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ENTERED IN" Tlin rOSTOFFICn AT LINCOLN" AS
hECHXD CLASS MTTEC.
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY
nr
THE COURIER PRINTING AND PUBLISHING GO
Office 1132 N street. Up Stairs
Telephone 384.
SARAH l'. HARRIS.
DORA BACHELLER
Editor
liusiucss Manager
Subscription Rates In Advance.
Per annum 32 00
Six monthB 1 00
Three months 50
One month 20
Single copies 05
: OBSERVATIONS. :
Even tuc Chicago pajiers are devot
ing space and illiistnitions to the evils
of the slot machine. The Chicago
city council has not heard anything
about it and will not Ik; apt to on ac
count of its personelle. several indi
viduals'of which own some very protit
ahle saloons where slot machines whir
merrily all day long. The relations
between private profit and civic duty
are just as loose Fu Chicago as they
are in Lincoln. Hut I have not yet
heard it hinted that the mayor of Chi
cago receives fifty icr cent of the pro
tits from each machine in the city.
In Lincoln a machine in a popular
saloon is said to make about twenty
live dollars a day. which is twelve
dollars and a half clear profit to the
proprietor. The latent passion for
gambling which is the inevitable in
heritance of every human being, only
needs a little cultivation in youth to
become the dominating passion of the
man. It is far more common and re
sponds more quickly to cultivation
than the drink habit. Very few juve
niles, for instance, like any alcoholic
drink. They swallow it with a gri
mace and like it only after experience
has taught them the effects. Com
pare this reluctance with the zest
with which children play games of
chance and it will be admitted that
the profes-or or gambling has an easy
task. "Within convenient access or
every jiublic school in this city, there
is ii news stand, candy store, or cigar
stand which contain? one or more or
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ESTABLISHED IN 1396
7-SHfi3D 2 ?
LINCOLN. NEB., SATURDAY. NOVEMBER in. ISi)7.
these machines. They are in many
rorms. the mest common being a
wheel studded with jiegs which'allnws
a marble to bound from one to an
other with the possibility of winning
ninety-live cents on an investment of
five. Where the play-ground was for
merly filled with boys playing mar
bles, lops or ball, according to the .rea
son, these lolIyjKp shops arc! tilled
with urchins wearing the nervous and
strained expression of the failures who
sit about the tables at Monte Carlo.
Let any of the councilmen or official
who are responsible for this state or
things visit the newsstand in the
Hrace block. At those hours or the
day when recitations do not claim
them, they will find the- room tilled
with boys from the high school, mak
ing cigarettes, swearing, gambling
and engaged in the culture of any
thing which seems likely to smok
them worthless and obnoxious mem
lers or society. In a few years they
will be candidates Tor county and city
offices and some or them will be elect
ed and the character of their adminis
tration will be due in part to the con
duct of the city by the mayor and city
council in- the years when they were
boys, viz: 18SM5, '!t7 and '!S. Some or
the most impressionable will then be
prepared to assume the attitudes or
the loafers who are now cumliering
the highway at Eleventh and O and
Tenth and O. The mayor and city
council arc neglecting a , sacred duty
when they do not investigate the shit
machines, and the evil they do to the
Children.
J
There are many who think the jury
men in the Luetgert trial. who refused
to vote ror the conviction or Adolph
Luetgert. were bribed. The big sau
sage maker ha a brute's race and a
brute" body. Psychologically he was
capable or committing the crime he is
charged with. It was shown'that he
loathed hi wire and loved a maid.
Such a temperament urged by love as
well as hate would be capable of sit
ting all night long by a bubbling vat
in which heat and chemical were re
ducing the flesh and bone of hi wife
to a viscou liquid from which police
men and anatomists would not le able
to reconstruct Mrs. Luetgert. Prob
ably he isguiltyascnarged. Possibly
he is not. II,e should hare the benefit
or the doubt. Mrs. Luetgert. partially
demented by the danger, difficulties
and disgust or connubial existence
with Luetgert may hare wandered off
and died, or may be earning her living
as a servant in some secluded farm
house. Disappearances are of such
frequent occurrence that conviction of
murder" where the body cannot be pro
duced should le bacd uion absolutely
,
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flawless and imiieccableevidence. The
evidence in the Luetgert ca-el-very
rar from beingof such a character. A
to hanging him just lieeaiise he isa
brute and capable or the crime as
charged, the working out of such a
principle would deprive thi country
or many prominent citizens who have.
mi Tar. managed to keep out or the
reach or theexecutioner. Ilaugingon
suspicion, even on a general reputa
tion or brutality, Iicloug only in a
digest or lynch laws and cannot be rec
ommended to any community or jury.
The judicial mind or the obstinate
juror in the Luetgert trial may bare
obstructed justice: on the other hand
it may hare saved a brute, born with
dull sensibilities and little moral
mjiim;. from a punishment which he
had done nothing to doerve. Hetter
theescapeof a hundred criminals than
that one innocent man uuild lie
hurled from that shameful plat form
with the bitter conviction in hiscon
genitally clouded mind that Ood and
humanity are unjust. The very seri
ous effects or the newspaper accounts
of such a case as Luetgert'sorasGuld
eusupiie's, uiou immature, unhealthy
minds, or the temporarily morbid
mind of a woman, cannot beestimated.
These cases should be quarantined,
the infection restricted at least to
a neighliorhood. at least to the gener
ation alive at the time they take
place. Many crimes society is resjion
sible for. and there is a certain justice
in the environment which caused a
crime being made to suffer in sensi
bilities and reputation for what it
produced, but -the hungry, generation
yet to come will havetroublo enough
of their own.
It isa pity that the distribution or
free seeds by congremeii cannot 'he
stopped. There is not an ecoiw
omist or honest thinker in any busi
ness who can give any good reaon
why thouand of dollars should -be
pent annually Tor seeds to lie present
ed to owners or the inot productive
soil in the world. Secretary Morton's
confidence in himM.'ir has never Iieen
disturbed. not even by the jibes or his
agricultural constituents when they
railed to get their annual packet or
seed. The distribution is an inju
tice to every citizen of this country
who does not receive a jiacket. but
who is taxed to juiy for it. The orig
inal intention of the law was to en
courage the trial and acclimatizing of
foreign plants. The advertisements
that Secretary Wilson ha sent out
ask for bid only on seeds of licet, cab
bage, turnip, squash, etc.. a well a
well as flower seed. Only the ordi
nary varieties in the stock of a dealer
in seeds i a-ked for. The scheme
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PRICE FIVE CENIS
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doe not contemplate, nor has it for
years. exNrimeut with rarcseod with
a view to the enlargement of agricul
tural iossihilitIcin the CnitedStates.
It i-au injustice to all but the com
parative few who receive the seeds,
and bears especially hard iiihui the
men in the seed business. The gov
ernment Is without any ethical or
constitutional right to force the
seed dealers to compete against
si rival so isolated from the rules
which control the commerce of
individual as ;i nation. Hut
the present secretary ha no notion of
illowiug his jMipularity to lie affected
iy refusing to distribute a largos
vhich licit ner he nor the government
ias any right to bestow. lit realize
hat it is more imxirtant for his
uture proiects to please and onn
iiiate than it i to do even handed
justice to the jieople whose agricul
tural interests he has liecn apiioiiited
to look after. Secretary Wilson is.
Iirstof ail. a practical ioliticiaii. Krom
lis iMiint or view it would be foolish
to follow in the footsrcisof a prcde
tesMir whose administration from an
ethical and business stundioint was a
lirilliant succes. but who wa politi
cally a failure.
Tlntre-axe still those who say they
believe that women club are a fad
that will soon be forgotten for a new
expression of the gregariou instincts.
All things decay as soon a they cease
to grow and change. In the ten years
or more since culture Club began to
displace Micial gatherings the ten
dency of the larger oneS -has been tw
wards the study of economics in the
household, family, school and city,
and away from purely literary study,
which every intelligent perMin can
jutawell study by himself as in a
club. The study of municipal prol
lcm has been richly rewarded in
many cities by the active iirticipa
t'on of women in the street cleaning,
charity ard public school departments
ojcity government. This is the final
eiid" .of the club movement: organi
zation for thesake or improvement in
the home, the school and the city.
Association tor mental improvement
is laudable and pleasant, but any dis
turbance such as war or pestilence
will interrupt and destroy it. Associ
ation tor the purpose or actively cir
ticiputiug in municipal lire will be
strengthened by any occasion which
threatens existence orjliberty. What
iri'aris in the time or the devolution
had been leavened by fifty women's
clubs, the membership of which l;c
longed to all classes of M-ciety. In
stead of the demoniacal, frenzied, dis
heveled women who paraded the
streets of Paris carrying pikes sur-
t, jKi-g- Jtfk. s-
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