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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 3, 1896)
r ' 'voliix6.j" V- BSTABLISHBD IN 1880 PRICE FIVBCBNTb-. "3 "v - jSi - - .iafito4 i- Wf: "" feW-'J-U . lk J J !MT-MI VsM -: " - - - s- ?r jrif SEE LINCOLN NBB., SATURDAY. OCTOBER 3, IS9G, mXXD IW THB POST omCBATUKOUi AS SBCOXD-CL1S8 MXTTKB PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BT IS COURIER PRINTING AND POBLISHIIO M Office 1132 N street. Up StairB. Telephone 384. SARAH B. HARRIS Editor anl Mnnn:cr W. MORTON SMITH Associnto Eilitor SubscriptioD Rates In Advance. Per annum 12.00 Biz months 1-00 Three months 60 One month 20 Single copies 6 1 OBSERVATIONS When Mr. Bryan was nominated for president by the national popocratic pirty an unwonted fervor was imparted to politics in this state. In this city, where the penalty for taking the state capital from Omaha and not locating it in Nebraska City, has been constant political turbulence, the enforced com pany of political adventurers, the ex ample of politicians' shiftlessness, the effect of the 6udden elevation of the Boy of destiny has been particularly marked. If we were surfeited with politics be fore the late unpleasantness in Chicago we have been buried beneath the crush ing burden of it ever since. When the Boy emerged from gloom in Chicago and became the dazzling center of light there was started an avalanche of agita tion in this city that has all but over whelmed us. Mr. Bryan has a good deal to answer for in disturbing the home life of our people and in making politicans of us all, even of the children, and when he comes back to us after November 3, our sympathy for his mis fortune will bo tempered by a feeling of vengeance for making ward heelers of our women and political pests of the little children. a Lincoln presents a political aspect that is nearly if not quite unique. With the poEsible exception of Canton it is doubtful if there is another city in the country of any thing like Lincoln's size that bas a political activity at all com parable to Lincoln's. There wasn't much business doing before the cam paign ( ommenced. Now there isn't any. Everything, except politics is in a state of statu quo. Politics is warmer than the boiling springs, livelier than a merry go round. We have in this city a considerable class of people superinduced to abstin ence from work, people with a natural inclination to ganulity.with an inherent fondness for basking in the sunshine. These lazaroni have always had a bent for congregating at the intersection of our principal streets, and congesting the avenues of trade. They have sunned themselves and set their tongues wag ging on politics, while, mayhap, the wife was bending over the washboard at home, and the little children were searching the railroad tracks and sun dry back yards in quest of wood and coal. But as soon as tho Boy spoke his piece in Chicago and was called to tako his place at the head of the screaming popocratic brigade, these were rapidly increased in number. Where before at Eleventh and O, there were ten or twelve gentlemen of elegant leisure, there are now one and two hundred, and some times the ranks are swollen to several times this size. Garrulity has given place to impassioned eloquence and wild gesticulation.'! hes: street corner gather ings are no longer annoyances merely. They are public nuisances, an adver tisement of muncipal shiftlessness, an obstruction to business. This wonder ful development of street corner politics was tho firat result of tho apotheosis of the beautiful Boy. In other cities men gather on the streets to talk politics, but Lincoln is the only city where garrulous political gossips and wild eyed cranks have been allowed to take complete pos session of the public thoroughfares. The visiter who comes to this city for tho first time in these hysterical days is shocked at the changing spectacle of puling patriotism. He is bewildered by the prevalence of idleness. He wonders if all the people of Mr. Bryan's city have no occupation, and are able, like the Boy, to make a living out of politics. He is surprised and shocked, and if he came, intending to transact any business, he leaves town by the first train in disgust. Travellers and news papers are carrying tales of these street mobs, and far and wide aro wo being advertised as a lot of screaming idlors. It is wonderful how idleness is con ducive to wisdom. Did you over stop to think, gentle reader, how much more these shambling sidewalk gentry know about all the questions of the day than you do? These mec of the stroots, these men who make up the human blockades, not only possess all knowl edge, but they are men of the ripest judgment. They aro statisticians and philosophers, preachers and poets. Ven ture into any one of these throngs and at random ask, ''What was tho public debt in 1870?'' and you will find out to a fraction of a cent. Tho information jou secure may not exactly coincide with the figures you already havo on the subject, but candidly, would you not rather trust these men of leisure, who have time to think, than a mere machine like tho secretary of tho treasury, for instance? You can gather more facts about this nation than you ever dreamed of, in a five minutes' attendance upon one of these public intedigence offices. You can learn more beautiful schemes of govern ment than ever Moore put in his Utopia or Bellamy gave to fiction, or were gathered together in tho new At lantis. Venture into one of these gath erings at Eleventh and O, and you will be convinced that you are at the source of all knowledge the fountain head. You will stand appalled at the ebullition of intellect. You will appreciate, per haps for the first time, the miserable paucity of vour own knowledge. These men. who have nothing on earth to do but plan schemes for the salvation of the country certainly do a proper job. Perhaps, after all, their wisdom is an adequate eveuse for their idleness. A few days ago we spent a fpw min. utes in one of these gatherings that are daily instructed by Col. Pace and Father Hardy et. al., and learned that: George Washington was the first man to advocate the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen to one, without waiting for the consent of any nation on earth. Thomas Jefferson believed exactly the same things that the Boy believes. This is the worst country on the face of the earth for the poor man. Tho national debt is larger now than it has been since the war, and the taxes are higher than they have been since the war. Abraham Lincoln advocated the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen to one, without waiting for the consent of any nation on earth. The only thing that has interfered with our prosperity in recent years was the "crime of 13." Into this arena plunge all of the bright minds and idle bodies, without reference to color, weight or previous condition of servitude. Sam Grant may find himself in close juxtaposition with PatBy Meurg, and John W.ngo may touch shoulders with Ah Lung. The negro and tho Irish, the German and tho Swede and the American they are all thero. Theso meetings are eru dite und cDsmopoIitan. But thoy are not all the Boy has done f.r us. The second distinctive manifestation is pictorial. This presidential cam paign, more than any that have preceded it, is heightened and made ppectacular by the lithographer's art. Lincoln was one of the first cities to catch on to the illustrative features of tho prevailing excitement, and the result is our erst while happy hornet are transformed into political signboards. Windows that used to let in the sun light now show to the pas6er-by the stern and serious countenance of the "advance agent of prosperity" or the bland visage of the Boy. Some years ago it was the custom to suspend ground glass transparencies of of Niagara Falls and other exciting scenery in the front parlor windows. The custom finally gave way, probably because people got tired of looking at the world out of doors through the translucent Falls or the geysers in Yel lowstone Park. Tho pictures of the Major and the Boy are certainly a big improvement over the old fashioned in auities. The houses are dotted and placarded as if quarantined or to let. At first a stranger might imagine everyr body wanteJ casoline, cr had furnished rooms for rent, or would like day board ers, or an old thing, But a closer view discloses the familiar countenances, and the heart of the partisan swells with joy as he parades by McKinleyized or Bryanized residences, as the case may be. Republicans who walk down towm have carefully selected their routes, and: they walk or. those streets only that ex hibit a preponderance of McKinley lith ographs. Followers of the Boy in like manner select for their dally march those streets where they may gaze upon the Bryan glad smile every two or three minutes. Candor compels us to add that the admirers of the Boy have a dizzy, zig-zag time of it keeping in sight of their favorite. Pictures of McKinley are especially numerous and prominent in the neigh borhood of the Boy's house on D street. We met the other day a man who lives a few blocks from Mr. Bryan. He was carrying a Bryan picture. We remon? st rated with him because we had ob served that his house was already decorated with a McKinley lithograph . "That's all right." ho said. "The Mc Kinley picture was hung up in the