VOL.13. NO. 45
ESTABLISHED IN 18
PRICE F1VB CENTS.
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LINCOLN. NBBR.. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 12,1898.
Cmtmxdin the postoiticb at lixcoln as
second class matter.
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY
BT
IE COURIER PRINTING AND PfiBLISHINGGO
Office 1132 N street, Up Stain.
Telephone 384.
tSARAH B. HARKIS,
Editor
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-OBSERVATIONS.
Manager Zehrung is being requested
through the press to require all ladies
who visit his opera house to remove
their hats or bonnets When Mr.
Zehrung makes this rule.a correspond
ing one should be made regarding
spitting. The men who complain the
loudest and most bitterly about the
theatre hats are the greatest offenders
against a primary rule of neatness
which forbids expectoration in a p'ace
where a woman's gown must neces
sarily come in contact with it.
Manual stealing is more frequently
detested and punished than the more
frequent, safer diversion of the peo
ple's money to an individual's pocket
by.conventional, legislative or politi
cal procedure. In the former case the
thief and his criminal propensities are
easily recognized. In the latter, if the
hypocrisy is deep enough, frequently
only one person is ever sure of it and
that is the man himself, who must
listen to the sentence pronounced by
his conscience or divine part of him
self all the days of his life, until the
time when it is written "and the man
died."
One of the most deplorable results
of the Cuban war is the appearance of
war articles in all the magazines. The
civil war of thirty years ago still sur
vives in the magazines. The Century
is still publishing a series of rcminis
cenees, interest in wHich is confined
to the surviving actors in the scenes
described or to technical students of
war and its conduct. The civil war
ended thirty-three years ago and the
.magazines are just beginning to warm
to their work. Thirty-three years ago
the camera was still a primitive and
cumorous machine too heavy to keep
up with the army. It has been re
ported that the Cuban campaign was
supplied with more cameras than big
guns and reporters and fancy sketch
artists were all over the scenery.
Hence if the civil war, which unfor
tunately occurred in the infancy of
photography, is still being pictured
and discussed in the magazines, how
long is the Cuban war, which has
taken place in the very ragtime of
journalism and photography, likely to
live in the magazines?
If the taxpayers who are groaning
because the taxes, insurance and re
pairs on many a piece of property
within the city limits, equal, and in
many cases exceed its earning capac
ity, would but talk with the council
men who opposed the salary reduc
tion measure introduced by Council
man "Webster, they would appreciate
the hopeless situation of the city so
long as the personelle of the council
remains as it is. Altho the pay of a
councilman is small, there are few in
the present council whose taxes are as
large as the individual salary they
draw from the city. The salary re
duction measure was received with
greatest indignation. Drawing from
the city more than they put in, they
were, with few exceptions, incensed
that the real burden bearers should
ask to be relieved from a weight which
is crushing the value out of their
property and destroying the credit of
the city. "When the income of such a
man who lives in a large house with
servants and horses and carriages and
all the supertluitics and luxuries of
life, is largely decreased, as quietly as
possible he sends away his servants,
sells his horses and carriages and shuts
up his barn until his income and ex
penses balance. The faithfulness and
worth of the servants and the sound
ness and breeding of the horses have
nothing to do with the case. The
master has not the money to pay for
these qualities and the establishment
is reduced. How different is the con
duct of the poor men who have the
city's business in hand. The measure
of retrenchment actually set tliem
spluttering with wrath because it was
suggested that the measure was in
cited by the very people upon whom
the council's extravagance bears the
most heavily, viz,; the taxpayers. The
men who pay the bills are the very
ones to suggest that the council shall
no longer allow a hundred dollars a
day more than the income of the city,
that it shall reduce the number of the
city's servants and curtail expenses
until a balance is reached. The sound
ness of such measures appeals to every
one and every body except that one.
that sits every Monday njght to
recommend and adopt the buying of
meters, the purchase of new pumps,
the employment of more firemen, the
grading of level streets, et cetera, et
cetera. There is no record that the
council has seriously attempted to
balance accounlsand reduce the $36,500
a year which will eventually increase
the taxes on property until a golden age
would have no effect upon the local sit
uation. The council is competent to
legislate the city into solvency or a
condition in which we can pay our
debts without borrowing and increas
ing a debt which must be paid by in
creased taxation.
There are other reasons why Lin
coln is bankrupt, among the largest
items of which is the lighting con
tract, and the most important of
which is the inequality of assess-'
ments. The latter is illustrated by a
card issued by S. "W. Chapman, who
ran for assessor in the Fourth
ward in the recent election. On one
side of the card was a list of some
assessed valuations in that ward,
among which were these:
Farmers and Merchants Ins. Co.
Bile.. Fifteenth and O streets $ MOO
Putnam house, two lots. Twelfth
andK . 5000
Dr. Haggard's modern house, i3(0O 600
An "old shell" next lot east 60u
Zeiger's vacant lot 10, betwee
Eleventh andTwelfth on G MO
D. E. Thompson's vacant lot, oppo
site 300
Winger's homo, northwest corner.
Thirteenth and J 1200
Hooper's four houses, northeast
corner Eighteenth and M 1200
Courtney's mansion, southeast cor
ner Eighteenth and L 600
' Double house, northeast corner
Twelfth and O 700
Vacant lot, northwest corner
Twelfth aniTG, opposite KO
D. E. Thompson's house, two lot3.
II and Fifteenth 2400
Vacant lot 2, block 153 400
Nice cottage house on lot 3, block 157 350
The fine Italian hand of MThomp
son may he inferred in the assess
ments of his property in this ward.
The building on the corner of Fif
teenth and O streets when owned by
Mr. Raymond, from whom Mr.
Thompson purchased, it was assessed
at 810,000 in comparison with its pres
ent rating of 85,000. Mr. Chapman
promised on the other side of the card
if elected "to begin at once to make a
study of the property of the ward with
a view to proper valuation, regardless
of politics or religion, race, color,
present or previous condition of finan
cial servitude of 1 he owner." An ex
amination of the list will show that
the Putnam house, a modest enough
residence on K and Twelfth streets, is
assessed at exactly the same value as
the block four or five stories high, full
of office rooms and situated on the
corner of the principal business street
and Fifteenth. The latter is certainly
many thousand dollars more valuable
than the former, though other reasons
for the disproportion will readily sug
gest themselves.
An election day will come when the
names, of democrat and republican
will be meaningless and a mayor and
council will be selected with single
reference to the business ability and
integrity of the candidates. Let us
hope that such a council and mayor
will have been elected when the elec
trie light contract is under considera
tion. At such a time neither free sil
ver, gold standard nor loyalty to the
president will bear any important re
lation to the question under consider
ation. At such a time the need of a
council and mayor which and who can
understand the relation that the debit
side of the city account book should
bear to the cash side will be immi
nent, and unless the men are there
when the hour arrives, the delinquent
tax list of the year following will
probably bear the names of all those
who have survived the present list.
The Courier has devoted columns
to the subject of oppressive taxation
in consequence of the extravagance of
the council and the subject is thread
bare enough, but so long as the city
continues to sink deeper and deeper in
debt The Courier will continue to
consider the causes until, Tor very
weariness, the council may consider
the case of the people as against their
temptations to give work to this one
and that one and to be -large purchas
ers of city supplies. The readers of
these columns are not so weary of
reading aa they are of paying the
patronage bills of the council.
Every now and then a life is spent
nobly for mankind and when it is over
and the unasked multitude gives its
verdict the cynics admit an exception
to their customary denial of the worth
of living. Colonel "Waring was one of
those conceited men who thought he
saw how and knew how to accomplish
a task that had foiled every other
man who undertook it. Like the last
prince in the fairy tale who rescued
the princess after hundreds of other
princes had only tried it and lost their
heads. Colonel Waring never doubted
the genuineness of his inspiration or
that he could waken Manhattan from
her slothful dreams. He was the
greatest sanitary engineer in the
world. Not that there may not be
others who knew as much as Colonel
"Waring knew, but lie is the only one
who. with a superb intellect, has been
able to convince thousands of average
men to trust their city to liini and
give him carte blanche to purify it.
He dared to defy the spoils system and
accomplished the expurgation of New
York by uniforming scavengers and
teaching them to believe they could
hold their jobs only by proving their
faithfulness and fitness for the work
upon which he bestowed a dignity.
Since that time the daily cleans
ing is done at less cost but Colonel
"Waring showed how it could be done,
and, of course, the system having
vitality, has adapted itself withjn
creasing perfection to its functions.
After he had cleaned New York he
was consulting sanitary engineer for
the cities of the United States. Al
though he was in receipt of a sufficient
income, Colonel Waring was too busy
drawing plans of sewers, crematories
and planning water systems, to accu
mulate the usual self-made man's for
tune, which takes more time, patience
and shrewdness than a college educa-
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