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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (April 15, 1899)
THE COURIER i largo (itiatillty of tho canned moot had maggots in it, and that tho "fresh moat" was covered with a sliino, liad an (iironsivo smell and a nauseous taste. This is all and more than fJon oral Miles complained of to the report ers and the only charge now mado by hostile newspapers is that ho should have laid the matter before the bureau which was responsible for it. That the general would not have been hooded and that such charges would only have Increased the activity of the Washington cabal against him is proven by the results of the two In vestigations. The results of the In quiry will eventually produce a better organized commissary department and a more business like method of deal ing with butchers, who. as a class, need watching, as every housekeeper knows. That the packers deal in thousands of hogs, beeves and sheep, and the family butcheronly in dozens, does not appear to have any especial bearing on the case. The wholesale and retail dealer in meat is neither better nor worse than the rest of ub when confronted with large profits and it is the duty of the United States agents to inspect their purchases. In accepting a contract to keep moat fresh in the Cuban climate . seventy-two hours, or nearly three dajs after it loft the refrigerator, the paekers relied upon the process. The fulllllmcut of such a contract in a warm, moist climate is surrounded with appalling difficulties and the packers adopted the only expedient possible in the absence of refrigerat ing conveniences. They sent for the inventor to come to Chicago and tried his process before accepting it. Not being able to try the Cuban climate and being satisfied that the curing process vns effective in Chicago, they allowed the inventor to subject the meat to his process and shipped it to the United States armv in Cuba. The department asked an impossibility and 1 cannot see that the packers arc to be blamed for resorting to what they hoped would keep the meat eatable if not palatable. Anyway, it was a choice between no meat at all or pre served moat. The responsibility for the canned meat is another question. President Eliot of Harvard college in introducing General Miles to the audience assembled under the auspices of the Harvard Republican club said to the students: "It is not because General Miles is a doctor of laws of Harvard university that you have come to this place to day. It is because you would like to see a man who bus many times faced mortal peril for his country. Many of the men who enlisted from this uni versity last spring did so partly be cause they wished to see what that experience was like Hut after all, this ability to keep one's bead and to look after the needs of ones self and others in moments of mortal peril is something that many men can cul tivate. Cowardice is rare in our race. There is, however, a higher kind of courage, which, at the expense of calumny and obloquy, seeks feerlessly to make known the truth. And this is the sort of courage which General Miles has shown during the last four months " y Mother Maturln is the name of a novel written by Rudyard Kipling in India when the newspaper publishers were in the habit of calling him "a clever young pup," or "a smart youth." .'n 188(1 he had three hundred and fifty foolscap pages of its manu scriptwhich means much in his neat writing, though it was not so small in those days as it is now lying at the bottom of a bruised tin tea box. It has not been published, though his youthful dreams of distinction were founded on the elTectsof this book. In regard to it he wrote to a friend: "Let us depart our several ways In amity. You to Fleet street (where I shall come when 1 die if I'm good) and I to my own place, where 1 find heat, and smells of oil, and spices, and puffs of temple incense, and sweat, and darkness, and ('lit, and lust, and cruelty, and bovo all-things won derful and fascinating innumerable. (Jive me time, give me seven years and three added to them and abide the publishment of "Mother Maturin.' Thomas Edwin Smith, a former resident of Lincoln, has written a book entitled, Political Truth. The 11)4 pages arc dcvlded into twenty three chapters and the chapters are com posed of cpigramatic paragraphs con taining much in little. Under the heading "Politicians" Mr Smith says, among other things: "Few political schemers of ability, scheme for the wellfare of the masses. Nothing, not even conscience, will otand in the path of the experienced and ambitious manipulator. The person having the faculty to outwit the majority can Haunt defiance in the face of corporate power. Most manipulators are as blind to individual personality as jus tice Is supposed to be. However they have a keener eye to money. A politi cal idol invariably permits himself to bo spoiled. An expert wire puller's support usually comes high, but it is worth any reasonable price. All pub lic dictator's will soon or late be known as "dead uns," and there is no escape. Some people In politics have become great through no fault of their own. When a man in politics is the most powerful he is in the greatest danger." The shrewdness and truth of the epigrams are apparent to the politi cian and to those acquainted with the politician and his ways. Mr. Smith collected the experiences which he has crystallized in Political Truth in Lincoln. To the practical and the actual politician the book is of great value in supplementing and confirming experience. As a com mentary on human nature it is not what may be termed stimulating and encouraging. The chapters are headed, As To Politicians, Candidates, Otlice Holders, Courts and Lawyers, The People in Politics, Corporations In Politics, Saloon Men in Politics, Women in Politics, Police in Politics, As to Churches, Taxpayers, Newspa pers in Politics, In Relation to Labor, Concerning Stump Speeches, Concern ing Conventions, Primaries, Party Bolters, Assessors, Corporation Tools, Appointive Officers, Concerning the Lobby, and the Blessed in Politics. It is too late to call Mr. Bryan's at tention to the account of the Lord's supper given in Matthew XXVI., 20-25: "Now when the even was come, he sat down with the twelve. And as they did eat he said, Verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me, Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said." Mr. Bryan said: "What the Lord's supper is to a Christian, a .rollerson lan banquet is to a democrat; and a good Christian would object to the presence of an inlldel at the supper." Rut Judas, the silver man, was suf fered to eat at the table with his Lord and while betraying him he reached out for the sop. i 00MMMdC00080MM0 1 ASPIRATION. Upon the breast of some vile scum-clothed pool Pure lilies lift their cups of lustrous white; They struggle through the death-engendering slime To bath their stainless petals in the light. William Reed Dunroy. Tiik Coukikk is for salo ut tho lend ing nowBBtHnd. Subscription price for one year is 81. 'Phono 384. 8 THE PASSING SHOW: f W I LLA GATHER f V V W V WW w WW WWWWlFWWrW 9 WWWw rTnTVV WWW To Edmond Rostand: "What strange and apt affinities to vex Our souls do terms of trades diverse disclose) If Archer won the Derby by two necks, Certes you've won the laurel by a nose." George Seibel. Richard Mansfield has boon with ub in Cyrano do Bergerac, tho play of tho ond-of-tho-century. A while ago tbo world on this sido of the water know very littlo of tho play; two years ago few of us had 9ver heard M. Rostand's name. Today his namo and play are on every one's lips. He found his welcome ready for him. The world had waited a long time for M. Rostand, eo long that many people declared that he would not come at all, that tho rhymed play was a thing of the past, that poetry and the stage wero forever divorced, and that the romantic drama was dead in France as elsewhere. It seemed tor a time as though the shadow of Therese Raquin would forever brood over tho French theatre, as though Dumas' menage a trois would furnish thomes for the plays of all time, and that in the woman with a past lay the future of the drama. It took but a poet and a play to change all this. M. Rostand did more than write a great acting play, he aroused a dor mant sentiment, turned the tide of popu lar taste, made the world some years younger and a little happier. Certainly M. Rostand was moBt oppor tune in the day of bis coming. The literature of unbelief had fortified itself behind the footlights, Its chieftarje bore down upon us from the south and from the north: DumaB and Zola in France, Ibsen, Sudermann, Hauptman and Maeterlinck in the north, and Pinero in England. With what a gloomy company had they peopled the stage, with what consummate art had they ciBgnoBed the diseases of the human soul and laid bare the wounds of tho heart! When by any chance Romance crept into any of these grim dramas, it wbb an imprisoned spirit, like the wild ducks in Ibsen's play, shut up in a dark garret where the sun never shown and the winds never blew, wounded and a captive among tho dry, dusty pine trees and tho stupid hens. If the note of poetry ever sounded at all, it was the terrible music of Hauptmann's sunken bell, Bunk deep in the morass of wretch edness and crime and doubt. Thestugo bad bocomo more forbidding than the pulpit of the Reformation. It wae the Iron Age of tho thoutto. Then one flno morning when tbo lurks were in tune, over came this "Cyrano" from France, with tho invincible sword in his hand and a wonderful eong on his lips and a chivulrouB puEsion on bis heart. Rut to us hiB namo was Romance, como back from tho fubulouB fields after half a cen tury, and wo turned to him with one ac cord and cried like Ro.xano that wo could love him "ugly, disfigured, gro tesque,'' that tbo whole tired world was listening for that song, hungry for that passion. Strango, too, that tho noblest arc! puroBt ami most hopeful play of iho contury should come from France from PariB. A very just robuko to Anglo Saxon bigotry. No wondor that Sar coy, ufter watching a whole lifetime for this play, wrote: "What joy! At last wo aro going to get out of tho Scandinavian fogs, rid of psychological detail and brutal realism. The glad sun of old Gaul shines again after a long night. This thrills the huurt; it warms our blood!" Yob, tho Latin biood, tho "sun of old Gaul," that shone in Hugo und Maupas sant and Dandet, it haB come again, bringing joy not only to M. Surcoy and that favored land, but to every humble lover of tho incomparable literary art of Franco. And this Edmond Rostand, this "great man of thirty,'' born on April fool's day, who, youug, rich, handsome, with tho mo3t beautiful wifo in Paris, finds it worth whilo to "scorn delights and livo laborious days, what of him? Four or tive years ago a singer sent mo a copy of his first play, "La Princess Lointoine," from Paris. I wrote a lengthy review of it, I believe for tho State Journal. The piocn waB played by Mmo. Bern hardt and failed because it was a poem and not a play. Coquelin first mot him in Bornhardt's atelier and pledged him self to play any part that this young man Btould write for him. As he re marked afterward, he had never hoped to bo able to make such a. promise. The actor himself has related what a life this furiouB young genius led him. For weeks ho would disappear entirely and Coquelin would hear nothing of him. When one mot Madame Rostand and sought information from her, sho would say only, with a despairing gesture, "He writes in tho day, in the night. He writes: that is all." Poor Mine. Rostand. Then some morning ho would burst in upon Coquelin before the actor was out of bed and begin declaiming his verses, reading a scene he had just completed. Coquelin, catching his enthusiasm, would leap out of bed and wrapping himself in his bath robe, seize tho poker and begin to rehearse. He would com mit the Bcene and begin working out all his "points," and then next week this devil of a Rostand would dash in to tell him that the scene would not do at all, that he bad torn it up and written an other. "But," said Coquelin, "1 could afford to be patient, for I had ben wait ing for that fellow thirty years." I think France may fair! say of him as Zola Baid of Maupassant: "He is one of our own, a Latin of good, clear, solid head, a maker of beautiful sentences shining like gold, pure ae the diamond. A child of the great writers of France, a ray from the good sun that fecundates our soil, ripens our fines and corn " The more conservative critics, the few voices worth listening to in tho chorus of cheap and meaningless adulation that followed the American production of the play, were not unqualified in their praise of it. They stated, truly enough, that it is in essence melodrama, a play of situations rather than of character; melo-drama picturesquely placed, folic itouely presented, speaking in verso the like of which has not been written these last flve-and-twoLty years, but still melo drama, depending upon external embellishments for its greatest effects. The characters do not dovolopo with the action of the play. Of "Cyrano" him self wo know nothing now af tor the third act, and "Roxane" has not character enough to bo greatly developed at any time. Out of tbo hoit of minor person ages, fovv of them lmvo individualities Bufliciontly marked to be at all memora ble. ThiB is a play with u very long cast, but there oro few people in it. "Cyrano's" friond "Li Bret," for in stance, is scarcely a character at all, but a mere dovico to draw out tho hoco's confldonc-jB, whilo in Sbaksporo's play to which this ono has been compured, "Romeo's" confidant, "Mercutio," is as comploto and vivid a character as "Ro meo'' himsolf. "Juliet's" nurse will ever romnin ono of tho moat delightful and veritob'o of comedy characters, whoroaB "Roxano'a" duenna is a raoro shadowy convenience. Certainly tho insipid "De Guiche," though ho speaks twice as muny HneB, cannot be for a moment compared with the fiery "Tybalt." Even "tho noble County Paris," who is as woodon a man as Shakspero over made, haB more of tho breath of life in him than most of RoBtand's gentlemen, S