The Conservative *
"No man should
THEORY , OK .
PRACTICE ? over lcave mO Oy
to his children , "
says Mr. O. J. Rhodes of South Africa ,
as expounded by Editor Stead ; "it
is a curse to them. "What we should
do for our children , if wo would do
them the best service we can , is to give
them the best training we can procure
for them and then turn them loose in
the world without a sixpence , to fend
for themselves. What happens when
you leave sons fortunes ? They have no
longer any spur to effort. They spend
their money on wine , women and
gambling , and bring disgrace upon the
name which they bear. No ; give your
boys the best education you can , and
then let them make their own way. As
for any money you may have , it should
all go to the public service to the state
in some form or another. "
Mr. Rhodes was born the sou of a poor
country clergyman , and perhaps at
tributes to his father's involuntary
adherence to the principle here laid
down the fact that he himself is now
worth many , many dollars. But how if
Mr. Rhodes had been a girl ? Does he
not consider girls children ? Or does he
think that leaving a girl money is be
stowing it "upon the state in some
form ? " Certainly the fate which he
apprehends for the part of an inherited
fortune , of being squandered upon a
woman , is as likely to befall it with a
female legatee as with a male only it
would not be the same woman in one
case as in the other.
The powers cannot
OF COURSE.
not interfere be
tween Great Britain and the Transvaal
republic because the Transvaal is , by
virtue of some venerable treaty , sup
posed to be to some extent under Great
Britain's control. Therefore , in the eye
of the powers , they are one and the
same , and intervention is not to be effec
ted without doing violence to the law of
impenetrability of matter which is be
yond the powers of a power. Neither
is this state of things at all in
consistent with the pacific resolves the
powers all made at The Hague last sum
mer , for the very good reason that the
Transvaal was not at that meeting. How
could it be when it was merely a power
with a suzerain , and only first-class
powers were invited to consider the
beauties of peace on that occasion ? To
be sure , Bulgaria was there , who is
suzerained by Turkey full as plenteously
and thoroughly as are the Boers by
England ; but the timely and beautiful
discovery was made that by calling
Bulgaria out of turn in the roll-call
bringing her in after X Y Z & , instead
of under B it was made precisely as if
she had not been there at all. Thus it
will be seen that no injustice was done
the Boers , nor have they a leg to stand
on in the matter of universal peace and
goodwill.
JEsop did not mention it , but prob
ably the bystanders at the unfortunate
affair of the wolf and thn lamb forbore
to intervene , on the ground that the lamb
was an integral part of the wolf , or at
all events soon would bo.
The plain peo'
, , , , . ,
pie and all other
folks in Nebraska wonder where all the
cash came from which the advocates of
the free coinage of silver at 1C to 1 ex
pended in the last campaign ?
How much was contributed to the
trust-fighters by the members of the
smelter trust ? How much came from
the owners of silver mines and silver
bullion ? When will the expenditures
by the sixteen-to-oue zealots be itemized
and given to a curious public ? Will
somebody tell who paid for the expenses
of speedy special trains and other
luxuries furnished the scores of fusion
orators ?
THE DOLLAR-
MADE. TIVE smiles serene
ly when republi
cans ask how "Coin" Harvey could have
been retained and worked to work the
voters of Nebraska for nearly six months
without any help except from God-
made men. The credulity of the leaders
of republicanism in Nebraska which
caused them to believe in the politics of
"registration , " after their experience of
silver fellows wearing gold badges in
1896 would swallow the green cheese
theory of moon-making ! The Hon.
Orlando Tefft of Cass county , chairman
of the republican state committee , made
up a summary and claimed the election
of Judge Reese on the politics assumed
by registered voters. He might as well
have concluded that the special trains
for fusion orators were all God-made
instead of dollar-made conveyances.
The denounced dollar created victory
for 1C to 1 , for fusion , for fallacy and
falsehood , and it was paid out by those
pure patriots who are always anathe
matizing "the money power. "
Ifc *
THE CORNSTALK. f.
,
from the pith of a
cornstalk to a battleship or the roar of
its guns , but science has found a way
to express one in terms of the other.
This troublesome pith , worse than use
less to the farmer because too much of
it in corn fodder kills his cattle , now
supplies the best chemical base for
smokeless powder and the best filling
for the space between the inner and
outer plates of a warship's hull. The
stalk can bo put to various valuable
uses. In different ways parts of the
corn plant supposed to be little better
than waste are now in demand for
specialized manufacturing. Consider
ing the immense annual crop of this
cereal , and the growing industrial value
of what is left after the ear is extracted ,
the corn plant promises to be perhaps
the most striking illustration on a large
scale of the value of a by-product. It
changes the very notion of it. Instead
of it to the
restricting cast-off-clothing
idea , or that of sweeping the mint floor
for gold dust , it suggests the creation of
industrial staples out of the leavings of
agriculture and manufacturing.
In 1897 the corn crop of this country
was nearly 2,000,000,000 bushels and
must now considerably exceed that
amount. Considering that use in manu
facturing has been found for every
pound of a ton of cornstalks , it may be
roughly imagined what value will be
added to the country's domestic and
exported wealth by utilization of
material much of which was formerly
looked upon as worse than useless or
left to rot in the ground. It is , perhaps ,
the most impressive lesson given for a
long time in the value of the by-product.
The American corn grower is changed
at once into a producer for more than a
dozen different demands , all of them
apparently with a permanent place in
industry. Before long it may be worth
while for him to grow his crop even if
he can sell it at half present price for
the grain , so long as he can sell the'stalk
and pith to be worked into the new iises
which science has discovered. He will
have in part as customers the armies
and navies of the civilized world , the
paper industries , certain kinds of chemi
cal manufacture and other industries in
which inventors are discovering further
uses for his product.
It is due to trusts to say that their
economizing processes gave the first
impetus to the creation of values in
waste products. Since the oil trust
started the manufacture of paraffiue
wax , increasing attention has been paid
by great manufacturing combinations
to increase of profits by scientific inves
tigation of material supposed to be waste.
The recent history of the cornstalk
and important history it is is enough
to stimulate still further investigation
in this line. The French chemist , M.
Berthelot , not only was untroubled by
doubts as to possible failure of the
world's food supply but had the most
enthusiastic confidence in the making of
food by chemical processes that would
banish forever the fear of famine. That
is a little sanguine , perhaps , but a few
years ago a cornstalk appeared to have
only slight prospects. The larger bicycle
manufacturers have inventors whose
exclusive work is the finding out of new
processes for turning out a better and
cheaper wheel. The farmer seems to
need the scientist to show him how
much he is throwing away. But , for
that matter , almost every other pro
ducer has the sanio need.
