Che Conservative.
VOL. III. NO. 35. NEBRASKA CITY , NEBRASKA , MARCH 7,1901. , SINGLE COPIES , 5 CENTS.
PUBLISHED WEEKLY.
OFFICES : OVERLAND THEATRE BLOCK.
J. STERLING MORTON , EDITOH.
A JOUBNAL DEVOTED TO THE DISCUSSION
OF 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
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Morton Printing Company.
Address , THE CONSERVATIVE , Nebraska
City , Nebraska.
Advertising rates made known upon appli
cation.
Entered at the postoffice at Nebraska City ,
Neb. , as Second Class matter , July 29 , 1898.
A document
MORE WISDOM , emanating from
the legislature of
Nebraska , now in session , has been
mailed to employers of labor throughout
the state , at which we stand in amaze
ment. It is entitled : "A bill requesting
Companies and Corporations to pay
their Employees weekly. " The text of
it is as follows :
WHEREAS , great evils result in this
state from the custom of persons , com
panies and corporations who employ
large numbers of persons , paying such
employees monthly and half monthly ,
and from the custom of such employers
paying such employees by checks on
banks and by orders for money , there
fore ,
BE IT RESOLVED , by the senate and
the House of Representatives that all
persons , companies and corporations
employing in this state persons in num
bers to exceed ten , are hereby earnestly
and urgently requested in the interest of
good citizenship , and in order to avoid
the evils mentioned , to pay their
employees their wages once every week ,
and to pay such employees in cash. "
We wonder , really , what the author
of this document , whose name is Liddell ,
.thought he was composing when he con-
.struoted this. Legislative enactments
are usually mandatory , enjoining the
performance or non-performance ol
some specified act ; this "bill , "however ,
is in the nature of an exhortation ; what
.would be the effect of it , supposing the
legislature to adopt it ?
But we wonder still more at the pre
sumption which lies at the bottom of it
The "great evils'
" Presumption. which are said to
arise from the
.practice of .paying employees mpnthly
'
aro'tiy'no means self-evident ; we wish
. „ _ _ _ „ _ . . , " . . " . "
.iAj > "lJJTiE 1\2 J5K. "CSix
hey had been specified. It is the custom
n all Nebraska City's large factories to
> ay their men in that manner , and the
results , in the five years or so since this
> lan was adopted , have been such as to
ustify fully the wisdom of the brilliant
young business man , Carl Morton , whose
> rain devised this , as well as many other
of the methods which have made the
aboring men of Nebraska City a pros
perous and contented class. It was
; hought that the less often the people
were paid off , the less often would the
necessity arise of "blowing in" a part of
their wages to celebrate the day ; that a
man with his entire month's wages in his
pocket would be impressed with the size
of the pile , and feel a necessity of laying
some of it by ; that instead of stopping in
at a saloon on his way home and leaving a
relatively large portion with his friend ,
the bar-keeper , he would be more apt to
hasten to the grocer's and the butcher's ,
to satisfy the bills which had accumula
ted during the month ; and that there
would be a pressure exerted at home to
have these bills as small as possible.
The results have been so satisfactory
that the employees themselves would
oppose an attempt to return to weekly
payments. Of the married men in the
service of the cereal mills company , for
instance , more than half own their own
homes. One case , personally known to
the writer , is of an employee of that com
pany , who , five years ago , was $600 in
debt , and in deep water , having a large
family to support. Today he is even
with the world , has a still larger family ,
and was consulting a broker the other
day as to a safe place to loan a little
money that he. had saved up. It is
significant , moreover , that there has
never been a strike nor any acute labor
trouble in the manufacturing industries
of our city.
So that we are wholly at a loss to ac
count for this "earnest and urgent'
piece of legislation.
Nebraska finds
CORN , CATTLE the bullion of its
AND HOGS. prosperity in about
a two-hundred
and-ten * million -bushels crop of corn
which was matured in 1900 and is now
being coined through the stomachic
mints of cattle and hogs. Even the
one infant concern of the Morton &
Gregson Packing Company at Nebraska
City pays out ten , fifteen and twenty
thousand'dollars a day'fof porkers
. ,
- > fa * *
made into bacon , hams , lard and other
edibles , which will be henceforth care
fully cured and prepared for the con-
umers at this packing house.
It takes from fifteen to forty thousand
dollars each day to finance the starch
factory , cereal
More Money. mills and packing
houses of Ne-
> raska City , keep them in corn and oats
and swine and funds with which to pay
wages to between three hundred and
four hundred and fifty employees.
This money is not furnished by any
sixteen-to-one populists or Bryanarchists.
Nor has any industrial plant hi Nebraska
"City ever been established by any of that
breed of misinformed zealots. Enter
prise to build up , energy to earn capital
and judgment to handle and increase it ,
are not evolved from the disciples of dis
content. The men who depend upon
Legislation inimical to capital as a means
of making themselves heard and known
are not remarkable for business ability ,
nor as builders of cities and states. Ne
braska needs more men with money and
brains to help its development.
The organ of
SOBER ALLEN , vagaries at Lincoln
in its issue of Feb
ruary 28th , 1901 , publishes a card signed
by Congressmen Robinson , Stark and
Sutherland , stating that Senator William
V. Allen of Nebraska was not drunk on
February 18 , 1901 , when the electoral
vote of the United States was counted in
congress. This important and astonish
ing information signed by three such
important and astonishing statesmen is
very gratifying. And even if the pleasant
practice of telegraphing Allen's constitu
ents each dav that Allen remains sober
is kept up it may not prove expensive
nor take much of the valuable time of
the trinity of statecraft who act as
Allen's sponsors , endorsers and defend
ers.
ers.Who
Who has , for a moment , believed that
Allen was ever drunk ? Did any land
lord in Lincoln , Norfolk or any other
Nebraska town ever behold the Samson
of populism under alcoholic stimulation ?
Did any member of the United States
senate , any committee clerk , or General
Joe Hawley , at any time , even hear
that the refined , the temperate , the irre
proachable Allen , was drunk , had been
drunk or drifted towards a drunk ?
Could a lover of that beautiful hymn
" .Nearer My God o Thee" who sings it
'
withto'uoliing tenderness and expression ,
get drunk ? Never !