Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (June 19, 1897)
! vor:5i2 xo 2 ESTABLISHED IN 1SSC PRICE FIVE CENTS- . j j LINCOLN, NEB., SATURDAY. JUNE 19. 181)7. nmnn onioa at ac uoor -LAM lUtlB KJ1LIBHED XVUI BATUftlUY etniEi PRixiiiF ui Fnuam Office 1132 N street, Up Stairs. Telephone 384. SARAH i'. HARRIS. DORA BACHELLER Etlitorr Business Manager Subscription Rates In Advance. Per annum 82 00 Six months 1 00 Three months 50 One month 20 Single copies 05 X OBSERVATIONS. : The message that W. Morton Smith and Arcule E. Guilmette were drowned by the upsetting of a cat boat which they were sailing on the Hudson last Sunday afternoon, was received in Lin coln in the late afternoon of the same day. The shock of such news stunned those friends across the continent who had heard from time to time of their succese ful work in New York. Mr. Guilmette's twenty years or so of life in Nebraska bad been spent as a etudent, but among his associates at the university and in Hastings his- record is shining bright. Mr. Smith made frietds wherever he went. His personality was full of a charm that daily familiarity with, only made stronger. His serene soul sat up somewhere above the reach or vulgarity. A dignity, an elegance, withall a sweet ness, characterized his daily life, his everyday life. Without kowowing it he was the centre cf every circle h's friends called intimate. Without get ting near enough to vulgarity to make puns bis speech sparkled with original ity and shrewdness. For a friend he would do anything in his power, and without stipulation. When to leu for New Yor'x the overgrown Lincoln doll revealed to all his friends that she was stuffed with sawdust, and was cast aside. He went to New York with but little money and without, any definite engagement iron a newspaper. By sheer pluck and ability in thiee months time he occupied the mo3t honorable and beit paid place on ono cf the most important of the New York papers. Ho had sole charge of the Wall street re ports of the Mail and Exjiress, a posi tion of power and of great responsibility. He had just moved to Underdid, the surroundings of which ho described in The Courier of May 29, which iB here reprinted: ' Dhectly across is the little attenuated village of UnderclitT, nest ling as its name implies undrr the shelter of tho beetling Palis ades. The ride across the liver atTords, especially at this time cf year, a view of surpassing loveliness. On its east shore, from Grant's tomb on the heights above Manhattanville, to tb? far away hills of Yonkers, a distanco of fifteen miles, there is a stretch of picturesque country, with tho peaks and fall of snow white degwood blossoms. Violets but a week ago, purpled the tangled grass, and the cowslip added dots of gold. In a canyon, through which a small stream descends with musical sound, are boulders and jagged recks, and in the thin covering of earth, mountain peakB show their vivid hues. The violets are gone now and with them the mjrtle, and the other delicate ilowers that came with the first warmth of spring, but the paths are strewn with primroses and wild dasies and dainty white and yellow strawberry blossoms. Blackberry bushes are just beginning to ba spotted with white and the buds of wild rose3 are exposing their pink leaves. There is a large lake, in a basin on the highrst part of the Palisade?, directly back of the cottage, where pond lilies grow. The turrets of cast lcated piles rising above mile3 with ever changing a wraith of verdure that reaches to the There are points from which water's ege. 3 he Palisades crowned with lordly trees extend in unbroken symmetry and beauty as far as the eye can sec on the other side. It was to Underdid that tho investi gators went. Tho village has a strag lirjg growth for a mile or more up the river, resting on the gras3y baach be tween tho water and the hills. Along the old turnpike, cow almost splashed by the gentle waves, now rising twenty or thir:y feet above tho river, are rows of oak and elm trees, end hero and there is an ancient homestead slowly crum bling away. The road passes the huts of fishermen, which in tho busy shad season, but recently closed, havo been hives of industry. When the fishermen are not bringing in their catch in big boats they are mending their nets, and one may purchase glistening fish that but a few minutes before were coursing the 6tream. Lilacs bloom along the wav ''and the dandelions hiding in thewatsr, with which he velvet grass eeem like little pcols of sun shine, fit to splash in as you pass." The most stylish turnout that one is apt to meet is the prehistoric bus that ambles along in a desultory way, and the whirling whee man is the sole dis turber of the scene's equanimity. The cottage that tho persons afore mention ed selected as their summer home faces the Huc'son river, with a meadow space filled juttcow with waving timothy. Eetweer, and at the river's brink is a row of fine trees, the varied tones of cak and elm and chestnut and maple blend ing in a bullwark of gorgeous green. 1 hrough a gap in the tree3 may be seen the sraojth surface of the water, dotted with the sails of an unnumbered lleet, view the panorama of New York across the river, and the mountains up the Hudson. At night one maysco from the cottage porch or from the lofty height above, the thousands of spark ling lights that invest Aew York, after sucsst, with a beautiful glow and brill ance. There are no excursicn paities, as sightseers. Ono may be as much alone as Thoreau in Waldea VcoJs. And one may erjoy all this with:n ono hour was picked up by tho steam launch, tho Lorna Dcone, which was a milo away when tho accident happened, but im mediately put about to their rescue. Only a few more momonts and they would all havo been saved. The story of the twenty eight years of Mr. Smith's life is tie record of a sturdy will follow ing its Lent, of a keen it tolled con quering adverse circumstances, of un swerving loyalty to his friends, of a cheerfulccss pervasive as the sun light and of a character altogether as lovable as that of Major Pcndennis. William Morton Smith was twenty eiijht years of age. He was born in Wsllstoro, Penn. When ho was six jears of age he went with his parents to Philadelphia, where he lived until ho came to Nebraska in 18S8, Ho received wood3 extend for a sound school and business education. beauty, the lattr inc'uding a term of service as ono may stenogiaphcr with the great Pencoyd Iron wot ks, in one of the suburbs cf Philadelphia. The latter part of Mr. Smith's boj hood was spent in tho com posing room of a daily paper. When ho was fourteen one of the reporters was taken 6:c!i just before an important polit'cal meeting. Slug Three otrered to report the meeting and his offer was ac cepted. Morton's work was so well none that he immediately became a regular reporter. Before ho was twenty one years old he came to Lincoln, where and ten minutes of Trinity church. But the millions prefer to remain in the city and swelter and mayhap eke out pleisure in roof gardens and wild rides in their aveauo cable cars. W. MORTON SMITH. New York, May 21, 1S97. Those who have seen Mr. Smith sail ing on th9 waters of Burlington Beach will remember the eagerncs3 and facility learned to sail a bent. Those who were privileged to t3 mem bers of a party that for two successiva years camped in the mountains of Wyoming with Mr. Smith will remem ber hi3 intoxicated, I oyish delight in the mountains, the water, the prospict from the heaven i e hing hills. 'J he new home in Undt-i cliff ho apprecia ted with the keen, ud jaded joy of a pcet. Mis3 Guilme'te kept the house for her brother, his friends and hers. They were all at work busily through tho week, and on Sundays they were in the habit of going out into the beautiful his fatthcr and eldest brother had pre ceded the rest of the rest of tho family. His first work was on the staff o! the Stute Journal, when ho reported tho work of the legislature of 1SSS, for that paper.so successfully discussing Nebras ka politics that he was offered and ac. cepted a place on the Omaha Republi can, then making something of a stir under themanagemf nt of Fred Nye. He was detailed to act as Lincoln corre spondent. Later he becamo manager of the Lincoln bureau, and built up a large circulation for the paper in this territory. When the paper passed under the Wilcox management he remained in charge here until he was called in 1S00 to Omaha to take the post of managing editor. 1 he fortunes of the paper were at so low an ebb that he found it im possible lo do an) thing with the proper ty. Once or twite he was able to inter est capital to purchase Mr. Wilcox's in terest, but that gentleman declined to sell, although the paper was steadily losing monoy. Tho prohibition cause was espoused to bring njw business. brought a boycott from the world cfose around them which Mr. Smith lovingly describes in the forego, but this in. The experience he had had with people of Douglass county and the paper small sailboats in (hallow Nebraska came to a sudden end. Mr. Smith, how- and now an 1 then pierced by gre3t steam- waters was no guide whin the wind rose, ever, was not responsible in any way for era. Back of the cottage, rising from overturned the beat and the strenuous tha catastrophe. the very door, are the Palisades, which at this point, aro three hundred feet high. End here Flora has strewn her favors with a lavish hand. The breezes blow through boughs of oak and birch aud elm, Hutterirg in the distance is a current of the Hudson, pouring into the Returning to Lincoln Mr. Smith en Atlantic, lco3ened the chilled fingers gaged in general newspaper work for fiom the too slippery support and car- several months. When General Thayer ried the two men out to sea, while the was given a new lease on the office of young girl clung to tho centre-board, governor he made Mr. Smith a member which afforded her a better bold, and of Irs office force. At the end of that
