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VOL.12 NO 39 "f-jfe'
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ESTABLISHED IN 1886
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PRICE FIVE CENTS
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LINCOLN. NEB., SATURDAY. SEPTEMBEh 23. 1807.
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8ARAH l'. HARRIS.
CORA BACHELLER
Editor
Business Manager
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OBSERVATIONS.
The difficulty which Prosecuting
Attorney Munger had in securing
citizens' signatures to the complaint
against the gamblers last Saturday is
a commentary on the real desire of
the public to suppress gambling. It
is all very well to blame the county
attorney for not prosecuting the
gamblers for he is sworn to prose
cute lawbreakers, but he can not suc
cessfully proceed against felonies
without the support of the communi
ty. There are hundreds of citizens
who saw the gambling at the fair
grounds last week. Yet when some
of these were asked by Mr. Munger
to sign the complaint they refused. A
little boldness now and gambling in
Lincoln will not pay so well this
coming winter. Mr. Munger" has
shown a willingness to do his duty
and he should have the support of all
respectable members of the communi
ty irrespective of party or previous
expression of opinion.
That curious code which binds
gamblers together and makes them
enemies to law, is strong. Life and
struggle has made cowards of men.
Sift this community with a sieve
which will let all the timid through
and it is not for me to say that there
would remain one citizen rattling
about on top. Even Sheriff Trompen,
over six feet high and of heroic
breadth, is deferential in his treat
ment of gamblers and although he
was on the grounds at the time when
the games were in full oik.' rat ion and
the tents full of custt mers. of course
when he appeared befi re the counter
they ceased to pla and and all he
could see. he says, "was the money
and the gambling instruments." He
told Gambler Gleascn that he thought
he would get into tnuble if he did
not quit gambling and then the
sheriff courteously and considerately,
finding himself de trap, withrew from
the grounds. Such delicacy on the
part of the sheriff, although strictly
according to the rules governing
callers who accidentally intrude on
an interview, evidently very satis
factory to the daughter of the house
and her beau, is extraordinary, be
cause a sheriff's duties so frequently
make politeness impossible. In fact,
courtesy to a felon, whetherconvicted
or not, is frequently incompatible
with justice to the people who pay
the sheriff's salary. If the county
ticket is defeated this fall it will be
because a few timid republicans who
yet admire braver, especially in these
who draw a salary for it, are dis
gusted with Sheriff Trompen's com
placency to gambler?.
The board of directors of the Hay
don Art club has made plans to bring
a splendid exhibit of pictures to Lin.
coin this winter. a well as to pro
vide a number of picture talks by
brilliant artists and speakers like
Lorado Taft, the sculptor, and Mr
French, the director of the Chicago
Art school. Prof. Harbour is vice
president of the club and during
President Harwood's adsence in Eu
rope will preside at the regular
monthly meetings of the board and
direct theaffairsof the club with that
wisdom and energy which he has
shown in the conduct of his own
affairs. Besides the exhibition and
the illustrated lectures the club
offers a scholarship which by the
payment of live dollars a year entitles
the subscriber to weekly instruction
throughout the schi ol year and ad
mits to all other privileges of the club
except to the picture exhibit, where
an entrance fee is necessary in order
to pay the ex'tcnes of the exhibit
which are always large. There are
over a hundred members of the Hay
don Art club whose desuetude can
only be disturbed by an exhibit. An
exhibit has made members in good
standing out of these who had for
gotten the existence of the art club
and created a fund which has held
them together till the next public
evidence of vitality.
J
It is doubtful if Mayor Graham's
method of farming out the city offices
is a wise one. or if the jieople are
well served thereby. When appli
cants for the office of chief of iKilice,
chief of the tire department, engi
neers, policemen and firemen, secure
appointments by an agreement to pay
a certain percent of the salary of the
place sold, their fitness for the place
is not apt to be considered so much as
their ability to pay. Also the in
cumbent will be obliged to make
enough out of the office (o reimburse
him for the original cost of it. Thus,
the iwople pay their representative,
the mayor, an additional salary for
uiakingappointments. "Would it not be
better to pay the mayor such a sum for
his services that he can afford to con
sider an application on its merits. It
is a narrow and short-sighted policy
which forces a mayor to figure on the
value of each appointment in his
power and the correct per cent to
charge the appointee, who in turn is
forced by the cost of living, the size
of his family, etc., to take the "ier
cent" out of the people. It would le
higher wisdom to get a more expen
sive mayor from tlie choicest human
product of the city, a man who in
forty or fifty years of life has maul,
fested integrity, purity and high
mindedness and can not. be tempted
by a few thousand dollars to hazard
that reputation.
The champions of the South street
well urge that it is poor business iol
icy to abandon a plant on which l(.
OOOJias been sunk, when for -WOO more
the plant can lie made to furnish the
city with plenty of good fresh water.
But when Councilman Mockett says,
'there is nothing of value at the
South street station, save the large
water mains running to it which
could not be taken up at comparative
ly small cost and carted away," the
South street councilmeu reply to this
proiositioii that this particular pump
can not lie moved without destroying
it, If it lie so fine and costly a pump
it would seem that with care it might
be moved.
The proposition that you can not
obtain a continuous flow of fresh
water from a salt deposit through
which flows an artesian stream which
will come to thesurface without being
forced wherever the ground is punc
tured, is worthy of the attention of
that part of the council which is oi
IKised to the Antelope valley. The
rest of the council have been con.
fronted with the lesson and accepted
it. It is simple enough when divested
of theories and unsubstantiated state
ments. jt
The decision of Judge Holmes in
the Home of the Friendless case is
gratifying to those who have studied
it. .Judge Holmes decided that the
state had practically agreed to a part
nership with the board of manager..
and that the state can not now de
prive the board of their responsibility
for, or share in the institution. Sev
eral years ago the republican, politi
cians tried to obtain control of the
patronage of the Home and failed. In
an institution whose object is to care
for the old, the new-born, the sick and
the destitute, iMtliticians see only an
opportunity for increasing their pat
ronage list and just as long as women
have no vote their control of such an
institution will be disputed. Not
withstanding the fact that women
lclongoii a board of charities, that
by nature and training the sick and
the unfortunate are her inalienable
wards, from the moment that the leg
islature makes a money grant to a
benevolent institution feminine man
agement will not lie tolerated. The
republicans tried to take the manage
ment from the women and failed, the
Iiopulists have tried and failed in this
first step. If justice and right pre
vail throughout the course or the liti
gation as it has in the beginning, the
woman: board will still control the
Home for the Friendless.
jt
Now that ten of the larger firms
have shown their confidence in the
city and in a new prosjerity by large
gifts to the Auditorium fund, that
building, which will increase by
thousands the number of visitors to
the city, will probably be begun in
Octolier. Since the development of
the plans for the building,. -ill sorts of
combinations have been projKjsed.any
one of which, if adopted, would make
the auditorium less of an auditorium
and more of a library or gymnasium
as the case may lie. The city needs a
library in which to house its increas
ingly valuable collection and some
time in the millenium future, when
we have learned how to heat and light
and projel cars by electricity the city
will take charge of that energy and
the dividends which individuals now
make out of the city's needs will be
turned back into the city's treasure
1kx where they will emerge to pay for
parks, gymnasiums, libraries, etc.
But just at present we want an audi
torium: to combine it with a library
would sjKiil both. The? modern library
is in itself a complicated structure,not
yet the finished product of experiments
and the diverse theoriesof the gradu
ate of the red-and-black ink library
schools. To attempt to combine any
thing so highly complex with an audi
torium would, in depriving the audi
torium of light, of air, of height and
of a sufficient number of exits to in
sure the safe egress of 5,000 people
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