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VOL.13. NO. 22
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!
HRQEPVATIOMS O
X LWiyil t X A !
L
General Wesley Merritt has denied
the report that he said to newspaper
men that he would obey orders only
conditionally. His reputation as an
accomplished soldier and man of few
words and quick action reinforces his
denial. A board of strategy such as
sits and thinks at Washington, nearly
as far from Havana as it is from
Manila is a necessity. The civil power
must be nominally first even in war
and if this board confine itself to gen
eral directions the commanders in
chief will be able in emergencies to do
their unhampered best. No situation
can be foreseen in detail and Admirals
Dewey and Sampson and Commodore
.Schley are prepared for an accident to
the cable whenever the board threat
ens to intervene between them and
victory. Such an accident will not
impure the dignity of the board nor
subject the officers to repremand,
which is part of the inestimable ad
vantage naval ollicers have over army
officers.
jc
If the street commissioner would
give a little attention to the condition
of the streets the council might not be
about to conclude that his otlicc is
superreogatory. The condition of the
down town streets and sidewalks is re
volting to all the senses. Since the
warm weather has arrived and pedes
trians have begun to walk in the shade
as far as possible the lowness of the
awnings placed at the entrance of
every business house causes the passers-by
either to duck their heads or
walk in the sun. The city ordinance
in regard to awnings says they shall
be at least eight feet above the side,
walk. The sidewalk belongs to those
who chose to walk on it and not to
the abutting property. This matter
of low awnings is a great inconveni
ence to thousands every day and as
the heat increases we ought to be en
abled to take advantage of the shade
of the buildings instead of which we
are forced into the sun or obliged to
walk bent after the manner of age or
rheumatism.
The vote on the Mockett sewer
scheme in the council meeting on
Monday night illustrates the passage
of time and the changes occasioned by
it. The motion referring the plan of
sewer extension was carried by a vote
of 8 to (3. Those voting aye were:
Dobson, Erlenborn, .Guthrie, Malone,
Schroeder, Spears, Webster, Winnett;
noes, Bailey, Barnes, Geisler, Mockett,
Stewart and Woodward. The council
generally settles down, after the elec
tion of new members, into two well
defined groups. It will be seen by the
foregoing that Messrs. Mockett and
Woodward have joined what was the
George Woods or administration
group. The political fate of this
group was foreshadowed both last fall
and this spring. The voters in Lin
coin have learned to be no respecters
of persons There is no reader of the
newspapers or ward worker in Lin
coln who takes the signs of the times
at first hand who has not learned that
a conviction in the minds of the pub
lic that a councilman is not voting
and planning for the good of the whole
city but for a particular section there
of for his own behalf is followed by
scratching of that councilman's name
for whatever office and on whatever
ticket it is presented to the people of
Lincoln. These reminiscences are
urged here that the salutary lessons of
history may not be neglected by those
who aspire to still further expressions
of confidence from the People.
A spacious playground has been
cleared in what is known by the well-to-do
as the "slums" of Chicago be
sure the residentsof such uncomfort
able districts never call the place they
live in slums. It is only the rich who
thus mark the distance of their own
residence from those they can not get
near enough to to help. The really in
telligent and self-sacrificing settle
ment people have learned the needs
of the poor by choosing to live next
door to them, and be poor too. These
people have found out that about
4,000 little children of the poor in Chi
cago have never seen a park, and that
their only playgrounds are the streets
and alleys. They have induced the
city council to make a playground
for the children where the children
can use it and it is full all the time of
healthful play.
There is a pathetic picture in the
June Harper's of a little colored girl
tending a sleeping baby and binding
a quilt. The verses underneath say
that she has no time for play "With
dish yere chile to mine and dish yere
quilt to bine," but all the same she is
playing all the time she is a "mammy"
and the sweet dusky face has all the
mystic pretending of childhood while
she "bines and mines." The world is
a long time in acknowledging the
rights of childhood to play time and a
play ground, but this beginning of a
session to the children of their inal
ienable long-unrecognized rights, is
an encouragement for the future.
There are little children playing in
the dirty, uninspected alleys of down
town Lincoln. Since the war began,
little tioops of five or six have made
parade grounds of the alleys littered
with swill and all kinds of illegal and
unhealthy refuse. Martialed by boys
of ten or twelve, these troops in which
there is no age or sex limit are pre
tending they are soldiers sweeping
over daisied hills, and their imagina
tion is so strong that the excitement
of a real battle-field flushes their
cheeks. These children own a play
ground that custom and commerce
has deprived them of but we ought
at least to keep the alleys we have left
them fit for their innocent fieet to
tread.
J
Governor Holcomb's treatment of
the young men who have had four
year's training by a United States
army officer is a repudiation by him of
the system established at such a cost
Ly the government. The governor has
disregarded consideration of fitness
and training in order to reward men
of his own party and by doing so has
made the commissions granted by the
government of the United States
meaningless. Every year during his
administration the governor or his
representative has presented com
missions to the young men recom
mended by the officer in charge of thy
military department at the uni
versity. On these occasions prom
ises have been made to them a
to the .positions the commissions
would entitle them to in case the
country should go to war. The moral
effect of the non-fullHllment of these
promises through the fatuous hypoc
risy of a governor in recognizing the
commissions only of those whom he
thinks will be of use in his designs
upon a third term ora still more fanci
ful offlce at Washington, will discour
age the military department at the
university. When Governor Holcomh
makes his next presentation speech,
to the keen-eyed, well set-up young
fellows who are recommended for
commissions by their commanding
officer, he will need to call an extra
amount of Pccksniflian self-satNfac-tion
to his aid to carry him through
what he calls an address.
The system now well established of
detailing a United States army officer
at institutions of learning, keeps a
body of trained young men at the call
of the government. It is better than
the German system of compulsory
military service in many ways. The
service is rendered during the years of
their college life, while the young
man whocannot afford to go to college
is not interfered with. Itproduces an
intelligent soldiery not to be matched
by the army of any other nation on
the globe. The French. English, Ger
man or Spanish soldier is inferior in
strength, patriotism and intelligence
to. this particular kind of American
soldier which the United States has
spent many millions to prepare for the
occasion which has now arisen and
which Governor Holcomb is doing
what he can to make of no avail.
Even Mr. Bryan's enemies are forced
to admit that the campaign which he
conducted himself was brilliant: that
he showed great political ability,
strength of will and power of endur
ance. But if he accepts a commission
which demands a technical knowledge
which he does not possess and for
which an endowment of brilliancy in
general cannot possibly be substituted
he will endanger his reversionary in
terest in the presidency and a, the
same time lose the confidence and