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Cbc Conservative.
VOL. III. NEBRASKA CITY , NEB. , THURSDAY , JAN. 31 , 1901. NO. 30.
PUBLISHED WEEKLY.
OFFICES : OVERLAND THEATRE BLOOE.
J. STERLING MORTON , EDITOR.
A JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE DIBOUB8ION
OI1 POLITICAL , ECONOMIC AND SOCIOLOGICAL
QUESTIONS.
CIRCULATION THIS WEEK 10,000 COPIES.
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION.
One dollar and a half per year , in advance ,
postpaid , to any part of the United States or
Canada. Remittances made payable to The
Morton Printing Company.
Address , THE CONSERVATIVE , Nebraska
City , Neb.
Advertising Bates made known upon appli
cation.
Entered at the postoffloe at Nebraska City
Neb. , as Second Class matter , July 29th , 1888.
A
THE COMMON
PEOPLE.aS °
Aster of New York
was a very common German emigrant.
But he had uncommon judgment ,
energy , temperance , industry and fru
gality. Exercising all these potentialities
with judicious efficiency , he became a
man of property. He left , at his death ,
great wealth to his descendants. Vast
public benefits have accrued to the com
mon people of New York because of his
uncommon judgment and his accumu
lative sagacity. The Astor free
library is only one of the monuments to
his character , acquisitiveness and name.
Yet demagogues in 1901 denounce his
posterity which in every war has
furnished patriotic and gallant defenders
of the United States as plutocrats and
unworthy the respect of plain people.
Philip D. Armour fifty years ago was
a day laborer and yet when he died in
. . . . the beginning of
. . . . ° .
Philip D. Armour. , , ,
this year he left a
gigantic fortune , notwithstanding he
had endowed colleges and established
institutions of charity and religion
which had taken away from his fortune
several millions of dollars. He was of
the common people , raised in frugal
industry , inured to hardship and
ennobled by physical and intellectual
labor. His benefactions to the race will
live and thrill with energy , nerve with
ambition the sons of the people for
generations to come , while the oratory
which denounces men for acquiring and
controlling capital will be remembered
only as phenomenal eruptions of self-
seeking demagogy.
Less than fifty years since a brawny
rST
Lad of Scotland came to America and to
. . . work among the
Andrew Carnegie. ,
common people
with uncommon power and perception
of opportunities. His libraries donated
all over the country tell how a wonder
ful Divinity uses the manual and mental
forces of one man so as to make blessings
and benefactions for millions of minds
seeking learning and the luxury of
literary indulgence. But Carnegie is
denounced by the demagogue who wails
about the common people and poses as
their self-appointed protector.
The common people in America have
a right to aspire to climb to competence
, and capital. It is
Climb. , , . ! ; , ,
the pride and glory
of the United States that no citizen re
mains common except by his own
volition. The day laborer of today may
be the capitalist and employer of to
morrow. The day laborer of yesterday
is the rich man and banker of today.
The man , whether he be a populist can
didate for the presidency or only an
editor , who divides his fellow citizens
into classes and transfixes them stereo
types them as plutocrats , middle class
and common , is not possessed of com
mon sense enough to appreciate the
opportunities and possibilities of citizen
ship in the republic founded by Wash
ington , Hamilton , Jefferson and their
compatriots.
MALTREATMENT of populism denounce -
OF THE POOR.
nounce corpora
tions of all sorts because they permit the
element of wholesale and retail to enter
into their business. That is to say , they
condemn as unjust the transportation
companies if the latter allow one man to
ship a thousand cars of wheat at a less
rate per ton than they allow another
man to ship half a car of wheat the same
distance. They denounce banks and
bankers for charging proportionately a
greater premium on New York exchange
for one hundred dollars than they defer
for one hundred thousand dollars.
Demagogically they denounce and
reprobate these inequalities. And yet
the loftiest and most illustrious of this
sort of populist has recently started a
periodical for which he charges one dollar
lar a year in advance ; but if the sub
scriber takes it for only three months , he
must pay thirty-five cents , or at the rate
of $1.40 per year. This discrimination
against the poor , who can not spare a
dollar , shows a difference of 40 cents a
year against them , in a very small
transaction ; and the tramp who has the
16 to 1 habit can not satiate it with a
single copy at less than five cents , which
would be at the rate of $2.60 a year.
This means that the poor common
people , whose wealth is measured in
pennies and not in dollars , are , because
of their comparative poverty , forced to
pay nearly three times as much as the
plutocrat who can spare a dollar all at
one time. Populism preaches one thing ,
practices another.
"The common
WISDOM.
people form the
industrious , intelligent and patriotic
element of our population. They pro
duce the nation's wealth in time of
peace and fight the nation's battles in
time of war. "
The foregoing could have been uttered
by only one peerless populist. An anxious
and curious reader desires to know
under which head the peerless aforesaid
ranks himself among the common
people ? Does he get in under the
division of the "industrious ? " Is he
admitted as one of those who produce
the nation's wealth in time of peace and
fight its battles in time of war ? If so ,
does he include the mouth-worker as a
wealth-producer for the nation , or the
soldier for-photographic-pnrposes-only
as the one who fights its battles in time
of war ?
An instructor of
DRAKE.
the plain people
refers to the popular poem , "The Ameri
can Flag , " and tells how Francis Drake
would revise it if he were to rewrite it.
Francis Drake was an English sailor
who died in the West Indies in 1569.
John Kodman Drake , an early Ameri
can poet , who wrote for the New York
Evening Post , wrote the poem in ques
tion. If the common people cannot get
a better instructor errors will be com
moner than truths in their lessons.
Oommon platitudes
COMMON.
tudes served hot in
populistio orations , become commoner
when fed out cold in plain type on cheap
paper. And the commonest appetite
cannot relieh warmed over and rehashed
inanities served frozen. Gold flabbergast
is not as edible as that , sizzling hot , from
a silver tongue , which is propelled by a
peerless pair of lungs , and garnished
with a musical voice.
