nM"
VOL.33. NO. 43
ESTABLISHED IN 1M
PRICE FIVE CENTS.
9"
z , VVjsiMfc'Lx . f . S
LINCOLN. NBBR.. SATURDAY. OCTOBER 29, 1898.
EXTESXDIX TBX POSTOFTICK AT LIMCOLK At
SECOND CI. AM MATTER.
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY
TIE G08RIER PRIRIIK D PIBUS1IIK 50
Office 1132 N street, Up Stain.
Telephone 384.
SARAH B. HARMS,
Editor
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S
3 OBSERVATIONS.
1
Thft discredited Post has been re-
Tived, but, to judge from its four
pages of typographical errors, its lack
of readable matter and the predomin
ating presence of plates its reappear
ance is only temporary. The adver
tisers who supplied the pianos and bi
cycles for the contes's and who agreed
p take their pay in advertising, the
compositors and reporters lo whom
the old company owes wages, will make
the establishment of credit by a com
pany under that name more than
usually difficult. When Mr. Schwind
went to war he turned over the assets
and the debts to Mr. Edmonds, but be
fore leaving town he ordered enough
merchandise from the largest adver
tisers to balance their account with
the Post. The new publisher lias re
fused to pay the union scale to several
compositors, which explains the very
slovenly appearance of the sheet. Each
of the important political parties, for
the sake of balance, should be jour
nalistically represented in every com
munity, DUt it is questionable if a
paper with the history and cheap
characteristics of the Post, can do any
thing but injure the political party it
represents.
To kill seems in many cases to be a
consequence of loving. The pscychol
ogists pretend to understand love.
They have named the various stages
and ascribed the varied forms of mani
festation to the classified tempera
ments. But the explanations fail to
explain why a lover who invests his
mistress with attributes not common
ly possessed by mortals and who pro
fesses to prefer her happiness to his,
should on receiving an intimation
that she loves another man decide to
shoot her. The number of innocent
and lovely girls shot every yeir by
gorilla young men is pitifully large.
Girls of good judgment invariably re
ject crackbrained lovers of the kind
who shoot when they are disappointed.
No means of defense has been sug
gested. Men of equal strength deal
ing with such selfish cowards save
their own lives by shooting first, but a
young lady cannot go armed so soon
as she acquire two beaux. The young
lady who was shot in Omaha recently
was the support of an invalid mother
and her death will entail suffering
upon the helpless.
After the shooting the police and
reporters were called in. One of the
latter discovered the address of the
murdered girl's mother and hurried
off to interview her. Before inform
ing the mother that her daughter
was dying he relates in his report that
after persistent questioning be in
duced her to acknowledge Melchert's
attentions to her daughter and the
existence of another beau. Mean
while the daughter was breathing her
last at the hospital, but the reporter
got his copy at the cost of the chance
of the last words and look from the
daughter to her mother and the taw
dry reporter, unconscious of bis crime,
boasts of his acuteness in outwitting
the dying.
Club women are becoming more and
more interested in economic and in
dustrial questions. The first clubs
were undoubtedly a concerted protest
by a select few against the monotony
of afternoon teas and other functions
which lead nowhere in particularand
are better than nothing only because
all expressions of the social instinct
are, to a certain extent, civilizing.
When a woman prepares to meet
others she washes her face, puts on
one of her best frocks, or the only one,
as the case may be, puts out of her
mind fretful thoughts and considers
how she can aid the hostess of the
approaching occasion to make it suc
cessful by diffusing happiness. This
preparation of the face, the body and
the spirit is altruistic. No thoroughly
selfish egotist was ever a successful
society woman. In order to be a wel
come guest she must spend time
thinking of the best way and words to
put others at ease and far more time
conquering momentary impulses to
say things which may settheskeletons
in many closets to rattling. There
fore and for many other reasons it is
not intended to underestimate the in
stitutional value of society.
But one season of afternoon and
evening functions is enough to teach
a quick witted woman where lie the
rocks upon wh!ch many a pleasure
party has gone to pieces. With the
compass of intuition carefully insu
lated a leader of society finds the point
of least resistance in the most stolid
company and sets it to talking glee
fully, quite unconscious of the hand
on the wheel and the rudder which
really swerved it into the right cur
rent. The perfection of such leader
ship is rare but it is as necessary to
society as a pilot to a ship entering a
harbor full of reefs. By "society" no
particular group large or small in any
place is referred to. but the gathering
together of rich and poor, black and
white, in groups whose composition
is determined or has been by neigh
borhood, sympathy, or some other
agent of selection. If life were longer
we might develope the salon in this
country, that peculiarly French insti
tution of which Madame Recainier
was the most perfect flower, but we
have never cultivated conversation
and the science of society here. The
hostess who invites a company of
friends invariably provides some
mecuanical means of amusement as
cards, or dancing, or puzzle work of
some kind. All of which are very
well, only it is a commentary on our
lack of interest in each other tliac we
do not dare allege the desire to meet
and sharpen oil wits and try our fas
cinations upon each other as the cause
of meeting.
The earliest women's clubs were,
then, a protest against the waste of
time, first of the hostess who must
still perplex her mind to think of
something new for her entertain
ments, and secondly, from the guests
who inoculated with the spirit of the
nineteenth century renascence, wish
to spend what time is left in the cul
ture .of the mind. The club satisffes
the gregarious longings and stimu
lates the mind and emotions simul
taneously. With a program and a
constitution and officers a club re
lieves the hostess of responsibility and
gives an intellectual aspect and name
to social gatherings. For the con
scientious club member it does more
than this, in reviving a love for learn
ing and investigation, which, if cir
cumstances permit, will surely lead
her back into college life. Where cir
cumstances are not favorable univer
sity extension lectures and courses
offer a valuable substitute For the
community, clubs raise the standard
of intelligence and seriousness and
should quicken thesense of citizenship
in its broadest meaning, especially
since the original aristocratic move
ment has expanded until the club is
open to every woman who wishes to
join it.
Kipling's story of how the new
steamship found herself is an allegory.
When the ship reached the open
waters every rivet, bolt and beam,
each separate part of the machinery,
protested that it was bearing more
than its share of weight and doing
more than its share of work, but
steam kept them all moving or re
sisting the pressure, just as the build
er had planned, and soon each did its
part without any complainingsqueaks.
The social organism is a vast piece of
machinery planned to accomplish
what does not end with life. But the
parts do protest too much and we do
not perform our humble bnt essential
functions smoothly.
Woman has been too much in the
habit, as Saint Jane Addams says, of
considering herself separately as a
mother, wife or sister, and not ra
cially as a rivet or bitof enginery that
cannot refuse to bear its proper re
lation to the whole without retarding
the progress of the noble ship of life.
The club, especially the unlimited
club, inevitably leads a woman to see
that she is a part of jmething. Thus,
she Is a member of a club which is a
unit in the state federation and also
one In the general federation. So a
thoughtful club woman cannot be in
sular or provincial. She moves about
with a larger sense of the wholeness
or life and a wider vision. When the
developmentof clubs had proceeded far
enough the stage was marked by the
organization of village and city im
provement associations -the first for
mal recognition by women of the
duties of citizenship.
At every biennial meeting of the
genera' federation of women's clubs,
the number of addresses and papers on
municipal and industrial topics lias per
ceptibly Increased. Women have begun
to take notice. The period of infancy
is past. I recall only one purely lit
erary session at the Denver biennial
and that was the evening occupied by
Miss Agnes Repplierand Mrs. Ruth
McEnery Stuart in reading an essay
and s-ime stories. The meaning of it
is that we have not time to study
literature orh.story exclusively. We
shall not pass this way again and
women must work together and with
a will to straighten and smooth tha
path for those who come after us that
they may more effectually help the .
weak of their time
The City Improvement association
of Lincoln would be more effective if
all women belonged to it. Any popu
lar organization with an unlimited
membership clause is a constant ob
ject lesson of the strength of unity and
of the individual's need to realize all
sorts and conditions of men. Just as
a man and woman can keep house to
gether better than apart, the city
needs the minute oversight of women
as well as the business judgment and
direction of men. Although the for
mer have not been invited to help
them, like the Red Cros3 nurses they
should insist, and in the end their
work will be recognized.
At the last meeting of the city coun
cil the street commissioner was, on
the motion of Mr. Mockett, a republi
can member of the council from the
Sixth ward, instructed to grade W
street from Twenty third street to
Twenty seventh street, and Twenty
sixth street from W street to the Mis
souri Pacific right of way. For the
grading of these streets there is abso
lutely no necessity but that fact ap
pears to have no influence with the
c