VOL. 10, NO 34.
ESTABLISHED IN 1SSG,
PRIGE FIVE CENTS
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LINCOLN, NEB., SATURDAY, AUGUST 10 1893.
OBSERVATIONS.
C-NCE or twice, when he seemed to
y deserve it, it has been a genuine
J pleasure to commend Governor
Holcomb. There have been, at times,
gratifying indications on the part of the
populist governor of a purposed rising
above his political environment for tho
sake of true patriotism, and hopes were
entertained that Nebraska might jet be
proud of her straddling governor who
blundered into office. But these hopes
were short lived. I am afraid that the
man who appointed Mart Howe and E.
C. Rewick to office is, after all, on the
Howe and Rewick level. It doesn't seem
to be an easy matter to make a patriot
out of a populist. Governor Holcomb
is manifesting a populist's disregard for
law and order, and his puppet perform
ances in response to the string-pullings
of the suffering Mr. Rosewater are not
calculated to commend him to the favor
able consideration of tho people. Jt is
a great deal better, dear Governor Hol
comb to follow the law, than
it is to follow populist prejudice
or the erratic and mentally and
morally untrustworthy Mr. Rosewater.
I am moved to deep and abiding mirth
by theexhilerating effrontery of ''Direct
or" O. B. Howell, as evidenced in a cir
cular letter to former students of the
Nebraska Conservatory of Music. This
cheerful and enterprising promoter and
erstwhile resident of Lincoln succeeded
in foisting himself upon a school of
some sort in Denver, and he is now in
the process of transference to that city.
Mr. Howell did not come up to the
quite excusable expectations of hisland
lordinthis city; hence he decided
to abandon the conservatory of music
here. He" is desirous of luring hid
former Btudents out to Denver, and the
circular is addressed to them. In it ho
says: "It iB a well known fact that
Lincoln is not in any sense of the word
a musical city. The citizens take al
most no interest in musical art in any of
its forms. The best concert or opera
companies can seldom pay expenses,
when on rare occasions they venture to
appear here."
Now, in the name of all the black
smith shops and undertaking establish
ments and peculiar what-not witn wnicn
"Director" Howell's past is picturesque
ly intermingled, who gave this man a
license to express an opinion on Lincoln
as a musical city? Is it forsooth, his
shaggy locks or raven imperial that give
him a musical culture sufficient to ven
ture to criticise Lincoln as a musical
city? Or, did he learn the "art" of
music by working the blacksmith's bel
lows, or rise to the position of a musical
critic by clambering on top of a pile
of pine coffins? When and in what
fashion did this charlatan with a shady
past, who scarcely knows an octave from
an octoroon, or a bar of music from a
bar of iron, or a vocal chord from a cord
of wood, become a critic of things mus
ical? "Director" Howell's nerve in as
suming to pass judgment on Lincoln as
a musical city is almost as funny as Mr.
Will Owen Joneo' testimonial for "Dear
Mr. Croan"' and that was very funny.
When a wooden man like Howell,
crammed to the brim with ignorance,
presumes to condemn Lincoln on ac
count of its lack of appreciation for
"musical art,"' it is in order to guffaw,
and there is, no doubt, much guffawing
in this city just now.
It really deesn't pay to keep props
under men like Croan and Howell. The
former was upheld until forbearance
got to be mighty tiresome, and then
when he left town he sought to dis
credit Lincoln before the people of tho
count! y. Now this man Howell, after
mining long and deep in the credulity
of our people, at length reaches his
limit, and in leaving has the effrontery
to make disparaging remarks about us.
Of course there is no use getting angry
at these will-o-the-wisps. Their cavort
ings are provocative of amusement
rather than of anger; but in the future
it would be well to keep the Croans and
the Howells in their proper place as
long as they stay with us. Howell de
precating Lincoln as a musical city!
His nerve ought to be embalmed.
The attacks on Lincoln and the state
institutions maintained here made by
the gentleman with the disturbed in
tellect, described by Judge Scott as a
"cancer and microbic fungus upon the
body politic.' are not without a certain
definite purpose. It is no secret that
Mr. Kosewater's attacks upon the pre
paratory department of the state uni
versity were made with a view of secur
ing this class of school patronage for
one or more institutions in Omaha, and
his scheme includes an attempt to sep
arate the agricultural college with its
heavy endowment from the university,
and establish it in Omaha. We are
pretty bad down here in Lincoln, but
Mr. Rosewater and the city of Omaha
want nearly everything here. As a Eop
to the Omaha Cerberus we might for
ward Rev. Byron Beall and prepay the
freight charges.
The ministers of Lincoln seem deter
mined to occupy the field heretofore
monopolized by the Kansas City Sunday
Sun. Not a Sunday passes, but
some of them exploit some sensation
from the pulpit. The Kingdom of
Heaven is displa-.ed by the Reservation;
salvation is ignored and sensuality is
substituted: Diety is forgotten and pros
titution is paraded, until our churches
are polluted beyonJ the power of
pastelles to purify. Has the love of the
sensational crazed all men? Has relig
ion so far lost its hold on men that it is
necessary for the preachers to resort to
the methods of travelling quack doctors,
and advertise meetings "for men only,"
and distribute bookB which it is a crim
inal offense to send through the mails
in order to secure audiences? What a
commentary on the absenco of pulpit
oratory in the churches of Lincoln!
The people are not only willing but
anxious to listen to orate rs. The Lan
sing theatre was far too small to accom
modate the throng that sought to hear
Dr. Gunsaulus. Witness the vast as
semblages that welcomed McKinley and
Forakerand Thurston and Bryan; and
just the other day fifteen thousand peo
ple gathered in the little town of Hum
boldt to hear W. S. Summers talk on
"Early Days in Nebraska." This is the
orator's golden age, but the pulpit "wot
not of this thing."
It is astonishing that the preachers
of the city do not see that the result of
this constant and nauseating discussion
of the social eril is demoralizing, de
grading and dangerous. Every man
knows that the surest protection from
improper advances which a girl or
woman can possess is manifest innocence
and actual ignorance of the subject. It
protects a woman the same as the down
on a peach protects it from the assaults
of pernicious insects. The pulpit is
doing its best to brush from the woman
hood of our city this most potent pro
tection. The 6ense of purity is as per
fect a piotection for a woman as tho
garb of a sister of charity is to the mem
bers of that order. The man who would
strip from a sister of charity the habili
ments of her order, whether he came
from a dog pit or a pulpit would need
to defend himself from the frenzy of a
mob, yet the wrong is no greater in the
one css than in the other. Men who
attempt to converse with women on for
bidden topics find their greatest diffi
culty in introducing the subject and
starting the conversation. This is true
whether the result desired is good or
bad. The rubicon once crossed the con
quest is too frequently accomplished.
Not many years ago young men used to
take young women to church Sunday
nights. They occupied the same pews,
sitting side by side, with escape from
physical contact impossible. In in
veighing against dancing this physical
contact is always animadverted upon by
the pulpit as being a direct stimulus to
the passions. Now, what would be the
probable topic of conversation on the
trip homeward on a summer evening
after listening to one of these oft
repeated discourses by our preachers?
Let the ministers take heed of the in
junction "Offenses must Deeds come,
but woe to him by whom the offense
cometh."
Any man who has lived in a large
city knows, and if he iB truthful will
admit, that Lincoln is surprisingly
exempt from public vice. The few dens
and dives are incomparably small in
numbers for a city of Lincoln's size.
Yet these sensation mongers stand up in
their pulpits and hiss out anathemas up
on this community which for virulence
excel the maledictions of the priests ot
f ho sixteenth century. But two weeks
ago one or them seriously likened our
city to Sodom and Gomorrah, and with
uplifted hand threatened us with God's
curse. Some of us are not peripatetic
humbugs or peregrinating parasites. We
have an honest pride in Lincoln; we
think of it every time we hea- tho song
of Home Sweet Home. We 1-elieve in
it, want to live and die in it, and glory
in the fact that it is the grandest mon
ument jet built to perpetuate the name
of the martyred president, whose watch
word of life was "maiice toward nono
and charity for all." We look over this
city and see that with a population of
fifty thousand people, it has built
churches enough to accommodate a city
of one hundred and fifty thousand.
These churches represent a cost of a
million dollars, given from the scant
earnings of hardy pioneers who
struggled against tho rigors of the cli
mate and privations of the times to se
cure for themselves and their families a
home. We see these churches exempt
from taxation by the voluntary action
of these people burdened by the struggle
for existence. We see not only a school
house, but a college on every hill top,
and hospitals, and other eleemosynary
institutions on eveYy hand, and while
felicitating ourselves that these are en
during evidences of morality and godli
ness Lincoln is railed at by the imme
diate beneficiaries of this bounty as
being a modern Babylon, and another
Sodom. This city is held up as a muni
cipal maelstrom of iniquity, and were
these tales given credence abroad, par
ents would refuse to send their chil
dren here to be educated, but teach
them to shun this town as they would
the gates of hell. Fortunately the
truth is apparent, and consequently our
population is annually augmented by
families coming here to allow their chil
dren the privileges here attainable.
There is unquestionably in this city
an overproduction of churches and a
failure of supply of ministerial ability.
The result is a diminished church atten
dance. To change this condition this
unseemly resort to sensationalism has
been indulged in. But the time has
come to call a halt. Religion itself has
cause to feel alarm, when its chosen
advocates pervert its purposes and des
troy its possibilities. The fathers of
the church foresaw that such a con
dition might arise and the sacred books
are full of exhortations to purity of
thought, and St. Paul in his inspired
writing to the Phillipians particularly
admonishes them, "Finally, brethren,
whatsoever things are true, whatsoever
things are honest, whatsoever things
are just, whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever
things are of good report; if there be any
virtue, if there bo any praise, think on
these things."
To the clergy ot Lincoln this ad
monition of the Apostle seems to have a
personal applicability that entitles it to
immediate consideration.
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