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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 8, 1900)
'Cbc Conservative. ii to A WICKED CALL. . . . . Cisco Call seems profoundly incapable of understanding discriminating statesmanship. It con tains a leading article whence we extract : Colonel Bryan's range was never very great , and his art has consisted in saying shallow things in a deep way. But the number of his prominent admirers is rapidly decreasing , as may bo seen by reading the list of the chorus which ap pears with him at every stand on his Jackson day circuit. This falling away is due to the discovery that ho is not a seer , revelator nor prophet , but that his ! little song is that of the political pee-wee. After his usual fashion ho attempted to make himself the beneficiary of the anti-imperial sentiment of the country , forgetting that it was originated as a national policy by his own supporters. His discussion of it was like his dis cussion of all other public issues , an attempt to bore an auger-hole with a gimlet. Could odiousness of comparison be more marked ? Now , however , he has seen a new light. The original democratic im perialists of the A New Light. , , , . South are asserting themselves. They even threaten to find a market for raw cotton via the next democratic platform. The movement is [ portentous ; it threatens Colonel Bryan's ' primacy of his party. It threatens even to overwhelm "the divine ratio" of 16 to 1. It betrays impatience with Colonel Bryan's solo , which has turned rank and rancid in the wearied ear of the country. Therefore Colonel Bryan finds it necessary to hedge , and his hedging presents him to the country as a political pee-wee. The colonel , who formerly clothed his neck with thunder and stamped like a warhorse in bat- Knur Time. , , . , 11 e , i s showing signs of deterioration and decay. The monotonous task of making the same speech for four years begins to tell on him. His lines are not hard to remem ber , and he always carries a prompter to give him the cue. But it is said that even in music , that high manifestation and utterance of refinement too tenuous for speech , prolonged and constant repetition palls. The most popular classical music constantly repeated wearies , and the hearer turns away with that tired feeling , to recruit him self on some rag-time melody that rises from the very gutter of harmony. At his one-night Jackson day stand in Minneapolis he announced himself as a sort of expansionist and submitted a new ground plan and front elevation o : himself in that capacity. In the words and phrases following he sang his new and small song : ' 'I am a firm believer in the enlargement and extension of the imits of the republic. I don't mean by hat the extension by the addition of contiguous territory , nor to limit myself 10 that. Wherever there is a people ntelligeut enough to form a part of this republic it is my belief that they should bo taken in. Wherever there is a people apablo of having a voice and a repre sentation in this government there the imits of the republic may bo extended. " And that is the sort of expansionist Colonel Bryan is I Wherever a people advances in intelligence to the standard of self-government they are to pay the penalty by beiug "taken in. " Nothing s said about their desire to come ; noth- ug about the dangers and difficulties of a republic consisting of nou-tiguous states widely separated and utterly lack- ng in that homogeneity which can exist only by contiguity , and which is the first condition of republican government. The voice of common sense is never per mitted to whisper in Colonel Bryan's ear , which is plugged tight with self- conceit. But that voice uttered to the average American citizen will say that wherever may exist the capacity for self- government described by Colonel Bryan its proof is the establishment of an inde pendent republic that does not need to be "taken in" by us. It was the dream of the political philosophers who created this republic that the nations and races , moved upon by our example , would rise into the atmosphere of self-government and clothe them with independence , under such forms as were adapted to their special genius and habit. None of those philosophers contemplated the possibility or the desirability of a world wide trust in civil government , which would incorporate with itself the varying peoples who desired to govern them selves. It has remained for Colonel Bryan to conceive it to be the duty of this republic to throw homogeneity and contiguity to the winds and speck the globe with its states until the planet is pockmarked with the rotten boroughs , peopled by all colors , speaking in more tongues than stopped hod-carrying on the tower of Babel , nnd without any spirit of assimilation to bring them into that community of tastes , aspirations and sympathy which alone makes it possible for men to live under a common constitution of government. The Amer ican imperialists are not wise , but com pared with Bryan they loom up like Solomon contrasted with the idiot of a Scotch parish. POULTRY INDUSTRY. In these days of prosperity and general oral welfare there are but few people who have any idea of the magnitude of the poultry industry. Many farmers have an idea that "chickens" are a con stant expense and bother and not wortl a man's attention , but are to be shovec off upon the women-folks and children f one of these men were to keep a book account of the expenses and earnings of lis hens , even though they be of all > reeds and colors , he will find that the much baratod hen is a money-maker , even when an apple tree to roost in and a bag of corn for feed are all the care he gets. There are all kinds of chicken plants , ranging from 100 to 100,000 fowls , scat- ered all over the country , and some of hem paying up to $10,000 per annum. The writer has visited a plant near Chicago which keeps only about 125 'owls ' , but it pays enough to keep a fain- ly , horse and wagon , besides other farm necessaries. The main trade is in sup plying private families with fresh eggs , and those families that are lucky enough to secure one of these purveyors are vis- ted by the "egg man" as regularly as by the milk man. When eggs were selling at 20 cents at the store , this man got 85 cents for his. I have a few United States statistics , lor 1896 , which I will submit : Earning of poultry $200,000,000 Value of hogs 180,520,7-15 Value of all minerals 218,108,788 Value of wheat crop 297,088,008 Vnluo of cotton crop 259,104,040 Total of pensions 189,280,078 These figures show only that part of poultry marketed. The home consump tion of poultry and egga would probably be almost as much again , if obtainable. It will thus be seen that in 1806 the American lien could beat the American pig , bo he Berkshire , Poland-China or Chester-White , and with a part of the liome consumption pay all pensions. One of the beauties of this industry is , that it takes only a small capital to start with , $1,000 being entirely adequate to establish a plant which will pay for itself in a few years , and that can be added onto indefinitely. STERLING MORTON. Grovelaud Park , Jan. 27 , 1000. N. B. The fourteen-years-of-age writer of the above , who is experiment ing with urban poultry raising , is invit ed to write again for THE CONSERVA TIVE. The Porto Ri- SUIWECT OR . , CftnB ftr ° t0 b ° CITIZEN. either citizens or subjects of the United States. This is either to remain a republic or become an empire. If the former , under the federal constitution , then free trade must pre vail within all its territories and between them and all the states. If an imperial government succeeds then trade and its limitations and repressions may be decreed by the privy council and the king just as congress assumes now in spite of MoKinley's advocacy of free trade for Porto Rico to proclaim pro tection against that island's products. Why not , if the foreigner pays the tax ?