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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 22, 1900)
able farmer might fail to appreciate the picturesque qualities of the bullwhaokers and emigrants sufficiently to desire olose and constant intimacy with them , and so might withdraw to a little distance before undertaking to raise crops and a family. But one does not at first sight understand why the freighters objected to the propinquity of the settlers. That they did so is evident from editorials found from time to time in the contem porary newspapers , which may be called the official organs of the freighting business. Good enough reasons appear on closer inspection. The settlers claimed property rights in what had hitherto belonged freely to all comers ; hence arose controversies , painful to the bullwhackers" sensitive natures. The farmer would not allow them to camp in their accustomed spot , if it was on his ground , nor turn their cattle loose in his high grass ; he was apt to cut the grass and put it in his barn when they most needed it , and his stock would often make trouble among their beasts ; disputes as to ownership would also arise at times ; and he had furthermore a villainous way of fencing in and ploughing up the sacred soil of the trail. For these reasons and many others there was no love between them. So the settlers kept away from the roads when they could , and their schools , postoffices and towns sprang up at a distance from them. A peculiar result of the changes that attended the passing of the old order of things , and one especially misleading to the investigator , is the occurrence of the old historic names attached to other settlements than those which bore them first. Instances of this are very numer ous. There is Kearney ; before Kearney was , there was a Kearney City , which was some miles away and across the river ; before that were Fort Kearney and Old Fort Kearney , all separate and distinct. There is Julesburg , which is the third of that name. All the way along the river from Kearney westward , one can find the names of old stage- stations and land-marks , familiar in the itineraries of the early days , but all transferred to places some distance away and across the river to the north. The instances of this are too numerous to be entertaining , but it is noteworthy that the name is more likely to be found attached to a township or precinct than to a postoffire. This suggests the method which undoubtedly operated in such cases. The name of the old station would spread itself over the surrounding country , and when next a name was wanted as organization went on , it would be the first to come to men's minds. There are plenty of instances of these changes , and of the ups and downs in /general to which the early settlements were liable , in oar own county. Wyoming woa a river-town , which at one time had hopes , but is long since dead. It gave its name to its precinct , and when a few years ago the Missouri Pacific had a station to name , it called it Wyoming. Palmyra was a town laid out in the 50's a mile south of Douglas , where there is now a grave-yard. The present Palmyra is many miles away. Worralton was a postoffice on the Nomaha southwest of Nebraska City ; its location is now forgotten. Even Syracuse , proud city of the salt waters , which wore to be the foundation of its wealth and greatness , fell so low as to lose its postoffice in 1859 ; but it was afterwards reestablished at the same point. Riders of edit- OUR -SECOND WASHINGTON. " ° rlal nlld ° thor dls' missions that go on in THE CONSERVATIVE , will doubtless agree to the "strenuous" and stubborn , and not always suave , way it has of con serving the truth upon all public ques tions that receive its attention , and also that these subjects are always of im portance and wholesome variety. I re spectfully ask it to let me say a word upon the vast and monotonous outbreak and output of Lincoln literature and oratory , that Alex. McOlnre's contribu tions in the Saturday Evening Post may not escape attention , wherein two or three things about the Great Emanci pator who , in truth , never emancipated a single s ive , and who , moreover , in his first inaugural , boldly proposed to bind closer his shackles by amending the fugitive slave law to make it more effective in securing the return of es caping slaves "fugitives from justice or labor , " are mentioned. Colonel McClure makes it plain , 1. That Mr. Lincoln was a very am bitious and shrewd politician , and that he was a very human being. 2. That he was scared half to death for fear he would be defeated for a second end nomination , after he had secured , by the use of every agency , civil and military , to compel his own nomination , and even after ho had definite irnforma- tion that he had a clear majority of the convention. "Well , McClure"said the president , "I don't quite forget that I was nominated in a convention ( the Chicago 'mob convention' ) that was two-thirds for the other fellow , " ( W. H. Seward ) , a confession and a fact which shed a whole flood of lurid light upon the real character , conscientious ness and methods of Mr. Abraham Lin coln as "a second George Washington. " Within two weeks of the nomination he is said by Colonel McOluro to have been as a child who had lost a toy. The Col onel "had to admit that he had been nominated by a convention that was two-thirdu for Seward , " says MoOlure , "but no such condition could arise at Baltimore. " 3. Ool. Alex. McOlure says that , do- spite the bad platform of the democrats which General McClellau repudiated as the opposing candidate , Mr. Lincoln himself , Mr. Horace Greeley and most of the republican leadership , conceded his defeat in August , 1864 , and the only things that prevented it were two things : Sherman's victory over Hood at Atlanta , and Sheridan's over Early in Virginia. 4. The late Francis P. Blair , Jr. , as gallant a man and as brave a patriot and hero , civil or military , as this coun try has ever known , once accompanied President Lincoln from Washington to City Point on a visit to General McOlel- lau , who was then commanding the Army of the Potomac in front of Rich mond. During General Blair's service as United States Union Pacific Railroad Commissioner , he related the following incident : General Blair was asleep in his state room on the boat as the visiting party was returning to Washington. A loud rap on his door aroused him , accompan ied by the president's call , "Frank ! Frank ! " The president entered his state-room and said : "Frank , McOlel- Ian wants to be president , but he won't be ; " and , after this delivery , left the room. This statement was made by General Blair to a citizen of Nebraska City , with whom the editor of THE CONSERVATIVE has something more than a passing acquaintance , and the same story was told by General Blair to a re sponsible citizen of Omaha , whom the writer knows very well. What Washingtonian connection that comment on McOlellan's ambition had with the refusal to send McDowell for ward with 40,000 men at the moment of the attack , as had been promised Mc- Olellan , a force which was depended upon for the right wing of McClellan , God alone may know. See Elaine's "Twenty Years in Congress. " 8. But with these military triumphs in the field , Mr. Lincoln was still in very grave danger of defeat , and was only saved by bringing from the commands of Meade and Sheridan 10,000 soldiers to overcome the democrats of Pennsyl vania , and to carry his own election by the little majority of 20,075 in that great state. GEORGE L. MILLER. Omaha , Feb. 15 , 1900. THE MISSION OP THE FLOWER. I found ri flower , a little starry thing , Close down beside the margin of a brook. A shady plane , a dim and silent nook Where vines with slim tenacious fingers cling To the gnarled trees , and the wild ferns swing Their graceful branches to and fro. One look Revealed its beauty unto me. I took It and it made mo happy all the spring. It faded witli the summer and the leaf. The nutumn winds walled sadly o'er its tomb , Yet gratitude was mingled with my grief , It filled my life awhile with sweet perfume. And though its day of lingering was brief , A soul is nearer God for that dear bloom. ISABEL RICH BY.
