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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (March 27, 1897)
,..4 f VOL 12 NO 11 ESTABLISHED IN 188C PRICE FIVE CENTS 4Phr- J!-' ---. jf ' :.; f! ' - H m LINCOLN, NEB., SATURDAY. MARGH 27, 1807. tmmS&mPIi?2''-- mmtoR OTTICBAT1 a noore-eLAM has rUBUlHKD KTK1T ATOTUMY cNUEi ptiniN in munnn Office 1132 N street, Up Stairs. Telephone 384. SARAH If. HARRIS. DORA BACHELLER Editor. Business Manager Subscription Rates In Advance. Per annum 82 00 Six months 1 00 Three months 50 One month 20 Single copies 05 nDCCDUATIAVP m uuoi9ivriiuno. 0 The trouble at the state house is a bad case of politics. Just now the pops and the republicans are calling each other names which it is not worth while to repeat. "When two pure blooded membprs of the African race are mad at each other- "black nigger" is the favorite epithet. When a black republican and a black pop disagree it Is impossible for the general public to pick out the spotless one. They both look black, and they are both in suspicious company. The pops have been crying "wolf, wolf" for so long that when the object of their fright begins to cry "wolf" the people are puz zled. After all the honest farmer has noth ing to propose. He despises the means at hand for increasing the productiveness of the soil or for adapting the cultiva tion to the exigencies of drought. He simply want3 to make it hot and dry for everybody else, and so far this ses sion he has succeeded. If the condi tions of agriculture under which hard work is certain and a Top uncertain can be modified by irrigation and sci entific treatment of the soil, a populist legislature, which is supposed to repre sent the farming interests of the coun try, should be generous to the agri cultural school which is striving by the laboratory methods of study to do for fanning what that method has done for chemistry, electricity and med icine. But the real farmers are not sent to the legislature. Those who loaf about the streets howling calamity while the weeds grow and the machin ery rusts are the kind that are now skillfully spitting tobacco juice in the fapitol building. Such correctness of aim was never learned in a plowed field. It takes hours of practice on a country sidewalk sprinkled with nail heads to produce such sharp-shooters as the present legislature contains. It is unfortunate for the state that as a rule only the farmers without crops and the lawyers without clients get an opportunity to make new laws for the state and change the old ones. The real farmer and the able lawyer have business of their own, which, save in exceptional cases, they do not sacrifice to held office. "Beware the vengeance of a woman scorned." Mrs. Cushman K. Davis of St. Paul, Minn., has defeated the hope3 of ex-Governor Merriam of Minnesota, first for a cabinet position under Mc Kinley, and then for an appointment as ambassador to Germany. Mrs. Cush man K. Davis is the Becky Sharp of St. Paul society. Ten or fifteen years ago Senator Davis, who was then a pri vate, but very brilliant citizen of St. Paul, allowed his first wife to get a divorce from him and immediately married the present Mrs. Davis. So ciety in St. Paul is as tenacious and as touchy as it is elsewhere. Although Senator Davis had money, talent and a brilliant future, in marrying he had snapped his fingers at society, had flouted it, and ecciety has ;gnorrd him ever since. His conduct might have been overlooked in Chicago or Brooklyn, even in New Ycrk if he haJ pre-divcrce claims upon forgiveness there. But never in St. Paul. That old fur-trading station has the same basis of aristocracy that Philadelphia has, viz., long residence in St. Paul with enough money to dress and rid? and live up to the position, and enough morality tc keep respectable. It is not the old Dutch and meney as in New York, ncr Mayflower seasickness and money as in Boston, nor money as in Chicago, but just ancestral residence in St. Paul and money. The denominator is the same in each cas. But in Phila delphia the richest cannot buy an en trance to that society to whleh old families decayed to one dress suit have c?y access. Such a state of affairs with reservations and allowances for the broadening effect of western ml-gr-i-'en exists in St. Paul. Because the movement between, and displacement of the upper layer of sreiety by the un der layers, is freer in western society, that society is more careful that the standard shall net be lowered. Al though blindly charitable to the favor ites of fortune who remember to break the laws of convention only in secret it is inexorable to the man and woman who openly defy its laws. As many a "taboo" has entered New York society 'through the Prince of WaUs' set which lets In American gold without much examination of what is attached to it, Mrs. Davis expected to enter St. Paul by way of Washington. She said when Mr. Davis was elected United States senator: "I'll make those old hens flocks around me yet." To which a dewager replied, when it was repeated to her: "Perhaps so, but there will be a great deal of cackling first." And so far the Washington re ceptiens to which the Davises have been invited have had no preceptible ef fect on the St. Paul temperature. Ex-Governor Merriam is the particu lar friend of Mark Hanna, but that did not save him. Mrs. Davis opportun ity came with the appointment of Sen ator Davis as chairman of the foreign relations committee. She openly an nounced that she and the senator had determined to block any official ap pointment for Governor Merriam under this administraticn. "Rather than complicate matters and give cause for offense to so powerful a factor in the senate, with its present slender repub lican majority, the president held a long confidential rhat with Governor Merriam and explained candidly his po sition. Realizing the hopelessness of the cause, the governor discretely re tired from the field." Speaking of St. Paul's liken' s to Philadelphia, it is in teresting to discover that Mrs. Merriam is a native e,f the Quaker city. Mrs. Buckingham and Mrs. Hardy, who died last week, were notable wo men. They were in the second decade cf thir lives at the time c2 the civil war. That five years' struggle with the preceding discussion in the pres3, pulpit and platJorm of the question of slavery and the greater one of union made the wemen of that period more e?ricus than a generation which has been undisturbfd by a national dis agreement. The earnestness with which they learned then to face life is cut cf date now. They got used to standing up for a principle, when it was necessary, even if it was dangerou3. Such training gave to the war wemen. pro-slavery and abclitionist alike a s.emness, a seriousness, an inability to take things lightly that the new cen tury doss not comprehend. Elizabeth Nancy Horr was born in Lansingburg. N. Y.. in 1826. When she was about twenty rears eld, her father failed in busimss and came west to Hannibal. Mo., just south of that celebrated line which separated slavery from freedom, where there was mare friction and distrust than in the south ern states because the n-pulatioa wj3 mixed; free niggers and slaves, abcli ticnisis and slave-holders in about equal proportions. But the rich people who composed the larger part of "Mi3S Lizzie's" patrons, in the school which she established, were slave-holders. But there was no such school as hers in all that western country. She could only take a limited number of pupils and her tact and sweetness overcame the prejudice which the people hail against Yankees. My childish memor ies are cf a gentle lady whom every body spoke of with love as "Miss Liz zie." Around her centered all that was most cultured. Miss Lizzie was quoted and invited to her heart's content. These southern people know how to glorify time for a guest. They appre ciated what she was doing for their tens and daughters, and nothing was too geed for that Yankee girl who had shouldered the burden when it slipped from her father's shoulders. At the end of ten years she put into his hands a receipt for all the debts which he had been unable to pay. In spite of the war her union sentiments and hr rebel pupils, her school went right along. Like Barbarie Frletchie she kept the flag waving in their faces but they forgave her much because they loved her. They turned to her for advice in sickness and in trouble, and when the war was over Misa Lizzie's popularity was undimmed. She left Hannibal to marry the R'v. Ebenezer Buckingham, for twenty-five years the pastor of the First Congregational church of Canton, O. When her hus band, and later his daughter, Mrs. Lewis Gregory, died, she fame to Lin coln and assumed the cere of of Mr. Gregory's bereaved household. Her mcther's last year? wer' shadowed by the same e'eud which dimmed Mrs. Buckingham's mind for the last seven years. Hers, was a life of burdens tome lovingly and willingly for other.-, and ef greataccomplishment for herself cf culture and character. In reality "Mis3 Lizzie" died ten years ago and was buried in the hearts of those who. knew her gentle deeds. But it is well to recall her ag she was before the daikness of a mind diseased hid her frcm sight. Charlotte Abbott Hardy, who died last Friday, had the modern spirit. In 1852 she was graduated when few wo men strove fcr a degree at Ingham uni versity, and in 1889. when many wo men werp studying, she took another degree from the C. L. S. C. Although in type she belonged to the women already referred to. whose stern train ing accustomed them to serious views, she was mest gentle in expression and most charitable to all. Every genera tion has a characteristic type. These rcrrfsentatives rf the first half of the Nineteenth century are disappearing. The recognition of their beauty, sweet ness and strength is the only tribute we can pay. Mrs. McKlcley's unfortunate physi cal condition will prevent her. in spite