Sfc *
'Cbe Conservative *
FEDERAL
JURISDICTION.Kinley wisely rec
ommends congress
to grant federal courts jurisdiction in
all coses involving international rights
which ultimate ly affect the federal
government. The suggestion of the
president was prompted by the lynch
ing of Italians nnd the failure of local
courts to punish the guilty parties. The
sympathy of the community in cases of
this character is always with the perpe
trators of the crime and a conviction is
therefore impossible. The federal gov
ernment is however responsible to for
eign governments for the safety and
protection of their citizens who reside
in this country. It thus assumes re
sponsibility for the conduct of individ
uals without any power to regulate or
control their acts. To maintain our
standing among foreign countries as a
law abiding people , congress should not
fail to devise such legislation that will
establish complete security to foreigners
by punishing those who disregard inter
national obligations. Until we make
certain the conviction of our own citi
zens who violate treaty rights we can
not consistently try to compel China to
punish those responsible for the killing
of American citizens.
T °
LEAD OUT. .
human being is to
lead out .exercise and discipline his mental
faculties. Fathers and mothers are the
first in command of the great army of
educators. It is their duty to lead out
the intellectual capabilities of their off
spring and to discipline and prepare
them for the lessons and duties in the
schools and in life just as much as it is
the duty of a horse-breeder to halter-
break colts and make them bridle-wise
before testing them either for draft or
The state should not relieve parents of
their natural duties except where the
parents are incapa
The State. r , _ .
ble of performing
them. Free education at the expense
of the state ought to be furnished in so
far as common schools go to the child
ren of all parents who are in too indi
gent circumstances to pay for tuition
and to no others. It is as much the natural
duty and obligation of a parent to pay
for the care , development and clothing
of a child's mind as it is to pay for the
food and raiment necessary for his
bodily welfare. And when the parent
pays for these things he examines their
quality and sees to it that he gets , for
his child , the worth of the money he
pays out.
Now the rich and the poor are alike
provided with free schooling for their
children and it is
, , . ;
. . .
Free Schools For All. . , ,
a question wheth
er parents cooperate with teachers as
vigilantly and assiduously as they would
f there was a direct charge commen
surate with the financial circumstances
of eaoh , and with the value of the
ervice rendered by the teachers. It is
a question too , whether the amount
mid in taxes by the property holders of
; he commonwealth is not greater than
an equally thorough system of ednca-
ion would cost if paid for directly.
Why could not the indigent be provided
with free schooling and those of the
well to-do be schooled out of the funds
of the parents directly ?
There are no common schools now.
They are generally very uncommon. In
Nebraska compul-
Common Schools. ,
sory attendance is
lawful ; but the law is seldom if ever in
voked to force children into the schools.
And in nearly every town and city in
ihe state , there are scandals and favorit
ism charged up against boards of educa
tion and teachers year after year. In
Omaha the expenditures have been
enormous and the management of the
public school funds flagrantly extrava
gant if one may believe the public
prints and the court records of that
city. And in a proportional degree ,
school boards in many other towns in
the state have been suspected or charged
with similar malfeasance.
The state now buys all the text books
and they are furnished gratuitously to
pupils. And thus
Books. * . . . .
the right to own
and take care of books and to preserve
them in families as mementoes of child
hood is abolished. Ownership in a book
is a means of individualizing a child
and a method of teaching a knowledge
of values and of carefulness and econ
omy. When the text books are bought
and paid for by the parents they are
properly preserved and appreciated.
When distributed gratuitously by the
state the idea of property in a book is
not conveyed to the mind at all.
Whenever a government like ours , ol
the people , relieves parents of the re
sponsibilities , as to
Reconstruction. . . . .
their offspring
which Nature has imposed upon them
does not that government weaken itself
as to its strength in the future ? If it is
best for the state to take charge of the
mental development of children , from
the age of five to twenty-one , why is it
not best for government also to provide
for their physical welfare ? If the state
ought to buy books for their heads why
not boots for thair feet ? And if the
fashion in boots changes as often as i
changes in text books , the cost of caring
for the two extremes of a pupil may
quite equal the cost of all food and rai
ment for the other corporeal diversities
and the boot agents and book agent
may swarm in equal numbers , and wit !
equal blandishments , no doubt , around
all school boards in the state. -
Some of the
HAUNTED.
prisoners in the
ail of Otoe county have recently com
plained of weird and uncanny sounds as
of bowlings , wailings , shriekinga and
sobbings of convulsively perturbed
ghosts. An investigation , by a psycholo
gist of local repute , leads to the opinion
ihat these phenomena are produced by
reverberatory action against the court-
louse walls of certain speeches made Sep
tember 26 , at Nebraska Oity by J. Ham
Lewis , O. J. Smyth and the populist
candidate for the presidency against the
Argo Starch Works. The intonations and
nanities of those speeches are repro
duced with phonographic accuracy.
Wind never dies. Those great and
effective orations are rotund and can
never be moribund.
THE SKELETON. .
there is a skeleton
m every family closet is quoted a thous
and times a day in conversation , in the
newspapers and by actors upon the
stage. But how many know the origin
of the proverb ? THE CONSERVATIVE is
indebted to the San Francisco Oall for
the following explanation : "A soldier
once wrote to his mother who com
plained of nnhappiness , telling her to
have some sewing done by someone
who had no care or trouble. Ooming
in her search to one whom she thought
must be content and happy , she told her
what she wanted. The lady took her
to a closet containing a human skeleton.
Madame , ' said she 'I try to keep my
sorrows to myself , but I will tell yon
that every night I am compelled by my
husband to kiss this skeleton of him who
was once his rival. Think you , then ,
that I can be happy ? ' The inference is
certainly to clear too need interpreta
tion. "
The patient of a
NOT CHRONIC.
quack doctor suf
fered from diarrhea for seven years and
during that period had taken only the
quacks prescriptions , because the elo
quent charlatan insisted that the afflic
tion was only "temporary" and not
chronic. The recently avalanched can
didate for the presidency , whom the
populist nominated at Sioux Falls and
the Kansas Oity convention , subse
quently warmed over has just given
out the information that "the reverse"
met with so unexpectedly on November
6 , 1900 , "is only temporary 1" The
same remark substantially , was made
by a similar candidate in November
1896. But if defeat following defeat ,
day after day , and year after year , is
"only a temporary reverse" what would
constitute a chronic or permanent re
verse ? Many wicked gold standard citi
zens aver that the 1900 reverse is not
"temporary" at all but absolutely eter
nal. Since when has there been a re-
J verse so "peerless ? "
