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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 21, 1899)
Urt Ff 'Che Conservative , n braakaor I die. ' " That is patriotism , not of the kind that flippantly exprepses itself on some public occasion , but patriotism incarnated in the citizen. Would to God we had more of it ! Democracy will perish without it. It is the salt of a nation , the political light to lighten a people. Out of it heroes are born and because of it life itself is willingly laid upon the country's altar. Some forty years ago or more , while yet in that Eastern homo , Mr. Hay ward professed to receive Jesus Christ as the Son of God and his personal Savior , and united himself with the church of his early choice. A few mouths ago , just after election to the senate of the United States , among the letters of congratulation received was one in which this expression was used : "I hope you love the Lord Jesus Christ. " His private secretary brought the letter to him and said : "How shall I answer this ? " Mr. Hayward read it , paused a moment , hiq face grow sober , thoughtful - ful , and he gravely replied : "Tell him I do love the Lord Jesus. " And he is gone. Verily "All flesh is gross and all the goodliness thereof as the flower of the field. The grass withereth , the flower fadeth surely , the people is grass. " Why ho should be taken just now we may not under stand. The nation , in the crisis upon it , needs such men to grapple with the questions of the hour and solve them in a way to satisfy the demands of righteousness. Our commonwealth , our city , mourn his death and may not be reconciled , while friends weep and re fuse to be comforted. Life is lonelier to us all since he has been taken away. "And ho is gone who seemed so great , Gone ; but nothing can bereave him Of the force ho inndo his own Being here ; and wo believe him Something far advanced in stat < > , And that ho wears a truer crown Than any wreath that man can weavn him. Speak no more of his renown , Lay your earthly fancies down And ( upon the Father's bosom ) leave him , God accept him Christ receive him. " All flesh is grass. We who are here today are going the way of all the earth. Soon for us the golden bowl will be broken , our presence will be withdrawn the mortal will disappear , our very names be forgotten for "the things that are seen are temporal. " But somewhere , in God's wide universe , you and I shall still be living , reaping what we have sown , rewarded according as our deeds have been ; for "the things that are not seen are eternal. " How shall we spend our earthly lives ? To what shall wo ' devote our energies ? What record shall we leave behind ? " 'Tis not all of life to live , nor all of 1 death to die. " Beyond the seen lies the ' unseen upon the shores of time break the waves of eternity. Out from the bhadowy land hands beckon and poin upward , and so thin the veil between the mortal and immortal that the 'whispers of God can be heard by the shildren of men. " Bare and gray would ) ur lives stretch downward to the grave lad not God spoken and bidden us look upward and be comforted Bright and acred grow these passing moments as 'aith looks beyond the hills to the land tvhere wrongs are righted , hopes bear 'ruitago , and growth in all that is noble ind passionately longed for here shall iiiow no end. "And so beside the silent sea Wo wait the muilled oar. No harm from Him can come to mo On ocean or on shore. I know not where- His islands lift Their fronded palms in air , I only know I cannot drift Beyond Hfs love and caro. " . , devilology has always been one of exceeding interest. Some of the most tremendous characters of fiction are those which portray the Evil Genius. Milton's Satan , walking u the courts of Heaven , burning with ambition , planning the overthrow of the universe , with a courage that knew no pain and a daring that dreamed of no disaster , daring to defy the Omnipotent ; o arms , is a character alike fascinating and powerful ; Mephistopheles , the jeering sarcastic doubter in whom "is ing , , con densed every form of doubt from that of the deist to that of the libertine ; " [ ago , the incarnation of wickedness and intellect , "the polished , aft'able attend ant , the boon companion , the supple sophist , the nimble logician , the philoso pher , the moralist , the scoffing demon , the goblin , whose smile is a stab and whose laugh is an infernal sneer" each personifies the dominant note of the ago in which the character was wrought. Milton wrote when men were reach ing out for dominion and power , when personal ambition was drenching the world with blood. Goethe's Mephisto pheles was thought out in the German atmosphere of doubt and criticism , lago , the combination of intellect and will , is the product of the Elizabethan age of great intellectual and material development. Each devil is , in a measure , the product of the age. This is a money-making age and he who would portray the Evil Genius must approach the subject from that point of view. It is highly proper that the latest creation should be the Money Devil and since the days of the greal masters no one has portrayed the character of His Satanic Majesty with more HUCCCSS than has that philosopher teacher , statesman and romancer , Mr Coin Harvey , of the United States ; and of all the devils of fiction this Money Devil is the most unique. This latest devil is not of grim visaged mien , gaunt and ghastly and terrible he has no horns and hoofs ; he does no go up and down the land like a roaring lion , or Mr. Bryan. He works quietly and unobtrusively , but with the swift ness and precision of a trained and omprohonsivo mind. His main offices ire in Now York , though ho has an octopus farm in Now Jersey. Appear ances indicate that the main office is eon to bo moved West. The Money Devil loans you money , ; hrough his agents , bankers ; when you ask for it and can give proper security , hen he goes to work and sots the seasons ) ack a month so you cannot got your crops in on time ; ho lets loose a lot of nigs to ruin your potatoes ; when you are asleep , in the stillness of the night , 10 scatters tares among your wheat , and ) rings in a lot of chiuch bugn and weavil o get what the tares do not kill ; ho nanufactures hot winds to shrivel up what corn the crows and squirrels do not get ; ho scatters cholera germs among your hogs ; he gives your chil dren measles and mumps and runs up a ) ig doctor bill ; he sends around lightning rod agents and gets yon to sign notes 'or work that never is done ; ho sends ightning to kill your horses and cattle that are not rodded ; ho chases your stock into wire fences which cut them until they are worthless ; ho persuades you to buy machinery you do not need , and you have no time to work and latent rights you cannot dispose of ; fixes it so you are unlucky at horse races mid shell games , and otherwise makes it impossible for you to raise the money you have borrowed ; and , having thus succeeded in thwarting all your efforts , forecloses on the seciirity and drives you out of house and home. And the worst of it is that no one is able to determine just how this is done ; it is the subtlety of the thing that perplexes and baffles and makes the Money Devil so mon strous. Satan beguiled the first parents into sinning ; Mephistopheles ensnared Faust and Margaret ; lago wrought upon the jealous passions of the Moor until Des- demona was destroyed ; but the Money Devil corrupted a whole congress , com mitted the crime of ' 7JJ , and then debauched the universe. As a powerful creation of the mind , the devil of populistio fiction overtops them all. Northwestern Banker. Have extortions KXTOUTIONS , . come from corporations iiY WHOM ? ations or from those fighting corporations in Nebraska ? Have attorneys-general and railroad commissions in this state given the public more , in good service , for the money they have cost than the railroads and other corporations have given for the money paid them ? Is a board of railroad commissioners for the state of Nebraska which costs thousands of dollars per annum paid out of tax-gathered money anything less than an extortion , when it renders no service at all ?