The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903, March 12, 1898, Image 1

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

    1
I
v . . i
VOL 13X0.11
JTA
ESTABLISHED IN 188C
PK1CE FIVF CENTS
LINCOLN. NEB., SATURDAY. MARCH 12. I8US.
ESTEREDIH THE POSTOFTICE AT LINCOLN AS
SECOND CLASS MATTES.
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY
BT
THE COURIER PRINTING AND PUBLISHING GO
Office 1132 N street, Up Stairs.
Telephone 384.
SARAH B. HARRIS.
DORA BACHELLER
Editor
Business Manager
Subscription Kates In Advance.
Per annum $100
Six months 7o
Three months 50
One month 20
Single copies 05
2 OBSERVATIONS. 8
jaaaja
A whole day of the council's investi
gation into the conduct of city affairs
by the mayor was spent in trying to ex
tract evidence from Melick, the former
chief of police. The futility of the
attempt was apparent early in the
day. The incident Is only another
illustration of theditticulty of proving
in court, actions which everyone out
side of it admits have taken place.
The progress of the impeachment
proceedings and tho real relations of
Chairman Giesler to Mayor Graham is
pictured very graphically and indis
putably by Harry Gage in his car
toons, which, although crude in ex
ecution, arc well composed and already
have Uncharacteristic which no stu
dio can teach, viz: that of telling the
truth forcibly and without circumlo
cution. M
The decision in the maximum
freight rate case by the supreme court
has been long foreseen. There isnoth
ingsocomplicated nor dependant upon
so many and so mysterious proposi
tions as freight rates. The intellect
of the ordinary legislator is built on
simple lines of construction of which
the basis is: "What's your's is mine,
and what's mine s' my own." Any
thing so complex as freight rates can
not be grasped by the ordinary law
maker, nor even by the legal talent
which stands ready to help him com
pose his bills. The study of freight
rates is like the study of a system
which ramifies in many directions and
is dependant on so many laws and
principles that simplicity lias long
been destroyed. "When such a sj-stem
is undergoing inspection with a view
to comprehension and revision by a
legislator who is thinking of getting
up a bill to show the blamo railroads
what's what, there is no especial rea
son why the victims of his passion for
composition should bealarmed,so long
as all bills must not be contrary to the
constitution and its interpretation by
the supreme court.
It is very much to be regretted that
one of the republican nominees for
the school board is not a woman. The
education and training of the young
is peculiarly the province of woman.
Most of the public school teachers are
women. A clear headed wjinan on
the school board without political de
signs on congress, the legislature or
what uot, might be a harmonious ele
ment in a body, which, up to date,
has established a reputation for
quarrelsomeness not surpassed byeven
the noisy deliberations of the Lincoln
city council. A woman has very little
chance to secure such a nomination
because, in the first place the party
has nothing to gain from naming
her and, in the second place, should
she be nominated and elected, she
cannot be made to see the political ex
pediency of awarding co.'il or other
contracts to this man or that. She is
such a simpleton, such a novice, that
she is bent on deciding a question on
its merits and she will not, or does
not admit the necessity of trading
votes with her associates. Of course
such a member of the school board is
impossible from the practical politi
cian's standpoint, yet for the welfare
of the children there should be a
woman on the school board.
oRichard Harding Davis has a story
in the current Cosmopolitan called
The Man With One Talent. It is the
story of a young American who goes
to Cuba and fights with and for the
insurgents, is taken prisoner, a rope
fastened tohiswristsand dragged by a
man on horseback until the rope cuts
through to the bone. He is imprisoned
but escapes to America in order to en
list the sympathies of somebody pow
erful enough to aid the men, women
and children whom the Spaniards are
not warring with but butchering. He
meets a senator whose oratorical abil
ity can sway people to vociferous
shouting or sniffling, but whose power
stops there. He can rouse neither
others nor himself to action. Wall
street owns him and presses the but
ton which sets his automatic soul in
motion. The young man, Arkwright,
not having had much experience with
orators, takes him at his word, accept5
his burning words as evidence of a
heart and endeavors to show him how
much good he can do by visiting Cuba.
The orator consents to go but is de
terred by those who work the buttons
which open or close theorator's mouth
and start or stop him on errands of
mercy or the devil's. The story is
fervid and without any of the mani
cured foppery that makes Van Bib
ber, to whom Gibson has given tiic
features and figure of Davis, and into
whom Davis has written his own
character, such a bore.
Spain's humble acceptance of the
snub in regard to the preference of the
United States to allow Consul Lee to
remain just where he is, is an indica
tion of her reply when asked to make
all possible reparation for the Maine.
The strength of the Carlist party, the
poverty of the national exchequer and
so far SiKiin's failure to negotiate a
loan from any other nation, put her at
the mercy of the United States gov
ernment which has plenty of
money and men and which can
buy ships and borrow from
any country on the globe, rich
enough to loan money. Moreover the
United States can go to war witli no
fear of a revolution. Preoccupation
of the central government only in
creases the loyalty of north, south,
east and west to the union. Spain is
a divided, bankrupt, nation, whose
king is a boy. She has no credit and
her internal resources are still unde
veloped because of the indolence of a
laissezfaire people. Under these cir
cumstances a war with a nation of the
size and vitality of the American
means for Spain an overturning of the
present dynasty and in the event of
defeat disastrous concessions to the
conqueror. The foe is in reality pros
trate now and by the use of diplomacy
and by making a great show of the
ships we have and those we can buy
there is reason to hope that the wise
McKinley can pcevent a war and se
cure peace to Cuba as well as repara
tion for our own wrongs.
Of all the clubs which women have
organized, since the club movement
legan, which is quite different from a
statement as to the first club, for no
one will ever find out when that was
started, there is only one species that
seems to me to have been organized
more especially for self aggrandize
ment, not for culture or to afford op
portunities of good fellowship or to
express the Sorosis idea of helping
one another, but to exhibit and em
phasize aristocratic descent, which
the founders seem to have feared
would be forgotten in the rush for
culture and the cultivation of the new
sociablcness.
The Daughters of the American
Revolution, and the Order of the
Crown, to the latter of which nobody
can belong except, those who can read
their title clear to a descent from
kings, belong to the species referred
to and there are many others which
have not a potent enough reason for
being. The nominal plea for the or
ganization of such associations is that
they serve to keep alive the interest
in the achievements and honors of
our ancestors who are a long
time dead and growing more so. In
so far as the D. A. It. and other socie
ties of the same kind stimulate love
of country and the cherishing of tra
dition they are of service to humanity,
but their meetings seems to an out
sider to be given up to struggles for
the high places where men can see
and envy. The National society D.
A. R. has twenty Vice-Presidents Gen
eral always printed with capitals.
The duties of a vice-president of al
most anything are scarcely ever oner
ous, but the honor is great and doubt
less recompenses for a sense of use
lessness which must occasionally, in
the silence and retirement of mid
night, overwhelm the twentieth Vice
President General. Margaret Hamil
ton Welch says of the recent meeting
in Washington that "an important
piece of organization work was the
abolishing of the ollico of the First
Vice President General, as distin
guished from the other nineteen who
makeup the list of the twenty Vice
Presidents General. It was felt that
the discrimination in favor of one
Vice-President General was unneces
sary; the only hesitation in regard to
the matter arose from the fact that
the then acting first Vice-President
General, Mrs. A. G. Rrockett, has
most ably filled the office, and it was
feared that to abolish it might be some
rellection upon her official record.
With a full recognition of her ser
vices and ability the vote was taken,
which resulted in the suppression of
the office " At this meeting the chair
man of the Continental Hall Com-mittec-the
necessity for capitals in
all reports of the D. A. It. nearly
empties the uppercase-reported that'
840,000 had been raised for the erec
tion of the hall, I mean Hall, at Wash
ington. It is the recommendation of
one of the founders of the society,
Mrs. Ellen II. Walworth, that the
Hall when erected shall be called the
Memorial Manor of the Daughters of
the American Revolution. Such a Hall
would be of great historical service in
providing a fire-proof building for
relics of the revolution, and there is
besides mucli commendable work that