unday Bee
PART III.
Your Money's Worth
THE OMAHA DEC
Best Vest
HALF-TONE
PACES 1 TO 4.
VOL. XXXVIII NO. 31.
OMAHA, SUNDAY MOKXIXti, .JANUARY 17,. UH!.
SINGLE COPY FIVE CENTS.
JOHNSON COUNTY ONE OF NEBRASKA'S RICHEST GEMS
Tecumseh, the Political and Social Center of a Region of Fertile Soil, Where Enterprise and Pushing Energy Have Made the Earth Yield Opulent Tribute to Man's Intelligently Directed Effort'
The Omaha
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JOHNSON COUNTY COURT HOLSK, IfcCUAlSEK.
shipping points for grain and live
stock. The country produced last .
year 683,000 bushels of corn and 303,
000 bushels of wheat, while the hogs
shipped out of the country amounted
to about 21,000.
Why f ount? Uruni,
How much of Tecumseh anA John
son county's rapid and substantial
growth and development is due to nat
ural results and advantages, and what
percentage is due to the remarkable
enterprise and publlc-Bplritedness of
William Ernest is, of course, impossi
ble to determne. Certain it is, how
ever, that the entire county has re
ceived much in both directions and
combined results are in the highest
degree gratifying to all whose inter
ests or attachments are centered there.
Mr. Krnest is of a quiet and rather re
tiring disposition, yet his whole bear
ing invites friendshp and confidence
and co-operation as natural as the
spring Invites the flower. He is past
middle age, but is robust in mental
and moral qualities and Is a man
whoso voice, smile and hand grasp all
testify to the Bolldity and worth of his
manhood. Mr. Ernest has had much
to do with the material progress of
Tecumseh. This little city certainly
has the natural resources for develop
ment. It may be that the material la
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BUSINESS BLOCK ON WEST SIDE OF PUBLIC SQUARE. TECUMSEH.
EV'EKY community has Its
strong points as a place ot
residence or as a commer
cial or manufacturing cen
ter. Everything that goeg
to make life pleasant and profitable,
either in a social or business way, la
a public asset and has a distinct com
mercial value.
JohnRon county not only leads all
other counties of the state In breeding,
buying and shipping ot hlgh-grad
draft horses, but it secured first pre
mium at the St. Louis exposition for
the best beef steer In the United
States. But few years ago the produc
tion of well-bred cattle and horses In
JohtiHon county did not merit atten
tion. Today It Is the banner county
of the state. And it is in this section
of the great and bountiful west that
the best of the beef you eat doth grow.
The Spaniard was the original cattle
ranchman in America and he made a
success of It from the start. He
adapted himself to the new conditions.
Invented new appliances, or made new
use of the old ones. Even today most
of his methods are In force and his
language is handed down in the famil
iar terms used on the range. The
Spaniard's horse had much to do with
bis success as a ranchman. This use
ful animal, the ancestor of all the cow
ponies, he brought with him from Eu
rope. With Its aid and with that of
an Invention of his own, the lariat, he
laid the foundation of a business
which has made the fortune of many
men and now feeds a large proportion
of the world's civilized population.
Yankees t'nt In.
Up to this time the Spaniard and
his descendant, the Mexican, had the
business in their own hands. The oc
casional man from the north was
merely a hand, a "puncher," and
rarely owned stock of his own, but It
did not take the man with Yankee
blood and Yankee commercial Instinct
long to see the enormous profits to bo
got out of the business, and little by
little he began to acquire, by purchase
or otherwise (largely otherwise), a
bunch of his own, which he marked
with his brand. The American and
the Englishman, who came to it by
way of the States, caught on amaz
ingly; the dash and excitement of the
life got Into their blood, the commer
cial pcssibllitles of the Industry ap
pealed to their business sense and
gradually they worked their way up
from "punchers' to principals. They
became masters, and the Mexican, that
expert horseman and skillful rope
thrower, became the puncher.
The cattle market is moving west
waid. They have stopped growing
cattle and are now growing beef In
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When the Chinese Ruler Died
PEKIN, Sunday, Nov. 15. All
morning the shopkeeperi
along the main streets and in
the alleys have been busy
Armed with utensils varying
from a pancake stiovel to a long-handled
garden spade they have been
scraping, scraping, scraping. Door
frames and doors, posts offering anj
available surface in the labyrinth of
lattice woodwork of the shop front,
have received attention.
Red and yellow paper posters are
the prey of the hunters. That sign
posted on your house wall last New
Year time by your opposite neighbor
"May he who comes out of that door
across the way have happiness this
year," those fine, big, high-meaning
characters or those quotations from
the writing of the sage that you your
self pasted on your own shop front are
but crinkled Bcraps of paper now.
Out from among the steaming iron
cauldrons of this dusky cookshor
comes the boy, usually. All day long
he sings to the passersby the Joys and
merits of his shop "boaboas," round
balls of dough and meat, while th
cooking staff in the shop rattle and
drum their dough rollers on the table
Today he has stopped singing, the.'
drumming. He climbs aloft on a pyr
amid of stools and tables and pull?
down a streamer of red cloth hanging
In front of the shop. Up goes a piece
of blue cloth Instead, suspended from
the bottom of a brass pot embleir
showing that here the hungry may b
filled.
Blue CJoea Over She Rrd.
Across the way an old money
changer is out in front ot his cast
chop, replacing with a blue tassel a
red one adorning the strings of make
believe braes cash that advertise hit
stock-in-trade. Rd board signs that
can be taken down come down, blue
.paper Is spread over the offending red
of those that must stay up.
A pollco official importance Itself
the proprietor of a new lumber yard
Fate and Despair respectively, and thf
proprietor's gorgeous red fence and
CARNEGIE LIBRARY BUILDING, TECUMSEIL
Johnson county. They have discov
ered that legs and horns are the least
eatable portion of the eef animal.
Slowly the complexion of the western
herd began to change. Quality has
begun to count as against quantity.
The game today Is to get the steer to
marketable size when 18 months old
and weighing about 1,200 pounds.
You could never put your Industrial
finger on the range steer. His num
bers and his qualities were always a
problem. Ten years ago the Short
horn cross was in fuU evidence. Beef
was shorter in horn and leg all over
the west. The 2,000-pound steer Is
fast passing, for fashion exists In beef
as in all else. After him came the
Jersey, the Alderney and the Holsteln,
but these passed from all beef plans
as impossible of profit. Then came
the steer, dehorned or harmless, all
beef, blocky, small-boned, with no
waste before or after death. He is
18-karat fine and has had eighteen
months of luxury. He Is a new prod
uct In the new west and has come to
stay.
Colonel Ben Miller ft Son have been
buying and shipping horses from Te
cumseh for the last fifteen years. This
company handles nothing but the first
grade of well-bred horses. In the
first three years, from 1893 to 1895,
they paid an average price of $30 a
head. In 1900 they paid $43, in 1905
$110, and last year they were paying
an average of $160 per head, and the
horses have been no better than the
ones that brought but one-fifth that
amount. This company for several
years has been buying more than 100
carloads ot horses each year. Last
year they purchased 193 carloads,
amounting to 4,053 horses, for which
they paid $688,000. This accounts In
part for the wonderful prosperity ot
the farmers of Nebraska.
Johnaon County's Slae.
Johnson county has but 378 square
miles and a population of about
13,000. Tecumseh, the county seat,
has 2,600 population, and is one of the
brightest, cleanest and most progres
sive towns for its size In eastern Ne
braska. Sterling is another town that
would attract the attention of a
stranger as being unusually prosper
ous. It has about 1,000 population.
Crab Orchard has about 400 people
that seem to be entirely contented and
happy. Cook has but 3 50 people, but
it Is surrounded by some of the very
best farming country In the state. The
several artesian wells add much to this
village, as they furnish power for a
limited amount of manufacturing. Elk
Creek has 400 population and Vesta
150, both being supported by a rich
farming country and both prominent
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gateway, highly polished and Just fin
ished, form a drama. Police officer
Inexorable, proprietor sorrowful, fenc
and gate shortly somberly garbed Id
black is the next chapter.
The morning grows and slowly as
each shopkeeper adds his contribution
a cloud of blue crested with whltt
characters creeps up each Btreet and
alley until all the city is on sober hue
But why this sudden activity, thl
transformation?
The busy Manchu soldier policeman
a modernist in uniform and cap, bob
bing into each tiny shop along thf
streets, stops a minute.
"Hwang Shang sur la!" he emphat
ically declares to you In his highly In
flected Pekln tones, and then you
know. Red and yellow are colon of
happiness. Blue Is the Imperial
mourning color. The emperor is dead.
Cold, Gloomy, Qnlet.
Evening is crisp, cold, but gloomy
Around the east and north palace
gates heavy Pekln carts are rumbling,
hurrying officials In and out. Down
around the legation quarter late In th
evening you walk in stillness, flndlni
only a few more rickshaws than usual
wrangling along and a fep more carta
Out of the darkness along the Aus
trian glacis, an open space of ground
kept so by treaty, and into the circle
of an electric light, swings an Austrian
patrol of four musketed and bayoneted
bluejackets from Kaiser Franz Josef'i
navy on their evening tramp around.
Down Legation Btreet you go, passing
a stalwart German sentry, high-booted
and helmeted, the brass spike of hit
helmet top glinting as you pass. A
French sentry patrols, the long, slen
der bayonet on his gun reaching al
most the top of the high French lega
tion. legation street, though deserted
looking, Is busy. Flags were sent to
half-mast this noon when official wori!
came that the emperor was no more
Dispatch writing became the order ol
the day. But just now, if you could
see, it Is probably busier. There
seems to bo a subdued excitement in
the speed of the rickshaws and cartf
and people you meet, not to "oo ex
plained by the announcement of this
morning.
Back out of the legation section lntc
the native part of the Tatar city you
go, and your Chinese friend, whose
(Continued on Page Three.)
HIGH SCHOOL AT TECUMSEIL
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Thv V
TROPHY OF THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR AT TECUMSEH.
not being used. It may be that Te
cumseh does not realize its own re
sources. Whether conscious or un
conscious, however, is a question we
shall leave for the citizens themselves
to answer.
Every city dreams. Every city
longs for greater prosperity; every city
hopes for commercial power and mu
nicipal advancement. The fault of
nearly all ambitious little titles la
that they look for growth to come
from without Instead of within. Te
cumseh has the element and resources
that will bring growth and prosperity.
It needs a little pushing and it is re
ceiving it from some of its best citi
zens. The city already has a fine
start; it has location; it is favored by
nature with scenic beauty; It has
handsome streets; It has good walks,
water works, electric light and, In
fact, all the other modern improve
ments. There are two distinct classes of
settlers In a new country. On the Pa
cific coast they settle up the country.
In Johnson county tbey settle down in
the country. The difference between
a period ot settling up and settling
down Is the difference between adven
ture and development. And this spirit
baa bad much to do with the prosper
ity &nd development of tMa county.
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CITY HAUL JLSD WATEIi TOWEI! TECUilSEH, ,