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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 4, 1897)
--'. vT r THE COURIER, R JJ Ii rK i N i ' K v- i. V V 4 - V ' 3" lr r e fcl3: The' streets Are the property of the commune. They belong to everyone who lives in the city. Recent legis lation in -the east has declared fran chises granting the exclusive use of the streets to any company, illegal. The streets are the people's and the use thereof and their representatives in council can not deed them away. Ycrkc's single-handed tight, against the newspapers of Chicago last winter, showed better than any other recent event the growing sense of the com munal ownership of the highways. The City Improvement Association sees its effective work threatened in the pending franchise. The remon strance of the association is based on an intelligent comprehension of the offensive nature of the proposed fran chise. If the franchise is granted, till 1917 shall the street corners of Eincoln be under the control of this company. Thecitizens must pave the streets and sidewalks and keep them in order, but only the "company" can use them for advertising puroses. j The case of Donna Cisneros, the young Cuban lady who has been sentenced by a Spanish judge, di rectly influenced by General Wey. ler, to twenty years in the penal colony at Ceuta, has re ceived the consideration of the wo men of America, many of the best known, as the dowagers Jefferson Davis, John A. Logan, John Sherman, Ulysses S. Grant, Julia Ward Howe and others, have written directly to the Queen Regent of Spain, pleading with her to sive the young Cuban "from the terrible fate which threatens her. And thus it has become inter national, and the Spaniards will hardly dare carry the sentence into effect. Of the civilized nations Spain is the mest cruel, and. by the same token rshe is only civilized in name. Weylers barbarities to cap tives and to non-resistants did not shock the statesman Can ovas nor the Spanish press. Ten centuriesofbull-fightinghasdestroyed all fine sensibilities in the Spanish nature. The Spaniards are brave in a way but they are brutal with a bru tality that in America is lynched. Spain has no drama. How can emotion be simulated when the populace is used to seeing real men and hordes torn to pieces before them? There is only left the tragedy of love and that has also become brutalized by the spectacles of the arena. The mimic stage can mean nothing but comedy to men who gloat at sight of real anguish. So in Spain good comedies have been written but the drama, as a whole, languishes. The absolute in. difference of the royal family and the government of Spain to the sufferings of. Cuba is in harmony with the na tional character. America and Eng land may frighten Spain into grant ing Donna Cisneros a pardon but it is useless to apply tb Spanish justice for pity. J Major Graham in his letter to the citizens of Lincoln, March IT, 1805, among other things said: . "I will strictly follow and enforce with impartiality the laws and ordin ances regulating the saloon traffic, and not allow things to be turned -wide open. I will make every effort to prevent and punish gambling." Since the article on gambling ap peared in The Coubieb of two weeks ago, the click of the marbles in the little red and black machines is no longer heard. Rouge et noir are the gambler's colors and he wears them bow on his face. The green baize tables are covered with dust until this temporary spasm be passed. The JTraternity who have been attracted to XincolB by the reports of the freedom "taat birds of prey enjoy here are re proaching the senders of such tidings. Their inactivity will not be for long The November elections are approach I igand it is necessary to conciliate and decieve the people into believing that municipal surveillance never sleeps and that all Mich crimes are therefore prohibited. The Chicago Tribuneof last Sunday contains interviews with some of the most Micccssful gamblers in the city. They agree, without a dissenting voice, that if they had worked as hard at anything eNc they would have made a ccmjMiience. Some of them are wealthy but they say that their money has been made in legitimate invest ments, such as real estate, etc. They confess that because they are gamblers and outside of the protecting pale of the law everybody charges them extra and they are helpless to object. Not withstanding the large per cent that the houae gets in all games of chance the proprietors must pay a double rent for their rooms to the landlord who must be reimbursed for the damage done his conscience by renting his property for such purposes. Then there is the tribute to the police and to the executive heads, and the fre quent pauses when the public con science is aroused and the public eye is fixed In steady, unblinking con tempt on the mayor, who" is good as long as he is watched. Besides all this, making money by the turn of a card instead of by physical or mental exer tion makes a man a spendthrift and reckless. "Easy come, easy go." As the Chicago gamblers count up the thirty years they have spent in un reputed labor, they reckon their time lost, their lives wretched failures. The gamblers of Lincoln, if they should confess, would tell the same story. When the law reaches them, they have nothing to say. Some are even grateful. Because Lincoln contains, during the school year an unusual proportion of young people the city government should be controlled by that element which the saloon keepers and the gamblers bitterly call "the kid glove politicians." J The Missouri Taciflc and the Fre mont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley railroad companies are going to build a new depot on Ninth and S streets. It will be 150 feet long, constructed of brick with stone trimmings and will have a tall tower. That pi rtii n of the city in which the station will be built has. been neglected. J lie sidewalk are dangerousand require the pedestrian's careful attention by day. But with the new station this'will be changed. The theatrical season has opened nearly all over the county and mana gers report good business. Theatrical business is the first to show the effect of hard times and the quickest to le cuperate. The two theatres in Lincoln will have a prosperous season if all signs do not fail and if the owners of the Lansing can arrange their diffi culties. Mr. Zehrung, at the Funke. has already booked a number of the very best attractions. His house will be dark very few nights this winter. The Lansing could do as well were it not for the very unfortunate misun derstanding of the amiable owners. The trouble is almcst chronic but the public is hoping that this winter it may be privately settled or smothered and the beautiful opera house run to its full earning capacity. If the people of Lincoln want to know their real friends in the council, who are anxious, first of all, to give the city pure water, let them watch the vote on the A street well which is situated in the Antelope valley on the Rock Island road. It is Antelope and pure water versus the Salt creek valley and saline water. The council" men who are honestly and unselfiishly working for the good of the city, who have investigated the water question unaffected by the wiles of ri val coal dealers, are Council men Webster, Guthrie, Mock ett, Schroeder, Spears, Winnett and Woodward. The citizens of this town ought to know that these men are disinterestedly, honestly and pa patiently endeavoring to get good water into the mainsoverthe mayor's veto and Councilmen Geisler's, Barnes', Finley's, Lawior's, Stewart's and Woods' iersistcnt and suspicious opposition. The Antelope question fairly divides them. The projwsiton to put a well at the intersection of the Rock Island and Burlington roads is confirmation of the suspicions as to their reason for opiiosiug even a test of the A street well. Now that the test has been made and the water is found to be pure and abundant and in a different vein from that which sup plies the Rice well, the Salt Creek op position is stronger than ever. But the day of retribution is coming. Dis gust with the fever infected water of the Saline basin will get more votes for the democrats and populists than the cleverest work of one of the shrewdest and most industrious of the younger politicians can attract. This water question is a more serious one than the gambling evil because it is only the idle, careless, vicious or desperate that yield to the tempta tions of gambling however alluringly entreated, but the impure water effects everybody the hard working and honest as well as the idle and vicious. The poisonous water from the F street well has killed and is killing hundreds yearly. Experts and well-diggers alike condemn the Salt basin and speak in highest terms of the A street well. Yet Mr. Woods on Monday night in council offered a resolution to lay the pipes, connecting the A street well w ith the city mains, on top of the ground as the connection would be nothing hut an experiment jf he could help it. It is only because the Salt creek party are sure that the people at large will accept their state ments without investigation that they dare oppi se the A street well, where is good water and plenty of it, if it is on the R jck Island road. J The scene around the m ittros on t W. tS. BAXDUIrl CANDIES ilMMMMMIIIMIMMMIMMIMMIMS)lMMHMMHIMIMIIIIHMMIIMll YTfMMi CHOCOUKES Bon Favors. Mail orders prompt! j and carefully filled. Farnam Street 420 mo Eleventh at. Professional Diaeaaea of tie Feet a. Spejolalty which lay the body of Annie Clark at the station house last Sunday night was sickening and discouraging to those who believe in the latent good of human nature. Around the moan ing, writhing body on thedirty floor of the station, stood members of the police force and the hangers-on of the station, none of them with a much cleaner record than the woman who gasped out the last moments of her life at their feet. There was no one there to pity or forgive or to remind, the lookers-on that the one among them who was without sin might cast the first stone. Not one among them gave her a gentle word. They jeered at her and curbed her and she died without a gleam of human pity. When Doctor Finney arrived he sajs that the men said to him, "Oh, let her alone, 'Doc,' we are only sorry that her sister is not here with her." And this in the ears of a dying woman who had been brought to her low estate by just the kind of men who jeered at her. Human beings who have led lives of purity and unselfishness are the first to forgive and help the perishing, and degraded wretches who have drained the dregs of life and who know the inns and outs of the holes where vice hides are pitiless to others in the hour of their extremity. In this city full of churches which are called by the name of that Man who forgave the penitent and told them to "go and sin no more" there was no one at hand to give that despairing and tor. tured soul even a kind look. Dr. Fin-, ney is a young man. Perhaps his pro fessional experiences have hardened his heart. Though there is no evi dence that he has not tried to perform his duty by the maimed and -dying of God's poor, whom thecity payshimto attend, he does so as expeditiously as possible. On Sunday evening, two hours after he left the woman, she died. She is better dead. She wanted to get away from herself which had become so loathsome that shecould no longer endure the company of herein. It is a great pity that in extremis she could not have been made conscious of compassion and goodness in this world. Even the dignity and mystery of death had no effect upon those who stood about. They are of the sort who haled the woman before Christ and when He wrote in the sand had time to think, of their own biograph ies. Siimc time perhaps the blame for such a life as Laura Clarke's will be Bons, Omaha, Neb. eu f -,, m :m -u j- ' S . Ja 'XV J -'&; lv .1 ' .J K - 1 la S T J ' -fJ J
