Conservative *
Congressman
PAINFUL
DISCRIMINATION. Payne > M Ported
oil pngo 230 , near
the top of the second column , in the
Congressional Record for December 11 ,
1900 , is capable of making the nicedt
economical and moral discriminations
between express companies and railroad
companies of any of the erudite states
men , discussing the one-cent tax on
receipts for express packages and for
railroad freight. Mr. Payne says :
"The railroad corporations have paid
these taxes up to this time without im
posing it upon their customers. It
comes from the railroad company ; while
express companies claim that if they had
to pay one cent for every package they
carry , the compensation being compara
tively small , it would drive some of
them , into bankruptcy and prevent
others from paying the usual dividend
which they pay on the stock of the
company. In other words , it would
be very detrimental to business ; and so
they were forced to charge it to their
customers. So the committee took it
off their express receipts and left it on
the railroad receipts. "
From the foregoing , Mr. Payne will be
first and foremost to advocate taking the
tax off railroad receipts as soon as the
railroads recharge the same to their pa
trons. Mr. Payne seems to forget that
the average express company is a vam
pire which feeds upon the railroads and
upon the public. There is no reason
why there should be any express com
panies outside of the several lines of
railroads in the United States , and Mr.
Payne evidently forgets that he is pam
pering a middle agency when he favors
express companies , the life of which de
pends upon the amount they can squeeze
out of consumers on one hand and com
mon carriers on the other.
Secretary Gage
COST OF THE
MILITARY. estimates the civil
expenditures for
the current fiscal year at 115 millions of
dollars. But for the same time the
military establishment of the United
States will cost 140 millions of dollars.
During the same period the navy will
cost GO millions , and pensions will
amount to 143 millions.
These figures indicate that war is
more expensive than peace and that we
are paying out much more money for
the purpose of being able to kill people
thctn we are to maintain a large indus
trial population tinder an honest
administration of civil government.
No one disputes the necessity of a
larger standing army for the United
States than was necessary a quarter of a
century ago. The federal army has
been used to put down riots where the
state authorities failed to subdue them.
This was notably true in Chicago in
1894. Each house of the congress of the
United States , and the supreme court ,
with unanimity upheld the course of
Grover Cleveland in this particular
instance. The judicious use of the
military arm of the federal government
in all states and territories may become
necessary under circumstances similar
to those engendered at Chicago in 1894
at any time. Therefore the standing
army should be large enough to afford
protection to law-abiding citizens in all
the populational centers of the republic ,
whenever their property and lives may
be threatened by riots , mobs and
anarchy. Those citizens who intend to
abide by and observe the law desire it to
be maintained at all hazards. When
the constabulary of the state and state
militia fail , they wish the federal
military to interfere and prevail. No
one need be afraid'of the soldiers of the
United States , who intends to keep the
law and to give obedience to the govern
ment and its authorized agents as good
citizenship requires.
requires."J.
"J. Sterling Morton -
ton suggests Gov
ernor Furnas as a suitable man fpr a
senatorial toga , forasmuch as he has
delved in and developed Nebraska for
half a century. The point is well stated
but the governor hasn't been attending
political conventions , besides which his
bank account is lean. "
The above is from that most orthodox
organ of republican principles , policies
and practices , the well-edited Fremont
Tribune. What can it mean ?
Is it possible that service to the party
outweighs service to the state ? Is it
possible in the estimation of Editor
Hammond a MoKinley appointee that
"lean bank account" is
a an impedi
ment to political promotion in the
organization to which he and the presi
dent and other great and good citizens
belong ? THE CONSERVATIVE : is amazed
and dazed by the Tribune , when , by im
plication , it declares that among repub
licans senatorships are delivered to the
highest bidder.
REDUCTION.Extravagance re-
TAX REDUCTION.
suits from plenty.
Governmental poverty is a positive
good an empty treasury a national
safeguard. A surplus inspires benevo
lent congressmen to give away the
people's money to favored interests in
the form of bounties and subsidies.
Were it not for the surplus of revenues ,
because of excessive taxation , United
States senators would hot now propose
giving away $9,000,000 a yecr and
obligating the government to pay over
one billion during the next thirty years
to prosperous and well-to-do shipowners ,
nor would congress agitate the expendi
ture of over $200,000,000 to construct an
isthmian canal. To remove from
spendthrift congressmen , an apparently
irresistible temptation , the income of
the government should be materially
reduced. When the government has
only enough money to meet legitimate
expenses obliging statesmen have noth
ing to give away.
A SLIGHT. _ . , . Jaoksouian . . , , .
Club of Omaha has
slighted Towue of Minnesota and DuBois -
Bois of Idaho by omitting their names
from the list of distinguished statesmen
who are to tell of "the future policy of
the democratic party. " But J. O. S.
Blackburn and Governor Beckhain of
Kentucky will attend to represent
Goebelized democracy in the bhie grass
regions and J. Ham Lewis , of the starch-
killing speakers at Nebraska City Sept.
26 , 1900 , together with Mr. Oldham , will
furnish the game words , in a six course
feast of flabbergast , fustian , fusion and
delusion. But DuBois and Towue
should not have been omitted from
among the guests of honor.
MAINE FORESTS. TeleSrQmS Jdl
the country that
for Christmas trees this year Maine has
out- four hundred
already shipped car
loads of young evergreens.
Each car convoys two hundred bundles
and each bundle contains six specimens
of beautiful trees which fifty years hence
would become useful lumber for human
homes and their embellishments.
Four hundred times two hundred
bundles of six trees each in half
a century would make lumber enough
to build hundreds of commodious cot
tages. The four hundred carloads of
Christmas trees from Maine , aggregate
four hundred and eighty thousand indi
vidual trees.
This sort of extravagant idolatry of a
custom which does little good and much
harm ought to be abolished wiped out.
Colonel Bowlby
INCONSOLABLE.
remains the boss
sobber at the grave of hybrid partyism
and in anguish cries aloud , over the
venality exhibited by the poor , plain
people who sold their votes November 6 ,
1900 , to republicans. In the latest issue
of his melancholy review of the expiring
agonies of sixteen-to-oneism the Colonel
thus wails :
1 'To such a deplorable condition has
the Hanna party brought our elections ,
by distributing money among the poor ,
to secure their votes , the popular suf
frage is fast becoming a farce. "
Now the boast of Bryanarchy is that
"the poor we have always with us. "
Therefore , THE CONSERVATIVE is
astounded by the insistence with which
Colonel Bowlby , and other economists
and publicists of the populist persuasion ,
declare the rottenness of the politics and
the exchangeability of the ballots of the
great mass of Bryanarohists. Is all the
patriotism of populists of the cash-on-
delivery style ? Did thirteen thousand ,
five hundred or any other number of
voters in Nebraska desert the magnetic
and peerless for coin in hand ?
Is mouth eloquence superseded by
"money talks" and the emotional nature
over-powered by pockets in Nebraska ?