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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (March 14, 1901)
Che Conservative. VOL. III. NO. 36. NEBRASKA CITY , NEBRASKA , MARCH 14,1901. , SINGLE COPIES , 5 CENTS. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. OFFICES : OVERLAND THEATRE BLOCK. J. STERLING MORTON , EDITOR. A JOUUNAIi DEVOTED TO THE DISCUSSION OP 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 , Nebraska. Advertising rates made known upon appli cation. Entered at the postofflce at Nebraska City , Neb. , as Second Class matter , July 29 , 1898. On Thursday , ARBOR DAY ISSUE. April llth , 1901 , THE CONSERVA TIVE will issue a number devoted to arboriculture and forestry. Arbor day comes this year on Monday , April 23nd , and it is intended to fill THE CONSERVATIVE of the llth with instruc tive and interesting matter for its com memoration and practical observance. Superintendents of schools and teach ers in all the counties and school districts of the state should become readers of THE CONSERVATIVE because it is the only periodical in Nebraska making a specialty of tree-planting and forest conservation. Many men prom- RECANTING. inent in the United States who form erly advocated high protective tariff duties are modifying their economic views. More men are beginning to understand that a tariff framed ex clusively for protection affords no revenue ; and that a tariff instituted exclusively for revenue gives only a little incidental protection if it gives any at all. all.While While American ironmasters are sell ing rails to the railroads of the United States at twenty-eight dollars a ton , and to those of Japan at twenty-one dollars and successfully competing with Eng land for iron-bridge building in her colonies , they do not appear as very helpless infants. They do not really seem to need the power to tax exercised in their interests. And so there is quite a general recantation of the heresies of protection and quite a popular denuuoia tion of all trade restrictions. A part cannot be greater than the whole in economics any more than in * * i V mathematics. A few people make things out of iron and steel and all people use hem ; the law should be favorable to all and not to the few to the whole and not to a part. A protective tariff interferes with only hat trade which is mutually profitable , because unprofitable trade between nations as between individuals stops tself. Free trade does not compel any body to trade anywhere , but free trade permits everybody to trade everywhere hat they can find it profitable to trade and nobody will trade elsewhere than in a profitable market except by compul sion , under trade restrictions. The intellectual WEALTH. and moral charac ter of a nation is either its greatest wealth or its most ab ject poverty. The intelligence and hones ty of an individual determine his value to a community , his credit in bank and the social standing of his family. If Ire land was on a higher plane of mental de velopment and abounding in schools teaching good morals , the poverty of the Irish people would become a story of the past. The lack of material wealth among a people is logically caused by the absence of mental and moral charac teristics which , as human qualities , con stitute the most desirable wealth of the modern world. The personal qualities of a free man , his intellectual abilities and his estab lished character Personal Qualities , for integrity , are the sources of his income. They establish his value. Upon them he relies for a living. He sells in the market , where services are demand ed , his efforts at a higher price than is given for those of an ignorant and characterless man. The slave does not own his personal qualities and they are a subject of barter and exchange at the will of his master. But if the slave has good intellectual ability and a markec honesty and truthfulness he is sold or hired out , at bigger wages than are given for the ignorant and vicious. Persona qualities are therefore wealth ; and per sonal capital in education , honesty and industry , draws larger dividends in the United States today than all the capita in all the corporations of the country which represent merely material things And upon the immaterial wealth of edu cation and good morals the prosperity of tliis republic depends for conservation and perpetuation. When America be- omes , bankrupt as to intellectual and moral capital it will be pauperized in deed ; for material development and the accumulation of tangible wealth depend upon cultured brains and good hearts. Sometimes society mistakes material for mental wealth. Sometimes dollars are so multiplied and concentrated in a per son that the careless observer , or the ; oady , recognizes in them great intellec tual and moral forces. That is no doubt one of the reasons why Clark of Mon tana is sent to the United States senate , and possibly a cause of the return of Quay of Pennsylvania to the same body. Recent eructa- THE CONSENT tory declaimers , OF THE GOVERNED , endeavoring * to create discontent among the American people , have been interpreting Jefferson , who held about seventy slaves , to have literally pro claimed the consent of the governed , in cluding negro slaves , to bo essential to government. The same declaimers , however , sup port their brother in populism , Tillman , of South Carolina , in all his sayings and doings to the end that negroes , who are not slaves , in the southern states , shall be governed without their consent. The same disturbers of contentment allege also that Washington , himself the largest slaveholder when the United States government was established , be lieved that "the consent of the governed" was extended to all men , bond and free alike. How long before these vagarists will demand that the government of the jails and penitentiaries shall be based upon the consent of the governed ? How long before they will proclaim that all births ought to depend upon the consent of the born ? The lawyers of LAWYERS. the United States hold and exercise great power in the social , commercial , and political life of the country. They are as a rule men of intelligence and commendable character for integrity. If they lack any one essential element of fairness and justice it may possibly be found in the partiality they sometimes show for unworthy members of their own profession who have betrayed clients , cheated litigants and outraged confidence.