'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 ?
