Jaffa : ! )
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT EDITION.
Che Conservative.
VOL III. NO. 47. NEBRASKA CITY , NEBRASKA , MAY 30,1901. SINGLE COPIES , 5 CENTS.
PUBLISHED WEEKLY.
OFFICES : OVERLAND THEATRE BLOCK.
J. STERLING MORTON , EDITOR.
A JODTlNAIi DEVOTED TO THE DISCUSSION
Or POLITICAL , ECONOMIC AND SOCIOLOGICAL
QUESTIONS.
CIRCULATION THIS WEEK , 12,457 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.
The diamonds of
A BRILLIANT South Africa are
STONE. pale and feeble in
their incandes
cence , when compared with the big
brilliant recently dug up from among the
political tombstones of Missouri. This
remarkable stone , by its infinite and
flashing coruscations , dazzles with
blinding effulgence.
The Omaha World-Herald has
- just re
produced a gem from the stone age of
Missouri. It illuminates the phenomenal
character of the gorgeous peacock-
plume style of oratory which prevailed
distant sixteen-to-one of that
in the , - - era
state , in which the civic lapidary has
found this one stone worthy of being
cut and set.
THE CONSERVATIVE can spare space
for only a single scintillation from the
Hon. Gumshoe Bill , who , speaking of
the peerless populist from Nebraska
nominated at Sioux Falls and Kansas
City for the Presidency in 1900 sweetly
says :
"He is a great man who fought for a
great cause. I still honor the man ; ]
am still devoted to the cause. When
this young eagle of ours bore aloft the
stainless flag of true democracywe were
proud of him ; when he screamed his de
fiance all the mighty forces of oppres
sion and wrong allied against him ,
trembled with alarm ; and now , when
wounded with an arrow shot by traitor
hands , he falls , mine shall not be the
hand to strike him nor mine the tongue
to defame him. He is greater in his de
feat than any who opposed him in his
triumph. "
That young-eagle metaphor is im
mense. It is so now that it seems true.
How plainly we see the noble bird away
up in the sun-lit sky , sailing the clouds
with that stainless banner.
He never soiled it !
Great bird 1 Noble bird !
Hear him scream 1
Defiance is in his voice , which has
been trained , among the mountain-crag
schools where thunder is taught how to
rumble and roar 1 No wonder plutocrats
and all the d = vilish disciples of dollar-
above - the - man - ism "trembled with
alarm. " That " "
young-eagle "daring"
one. "screaming" as he soared among
the azure battlements of the empyrean
heights was glorious to behold. It is a
profound pity , however , that , "when
wounded with an arrow shot by traitor
hands" he did not know how to alight.
It is a splendid art to fly upward and
to fly high and to carry "a stainless
flag" for a handkerchief. But it is also
a great art to be able to come down
gracefully and to alight well on one's
own feet , and walk about afterwards
without limping , without groaning and
without becoming commoner than that
majestic eagle , the plumage of which ,
glittered like a million diamonds when
lighted up by the lustrous glories of the
/jverblazing rhetoric of Missouri's Gum
shoe Bill Stone.
Eveiy densely
CITIES. populated , large
city site is a men
ace to the American form of govern
ment by the majority. It seems im
possible to establish purely administered
and efficient government in New Yorker
or Philadelphia. The majority in the
former city elevate Oroker and all the
political plundering which his putres-
ceut name and record imply. In Phila
delphia the Quayites outnumber and
rule and ruin the honest and tax-paying
voters. A Quayite is a man who has
sworn allegiance to the creed of "ad
dition , division , and silence" which the
piratical senator from Pennsylvania long
ago promulgated as the abbreviated and
compacted gospel to which all his loot
ing followers must hold faithful.
In Philadelphia the Quay political-
machine men have been many years at
work to build a
Sample. city hall. It is
now partly finished
and , upon its dome , is a statue of Wil
liam Perm , wearing a broad-brim
Quaker hat. It has cost already more
than twenty millions of dollars to evolve
this unsightly distortion in architecture
and many more will be expended before
it is completed. The taxpayers of Phila
delphia are subjugated and levied upon
by the tax-eaters of that city. The lat
ter , tyrannically and systematically ,
make requisitions upon the former as
appetite or avarice may suggest. The
non-taxpayers are the majority. Such a
majority is not a safe government. It
is not a just government. It is a many-
headed despotism.
The consent of the governed , when
given by a virtuous and intelligent fran
chise is a good
Consent. foundation for
honest adminis
tration. But the consent of the governed ,
when a majority is given by the votes of
vice and ignorance is a dangerous but
tress upon which to build government.
The numerous fallacies which liave been
evolved from misinterpretation and mis
construction of Mr. Jefferson's utterance
as to governments depending upon the
consent of the governed , are infinite in
variety and number.
He did not intend that the government
of a penitentiary should depend upon
the consent of the convicts. Ho did not
mean that the government of an insane
asylum should rest upon the consent of
the lunatics it contained. But he meant
those manifest absurdities just as much
as he meant that the government of a
great city should depend upon the con
sent of the depravity and ignorance of a
majority vote.
The use of the ballot in America ought
to be restricted. Only the intelligent
taxpayer should be permitted to vote
anywhere in this republic. Wise men
and thrifty , honest men should not be
made to depend upon the consent of the
unwise , intemperate , indolent and thrift
less men of the countiyfor a govern
ment.
What is government for ? It is primar
ily and exclusively to protect life , liberty ,
and property. It is a corporation for
that purpose and that purpose alone.
The everlasting twaddle and maudlin
oratory about the "inherent right of
suffrage" is nauseating. The gorge
rises , and common souse itself is sick at
stomach from the constant cackle of
"walking delegates" who discourse upon
the innate right to vote which they de
clare inheres to all male humans.
Suppose some of these political evan
gelists should hear of an election about
to take place in
Try the Right. some gainful cor
poration and that
they should rush at once to the place of
the meeting of the stockholders , demand-
