' ft. '
Conservative.
"Ingratitude is
WRETCHED monstrous ; and
INGRATITUDE. for the multitude
to bo ungrateful ,
were to make a monster of the multi
tude. "
In the second act of Coriolanus , the
greatest analyst of human nature , so
depicts ungratefulness. And it is a .sin
cere sorrow to TJIE CONSERVATIVE that
ex-Governor Crouuse , who only last
week was lauded for his vigorous defence
of taxpayers , should have become the
advocate of the monster multitude in its
wretched Ingratitude. The question be
fore the legislative body of which
Lorenzo Crounso is an eminent member
was whether the state should appropriate
the pitiable sum of four thousand dollars
lars with which to buy medals for the
purpose of decorating soldiers in the
second and third regiments of Ne-
braskaus. The question was , "shall the
state be grateful or ungrateful to those
who defended its honor and good name
against Spanish effrontery and cruelty ? "
And Mr. Crounse audaciously opposed
gratitude ! From his place he said in
substance :
"The decoration of officers and soldiers
who merely entered the service and
donned the xmiform of this great and
glorious republic , but never saw a battle ,
nor even smelled , from afar , the stifling
fumes of gunpowder burned in wrath ,
is as out of place as the voting of arti
ficial legs and arms to the same iunocent-
of-blood militia. Take for incandescent
example _ the heroic exploits of the third
regiment.
"Thecolonel , for whose glorious exalt
ation among the world's warriors , that
regiment was organized and equipped ,
never fired a gun , swung a sword or rode
n horse against the cohorts of Spain.
.True he is valiant in verbosity. He is
ever ready with a warful mouth , full of
invectives , to meet imaginary foes and
in gorgeous uniform to pose before the
fateful vitascope and , also to endure ,
with fortitude , the snap-shot ambuscades
of the amateur artist. And no one man
has periled more in defending , with all
his might of brain and lungs and tongue ,
the common people. He 1ms been , by
choice , the voice and not the violence of
war. Among the watermelons of
Florida , in the lurid heat of Thomos-
ville , Georgia , camped upon the plains
of Nebraska , and , even in the thickest
fights of populist conventions , the colonel
of the third regiment was undaunted ,
his steady eye immovable , fixed and un
wavering on nominations to be won in
playing go-to-war.
"The art of war as defined and delinea
ted in the 'First Battle' an encyclo
pedia of martial
Historian. and civic prescrip
tions for the sani
tation of the government of the United
I" States demonstrates the bellicosity ,
I"i ' i capability and courage of Colonel Bryan.
-m't
But , sir , I oppose voting him a medal !
I oppose it , sir , as I would an appropria
tion to make the Platte river flatter ,
more tortuous in its course and wider
and emptier at its mouth. It is un
necessary.
"An appropriation to gild the sun , to
paint the grass green , to increase the
altitude of Pike's Peak , to decorate the
grave of Adam or to buy a compass for
Noah's Ark , would be no more a work
of supererogation than to buy a medal for
the slashing , dashing , gashing , crashing
colonel of the Third who was so
'resigned , ' even in the face of the
enemy , that his corporeal presence be
came invisible to the piercing eyes of
his men. Would you vote a medal to
the memory of Washington , Jefferson ,
Jackson and Lincoln ; and if not then ,
why attempt to minimize the marvelous
military achievements of Colonel Bryan
than whom no soldier in all the history
of this fighting earth has been brainier ,
braver or better in unfought battles.
Let the vitascope perpetuate his
prowess as the peerless one , first out of
war , first to get home and last to reenlist -
enlist ! But , sir , lot not the legislature
of Nebraska attempt to make luminous
the sun by hanging a farthing candle in
its meridian blaze ! Let not this body
vote money with which to make the
peerless appear puerile , the patriotic seem
politic , and the great , small. He needs
no medal. He is 'invincible in peace ,
invisible in war. ' "
And , thus , the medal appropriation
was defeated and , perhaps , forever.
Protection as it
SOCIALISM. has long prevailed
in the United
States is a sort of exclusive socialism
adapted to the demands and avarice of
a manufacturing four hundred. It is
socialism because it makes artificial
profits possible by action of the govern
ment. It , by law , provides gains for a
few by taxing all , and thus protection
becomes the Socialism of Capital.
The droit-au-tmmil in France , as
described in TIIE CONSERVATIVE of lost
week , is the right
In France. of the workman to
have work and
wages furnished him by the government
out of the people who compose it and
contribute its revenues and that is the
Socialism of Labor.
Hero in the republic of North America
the power to tax the citizens being
granted by the constitution for only the
purpose of raising money with which
"to pay the public debt , to provide for
the common defense , and to promote
the general welfare , " the imposition
of protective duties , which do not put
money into the national treasury , is
merely Socialism for the Capitalists. A
protective tariff which shuts out foreign
goods and compels purchases of home-
manufacturers at bigger prices is Man
datory Socialism. And if this bo equitable
*
able ; then the workmen who demand
the right to work and to wages from the
government , are not wrong. It is as
much the duty of a government to
supply remunerative wages to labor by
enactment as it is to furnish by statute
remunerative profits to capital. In either
case Protection is Socialism.
During forty odd
HOLD ON ! years THE CON
SERVATIVE has
witnessed the selling and buying of
fertile lands in Nebraska. In a certain
area of ten miles square here in Otoe
county the lauds were transferred first
to the pre-emptors at one dollar and u
quarter an acre in 1857. After that
their owners began selling them. They
passed from hand to hand at five , ten ,
and even fifteen dollars an acre up to
the year 1875. From this latter date
they have enhanced steadily until now
the same lands are in demand at fifty ,
seventy-five and one hundred dollars an
acre. They are excellent lands and very
productive. The fanners who sold them
have , as a rule , regretted their trades
and wished again and again that they
had never made them.
These lands , all lands in Otoo county ,
all lands in Eastern Nebraska , all fertile
lands in all the
Still Enhancing. states of the
Union are a d-
vanciug in price. They will continue to
advance as long as population in
creases. The supply of corn lands ,
wheat lands , all kinds of productive
lands , is diminishing in this republic ,
and the demand is doubling every
twenty-five years. Hold on to your
lands , cultivate them intelligently and
content with health and a moderate
competence envy not the so-called rich
of the cities whore sunlight , water and
even the air itself are polluted and the
children have no acres to romp , roam
and ride upon. Hold on to your lauds.
The repeal of a
REPEALERS. lot of useless laws
now on the statute
books of Nebraska is demanded. In
operative , uninspected laws give con
tempt in the whole public mind for all
law. The statute which makes profani
ty a penal offence is never invoked ex
cept for spite. The one which makes it
a crime to invite a friend to take a glass
of beer , whiskey , or wine is equally
dead and disregarded. And this is only
a brace of moribund laws selected for
illustration out of a job lot of similar
bigotry which should be repealed , erased
and forgotten. They are unworthy of
ail enlightened people who know enough
to know that the human intellect and
heart cannot bo reconstructed by silly
enactments.