* * ; < .4
'Cbe Conservative.
A sixteen-to-6ne
INFLATION. proclniincr of ca
lamity , m aspeech
at Nebraska City during the presidential
campaign , insisted that a corporation
should not he over-capitalized. "The
farmer , " he said , "in this county cannot
inflate the value of his laud or of his
personal property ; the merchant cannot
inflate the value of his goods upon his
shelf , but these monopolies can water
their stock and then collect dividends
upon capital never invested. "
When this speech was made the orator
was without experience in business
affairs. He had never managed a
dividend-paying enterprise. Recently ,
however , he embarked in a business
venture and founded a "more common"
periodical than his fellow citizens had
previously known. To the student of
industrial problems this thought promoter
meter is of peculiar interest as it affords
a practical illustration of the manner in
which its distinguished director would
apply his theories of industrial control.
It is reported by the friends of this
newspaper prodigy that his paper will
net him at least $50,000 per year. This
is equivalent to a dividend of 5 per cent
upon an investment of $1,000,000. But
this novitiate in the financial world has
not one dollar invested in a printing
plant or what is economically known as
fixed capital. His prospective income
of $50,000 is therefore a dividend solely
and exclusively upon watered , or more
properly , inflated stock. How does this
proposition appeal to our bucolic
readers ?
A few years ago this Russell Sage of
journalism declared that "only in the
case of monopoly
Monopoly. can you secure
dividends upon
stock that does not represent money in
vested. " If this deduction is correct
then our esteemed contemporary is
operating a monopoly. How the mighty
have fallen ! The peerless a monopolist 1
Not six mouths ago he was vehemently
decrying monopolies and earnestly pro
claiming that if he were only given a
chance he would not permit a single
monopoly to remain under private con
trol. It is a reminder of the inconstancy
of human kind that this man , the crown-
crusher and cross-destroyer , should now
place himself at the head of a cruel ,
crushing , grinding monopoly , that
will take $50,000 per year from his plain
countrymen.
In his presidential exhortations the
fallen hero declared that every large
corporation that
Trusts. owned several
plants located at
lifferent points was a trust. Centralized
ownership and management of indus
trials he denounced as intolerable evils.
In an emotional outburst at Nebraska
Oity he feelingly remarked :
"Now when the Argo factory was
owned by people hero , and when it wan
controlled by the people in this city , if
there was a strike , the men who had
charge of the concern were as interested
as wore the laborers , but when it is a
part of the great starch trust , managed
by paid men in the employ of the head
office , who have no interest whatever in
the men , they can close down the factory
and the laborer is helpless because the
trust can do its work elsewhere after it
has frozen out the laborers here. This
attempt to form a starch trust and em
body your factory in that trust is simply
an attempt to transfer the management
to New York , and therefore its wishes
will have no effect. You people who
live here are more interested in destroy
ing this starch trust than the people
who live in other parts of the state.
You men who are working in that
factory , would you not rather work for
men in this city , men who have your
interests at heart , than for those who
are agents of the Now York office , whom
you never saw and who have no interest
in you ? Is not Smyth fighting your
battles instead of his own when ho tries
to bring the control of that factory back
to Nebraska Oity ? "
Those who had listened to the tear-
producing rendition of this touching
ballot talk were in-
Printing , expressibly grieved
to hear that the
one , who thus warned his countrymen
of the dangers to a community of har
boring industrial plants whose owners
had money invested in similar plants
elsewhere , had let the contract for print
ing his paper to the Western Newspaper
Union , a large , soulless , unfeeling ,
unsympathetic corporation , the heac
office of which is in Chicago , that owns
and operates printing plants in Chicago ,
OmahaKausasCityDenverLincolnand
at various other points throughout the
country. If the orator's philosophy is
correct it should apply to printing as
well as starchmaking. If it is iuimica'
to the interests of a community , ant
particularly to wage-workers , for a
company , with a head office in New
York , to operate a starch plant at Ne
braska City it is no less antagonistic to the
public welfare for a company , with a
head office at Chicago , to operate a print
ing plant at Lincoln , Nebraska. Are no
the security of employment and wage
of the starch-makers and printers alike
imperiled ? To use his own words , in the
case of a print shop that is owned by
the people of Lincoln , "if there was a
strike , the men in charge of the concern
would be as interested as were the
laborers. " "When the printing shop i
a part of a great trust , managed by paid
men in the employ of the head office
who have no interest whatever in th
men , they can close down the shop ant
the printer-is helpless because the print
ing trust can do its work elsewhere af te
it has frozen out the laborers here. " A
Lincoln there are a number of printing
shops that are owned and operated by
nen who live in the town , who prefer
o conduct independently a small busi-
less rather than work for a larger
stablishment and receive orders from
omobody else , perhaps from a head
office in Wall Street. If the Lincoln
editor was sincere in his sympathetic
outbursts for the small business man
vhy did ho not give him his patronage
nstead of throwing it to a large cor
poration which ho has many times
alleged exists to crash out the small
capitalist ?
There seems to bo a marked difference
of opinion between the talker for votes
and the publisher
Hypocrisy. of a paper. The
publisher bxiys
where he can buy the cheapest and does
not allow his judgment to be warped by
sentiment or personal feeling. If a large
corporation , syndicate or trust can print
his paper cheaper than it can bo done by
the man with limited resources and
facilities he gives his patronage to the
lowest bidder no matter by what name
the bidder may be known. He does just
as any sensible and shrewd business man
would do. In this case however the
choice of the publisher proves the in
sincerity and hypocrisy of the talker for
votes.
The demand for
NORMAL AND more normal schools
ABNORMAL. in Nebraska is ab
normal because
there is no need for more such schools
in this state at this time. The attempt
to get large appropriations for the newly
proposed institutions , with which to
boom the towns at which said schools
may be established , is merely a develop
ment of abnormal greed and abnormal
chicane upon the part of practical poli
ticians who regard the looting' the
treasury of the commonwealth for the
benefit of small towns therein located as
the very consummation of civic virtue.
Nebraska needs less instead of more
institutions to bo supported by taxing its
citizens. The fact that graduates from
certain high schools in this state may ,
without examination , enter the Univer
sity and graduating thence may , without
examination , be granted a teacher's cer
tificate , faces normal schools with a
sardonic grin. When teachers can be
turned out as above why have any
normal school at all ? Is there not a
corner on teachership in Nebraska ?
Is the teacher trust normal , or ab
normal ?
WANTED Subscription so
licitors in every part of the
country.- Liberal Commis
sion. Address ,
THE CONSERVATIVE ,
Nebraska Cily , Neb.