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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (May 1, 1897)
r ?? - - f- J fy iif --, VOL 12 NO -18 ' ,- ESTABLISHED IN 1886-' PRICE FIVE CENTS' -V' - f v- .'V- - - v.'ij"'-- -m '' r ' VWV i LINCOLN, NEB., SATURDAY, MAY 1, 1807. irsmrorr ernes at i flOILUHKDXTUT ATTJB-UT ananiiiiN in mwmi Office 1132 N street. Up Stairs. Telephone 384. ARAH l. HARRIS. CORA 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 OBSERVATIONS. The south, as well as the north, is demanding an unpartizan school history of the civil war in which the cause?, conduct and results of the war shall be treated without sectional prejudice. The lime has come when the north can admit that the southern people fought for -what, from the southern standpoint, waa liberty. The northern office! s and privates recognized the bravery -and devotion of the southern soldiery. Northern historians while acknowledg ing the bravery have been inclined to deny them high principle. Now in 18G0 the qouth was not what it was in the -days of Washington and Jefferson. In 18C0 the eouth was irritated by the sectional discussion of slavery to a point where they could not see that -they had lost the patriotism and de votion to the whole country that characterized Washington, Jefferson and the other southern statesmen who made the Union possible. Slavery had made them more arbitrary, had sharp ened their temper and dulied the ethical sense, lhe old British spirit of opposition to the oppressor heated by residence in a semi tropical region made even southern philosophers forget their . own treatises and letters on the evils of slavery and they trained their guns upon the stars and stripes as the soldiers of '76 fired upon 'the flag of the mother country. But the cruel war is over and dooth sections are willing to shake hands, if tbe politicians, the G. A. R. and the historians will let them. Naturally the southerners do not want their children taught that their fathers were rebels and fought only for the institu tion of slavery. They do cot look at it that way. If old Alexander Stevenp, the philosopher, were alive, he could write a history that would tell the truth about the rights of man obscured by ac cidents of custom and place that would instruct the youth without wounding the self respect of their fathers and mothers, 'the near history should be written by a southern Echolar who has dwelt and Etudied in tie north. The projected and halt accomplished diversion of western grain shipments from New York port to southern ones will do much toward the renewal of ac quaintance between the north and the south. A common interest makes comrades of enemies and dispels sus picion more quickly than any literature. It has long been a matter of regret that all the great railways in the country run north and south. Box cars loaded with wheat and corn from Nebraska, Colo rado, the Dakota?, Illinois and Iowa will create a sentiment of brotherhood stronger than any that poetry, politics or oratory more or less impassioned have been able to prod-ice. The Graeto Turkish war has obscured the Cuban war a war without battles. Trocba, insurgent. Cubans and all, have dropped out of the newspapers though the last two are fighting as hard as they ever did and tbe trccha wears that Eame old barbwire smile Like so many other things instead of coming to a climax and finishing it will drag along until only the school chil dred a hundred years hence, will ever know which whipped, Cuba or Spain. It is only in the last chapters of books that puzzles ate solved, misery or happiness served to this one or that one and battles lost or won without dispute. Where everything is uncertain the pestivism of penny dreadful writers in the last chapters is refreEhing and makes- us question the wisdom of leaving reality so many loose ends. The Rev. Frank W. Gunsaulus who ha9 Epoken in Lincoln and in Crete several times ie spo'ien of as the pastor of the Broadway tabcrcacle in New York. The tabernacle oceup'es one of the most conspicuous coiners in the city, on the eastern edge of the tenderloin district. The t i ustef s have been offered $3,000,000 for the 6ito upon which the tabernacle stands, but Dr. Gunsaulus says a lighthouse ought to be main tained there as a beacon to marrinera upon the great sea we call life, and tbe only inducement that would bring him to New York would be the opportunity to do the good that may be done by a lighthouse keeper at such a location. Dr. Gunsaulus as head of the Armour institute and mission has co-no into direct contact wi,h people who labor with their hands, on the kinds of work which has come to be called un skilled. The narrowness and colorless ness of their lives he knows because he hS gone in and out among them. Jfhe goes to New York he will leave one of the wealthiest chuiches in Chicago to labor among men and women crowded into tenements, among young men and women whose only meeting place is tbe strett, among children without play grounds or plaj rooms. He says: "It Bem9 tj me the possibilities open tq the Bioadway tabernacle areglorious. It owns its building, which tens of thousands of young men and young women walk past every night. I be lieve it would be pos-ible to get some of them in there. Oce thousand doubt less board in the neighborhood who do not know where to go on Suncay eve nings, or week day evenings for that matter. I believe they could be inter ested. The time has v.ono by for a church to sit idle and listen to preach ing for its own sake, or move away from the very people to whom it ought to minister. It must be made a com fortable, inviting and useful home. This is no time for ecclesiastical millinery or attitudinizing. "As to carrying on the work of which I have spoken in connection with a church, a large church is necessary, and extensive work of that kind tends to enlarge the church. Alter several years of interested work in the institutions there cocoes into tbe church an earnest bedy of young people who feel them selves identical with it. Such I have at Plymouth chuich. If such a field opened to me hete, and I were asked to go into the work, I should consider the matter a meie question of duty. If I were invited to come here merely to have, tbe church go on in the ordinary way or move away from the people it ought to reach a t rrible thing I could not think of it. Tbe Broadway tabernacle thought of moving. I have heard, how ever, that a decision has been reached not to move, and that an offer of S3, 200,000 has been refused by the church for its property. I do not know the people of that church, but I believe that tbey are a noble and heroic people if this is true, and that. they have the opportunity to accomplish a great work in that thronged part of the' city, if they have the will to undertake it." Lincoln people will remember the fervency of Dr Gunsaulus' lecture on Savonarola. I hate beard him lecture many times Eince but what ever the theme SavoEaroIa is the unit of measure that he applies to all hercs. They are either grea'er or less than Savonarola. Tte forerunner of the re formation, iconoclast, prophet of woe, priest and orator is Dr. Gunsaulus ideal. When he speaks of him his eyes glow and his voice trembles with reverence and admiration. Savonarola believed that all things were possible to the righteous. He thought be could stand the test by fire and told the people so Something of the brave fanatics' spirit has come to Dr. Gunsaulus. Without revolution he hopes that the economic system can be reforme I so that poverty can have bath-tubs, books, oil paint ings fresh air, pure water, grass and flowers. Hoping this he believes it and is willing to spend the rest of his life ' working for it. In all probability, I speak only from inference, the Doctor's Chicago field is narrowed by the rich men who supply the money for hit, work, and who may say to him "Thus far Ehalt thou go and no farther." They might just as well tell an inventor that his machine will not work when it is completed. If they will not stake him someone elsn will. Knowing the Doctor and Savonaro la there is no doubt that the former will go to New York. "Windbreaks," the latest bulletin from . the state agricultural- school, shows the effect of windbreaks in preventing evaporation. The method of testing the value of shade in conserving mois ture is by means of evaporometers. The evaporometer is a graduated glass cylinder open at one end, tilled with water and the open end covered with a disc of absorbent paper of uniform size ' and thickness held in -position by a metal cap. A row of these instruments placed every two rods from a hedge row until fifteen is reached shows the steadily increasing evaporation as the distance increases between instru-" ruents and hedge. As a result of vari ous experiments under different con ditions the value of rows of trees south of fields of grain in reducing the evapora tion of moisture is conclusively shown. The direct value to the state of all ex periments in the direction of preventing quick evaporation can not be estimated. Professor Card, who is the author of "Windbreaks'" has contributed to the potential wealth of this section. QuoVadisby Henryk Sienkiewicz is one of those stories of the first Ch-is-tians, of which Ben Hur is the first notable example. The style and treat ment is superior to the latter, and from a superficial examination of the situation in the time ot Nero, I should say the book shows greater research 'than any of Its predecessors. The spectacles are rilled in with a minute dttiil thit does not stop short soin times of being wearisome. Like one of Alma Tadema's, pictures the background and the edges of the picture are painted with detail as elaborate hs the centre fo:egrotind. Ihus in some cases per spective is sacrificed to a conscientious reproduction of all the factB, where some ot them would have told the story and made a stronger impress'on. For in s'ance in the description of the impris onment and slaughter or the Christians in the Arena before the Roman populace by wild beasts, by crucifixion, by jave lins thrown by barbarians, by burning the movement of the story is retarded' for nearly one hundred pages acd the nerves are exhausted by the descriptions of the agony, the blood-ssoaked sand of 'T'f JV-f
