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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 15, 1900)
j.iraisa&'i t . l .At * Ay1 : . .lai. " JYJA A. , . . . ' . > . ; : . . . . ' , MI-.TE : Conservative. 9 mer as the most independent Man on Earth. Next week there was a familiar Name baok on the Time-Card at the Planing Mill. Mill.MOUA.L MOUA.L : "Ju oW the Learned Profes sions , Mann nrc Galled but Few are Chosen. " PRESIDENT OP THE SOUTHERN PACIFIC. The Southern Pacific company has made a great acquisition and the Grand Trunk railway has suffered a correspon ding loss in the decision which trans forms the general manager of the latter into the president of the Southern Pac ific system. Charles M. Hays is a gratifying example of what a young man with ability and a tremendous capacity for work can accomplish in this country , without capital , political in naeuces or favoritism. For four years he was an office clerk ; for nearly ten years more he was general manager's secretary a splendid school for the all- ) > -.nd railway man ; for the next nine mouths he was assistant general man ager ) and then he reached the goal of most railway men's ambition by be coming general manager , at the early age of thirty-three. For eight and a half years the Wabash was able to re tain him in that position , until nearly five years ago , when he accepted the larger and more difficult work of opera ting the Grand Trunk. His success in rehabilitating that great property has been warmly acknowledged at the half yearly meetings of the English stock holders gentlemen who are generally less ready to praise than to blame and the announcement that the company is to lose his services will cause general re gret , as well as surprise. The presidency of a vast corporation , such as the Southern Pacific , with its nearly 10- 000 miles of railway lines , directly and indirectly controlled , operating thousands - \ ands of miles of steamer lines , reaching i to the south sea and the Orient , and numbering its employees by tens of thousands - \ ands , is a position of power and usefulness - \ ness that may well satisfy the ambition ' of any man , and the man who has 1 attained this was a clerk sixteen years ago. In addition to the rapidity of his rise two facts are noticeable in exam ining the dates of Mr. Hays' railway ( career that his official service thus far * has been with two companies only and V that from his entry into railway work as ' a boy of seventeen he has never been for a day out of employment , stepping from i one position to another that was higher by a continuous progress. Such a record * in full of vicissitudes is rare a professien so - , tudes as that of the railway official , and i it is proof of extraordinary and varied 1 abilities. The accession of Mr. Hays to the , i presidency , with his office and residence , in San Francisco , will , it is believed , , * . begin a new era in respect to the attitude of the California public toward the Southern Pacific company and its man agement. For thirty years and more this company and its predecessors have labored under the open hostility or the secret suspicion of a large part , if not all , of the people of the Pacific coast , the chief beneficiaries of the pioneer transcontinental lines. The Central Pacific and its outgrowths were origin ated and controlled by four men , and it was easy to start the cry of monopoly , tyranny , despotism against those who ruled the sole and indispensable means of transportation in a vast territory. The forceful men who dared to stake their all on the venture of the first rail way across the desert and the moun tains seemed to many arrogant and overbearing in exercising their great powers. The great cost of construction in those experimental days , the sparseness - ness of population and traffic and the expensiveuess of operation on many parts of the new roads compelled the builders to fix high rates for transporta tion , and when offended applicants for lower charges began to agitate for legis lation against the great monopoly , the railway company had to use its political influence also , and so the Southern Pa cific became in time the object of war fare of extraordinary bitterness and per sistence. Conditions have changed of late years and the company and the ma jority of the people now have a better understanding of each other , but there is still a considerable faction , represent ed by several of the strong papers of San Francisco , whose voice is ever raised against the Southern Pacific , in regard to which they continue to be lieve that whatever is , is wrong. It is time that this profitless war should cease. The four men whose achievements evoked it Stanford , Crocker , Hopkins , Huntington have passed from the scenes of their mighty labors , of which California is in the prosperous enjoyment , their millions have been dispersed through countless channels of industry and usefulness , the ownership of the vast railway system which they originated is distributed among tens of thousands of holders in many states and many lands , San Fran cisco has developed from a provincial town , jealous and fearful , into a strong and growing metropolis , another great railway has crossed the continent and built a new highway for commerce to and from the Golden Gate , and the days of monopoly in transportation on the Pacific coast are forever ended. The Southern Pacific is under a new regime ; its president born since the Central Pacific came into being succeeds to the chair of Huntington and Stanford un hampered by the prejudices , misunder standing and mistakes which have char acterized the attitude of presidents and people of the post , and comes bringing a clean sheet for a new record. He is a just , broad-minded , pnWio-spirited man , duly appreciative of public sentiment , deeply impressed with the duty of the railway to the people , up to date and progressive in his methods of manage ment , a twentieth century executive. Now let the people of California forget their old grievances , stop their fault finding with men and conditions that are gone , and begin to co-operate with and encourage the new head of the Southern Pacific and the able men who are now conducting that great property with such signal success. Railway Age. WHERE WOMEN VOTE FOR , PRESI DENT. Women voted for president in four states Tuesday. In three of them Colorado , Utah and Wyoming they had the suffrage four years ago. In Idaho they voted for president for the first time. All four of the states went for Bryan in 1890 , three of them by heavy majorities. Colorado gave him 186.000 plurality , Utah 51,000 , Idaho 17,000 and Wyoming 583. Tuesday two of these same states went republican and in the others the democratic vote was greatly reduced. Utah is believed to have given Mo- Kinley a plurality of 4,000 , which would indicate a flop of more than 27,000 voters. Wyoming is republican by 2,500 , so that 1,600 of its 21,000 voters have changed their politics. Colorado shows the greatest landslide. Bryan's plurality of 185,000 in 1896 is reduced by 100,000. It would appear that 60,000 , or more than a quarter of the state's citizens , turned republican. In Kansas , where woman do not vote for president , the deviation of only 5 per cent of the total voters transferred the state from Bryan to McKinley. In South Dakota only 9 per cent of the male electors changed their faith , while the percentage of deviation in Colorado was 26 , and in Utah 84. The electorate of Colorado , Idaho , Utah and Wyoming is evidently not of a rock-ribbed political cast. It certainly manifests a remarkable open-minded- ness on political questions. Just how much of this is due to the feminine part of it cannot be determined. But under the circumstances a democrat could hardly be blamed for sighing with Vir gil , "Always changeable and capricious is woman. " Kansas City Star. The H. W. Johns Manufacturing Co. , of 100 William street , New York , have issued a little booklet on the subject of Asbestos. This little booklet , which is entitled "Something About Coverings , " includes some illustrations which show the advantages of their Fire-felt Cover ings. This booklet is of interest to manufacturers and builders and a copy will be sent free to any address upon re quest sent to the H. W. Johns Co.