THE HESPERIAN.
UNIVERSITY of NEBRASKA.
Vol. XIV.
LINCOLN, NEB., FEBRUARY 15, 1886.
No. IX.
CURRENT REMARK.
The development of Lincoln's salt marshes will be a great
thing for the city, one way or another . If there should fail
to be enough to makcjta profitable enterprise, it will be a dis
appointment to the city. On the other hand if the salt is found
in paying quantities, its manufacture will be a great industry
and bring a great deal of capital to Lincoln. The prospects
are now that the salt is there: if so, people will not ask what
keeps Lincoln up, as there will be one industry in which the
Magic City will take the lead in the west.
Who says the Chinese can't be civilized? Whoever does
makes a great mistake, at least in the eyes of many Lincolnites.
The Chinese here have got so far along on the road to Ameri
canism that they give banquets. The second series of celes
tial feeds wns given Sunday and Monday of last week. The
washee-houses were cleared out (fact) and everything done up
in improved Anglo-Saxon style. After all our boasted civili.
zation is little more than being able to eat, drink and behave
ourselves, and the Chinamen can do this nearly as well as we
can, and yet people say they can't be civilized!
The question of cholera will be jin important one the coming
summer. It seems almost inevitable that it will prevail to a
greater or less extent in this country and it behooves the health
authorities to keep a sharp watch for any harborer of disease.
In this connection it might be well to look at home a little.
Lincoln is not a dirty city but it might be a great deal cleane
than it is. The tax payers may be sorry that the sewerage
bonds were not voted before the summer is out. If the Asiatic
plague once gets here, it will do more than $100,000 dam
age, to say nothing of the loss of life. Of course there is no
great probability that it will be here, but it is always well to
remember the old adage, "An ounce of prevention is worth a
pound of cure."
Lincoln is at present stirred up with a mighty revival.
Crowds gather at the M. E. church every night and scores
are being converted and the greatest enthusiasm prevails.
What is the cause of these conversions? It cannot be the
preaching, for they don't preach. Moody don't preach; Sam
Jones don't; Harrison don't; Bitler don't. All they do is to
talk and urge the people to accept Christianity. What is the
secret of their success? It is sometimes urged that it is all e.
citement and soon dies out. But this is not so. True, there
are those who relapse into their old state as soon as the excite,
ment is over. This they would do in anything; but there are
great numbers that do not go back, but live changed and bet
ter lives, because of revivals. Again, what is the cause of this?
Answer, infidels if you can.
When Shakespeare said that "The evil men do lives after
them; the good is often interred with their bones," he un
doubtedly made a mistake. One can hardly pick up a paper
that does not have an eulogistic account of some person or
other. These same papers probably, in the life of the person,
especially if he was a public man, were full of abuse of him.
Nothing was too bad to say, as nothing now is too good.
Newspapers of each of the political parties are always full of
abuse of the prominent men of the other side, while they are
living, yet they no sooner die, than they are eulogized and ap
plauded for the conventional nine days at least; resolutions are
passed, bodies adjourn out of respect, and the world is led to
believe that the deceased was the leading man of the country.
It is all one scries of exaggeration; the newspapers exaggerate;
the resolutions exaggerate; the eulogists axaggerate; the mon
ument in the cemetery exaggerates, so that the generations
to come will find it difficult to extract the facts from the bun
dles of extravagances. Would it not be better if the truth
were told and nothing but the truth?
Nihilism is not very generally upheld among the cool, level
headed people of the western world, and perhaps should not
be, with our conception of it. It looks as if the main object
of the Nihilists was to destroy everything, especially human
life. That is what we generally think and go no farther,
either into the truth of this, or the cause if it be true. For
this reason the lecture of Col. John Sobieski on "The Down
fall of Poland," was well worthy of. being heard by everyone.
He painted in such vivid colors the condition of the Russian
peasantry, especially the Poles, and the tyrannical exactions
of the government, that all who heard were tempted to say
that anything was justifiable. Even allowing that he, in his
patriotic enthusiasm for his native land, together with his
brooding over th. execution of his father and grandfather,
enlarged on the real situation, there must be enough truth left
to make us think that there is a good deal "rotten in the state
of Russia."
They have come and gone the Prohibitionists. It was the
most noted gathering of great temperance lights ever held in
Nebraska, and shows which way the tide of events is flowing.
While St. John is politically dead and Finch is on the down
ward slope of his influence, the work is growing, and will con
tinue to grow. Evidently the old political parties have delayed
too long. The Prohibitionists would have amalgamated with
either one if their demands had been attended to. But the
fight has been so bitter that the day of collusion is past. The
succesful party jnay not be the Prohibitionists, probably will
not be, but some party is bound to supersede the old ones,
and the liquor question will be not an inferior part of it.
This is not gathered from the speeches of St. John, Finch, or
Sobieski; for the first has run his race, the secind has passed
the centre mile-stone, and Sobieski's great card is his "Down
fall of Poland." But any person, not blinded by prejudice
over the defeat of Blaine, can see that their great conclaves
mean something, and that something is the great interest'
that the mass of the people are taking ij this-to-be-theTfirst
question of the coming period. ''' '