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VOL 12 NO
KSTABL1SHED IN lWfi
PRICE FIVE CENTS
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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 .).'
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