WWHMWWil
THE COURIEh,
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hi?
to bo im elderly lady of charming
manners hut entirely without, h
knowledge of parliamentary usage
and or a continued dilatory habit.
Business sessions were delayed in coin
morning because the president was
not present and they were prolonged
beyond the time of closing because
the president was ignorant of the
methods of expediting and closing
discussions. Yet so strong Is the In
lluence of position this good and
pleasant, but itnossiblc lady, who is
the wife of a former ambassador to
Germany, was reelected to the oftlce
of president. Many women are un
accustomed to consider the lltness of
a feminine candidate for the ollicc
she desires to ornament herself with,
and contrariwise are so in the habit
of voting for or against a candidate
because the woman has held the office
0:10 term and expects it again, or
because she is a lady of rank and
wealth or for some other irrelevant
reason, that these few remarks on
Mrs. Ulil's iinlitness, will probably be
considered impertinent, though no
body who was present at the St. Louis
meeting can deny their truth.
One of the most important results
of club life Is the pover of dlserlinlna
tion that women are gaining. A
president of a large society requires
executive ability. She must have
habits of promptness, of quick deci
sion and of accurate discernment.
She may have wealth, position and a
gracious presence but a president can
get along without these latter orna
ments and the former are absolutely
necessary. The musical clubs are
of more recent formation than the
literary clubs and musicians are said
to be artlsti'j and dreamy rather than
businesslike and prompt or exlgeaut
in any way. Wherefore the Amateur
club's Irresponsible president may do
no more than mildly irritate the per
formers whose numbers arc set for
ward an hour or so because she Is un
avoidably detained at dinner. Hut the
time will come and Is fast approach
ing when no woman who does not pos
sess the prerequisites of knowledge,
promptness and perfect comprehen
sion of the specltlc duties of her posi
tion can be elected to the presidency
of any federation of cluds musical or
otherwise.
The Bridal Tour.
The custom which many of the
Spring brides have inaugurated of
not going on a journey is a wise one.
It outvvlts the rice throwers and
trunk decorators, for where Is the use
of tilling a bride's hair with rice if she
Is to stay at home whero everybody
knows she is a bride without the rice.
Mr. and Mrs. Richard Harding Davis
were married In the house they were
to remain in for a few weeks after the
wedding and they on Joyed the
triumph of bidding the wedding
guests farewell. Though thinking on
the poor little brides and the badgered
bridegrooms who have been pelted
from the brldo's parents' home by
liandfulls of rice and dissolute old
shoes, It was magnanimous in Mr. and
Mrs. Davis not to throw things at the
departing guests.
The Sheriff.
The number of candidates for
county oftlces Is Increasing. Every
day a now candidate for sheriff or
clerk of the district court confidently
announces himself with the salutatory
that he could not help, it his friends
were so insistent and the supply of
really good men so short. Sheriff
Trompen expects to bo renominated
for a third term. 1 hope the members
of the convention will consider Mr.
Trompeu's character and disqualifica
tions for tlie position before making
so palpable an error as his nomina
tion. A sheriff should have a Judicial
temperament. He has, if not finally
absolute, at least immediate and
temporarily despotic authority over
helpless prisoners. If the sheriff bo a
spiteful, vindictive man who will use
his position to punish prisoners who
before their incarceration or after it,
may have offended him, he is
eminently disqualified from any
authority over Ills fellow men how
ever the latter may have offended.
There is more than one Instance In
which Sheriff Troiiipcu has used his
office to punish those who have of
fended him. For Instance, more than
a year ago The Courier, in response to
many letters from mothers and fath
ers, began an attack on the gamb
ling rooms which in spite of the law
were run openly and apparently with
out fear of the police or of the sheriff
who are employed for tho enforcement
of the laws regulating vIcc.Thn sheriff
replied to tho effect that gambling
inside the town was not his business
but that of the mayor, chief of police
and of the policemen. Later tho G.
A. It. encampment was held at the
fair grounds and gambling booths
were run as openly as cigar or pop
corn stands. The sheriff was on the
grounds but until his attention was
called to the open violation of tho law
again and again by theCourier gambl
ers were not molcsted.The real trouble
was. I have heard, that a gambling
concession had been sold to them by
the local managers of the assembly.
Such a bargain could have
had no influence upon a con
scientious sheriff, for a concession to
cheat or steal can not be sold even by
a cliurch warden. Martin Luther
knocked out indulgences a long time
ago. The reluctance with which tho
Sheriff finally advised tho proprietors
of the gambling booth that they must
stop business created a suspicion that
he had had an understanding with
the director referred to and it was
this growing suspicion that finally
forced him to order the gamblers off.
Since that time the sheriff who Is
paid u salary to see that law and order
Is enforced In this county and not for
idlng or winking ,11 crime nas re
fused to deliver to The Courier those
legal publications marked for The
Courier by the attorneys who send
them to tho sheriff's office, thus ad
mitting that he did not approve of an
influence which drove the gamblers
out of business and was willing to use
the power vested in him as sheriff to
punish a publisher who insisted that
the law be enforced.
Secondly a sheriff should have suffi
cient education to make him com
prehend the affairs and business of
men. Mr. Trompen is grossly igno
rant, with an Ignorance which nar
rows and deepens his prejudices.
There are also facts in regard to the
acceptance of Illegal fees in his ad
ministration of the sheriff's office, not
generally known to the public but
which should be carefully considered.
The City Improvement Society.
In view of the number of inquiries
concerning tho origin and work of
the City Improvement society of
Lincoln from women in other towns,
who wish to do something to clean
and improve them the president of
the Lincoln society has asked me to
print an account of it, that future
correspondents may be answered in
less time.
Tho Lincoln City Improvement
association was organized about two
years ago by Mrs. Matilda R. McCon
nell,Mrs. M. D. Welch, Mrs. II. h
Wheeler and others. They were in
duced to form such a society by the
successor similar ones In other places
and by the dirty, weed-grown, spit
covered city of Lincoln.
The society organized and elected
Mrs. McConucll as president. She
appointed committees on cleaning
streets and alleys, on waste paper and
refuse, 011 sidewalks, on sanitation, on
weeds and still another, on school
grounds. Even persons most jealous
of what they arc pleased to call the
intrusion of women Into public affairs
admit that the appearance of the
city is much Improved by the patient
and persistent work of these com
mittees. Especially has the work of
the committee on school grounds been
valuable. It has made sightly play
grounds of squalid yards, it has taught
the little children tnat the grounds
are theirs and that papers and rub
bish are a disgrace and offense. This
committee had the easiest and picas
an test work to do because children
are natural reformers and propagan
dists. They believe in a millennium
and when we become as little child
ren, they and we will accomplish it.
The children picked up the papers,
stopped making chalk pictures on
dead walls and became judges of
nicely kept grounds. The total en
rollment of public school children in
Lincoln is G.4UH and when 12,992
hands went to work picking up the
fragments of letters which the stupid
brutal, grown people continued to
scatter to the winds the city Improved
Immediately so that even the stupid,
selfish, grown people who had scat
tered papers and refuse with the re
mark that the women and children
would be pleased to have something
to do, were ashamed and especially
when the stupid people's own child
ren endeavored to show them the
enormity of the offenue they were
committing against the community.
In this work Mrs. Seamark who lives
in the neighborhood of the Park
school has been especially successful
and that school yard is one of the
prettiest nnd neatest in the city.
The Patron's Association has grown
out of these efforts to impress the
children and their parents with tho
importance and potential value of
their relation to the material city.
I he patron's association has become a
permanent institution in every school
district. The meetings bring parents,
teachers and children together and
sympathy, knowledge and love arc
fostered. The school grounds com
mittee with the help of the Patron's
association by means of school enter
tainments raised sixty dollars at the
Eliot and ono hundred and fifty dol
lars ut the Park school for the pur
chase of trjes and employment of la
bor. At the Patron's association meet
ings, refreshments are served and the
social feature of the entertainment
brings the parents of the children in
a neighborhood together and unites
them by a common bond the solic
itudo for their children. In the meet
ings the little child is in the centre
and he teaches the fathers and moth
ers the silliness and artificiality of
caste and tlie little barriers they have
chosen to erect against their poorer
or richer neighbors. For the poor
a -c often more tenacious of Irrelevant
distinctions than the rich.
In the department of street and
alley supervision the most marked
improvement has been made In tho
matter of paper. The bill-posters,
who formerly tore off tlie paper from
the boards, and thrust what would go
Into their push carts, and left the rest
to blow about the streets, have re
sponded after many appeals and some
threatening of the penalty made for
such offenses, to the society's efforts.
This reform of the bill-posters and
tho children's crusade has effected tho
most important changes In the aspect
of the city. During these two years
of city cleaning, the members of the
society have had the cordial and
cheerful co-operation of the street
commissioner and health officer. If
the street commissioner, mayor and
city council had been even passively
opposed to the object and efforts of
the society very little could have
been accomplished except with the
angelic children. Tlie side walk com
mittee was early discouraged and
accomplished little because the law
compelling lot owners to keep their
side walks in repair Is defective and
renders the ordinance inoperative.
Two years :go in response to the re
presentations of the weeds committee
the council spent five hundred dollars
cutting them down. Last summer
the council ordered the construction
of cans for waste paper and refuse.
These were placed on the busiest cor
ners and are of great service as re-
ceptacles of banana peeling, envelopes
and things that the stupid, selfish
and slovenly still throw on the walks.
However, their usefulness would be
increased if they were emptied
oftener.
Not tlie most apparent effect of the
efforts of the Bociety, but one of the
deepest importance is the under
standing of the hitherto not full
appreciated efforts of the city officials
to do the duties they were elected to
perform, but which can never be ac
complished without the co-operation
of the citizens. Heretofore the city
officials have been strangers to tho
housekeepers of the city. But tho
keeping a city clean and restraining
the disorderly from breaking tlie
ordinances is much like tlie duties or
a housekeeper and the mother of a
family. The spring elections resulted
In the election of a mayor who was
the choice of most of the housekeepers
of the city. The City Improvement
society invited him to talk to the mem- ?
bers at u recent Besaion, about the city.
Tho mayor accepted tho invitation and
talked bo sensibly and raodeBtly that
every member went homo with a now
idea of tho duties and difficulties of a
mayor and a great deal of respect for
tho dignity and powor of the office.
Thiseummor members of the council,
and exciso board, tho chief of police,
the street commiBsioner and Mayor
Winnott are to bo invited to address
the socioty. All of these men aro un
usually able and honest. It may en
courage them to know they are being
observed by tho housekeepers of tho
city and it will be of educational advant
age to the women to become acquainted
with those upon whose faithful per
formance tho suppression of vice, the
regulation of saloons aud tho protec
tion of minor boys depend. If the
City Improvement Society had ac
complished nothing moro than such an
entente cordial betwoon tho officials
and tho households of the city there
would be reason for congratulation. y
Mrs. Taylor, tho present president, of
tho society is a student of economics
and a teacher of economics in the State
university. Under her inspiration tho
society will begin tho study of city
charters and a comparative examina
tion of American and European munici
pal government including tho relative
power poBBOBBod by council and mayor,
the latter suggested by the American
tendency to centralize more and more
powor, appointiyo and executive, in the
mayor, and by the growing power or the
council in Europe.
Tho members of the City Improve
ment society feel that they have only
made a beginning. Tho city is still
very dirty, littered with papers, dis
figured by weeds, and the side walks,
public buildings and street cars are
filthy with spit. But the council is '
composed of clean, intelligent, conscien
I