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THE COURIER.
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ideal, but better than education-for
the rich alone, a rystem of law more
or less imperfect, but supposed to ap
ply to the ricti and poor impartially,
a system of religion consisting of de
nominational interpretations of the
teachings of Christ, and a system of
limited suffrage. None of these in
stitutions are perfect and into all have
crept abuses, but take them all in all
they are the best in the world. The
people, who have developed them,
find fault with ttieir institutions and
are competent to change what be
comes useless. The discontent and
spirit of contradiction and criticism
characteristic of the American type is
not the least useful of the fashions of
thought we intend to introduce into
Manila. Probably the natives will
not be so happy, but the birth of a
soul ispainful and happiness yielded
place a long time ago to development
as the chief end of man.
As a postscript, it seems to me very
inconsistent that the preachers who
have insisted that the rationale ex
utendi of foreign missions is the
spread of Christianity and its accom
panying phases of mental freedom
shouH be the first to resist the whole
sale salvation, political and moral, of
the Philippines, through the agency
of the United States.
Itjs not clear that, meters will re
lieve tiie water department to the de
gree expected by a hopeful council.
The same number of men will be re
quired at each station, and the coal
saved will not equal the decrease in
the revenues. The meters will cost
forty thousand dollars but the council
passed this item over lightly because
the meters are to be paid for in
monthly assessments on the indi
vidual consumer. It is questionable
if the city can enforce payment for
meters which it undertakes to keep in
repair. The consumer who objects to
paying fifty cents a month for the
meters which the council insists upon
ordering his a fair chance to have his
objection sustained by the court. The
covncil was unable to resist the temp
tation to do the thing in a large way
so long as the people were to pay for
the meters directly and the sum was
not going to be subtracted from the
next year's city budget. This
princely disregard for expense is not
confined to the Lincoln city council
The board of directors of all the large
cities is nothing if not lavish. What
are they there for if not to buy, to
build, and to create employment for
voters? A patronage and importance,
.which, in their unofficial capacity,
they do not enjoy, has suddenly been
conferred upon them by trusting citi
zens and they feel that it would be a
disgrace to leave any money in the
treasury from one year to another.
Most of the people who have been
obliged to relinquish their holdings
on account of their inability to pay
taxes move away, so that their criti
cism is not to be dreaded by the coun
cilmen who have a duty to themselves,
families and neighbors to perform.
J
The' series of stories celebrating the
exposition by Elta Matheson published
by the World-Herald, are very clever
asd readable sketches. They are
written with keen humor devided so
thinly from a pathos which is never ob
truded that the moisture which occa
sionally gathers near, if not in the
reader's eyes cannot be categorically ac
CDunted for. The dramatist personal
of the stories re three young ladies,
Jess, who tells tbe tale, Jack, her broth
er, a cub whom Jeae jibes at, yet man
ages to convey the impresEion of exist
ing for, and Louies, her cousin, all
all three work for a living and keep
house for comfort's, seclusion's and com
pany's sake: The author ha the real
story telling gift that makes the reading
unconscious and her exposition saga is a
spirited impression of the show and its
audience
J
The defeat of Alderman Powers, of
the Hull House ward, in the demo
cratic convention in Chicago, is one
of the many proofs of Miss Addam's
influence. "The Commons," Dr.
Graham Taylor's oasis, is also plant
ing seeds whose fruit is integrity and
manliness and involves rejection of
such men as Powers for representa
tives. Christ did not .set his disciples
to work on the velvet lawns but in the
highways and hedges, not because the
lawns did not need attention, but be
cause of the meagre results of soul
culture among the rich. Christ
felt that labor among the rich
and self-satisfied was not worth
while considering the results to
be obtained among the poor in thirty
years. Modern disciples are apt to be
discouraged at the results of their
work but most of them have chosen
rich parishes and they must accept a
scanty yield. Camels are no smal'er
and the eyes of needles no wider, than
in the days when the doctrine of love
was first preached.
Alderman Powers had a strong hold
in the Hull House ward. He is a
practical politician who distributes
patronage with sagacity. His ear
was always open to the cry of a voter
and on election day he could point
them to the advantages of being his
constituents. All the more credit to
the workand to the influence of Miss
Addams and Dr. Graham Taylor
that their neighbors were able
to ignore the material advan
tages received from Alderman
Powers and nominate a higher type of
man who would not steal even for the
benefit of the ward, The Chicago
papers say that Powers grew almost
uncontrolablv angry when he discov
ered that he was "beaten, whipped,
defeated, crushed in the most com
plete and humiliating manner possi
ble.' A few years ago Alderman
Powers' position was unassailable. He
was king of his ward. But the healthy
public sentiment planted by Hull
House has finally defeated him. Miss
Addams herself is an inspired politi
cian and she wields an fnlhience that
Alderman Powers, cuta as lie is, un
derestimated. j
When TnE Capital City Coukieb
was first .established in 1886 by Mr.
Lew Wessel it was a six column eight
page'paper with pages of the ordinary
newspaper size. It his passed through
many changes si nee then in character,
shape, size and name In 1886 a head
ing "Talk of the Town" permitted
the editor to comment on people and
events without incurring the respon
sibility or being forced to accept the
dignity of an editorial writer. This
title was later shortened to "Observa
tions" by Mr. Smith when he pur
chased the paper from Mr. Wessel.
Many can make an observation on
men, manners and books who would
hesitate to commit the same opinions
to an editorial. Yet in spite of the
modesty of the editors of The Courier
contemporary scribblers insist upon
designating the observations on this
page as editorials. According to the.
practice followed by theoldest paper in
Lincoln, a paper which should.by this
time, have acquired some authority in
politics and journalism, an editorial
which deals with the affairs of the
city of Lincoln or of the people of Ne
braska is no editorial at nil. That
word, to all the members of the edi
rial staff of the paper, except one who
drapes his local allusions in verse,
means something a yard long, opaque,
apropos of nothing in the state or city,
and having a diffused air of superiority
to, and an aloofness from the immedi
ate affairs of the people who subscribe
for tbe paper and advertise in it. In
insisting upon such a definition of an
editorial the publishers have sacri
ficed the influence which would nat
urally accrue to them in the sphere of
life which they have elected to sur
round themselves with, to the job
office which they operate. I presume
it was because of the Lincoln variety
of editorial that Mr. Smith preferred
to call tbe contents of this page some
thing else. The present editor also
does not aspire to the dignity nor
aloofness, nor consummate precaution
of a leader writer on tbe republican
daily papers of this city, but only to
set down from week to week a few
plain direct observations on the life
we live, and the reasons why.
j
The Kansas City Star says in regard
to the Bound Robin from the troops
at Santiago, what everybody thinks,
viz:
Tbe war department ought to be in
charge of a man with sufficientenergy
and judgment to perform, of his own
accord, the duties which tbe present
secretary overlooks until his atten
tion is called to them by the disas
trous results attending their neglect.
When the companies are disbanded
at the conclusion of tbe war and
Johnny comes marching home again
without having struck a blow or fired
a gun for tbe country he was willing
to die for, he will be disappointed per
haps and discontented. Nevertheless,
the prompt enlistment of the young
men of this country has given us a
new conception of the dynamic
strength of this country and of the
devotion of its citizens. Many of tbe
youths who enlisted were college boys,
gently bred and luxuriously reared.
These boys have endured the hard
ships of a private's life without com
plaint. They were idealists prepared
to give up their innocent, hopeful
young lives for the country to whose
first call they responded with a loyal
ty tnat has given every American
worthy to belong to the same nation
with these boys a new and deeper love
for America for they are America.
They have had to content themselves
with a service of endless drills, in
cheerfully eating food against which
their gorge rose, in camping, day after
day in the alternate rain and sun, in
being sick of a fever and in obedience
and deference to superior officers of
the same social grade (or perhaps
lower) as themselves. In battle they
would have done a brave man's part.
But they were not sent into battle.
Instead these velvet handed boys have
done police dutj', made hostlers of
themselves and carried wood and
water, till theirspines were columns
of pain and all in the name of Ameri
ca. So that, when they come back
they will never be reproached for not
righting. Let no one dare to call their
service inglorious. Such devotion and
self sacrifice is not offered in vain. It
has united the north and the south,
the east and west, and enlarged the
vision and the hearts of the men and
women who have stayed at home. The
discipline and self-denial have also
made men of the boys who marched
away a few months ago. They will
never again complain of "Ma's cook
ing," and they will be better men all
the rest of their lives for having been
such good soldiers but now.
j
Promoter Hooley is not yet through
with his testimony, but he is ill and
those who are gloating over his be
tra3al of the peers who sold their
friendship to him, are obliged to wait
for further revelations. As a success
ful promoter Hooley had crowds com
posed of English peers about him
eager for a hint of the way leading to
a fortune. He has evidently deter
mined that in losing his fortune he
will not lose his lords. Tiiey are going
with him into ruin and disgrace. His
confession has caused the withdrawal
of several from clubs attended by the
Prince of Wales. All the noble lords
can say is that Hooley is a cad and is
not telling the truth. Without addi
tional evidence, of course Hooley's
word is discredited, but such docu
ments do exist and heirs to titles dat
ing from the Norman conquest are
about to be convicted of schemes
which would disgrace a hostler. Hoo
ley is doing just what everybody in
Nebraska expected Messrs. Mother and
Bartley to do. And if they had, this
little city would have been shaken to
its centre even as London is now.
J
The boys exported from Omaha to
sell the Omaha papers have a lung
capacity and brassy, resonant voices
that drown out the local newsboys and
seriously annoy the local publishers.
The Bee's bearded agent has the voice
of a professional announcer. Hi
extra resonant notes turn corners and
fill the air to the entire exclusion
of the iceman's yell, which, until this
man's arrival, has been bloodcurdling.
Now that the local papers are entirely
outyelled they begin to realize the
nuisance of the newsboy's really ear
splitting cries An ordinance' regula
ting tbe amount of noise allowed to
any one person would be greatly ap
preciated by the residents of the down
town district. Considering that news
boys of two of the city papers have
done their vocal leather-lunged best
to submerge all other noises in their
cries, the protest of these papers
against the efforts of the Bee and the
"Wurl Hurl" to sell papers here by
the same method is comic.
j
The distance between words and
phrases called idiomatic and those dis
pised as slang or argot is one of t ime
rather than quantity. For instance,
that which was slang in Shakspere's
time though he hesitated not
to use it, is classic now and
the formal pedant and ultra purist
linger lovingly on the syllables coined
by the gamins of the sixteenth cen
tury. "Every word we speak," quotes
Brander Matthews of Doctor Holmes
in the July Harper's Monthly, "Every
word we speak is the medal of a dead
thought or feeling, struck in the dye
of some human experience, worn
smooth by innumerable contacts, and
always transferred warm from one to
another.' According to Dr. Holmes'
definition slang is only new made
language with the maiks of a crude
mint and a cruder machinist still
upon it. There is a thorough winnow
ing of every season's harvest of words
and very few slip through the last fine
sieve held by stylists such as Lowell,
Emerson, Holmes, Longfellewand the
scant score of living American writers
whose approval is almost always ne
cessary before a word can have any
standing in society (the society of
writers). It is somewhat sui prising
to read in thisarticle by Mr. Matthews
on "New Words and Old," that such
words as mob from mobile vvlgus,
clumsy, inflate,. strenuous and many
other half-breed words now cheerfully
used by Brander Matthews and the
rest of the faculty were once only
affected by the vulgar Alio could not
tell a thoroughbred from a mongrel.
In the opinion of an unauthoritative
newspaper scribbler the writer who
discards from his vocabulary all of the
new symbols of the life of today,
called slang, will do at the cost of be
ing thought colorless by the next
generation, please God lie reaches it.
at all.
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