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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 4, 1897)
i Is ? i: ? B ? .4 1U It st irs utr , tv:- vfse ,X?P ? ' V 3Vflijfi&s - "yx&jfrrmt7 -v -?- VOL 12 NO KSTABL1SHED IN lWfi PRICE FIVE CENTS & -'& LINCOLN, NEB., SATURDAY. DB6EMBER 4. t8i7. s Entered in Tnu rosTcimcK at tAscovx as -SEC'ISD CLASS MATTER. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY nv THE COURIER PRINTING AND PUBLISHING GO Office 1132 X street. Up Stairs . Telephone 384. SARAH i'. HARRIS. DORA 1JACJ1ELLER Editor Rusinrss Manager Subscription Rates In Advance. Per annum .52 00 Six months 1 00 Three months GO One month 20 Single copies 03 8 OBSERVATIONS. 8 The iKJOple of Lincoln are taking what some members of the city coun cil call an unwarrantable and aggres sive interest in the weekly doings of that body. A concrete example of that interest is the l.."i()0 votes which was the difference between Mr. Tnim pen and Mr. Woods' count in the last election. Mr. Wood' defeat-was not a democratic victory but an expres sion of ermaiicntand deep republican dissatisfaction with the city legisla tive body of which Mr. Woods is a member. The conviction that members uf the council are willing to take advantage of their posit ions to make the city pay for the legal services which .secured them theofriees'.which theyjiow hold, is the reason of the opjtositron to the employment of Judge Reese and Judge "Webster to assist the city attorney in the street railway cases. If mcmlers of the council, who now hold their positions in consequents of the able services of Judge Reese in defeating the charter, desire to remunerate him for hisIalMirs they should settle with him by taking from the store of their mvn private savings rather than by compelling the city to employ him for a service which the city is already paying n man to do. Mr. Mockett, in his letter to the Journal last Saturday morning, ignores the real reason for t he employment of extra help for the -i ty attorney. Yet Mr. L. C. Burr, in the Eveniivj Neics of November 27th, savs that Mr. Mcckett said when lie asked him if the coimcilmen were, not trying to pay a personal debt which they (the couucilmen) owed these at torneys. "Ye, but the council does worse tilings than that almost every day. It is not the expenditure of a thousand dollars by the city for the city that the constituents of these couucilmen object, to. It is the well grounded suspicion, continued by Mr. Mockett's confession that members of the council arc thus endeavoring In payoff a jiersonal obligation in city funds. The eighty-two signers of the pro test addressed to the mayor are just as much op)edasany member of the council to the remission of the street railway taxes by the city. If extra attorneys are employed itshould be on the recommendation of the city attor ney and lawyers should be selected, not forced upon the city. The management- of the Trans Mississippi exposition has made a tac tical error, which it is not too late to remedy, in allowing the state at large to get the impression that the e.usi tion is for the benefit of Omaha alone. "What promises to be a glory to the whole state ought to be aided and appreciated by the whole state. Jf the directors of the exposition wish to receive an evidence that the citizens of the smaller towns in the state be lieve in the exposition, let them invite the well-to-do of Lincoln, Rca trice. Kearney, Grand Island. York, Ciele, Seward and Plattsniouth to take stock in the exposition, and when merchants from these cities apply for exhibiticn space let the officials receive them with cordiality and accord them the same treatment extended to the mer chants of the metropolis. . Expert Hclbig's claim of twenty five dollars ier day from the legisla tive executive committee, is high even for an expert, whose value., rated by themselves, has no basi other than the amount of money in theHjssessiou of their employers and their need of "expert' skill. The degree of excell ence necessary to ass from the pro fessional class into t he 'exjiert" class can not be determined. There is prob ably many a faithful and accurate accountant- in Lincoln who lacks only Hclbig's nerve to graduate himself into something called an ''expert. The popular awe of oxiicrt. knowl edge and methods h:is been somewhat dissipated by their con tradictory and fallible testimony in trials. The heresy has percolated through the court rooms, reached the newspapers and been spread upon those minutes which are never lt. and which cannot be changed a pec- ple's memory. At. twenty-live dollars a day. Mr. Hilbig's bill forlS2i days Is 3.,4?i. but in consideration of having had bis sympathies touched by the committee and their dislike to spend the people's money, Mr. Helbig Is will ing to make it-an even four thousand dollars. The governor and the audi tor are iu-a-curiously embarrassing situation. Neither of them has had the right, since the legislature ad journed, to authorize the spending of a dollar of the appropriation. Hy do ing so they have broken the law as willfully, though perhaps more, ignor autly than Ex-Treasurer Hartley and Ex-Auditor Moore. Since Tiik Com: iki: called the attention of the public to the law restricting the amount which a member of the legislature can draw from the state and to the law which specifically declares that it is illegal fora legislator to hold over and draw pay after the adjournment of the legislature, thecniplojesof that committee have hastened to draw their jy. Twn weeks ago. when I in spec ted the account of money expend ed by the committee, a little over a fifth of the ten thousand dollar appro priation was all that- was left. Con sequently, however good his claim ma" be. Mr. Helbig is not apt to be paid four thousand dollars for his over estimated services. It' is said that Secretary Porter cn jovsthe advertising the hog killing episode has given him. It lias been written up by the patent inside pen ny a liners and in this way has reached nearly every farmer's boost; in t lie country. The funny men on the city pajiors hae been able to crack many a Joke at Nebraska on ac count of the eoup de yrace which the secretary of state and his clerks gave toJCOfxi pounds of hog a few weeks ago. When a green countryman with scant ideas of lignityand none of law. is elected to an administrative office, he is .very aptt disgrace the enple whoare'rcsponsih'e for his uomiua ation and election. Vieii a green countryman w ith traditions of breed ing and inherent mental integrity and leronal dignity succeeds to an of lice, he is likely to shed uion the office and the iiccple who elected him, the lustre of a great, diameter. Washington. Lincoln and Grant were countrymen. But between theni and the hobble-dc hoy. blundering, stupid, officious countryman who breaks the laws of the city and of the state with assur ance and conceit, there is no likeness. Most great men come from the country. Brought up in the solitude of whispering pines or sibilant corn and wheat, their minds grow steady and straight, without the vulgar in terference of the street, the saloon and the loafers that fill them. When a man like this comics in contact with the worldbehold a genius! He brings to the consideration of social and po litical questions an unjaded intelli--gence, trained, unlike Secretary Por ter's, by the masje.r of literature and law. When he makes a speech tho pure English of Sliakspere and the classicists' of our tongue charms and inspires his hearers and in turn takes a unique place in literature for the study of tho ucxtgcnoration of 'vouri trymen." From his first appearance in thecity the unfortunate secretary has shown an indifference to the laws of the lan guage, the laws of .Nebraska and the laws of thecity. All of these are in stitutional. The language, whose plurals ami-past and present tenses he confuses in brassy ;md bellowing tones, has licen made by Celt, Saxon and Latin and cannot lie changed by a. century of learned doctors, and the laws, horn of the Itoiii.-in.. strengthened and formed by the constitutional struggles of our English forefathers thank (Jed for them transplanted into America and freed fromamnu archial executive, have In-come the basis of the revised statutes of Ne braska and ofevcrystateint.be union. They are not to be broken by the sec retary or by any official without re ceiving the indignant protest of every intelligent citizen. Our (toman, Nor man, Celtic. Saxon inheritance, made worthy of transmission by ccuttiricsor resistance to hereditary officials who had no regard for the law of the peo ple, is in no danger now because our Roman, Norman, Celtic. Saxon blend will not stand any such foolishness. .Scriburr Christina numler has covers in the latest expression of the imster artists ingenuity. Three little serving Ioys in the stiff ruffs and" draperies of the Elizabethan period, with black, crisp, shoulder-loug hair and red cheeks, hear upon three salvers a plum pudding, a lowl of fruit and a. Christmas posset. The advertisement on the back cover is just assatisfac tory in color and drawing, but news paper advertising reserve prevents any description of it. The number is remarkable for illustrations. The letter press, except in the story or "Squire Kayley's Conclusions' and 'Ihe Workers," by Walter A. Wyck off. fail of especial interest. Even Kipling's poem "The Feet kT ttie Young Men." is too deep for most of us. It celebrates the return of the vqung man to the jungle where his transmigrated oul first, became hu man, where the original beast hunted Continued on Pai;e .).' i '?. - l! J- s: &- .