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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 27, 1898)
V I-V.TW -" -St- jig's-,.- ST-fr,-' " IS-, . ?- s? ip-v-- friv, srfjsi.-. vr y'Tv-rf ,,H:-n-.lmtmm, J" ' " 'I I1" '. P . . . - - . fe - .J ""'V'X'- 'S ' r , v 1 rTf V- f i srr VI s3". "" ."'' V , VC-T - , .- , .- ? 2 THE COURIER. I fc --. is. I v f I"1 'In ject of assembling is recognised as be ing something greater than the nat ural stimulus that individuals en gaged in the same work receive from meeting together in large numbers, the expense, the long journeys and the sturm und drang over the offices are not worth while Thecultureand stimulus can be secured at a smaller outlay of money and of vital force, but the organization, because it in cludes everybody with an inclination for culture, and Lecause from the president to the humblest member of the most obscure club, the chain is unbroken, is one of the strongest or ganizations in existence. The mem bers have begun to study economics and industrial questions. For the first time their impotence, their lack of real influence on remedial legisla tion has been made apparent to women who have always claimed that they have all the rights they want or can "use. With the growth of the general federation the diffused sentiment, which is still rapidly crystallizing, wil1 have a medium of expression of suffi cient size and impress! veness to catch the eye of the politicians. The im portance of sustaining the general federation is therefore apparent. It is rarely that a speech delivered by a popular president to the organ! over which lie has presided for two years, is more impressive in print than when it wis delivered. But such iB the case with Mrs. Henrotin's ad dress. Without any of the sopho morical sentimentalities which weak en many addresses of women, Mrs. Ilenrotin's speech was the expression of an unusually intelligent, brave and honest woman as to the meaning of club association and federation. Two paragraphs, the one characterizing the four meetings of the general federa tion, and the other concerning the new importance of industrial ques rions to women, are subjoined: "The question before the world to day is correlation of forces. Each Biennial of the general federation has been marked by a distinct step in this movement; the first Biennial, of 1892, by organization; the second, of 1894, by the movement toward state federa tions;the third, of 1896. by the co ordination of educational forces; and the fourth, of 1898, marks what I fore see will be a distinct advance in the line of the federation endeavor, the co-ordinating of the forces of social life in other words, the raising of the standard of the average life and the effort to bring into it ail the things which go to make up well-being and harmony in a word, to emphasize the unltvoflife. "The department of industrial con ditions as affecting women and chil dren is another sign of the enlarged view of the clubs. Many of the mem bers, in fact the larger part, are home makers, heads of families, but they have studied sociology to some pur pose and know that it is quite as im portant for them to apprehend the economic and the financial condition of "women as for the woman who is struggling in the competitive labor market; that it is as necessary for the woman in her own home that her sis ter worker should receive a liberal wage and work under sanitary condi tions as for the worker herself; that the well-being of her family is linked with the well-Deing of every other human being. Phillips Brooks speaks of the miracle of the advancing clvili zotion whose purpose is not to do away with struggle, but to make the conditions of struggle fair and the prospect of struggle hopeful; and he adds that in the spirit of this miracle we must throw ourselves into the world's work with 'diffused intelli gence, mutual respect and brotherly kindness.' ' In seeking public opinion on the subject of the retention of the Phil ippines, the president has complicated the situation instead of simplifying it. Every man who has an opinion on the subject believes, or says he be lieves, (the two are not identical) that the country agrees with him. Public opinion may be guessed at by the headlines to the telegraphic news and by the editorials in the newspapers. Both of these departments reflect the personal opinions of the publishers of newspapers Whether the publishers express more than their own opinion depends upon the character of the editors and the quality of their in spiration. It was unsafe, for instance, during the last presidential campaign to judge of Mr. Bryan's strength by the newspapers, for be had very few on his side. It is also impossible to judge of the sentiment in favor of trades unionsand of a change in social and commercial policy by the news papers. On the question of the Phil ippines they are about evenly de vided. The New York Sun, which has a more valid claim to represent ing the sentiment of intelligent people than any other newspaper in this country, advocates expansion by the acquirement of the archipelago of the Philippines and the islands of the West Indies, and there are many other great dailies which concur with the Sun. On the other ban! Harper's Weekly, the Bos ton Transcript, the Kansas City Times, the San Francisco Call and in numerable other papers are doing their utmost to convince the presi dent and congress that the possession of the Philippines would increase taxation and bring the United States in frequent conflict with European powers, without conferring any corre sponding benefit upon this country Meanwhile the president has an nounce bis intentiou of finding out what the country really wants and then of doing it. If our beloved and clever president can separate an ar ticulate direction from the roar and babble of the various societies, from the politician's advocacy of both re nunciation and expansion, and from the crackle of the great dailies, he has indeed superhuman intelligence as well as patience. j The notion that God made thecoun. try and man made the city is responsi ble for the bad reputation of a metro politan existence. All the reforms that have made the world a more whole some place to live in have started in the city and have been encouraged by its citizens. The sanitary arrange ments on many farms in this country would not be tolerated in the slums of any large city and as to the treatment of animals, by farmers who consider themselves enlightened and who look down upon city folks as more or less depraved, it is frequently barbarous. For instance, farmers will leave a team of horses "bitched all day to a post without watering them or feed ing them. They will let a faithful, affectionate dog trot after their team in the dust and the heat. Ihey will glance unsympatbetically at his blood shot eyes, at his lolling tongue, and his trembling limbs, nor think of invit ing him into the wagon where there is room and to spare. The sufferings of farmer's nones hitched about the city these hot days are most pitiable. Where the tail will not reach the sen sitive skin of the horse is covered by flies who bite until the tortured ani mal is ready to roll on the ground to rid himself of the plague. The face is also a sensitive spot and is entirely without protection. City horses have nets over the body and ears and a lit tle fringe depending from the high forehead which runs into the nose be fore you know it, that the horse uses to dislodge the flies with. But the large majority of horses sealed to the posts around market square, unshaded from the torrid sun of the last few weeks, are left without any protec tion from the flies. The carriage horses of the city are tolerably well protected, though there is hardly a horse nose or a face or a forehead (it is anatomically difficult to be accu rate) in the city which is sufficiently protected. Men who are. constantly surrounded by animals and birds, by field flowers and the scent of growing things, are singularly indifferent and unresponsive to all these things. The labor which is necessary to make the earth yield an increase may blind him to the color and music and odor of the sky and the sod. In the lonesome trail of the plowhorse be forgets that the uncomplaining beast is burned by the sun. bitten by insects and tortured by thirst, even as he is who sets his hands to the p'ow. If the driver might feel the scorch of the heavy whip and the quivering of theN over-strained muscles which the dumb, sorrowful eyes of many a horse reveal to the horseless man or woman who can only pity Ihem, the beasts might live an easier life. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has done as much for men as it has for quadrupeds in enlarging their insight and strength ening their understanding of God's creatures. No city in civilization needs a flourishing branch of the S.P. C. A. more than Lincoln, which is en tirely surrounded by country. God created Indifference to athletic?, among others, was one of the causes of the crumbling vitality of Greece and Rome, when those splendid oratorical resorts finally went to pieces. The development of cookery and home economics, the increase in the luxury and warmth of the baths, the in creased number of orders deposited with sculptors of the nude and a neg lect of football and other martial pur suits, enfeebled the once sturdy Ro man youth who grew to think life a matter of divans, statues, inlaid floors, plashing waters, music and lissome maidens. When the coarse-skinned, hairy-chested, not very clean Goths descended upon the Roman sissies, they found them entirely unprepared for such rudeness and Rome was di vided up by the unwashed and the clean little white boys they allowed to live were giyen menial jobs far away from the luxury they counted essen tial to happiness. From that time to this the neglect of athletics is a sure rign of decadence of manliness. The stages are marked by self conscious and subjective literature and art and a steadily decreasing physical activity. From all these signs of national lazi. ness may we be preserved. Thetime.is not one from which to draw a moral, but encouragement. Golf and tenni8 are increasing in popularity daily and they are not effeminate pastimes that the young man who thinks more of his creases and finger nails (though both are proper objects of reverence) than he does of bis muscle can follow. It has come about in tbe develop ment of American social life that the young woman regards the summer season of fishing, riding, tennis and golf playing with more favor than the winter season of dancing and card playing. In consequence the New York season is being shortened at both ends. In tbe very early spring before the snow has gone, society takes possession of its summer home and begins to bunt, and in the fall it plas golf till nearly the twenty-fifth of December. The triumphs of Miss Louise Pound in tennis are a credit to the western girl, so thoroughly in touch with the new expression of what is best and wholesomest for young men and women. The spirit :nd vigor of her playing have won the admiration of the large audiences who have watched the games on the Chicago courts and her Nebraska friends are proud of the distinction she has so pluckily won. J In regard to the admission of new territory the "Sauntcrer" suggests: I suggest that a constitutional amendment should provide either, (1.) That no territory suall be admitted as a state except by a two-thirds vote of the citizens of the United States at a general election, or (2.) That no ter ritory shall hereafter be admitted as a state except by the affirmative votes of two successive congresses, votes by two different sessions of the same congress to be considered invalid. Perhaps the two votes of congress would be a sufficient protection, as a popular election would, of course, in tervene. If so, the plan would be less cumbersome and expensive than a vote by the people. My present purpose is to suggest the subject for discussion rather than to advocate any specific plan. We are about to wade in very deep waters, and we should keep tight hold of the life lines of the constitu tion. jt One of the unquestionable advan tages of the present war is that it will retire Stephen , Crane, who went to Greece to report the Greco-Turkish mill for a New York paper and sent back copy filled, not with descriptions of the soldiers and battlefields, but of the effect which the color of blood and the eyes of dying men had upon him self, or the color ota Greecian sunset, of the hundred irrelevant trifles which a trivial mind will hold while about him men are being killed and nations subdivided. The Red Badge of Courage is a subjective account of a battle fought by a cowardly yokel, so occu pied with the effect upon himself of color and other men's wounds that he ran away and when he met a dying soldier forebore to give him a drink in order to have time to analyze his own morbid and coward soul. When the book appeared men who had never been to war exclaimed that it was a realistic account of a battle and that the soldiers on both sides in the civil war were like the feeble boy to whom Stephen Crane had loaned his own egotistic retreating soul. Now that Americans have seen war, have seen boys, cheerfully and altogether ob jectively, march up a hill under a rain of real shot and shell, they will con fess, if they ever think of Stephen Crane and his poor little degenerate book, that it is not at all like the reat thing. And the rout of Stephen Crane, who, has been trading on an ability he was supposed to possess, is a very satisfactory victory to those who are obliged to read the papers and magazines. Like a dish or garlic on a table filled with palatable food a story by Stephen Crane spoils the flavor of the other pages. Without the ability of the tymbolistes he shows their mor bid exaggeration of the senses of see ing, smelling and feeling. He mag nifies the interest people who have learned how to read have in his exer cise of these senses and the effect they have upon him. He is a bore to whom we do not owe tolerance and this long philippic is inconsistent, especially as he has been retired. Dolly-Can we take our bicycle to heaven with us? Mamma No. Dolly Then papa won't be aoie to scorch. Mamma Yes, he will. r v