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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 2, 1897)
r - - . THE COURIER. I ar i" It it A well-to-do young college graduate Is studying the labor question from the point of view of the laborer and reporting the effects of the labor iimii himself and the intimate knowledge he gains of Ills fellow-workers to 5eroner' Monthly. The Octolier num ber contains the third installment of his report. Young Mr. WyekofT left a house party in a villa where he was an honored guest, without any money in Ids pocket and only a small packet of extra clothing in his hand. He started out like any other tramp on ihe road, but unlike the tramp, he .sought work. His most recent experi ence is that of a iwirtcr in a summer hotel. He shows the social cleavage which exists among the servants, the exalted position of the head waiter as compared to that of the dishwashers and porters. Although his ioard and lodging are part of the wage which he receives from the landlord, on Satur days lie has to give up the small room where lie sleeps, the other nights of the week to the city "transients" who come to the resort to spend Sunday. On Saturday and Sunday nights the porter must sleep in the barn on the hay. Then, the lower servants, which include the stablemen and boys, the porterand dishwashers, eat from a long shelf in a dark, close pantry, where the food as it conies from the tables, is dumped in appetite-destroying heaps. The porter's hours are from five in themorningto eleven at night. He scrubs, rakes, cleans lamps and spittoons and waits upon guests. The hardest thing to bear in his jkis: tion is the disdain of the little chil dren who look upon him in his un shaven condition, with clothes soiled by his occupation, as the bogy man their nurses threaten them with. This young aristocrat who has stud ied 'iabor' from books in college, in his eagerness to know from personal exierience how a man is treated who starts out to earn his living witli only his hands and industrious tendencies, d(es not hesitate to accepteverything that tends to make his experience as a day laborer complete. So far his experiences confirm the belief that social system is built entirely for the advantage of the man that has. The man who has not must give up his commonest rights to the man who has, in order to procure food and lodging of the poorest kind. The jjower of the political boss in American cities is making democracy something to be laughed at. In our own city he has succeeded in put ting into administrative offices, men who have lived lives which shut them out of all social relations with the re spectable families of Lincoln. "Not one in a hundred of the men who voted for them will invite them to their houes. Yet they put them in a place where they can dictate the in fluences which shall surround their children the rising generation. In the last year or two it has been demonstrated that the boss himself shares in this social disability. He himself has shown that social dis criminations have no effect on his real power. 2fow it does not make any difference "who this man is. It is the type. And the type lives and rules in nearly every city of the United Staets. A characteristic of his rule is that once in a certain num ber of years, say eight or ten, the people lashed to a fury by his de struction of popular rights, by his conspiracies, the aim of all of which is to make money out of the jieoples necessities, rise up and dethrone him. But in a month or so he crawls back again or some individual of the same, type takes his place. The indications in Lincoln politics are that the time of the decennial dethronement lias ar rived. The long conspiracy which has kept the eop!u .f Lincoln drink ing salt water whin new wells of purest water were available, has at last Imjcii revealed to the jicople at large. If they give this franchise to the Thompson water company the real and completed slavery which will follow such a grant be uikiii their own heads. It is indicative of the inter est that the Journal takes in the affairs of the city of Lincoln that the morning after Mr.. Thompson's bid for the water franchise that paper had editorials on Ohio wool, the gold ship ment, a New York divorce case, the President's message tC'Spain,thc-I)ing-ley tariff,theDuchessof Marlborough, the Tammany matter in New York, repaying Eleventh street eighteen lines, the Omaha World-Herald and the fair, the price of products, the New York mayorality and the Sultan of Turkey. Eighteen lines out of 352 devoted to a local interest. And not a word about the transference of so important an interest from munici pal to individual control until the cat shows which way she is going to jump. Mothers of Iwys who attend the high school of this city have been complaining to the mayor ,of the cigar, candy and fruit shops where small lioys gather to try their luck at the nickel-in-the-slot machines. Such a shop in the Brace building, which is only two 1 1 e'es f rom the high school, is crowded with boys of tender years and unformed characters who are cul tivating dissolute habits which will prevent them from becoming useful memliers of society. The nickel-in-the-slot machine is just as much a gam bling instrument as the roulette wheel. It is more dangerous, for in broad daylight in the respectable csnipany of newspapers and maga zines it tempts the passer-by with the prosiiect of getting five times the worth of the nickel which sets the machine in motion. The swagger of the young male animal who has been successful in winning twenty-five cents worth of cigarettes for five cents is threatening to maternal authority. The laws protect these fledglings from the evil influence of gambling and sakons. but they are not enforced. .Iut across the street from the Brace building is a saloon, where. The Col'kikk is informed, it is the practice t f the proprietor to sell beer and other liquors to little shavers whese heads scarcely reach the counter. The school authorities seem not to be able te stop this trade. Forfeiture of his license under a strict police system would be the re sult of a saloon-keeiier's violation of the law forbidding tne selling of liquor to minors. But under the present mayor and chief the law is a dead letter. The youth of the city are beingdestroyed in shoals and the poor mothers weep and plead in vain. If they united in an appeal to the mayor and city council for the re moval of the sk.t machines and for the enforcement (,f the laws against selling cigarettes and liquor to mi nors, their very numbers might pre vail. For the sake t f the small boy it would be worth while trying, That silly saying abcyt '-swing his wild oats'' has been the destruction of more than one youngster by making those who might otherwise seek to re move temptation from his path re gard drunkenness and other vices as inevitable to youth. The wrecks of thirty years old and more who are now drifting up and down the streets of Lincoln in company with a cigar ette are those whose boyish feet strayed into the saloon when they were "sowing their wild oals. "They have become habitues now and are 420 . Bleventh art. Professional Diseases ottx& CANDIES MtMIMMOnil00mOMMMStHMmOMeMOMMmi01tOMMMi Bon B6ns9 Favors. Mail orders promptly and" carefulty filled. 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