the
phenomena of 1890- can be reproduced
under the new conditions of 1000. Labor
is now everywhere fully employed.
Wages are good and will buy much
more of the things the workingman
needs than a like amount of money ever
bought before in this or any other
country. Mills and factories are run
ning to their greatest capacity to keep
up with their orders. Thousands of
farm mortgages have been paid off.
Enormous crops have been gathered
this year. The railroads cannot get cars
enough to carry the products of West
ern farms to Eastern markets and the
ships that cross the ocean are over
loaded with the staples of American
farm and factory industry. There is so
much money in the country that the
rate of interest is lower than was ever
known before since the nation was born.
The whole land is swinging along at a
rate of progress that is marvelous.
Now , under such conditions , what
possible chance is there for the demo
cratic party to succeed next year by
/
bellowing the old hard times cries of
1806 ? Who will care next year , when
he is getting his pay every week in good
bright gold coin , whether silver was
demonetized in 1873 or not ? Who will v ;
* " *
\
stop work to argue whether the ratio
V >
ought to be 16 to 1 , or 22 to 1 , or 40 to 1 ? ' "rt
H' '
Who will repeat the arrant nonsense of 1"v1 <
the last campaign that we ought to use "fe " ?
silver as standard money for the very
reason that no other civilized country
on earth uses it and we are big enongh
to go it alone ? Who will be willing to
give up his right to receive for his ser
vices and dues good dollars , worth 100
cents each all over the world , and accept
instead poor dollars , worth 40 cents each
in all the world ?
It is now almost certain that the
democratic party is going to nominate A
Bryan next year and place him on the
Chicago platform. We shall then see
the remarkable spectacle of a party
with a platform in which nine-tenths of
its members do not believe and a candi
date whom they do not trust. The re
sult , we apprehend , will be that the
party will try to shift its ground by the
common impulse of its masses and make
its fight on some living issue of the day ,
leaving the silver and anarchy platform
hanging in the air. Bat with Bryan ,
the champion of free coinage , as the
party candidate , can it do so ? Sottnd
Money.
The editor of
ABSENT.
THE CONSERVA
TIVE is away from home and , therefore ,
unable to answer the many letters now
accumulating upon his table.
The bridges in
BRIDGES.
Otoe county are
some of them a menace to property and
s
life. There have been too many bridges
falling in this locality and those that are
down are down too long. Why do taxes
for bridges bring such poor bridges to
this community ?