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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (March 21, 1901)
If/- ; Che Conservative VOL.111. NO. 37. NEBRASKA CITY , NEBRASKA , MARCH 21 , 1901. SINGLE COPIES , 5 CENTS. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. OFFICES : OVERLAND THEATRE BLOCK. J. STERLING MORTON , EDITOR. A JOUllNAIj 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 Canada. Remittances made payable to The Mortoti'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 20 , 1898. Oil 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 22nd , 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. Since the paralyz- MORE DIABOLISM ing atrocity by OF PLUTOCRACY. which that demon of sordid greed , Andrew Carnegie , established a pension fund for disabled workmen , he has shocked Bryanarchy again by the prom ised bestowal of ten to twenty-five mil lions of dollars for a school of technology at Pittsburg , Pennsylvania. Think of this demoralizing example and think , too , of the fact that the man who is thus slinging millions around the country for libraries , pensions for aged or disabled , indigent workmen , and scattering en dowments for sohoolsbeganlife , a Scotch lad of the common people with no capital but health , brains , brawn and persistent industry. How shall such accumulative genius and sue,1 * wise generosity bo stamp ed out ? How long shall men like Mr. Carnegie , who have worked up from the humbler walks of life onto the very summits of mental , moral and financial success , be permitted to flaunt their sordid examples before American youth ? How long shall the ambition , courage and industry of the acquisitive and in- telleotual citizen remain undepressed by legislation ? Where are the 'populist leaders of legislation and the moulders of sixteen-to-oueism that nothing in the way of preventive laws against possible Carnegies in Nebraska is being formu lated ? Why is Lincoln , the capital of Nebraska , permitted to accept a seventy- five thousand dollar library building from this "dollar-above-the-man" in carnation of plutocracy ? How shall the common people prevent further capitalistic outrages by this abnormally discreet distributor of his own wealth ? Why not make it a penal offense to be industrious , frugal , temperate and ac cumulative ? Would that bo anything more or less than embodying the teach ings of Biyanarchy in law ? Already Mr. Carnegie has given away for educa tional and charitable institutions nearly seventeen millions of dollars , and shall such extravagance of wise benevolence be permitted to continue in the land of the Star Spangled Banner and the Fourth of July ? In 189(5 ( there PUTRID appeared a very PROPHECIES. pert and quite pre-posse ssing prophet among the people of the United States. His most positive predictions were relative to finance. He proclaimed to liis followers that the gold standard had slaughtered millions of human beings and that an army to lay waste the country , to destroy homes by torch and flame , and to decree desolation everywhere was a mild affair compared to the establishment of the gold standard for this republic. But the journeyman prophet was not credible or credited by a majority of his countrymen and so he disappeared from the oracle business though he continued oratory until 1900 when he broke out again as a forecaster of finance , and from Kansas City to New York , and intermittently , in nearly every state , deplored the fact that there was not enough gold in the whole world to do the business of the United States alone and that the above-named precious metal would soon become uureacliablo to "the common people , " in fact scarcer than sound logic in a populistic speech or common sense in the political action of a Bryanarchist. On March 14th , 1901 , in the treasury of the United States , however , there was of GOLD four hun- Verification Lacking , dred and eighty- two millions , nine hundred and thirteen thousand dollars. That is the largest auriferous sum ever at one time in the strong box of Uncle Sam. It is an increase for the year of sixty-six millions. How could a prophecy be more mori bund ? And if a prophecy can putrify , where is one more putrid ? If orations become rotten and smell badly what a terrible odor there must be about the committee rooms of the late fusion party in Nebraska and elsewhere ? Spring work has VETOES. begun at Lincoln. Governor Dietrich has broken up a large area which certain legislators had plotted off 'for personal pasturage. The vetoes of Governor Dietrich are righteous and strong. They drive away from him all the herds of tax-eaters as the whistle of a loco motive scares mules off the railroad track. The governor can count tax payersof all political complexions , in all parts of Nebraska , his endorsers. He can put down all tax-eaters , his hungry enemies and angered antagonists. A good governor stops all legislative lar ceny. We hope that Dietrich Will prove a very good governor. Laborers are HOW PAID ? paid wages for working in starch factories , cereal mills , packing houses and other western industries out of the prices of the commodities which those plants put on the market. Now , the prices of pork , starch , corn grits and oat meal depend entirely upon the relation of the supply of those goods to the de mand for those goods. No law , no edict or decree can repeal or mitigate the in exorable economic law of Demand and Supply which fixes the prices of these and all other saleable things. Then , by what equity or right should the attempt be made to legislate fixed wages for the workmen and the workwomen who are engaged in bringing exchangeable com modities upon the market when those wages are to be paid out of prices which rise or decline as the relation of Supply to Demand changes ? And are not wages , legitimately , logically and justly , gov erned by the same law of Demand and Supply ? If there were three times as many women and men seeking to earn wages in the United States as there are now , and the demand for labor was no more than it is today would there not be a terrible decline in wages ? Wages are the compensation of labor , and profits are the rewards for capital which labor leaves. Labor gets its wages after a railroad is in the hands of a receiver but the capital that built it gets no profits.