!
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
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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
