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Conservative.I 1 I r *
VOL IV. NO. 7. NEBRASKA CITY , NEBRASKA , AUGUST 22,1901. COPIES , 5 CENTS.
PUBLISHED WEEKLY.
OFFICES : OVERLAND THEATRE BLOCK.
, T. STERLING MORTON , EDITOR.
A JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE DISCUSSION
OF POLITICAL , ECONOMIC AND SOCIOLOGICAL
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.
There is perhaps
COBURN VERSUS no mail iu all the
WILSON. Northwest , bet
ter prepared to
defend the productivity of Kan
sas and Nebraska than F. D. Co-
burn , secretary of the state board of ag
riculture of the first-named state. In
an interview published August 4 , in the
Kansas Oity Journal , Mr. Ooburn sets
forth very tersely , the facts relative to
the two states as corn producers. He
repudiates the assumption of the secre
tary of agriculture , as to the "semi-arid
uncertain territory where conditions can
never be counted on" being in either
Kansas or Nebraska. In support of his
statements Mr. Coburn shows that in
the past five years Illinois produced corn
values of a little more than 361 mil
lions of dollars ; Iowa $320,700,000 ; Mis-
suri $300,000,000 ; Nebraska over $801-
000,000 ; and Kansas , "semi-arid and
uncertain" as Nebraska , produced in
the same time $378,033,347 worth of
corn , much of which was made into
whiskey at Peoria , Illinois , and at other
points , and also many bushels of
which were "wasted" in making
Johnny-cake and corn bread.
As a statistician and general econo
mist Mr. Ooburu is a bad man to con
tradict when the value of Kansas and
Nebraska soils is questioned.
The ceremonial at
TO POSTERITY. Colorado Springs on
Sunday , August 4th
1901 , when the century chest was filled
and sealed in the library building of the
university and consigned in a fire-proo :
brick wall , to the people who will in
mbit Colorado Springs iu 2001 A. D. ,
was most impressive.
The thought originated with Mr.
Louis R. Ehrich , whose speech and
whose verse , on that very interesting
ransuiission of mail to the people not
yet born , were of the best and purest.
Sometime in the future THE CONSER
VATIVE will tell more about this unique
and thought-suggesting initiative of a
new and intelligent manner of corresponding
pending with our descendants who may
living at the beginning of the 21st
century.
The people of Ne-
PUBLIC braska begin to
UTILITIES. realize that state ,
county , city and
precinct offices were created for use
fulness for the convenience of tax
payers , and to serve the purposes of
government. For a long time it seemed
that offices wore created only for the
purpose of putting persons into them , to
draw salaries , and be exalted in the
sight of the multitude.
Every office in the beginning of this
government was for a public purpose.
No office was unnecessarily created by
the founders so as to give some partisan
a place and pay in the service of the
state. But of late years the constitu
tion of the state has been evaded , and
its provisions avoided by devious meth
ods of legislation. Thus , oil inspectors ,
railway commissioners and numerous
other salaried citizens have been fed out
of the taxes gathered in this common
wealth. It is time to have a new funda
mental law for Nebraska , or it is time to
stop violating the spirit and letter of the
present one. The power to have , in ef
fect , nine additional judges , on the su
preme court bench , when the organic
law provides for only three has been
found somewhere by somebody , and so
our supreme court today , to all intents
and purposes , consists of twelve mem
bers. Each one has been appointed 01
elected for partisan reasons , with per
haps three exceptions.
But the highest judicial tribunal of
the state ought to be free from all party-
taint , political bias
The Judiciary. or trend. Can it be
thus free under the
present system of partisan nominations
made in political conventions':1 :
Can Nebraska continue a career o
politics which thus far has too often re
suited in disappointment , in extrava
gaut litigation , in defalcations , in dis-
loiior and disgrace V
What have national issues like the
arilt' or the money question to do with
; he fitness of a man for the supreme
court , the regency of the university , the
ireasurership of the state or even for the
governorship itself ?
The administration of justice by the
: ourts is not facilitated by partisan
judges. The honesty and efficiency for
a regent is not necessarily to be found
only in the nominees of a party. And
experience teaches the tax-payers of Ne
braska with the siucerest expostulation
and the most intense object lessons that
ireasurers are not always honest , no
matter what party may have nominated
and elected them. Why not begin to
select men for office who , by character ,
ability and fitness are qualified ? Why
ontinue the terrible mistakes and mis
fortunes with which bitter partyism has
given Nebraska unspeakable shame and
almost unbearable taxation ? Will the
legal profession nominate a supreme
judge ?
In 1806 General
SEEING STARS. Rapp , on his return
from the siege of
Dantzic , having occasion to speak to the
Emperor , entered his study without be
ing announced. He found him so ab
sorbed that his entry was unperceived.
The General , seeing the Emperor con
tinue motionless , thought he might be
ill , and purposely made a noise. Na
poleon immediately roused himself , and
without any preamble , seizing Rapp by
the arm , said to him , pointing to the
sky , "Look up there ! What do
you see ? " The General remained
silent , but on being Basked a
second time , he answered that he per
ceived nothing. "What ! " replied the
Emperor "You do not see it ? It is my
"star ; it is before you , brilliant ; it has
"never abandoned me ; I see it on all
"great occasions ; it commands me to go
"forward ; audit is a constant sign of
"good fortune to me. "
In these days there are many star-
seeing American politicians. To one of
them in the state of New York the
character of General Rapp is assigned ,
and he can not see the "star" of sixteen-
to-oue. . But another in Nebraska , be
holds its resplendent light , asleep and
awake , and not even Waterloos and St.
Helenas dim it ,
