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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 1901)
Cbc VOL. IV. NO. 4. NEBRASKA CITY , SINGLE COPIES , 5 CENTS. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. OFFICES : OVERLAND THEATRE BLOCK. 3. STERLING MORTON , EDITOR. A JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE DISCUSSION OF POLITICAL , ECONOMIC AND SOOIOLOQIOAL QUESTIONS. CIRCULATION THIS WEEK , 13,500 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. Some religions PRAYER. and devout men think that they can obtain results in matters over which they have no personal control by fervid and earnest prayers. And equally sen sible and reverent men do not believe that supplication can be potential in get ting results. Has prayer ever produced rain ? If so , when and where ? This is a statistical inquiry , and if , during the last five centuries , at any time , univer sal praying has brought about the down pour of needed.rain , church histories and church almanacs have certainly recorded the facts. An argument in favor of the efficacy of prayer may be drawn , from the gen eral use of it. The greater part of mankind , during all historic ages , has been accustomed to pray for temporal advantages. How vain , it may be urged , must be the reasoning that ventures to oppose this mighty consen sus of belief ! Not so ! The argument proves too much , and is consequently suicidal. It either compels us to make the monstrous admission that the prayers of pagans , of fetich worshippers , and of Tibetans who turn praying-wheels , are recompensed in the same way as those of orthodox believers ; or else the con census proves that it has no better foun dation than the very general tendency of man to invest his God with the char acter of a human despot , who can be swayed by entreaties -and mollified by supplications. The collapse of this argument leaves us solely concerned with the simple statistical question : "Are prayers answered , or are they not ? " There are two lines of research , by either of which we may purs'iipthe inquiry. Let us fpllow that one whusl/ promises the most trustworthy results ; that is , examine large classes of cases and be guided by broad averages. Do those who pray get the results they seek of tener than those of the same or similar ability and industry who do not pray attain their objects ? THE CON SERVATIVE opens its columns to all who , with sincerity , desire to discuss the efficacy of prayer in producing rain , restoring health or bringing about any desired result in human affairs ! The Patriot , of PROHIBITION. Lincoln which is the authorized and aggressive mouth-piece of pro hibition in Nebraska , in its issue of July 25th , has something to say about the editor of THE CONSERVATIVE , and his action as a mediator to bring about peace between beer-drinking and non- beer-drinking citizens , who have been litigating over Sunday laws and saloons with much asperity and bitterness. But the Patriot fails to tell the truth as to the danger of riot and blood-shed aris ing from the "spotters. " The "spotters" were men furnished with money , by the "Law and Order League" with which to lure saloonists to sell to them malt , vinous or spirituous liquors on Sunday. The rage against these hired spies made the danger , and the employers of the spies were the di rect cause of the peril. A man can not be called honest merely because he sees nothing to steal , nor temperate because he can get noth ing to drink. Ninety men out of a hundred can taste or not taste , drink or not drink , as they will to do. Ten out of a hundred can not safely taste or drink any stimulant. Prohibition promises to make a law to save the ten , no matter how much it may incon venience or wrong the ninety. Men can not be made honest by legislation , neither can legislation make them tem perate. To abolish all horses because horse-stealing is such a common crime would be as logical as to abolish all stimulants because drunkenness is like wise a common crime. Because , in Utah , there was an epidemic of polyga mous matrimonyand some saints had the veiy delirium tremens of uxoriousness is no reason for prohibiting marriage. But our prohibition friends reason in such a way that , logically and consist ently , they would prohibit anything which , under any possible conditions , can bring , by its abuse , harm , crime or sorrow to the human race. No law-making can confer brain and will-power upon those born without it. As free agents , men may drink to drunk enness or not drink to drunkenness. When they do get drunk nature puts the penalty of head-aches , sickness and crime upon them. Nature grants no pardons. Nature commutes no senten ces for the violator of her laws. Pro hibitionists propose to punish those who do not get drunk , by taking from them all beverages containing alcholic stimu lants , thus to prevent from drinking those who do get drunk. The drunkard , say the prohibitionists , is not to blame. Society is to blame. The social structure is imperfect. We divide on the drink habit into two classes One class can and does use but never abuse stimulants. Another class does abuse them and get drunk and commit crime , and ac cording to prohibition doctrines , the class which does not get drunk is the cause of the class which does get drunk. The paper by BOWLBY IRRI Col. Bowlby in GATION. favor of the stor age of the spring surplus of water in the state of Nebraska , for irrigation pur poses , is getting more and more approval as the hot sun and un mitigated drouth continue to wither the hopes of the farmers and their corn fields. Col. Bowlby wrote wisely and well. His plans can easily be carried out by nine farmers out of ten in Otoe county and , by a very large proportion of farmers throughout the entire state. Water storage in every gully and gulch should henceforth be provided by every farmer who can control a water-shed and save its rain-catch in these natural reservoirs. Many populists WATER. believe that the great drouth pre vailing throughout the north-west and , in fact , all over the United States , is caused by the big financial combines and corporations called "trusts. " They have used all the "water" in getting their stocks sufficiently irrigated to sell to grangers and other lambs who oc casionally estray into Wall Street.
