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VOL. IV. NO 9. NEBRASKA CITY , il 5 , 1901. SINGLE COPIES , 5 CENTS.
PUBLISHED WEEKLY.
OFFICES : OVERLAND THEATRE BLOCK.
, T. STERLING MORTON , EDITOR.
A JOURNAL , DEVOTED TO THE DIBOUSSION
OF POLITICAL , KCONOMIO AND SOCIOLOGICAL
QUESTIONS.
CIRCULATION THIS WEEK , 13,551 COPIES.
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION.
Quo 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 must be a
BALANCE OF conservative citizen-
POWER PARTY , ship in the country
to save it from the
extravagance and unbridled ambitions
of mere machine partyism.
In the presidential elections of 1890
and 1900 the deliberate unpartisan bal
lots of sober-minded men prevented the
election of Bryan and decreed tliat of
MoKinley. The personality of the can
didates cut very little figure in the mat
ter. Each of the partisan nominees re
joiced in an irreproachable reputation
for individual merits. They-were un-
exceptioually religious men , McKinley a
Methodist and Bryan a Presbyterian.
But upon the question of the currency
they differed in policy and principle ,
one representing the single gold standard
and the other the double standard of
gold and silver. McKinley as placed
phitformically , stood for the mainten
ance of law and order and against mob
rule in Chicago or elsewhere in the
United States. But Bryan was placed
on a platform that pandered to riots
and mobs and criticised the courts for
their use of the writ of injunction.
And in 1900 although this is a represen
tative government Bryauarohy com
mended the initiative and referendum.
The Kansas City agglomeration of he-
liystericals , who named the alleged
democratic ticket in 1900 , made the
dogma of initiative and referendum a
part of its creed while it reaffirmed the
money fallacies and adhered to the
vagary of free coinage at 16 to 1.
The citizenship which thinks before
it-acts investigated the duty of voting.
It found that where
Conservatives. two evils menaced
the country , duty
demanded a ballot for the least.
*
Thus the balance - of - power party
in 189G and again in 1900 de
termined who should be the president
of the United States. What has been
shall again be the potential and the pa
triotic vote of the country.
Soon in Nebraska , the citizens will
bo called to choose from two or more
partisan tickets , a
State Ticket. judge of the su
preme court and
two regents of the university. Char
acter , ability and fitness for public ser
vice ought to be the only reasons for the
nomination of a man for either of the
positions named. After nominations
are all in , THE CONSERVATIVE may give
biographical sketches of each candidate
with possible side-lights upon character.
The Bryanarohists
THE in national and
REFERENDUM , state platforms have
declared their faith
in the referendum , and expressed their
desire to refer all important legislative
and executive acts to the people for re
jection or approval in their primary ca
pacity. But it was left for the republi
can party of the state of Nebraska to
give ithe first practical test to the
referendum fetish. Thus , at its latest
state convention in the city of Lincoln ,
an executive act by Governor Savage
was taken up and discussed and con
demned , and the aforesaid governor
commanded to revoke a parole which he
had , on good grounds , granted to an
imprisoned ex-state treasurer who had
been convicted and incarcerated as a
defaulter.
The repiiblican convention , by a ma
jority of one hundred and sixty-eight ,
ordered the governor of the state to
violate his agreement with a paroled
state prisoner , and the governor abjectly
obeyed. The liberty of making and
keeping a contract , with a view of bene
fiting the state and securing restitution
of some of its sequestered funds , does
not inhere with the chief executive of
the commonwealth. He is only the
puppet , the tool , the official chattel of a
referendum convention of rank party-
ites. His acts under his oath of office
with the best intentions , and his honor
pledged to a prisoner for a parole of
sixty days , are all ignored , trampled
under feet and spat upon by the high
court of republican referendum mag
nificently assembledand authoritatively
addressed and instructed by that peer-
less purist in politics , the saint-liketen
Baker and many other equally exalted
exemplars of civic virtues.
The referendum , which , by a majority
vote destroys promises , violates paroles
and makes an executive appear a mere
microbe , is a republican state convention
in Nebraska.
That a man of strength , honesty of
purpose and courage should have per
mitted a mere party
Too Bad. convention to order
him and control
him as southern masters formerly or
dered and controlled their black slaves ,
is too bad too humiliating. And THE
CONSERVATIVE regrets the submission
of Governor Savage to the assumptions
and brazen demagogy of an assemblage
containing poltroons , many of whom
were afraid to do justice and proud to
rave as to their own virtue because
they knew it had been often suspected.
Bah ! Bartley is better than such hy
pocrisy.
The chances of
IN IOWA. the young man
"Absalom" about
which the peerless Colonel Bryan wor
ried so much in 1900 , are being aired in
Iowa by the Saturday Herald of Ottum-
wa. All the symposium articles written
for THE CONSERVATIVE are being repro
duced by that popular journal , which in
a recent number remarks thereupon :
"These articles wore prepared for
J. Sterling Morton's 'Conservative , '
and first published by that matchless
western review , and are published in the
Herald through the extraordinary kind
ness and ooxirtesy of Mr. Morton. In a
future issue we will give , as a front
page , a picture of J. Sterling Mor
ton , editor of 'The Conservative , ' who
became famous as President Cleveland's
Secretary of Agriculture , and as the
father of 'Arbor Day , ' and as one of
the best known characters in the west
ern country. "
All the unsuc-
BE IT ENACTED , cessful , the indo
lent , the discon
tented , and the morally imbecile , seek
redress and comfort through a mere "be
it enacted" which shall declare them
equal in body , soul and estate to those
who have worked and won. The pan
dering of demagogues to the desires of
drones and the importunities of the dis
contented has brought much woe upon
the laud. The pandering continues. The
result will be what ?
*