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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 6, 1902)
' /T * L"'iL ' ' AT The Conservative 7 M ( * ML all these ; . but why select the special few to be helped by all the others ? Are the bookmen of such importance above the rest that all the others must contribute to their education ? If they do need special assistance , it would seem the Fayweathers and Rockefel lers and Oaruegios are ready to furnish it. All too willing , as some say , who think the acceptance of charity by those who are able to help themselves , undermines the character. When this idea is recognized , there are men bold enough to say further that the public high schools do more harm than good. You have touched this point in your remarks about -the "pabulum digest ible only by mature minds. " The young person is not prepared by nature for mental labors. This is the work of the mature mind only. You have pictured the result in the "many children. " It is still more fatal , in the higher schools , if the pupil has a scholarly nature qualified to undertake higher branches at'all. So , wo claim , it were better that every young man should put in four years after he is fourteen in pursuits chiefly physical , and learn to earn a living with his hand. He will be better qualified to attain high scholarship , if that is what he wants , and better prepared to meet the exigencies of life in every case. T. S. W. HARDY VS. BARCLAY. To The Conservative : We are glad to have an instructor in the person of Hugh A. Barclay. We hope he will answer our first ques tion. What will be the effect upon the rate of interest and price of property if the present congress should kick out the silver dollars and the greenbacks ? Will it have any effect upon business to lessen the volume of legal tender money nine hundred millions ? Bank Assets. "Will he explain what is meant by bank assets ? " When a bank fails , its notes , mortgages , mining stock and railroad stock are all counted as assets. That trash , as security for bank bills , looks to us wildcaty. . . ; Voice of Experience. Bryan's voice and pen are doing more to prevent this measure being adopted than any other ten voices and pens' in the country. For this work he is hated more by thieves , robbers and millionaires than any other man living. Banks , today , ban issue all the bills they' have bonds to secure. In whose interest was the coinage of silver suspended ? Who wanted it suspended ? Was it the f armor , meohau- 'io , or the millionaire bond holders ? It is clear thatitwasdone3to ] help the / \ rich and make the poor pay for it. Nine-tenths of the money the govern ment uses is furnished by those whoso income is less than five hundred a year. Drinks Taxed. Look at the injustice of taxation ! Imported wine , drunk by the rich , is only taxed thirty-five per cent , while the whisky and beer , that the poor drink , is taxed seven hundred per cent. Clothes Taxed. Imported broadcloth that the rich wear is taxed by the pound and every body knows that dollar sheep's gray , such as farmers wear , is heavier than ten dollar broadcloth. Butter Not Taxed. The tallow butter , which the poor eat , is taxed several millions , while the gilt-edged , forty-cent butter the rich eat , is not taxed at all. Courts , as well as congress , did for the rich ; that is the reason the income tax was de clared off. A man worth a hundred million pays no more for the support of government than the common , un skilled , day laborer at one dollar a day. ( In Nebraska City , they have re fused $1.50 and strike for $1.75. ) Parity. To get at the parity between money and property , wo should go to a world's market , neb to Alaska or Illinois. The same kind of money should bo com pared and war prices should be left out. Compare Liverpool prices from 1880 to 1850. The point we are mak ing is that legal tender money should increase as fast as property and busi ness increases , then all the property would be worth just about as much one year as another. An over in crease of legal tender money , as in the early fifties , sends interest down and property up ; a shortage works the other way. We never have had as much silver , gold and paper coined as in the last four years. Gold alone never has increased fast enough. The two precious metals together can pull the load. In three- fourths of the world , a pound of silver will buy just about as much property today as it ever would , for there is little or no gold there. It will buy more transportation and manufactured goods because facilities have been improved. Mexico never has monkeyed with silver and no country has prospered more than she has in the last fifty years. We can't trade with her , or with half the rest of the world without paying fifty per cent exchange and tariff on top of that. Our laws have made the difference between their money and ours. Our silver dollars are one-half fiat with us , not so with them. What shall wo compare gold with , to know whether it goes up or down , if not with property of some kind. We can compare one gold dollar with an other gold dollar and then there will bo no ups or downs. Wo doubt whether there is any tariff on silver , gold or cotton. It certainly would make no difference with the supply hero for they all go the other way ; not so with manufactured goods. Gold and silver did not leave each other until the laws of four great na tions , made by 'millionaires , drove them apart. Our government stopped coining silver dollars because the rest of the world carried them off and left our gold dollars. Had we continued the coinage of it and loft the law alone , it would have all gone and wo today would have only gold coin. Means Not ? A silver certificate does not mean redemption in gold ; of coarse all those things will be changed in the interest of the rich. The bonds have been changed twice. They were first pay able in "lawful money , " then in 1' coin , ' ' and lastly in ' ' gold , ' ' and when they increase the size of the gold dollar they will then be made pay able in ' ' big' ' gold dollars. No busi ness man would keep a clerk who should pay one of his employer's debts contrary to stipulations. H. W. HARDY. Lincoln , Neb. , Jan. 22 , 1902. The above will probably close the inter-state "scrap" on finance be tween Colorado and Nebraska. The Conservative cannot fail to admire the faith which each belligerent evinces in his cause , himself , and the prophets in whom he believes. "NOT CIVILIZED WARFARE- " The cruel policy of concentration was initiated in Cuba February 6,1896. The productive districts controlled by the Spanish armies were depopulated. The agricultural inhabitants were herded in and about the garrison towns , their lands laid waste and their dwellings destroyed. This policy the late cabinet of Spain justified as a necessary measure of war , and as a means of cutting off $ supplies from the insurgents. It has utterly failed as a war measure. It was not civilized warfare. It was extermi nation. President MoKinley's mes sage to congress , December 6,1897. Reconoentration , adopted avowedly as a war measure in order to out off the resources of the insurgents , worked its predestined result. As I said in my message of last December , it was not civilized warfare ; it was extermination. The only peace it could beget was that of the wilderness and the grave. . President MoKinley's message to con gress , April 11,1898. ' ]
