The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903, May 27, 1899, Image 1

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VOL. XIV. NO. XXI.
KST ABLISHBD IN 1880
PK1CE FIVE CENTS
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H I J Br M
LINCOLN, NBBK., SATURDAY, MAY 27, 18l)i).
Entered in the tostokfice at Lincoln as
second clahs matter.
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY
-nx-
THE COURIER PRINTING AND PUBLISHING GO
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Telephone 384.
SARAH B. HARRIS, Editor
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publication if advisable,
:
OBSERVATIONS.
1
.M.
What We'll do to Dewey.
After nil it is very little we can do
to express our gratitude and hero
worship to Admiral Dewey. We can
cover our towns with bunting, employ
all the brass bands within reach,
invite him to dreary hotel banquets,
where, on account of the number
simultaneously served, the courses
reach the table covered with goose
pimples, and after the exhaustion of
eating impossible meats and salads
force him to make one speech and
listen to a dozen more, and when he
gets oil' a train, or appears on the
street either in a carriage or on foot,
we can cheer and shriek at him, until
his travel-tired nerves quiver in re
sponse. We can do all this, and we
will do It just as soon as his reserved
New Englanff shoe touches the New
York pier. There is nothing con
sidered more complimentary by the
American people than to get together
in a vast crowd and yell at somebody.
It has been suggested that a grate
ful people buy or build Admiral
Dewey a house. Such a gift would
constitute a more genuine and un
selfish test of appreciation than the
yelling referred to, because It re
quires very little to start a chorus of
that sort and wo tako such pleasure
in it that most anybody can inspire
it, outside of Nebraska. We are a
silent, saturnine people in Nebraska,
careful not to exhibit unwarranted
enthusiasm over a diva that takes
our breath away with her singing, or
over an orator, who can turn the east
into a howling mob, or over car loads
of soldiors, who in their journey from
li o Atlantic to tho Pacific slope have
been greeted at every little town by
the American yell, until the train
crossed the boundary line into Ne
braska. After the battle of Blenheim, the
Duke of Marlborough was presented
with a castle by Queen Anne ant'
parliament and the Duke called it
Blenheim. The American people
might give a house to Admiral Dewey
and request him to call it Manila.
Such a testimonial would last longer
than cheering and longer even than
a hotel banquet, and be a witness to
the travelers who come after "us, like
the piles of stones erected bv the
children ot Israel in their journey
through the wilderness, of a memora
ble occasion and a great man.
Little Americans
.lohn F. Bass in Harper's Weekly, a
paper opposed from the lirst. to an
nexation, expansion or any degree of
enlargement, says, in writing from
ttie Filipinos:
"Indeed the one danger in the
situation here is that public senti
ment in tlic United States will in
terfere with the prompt and rapid
progress of the war The
time for compromise has gone by.
We can never take tho present Fili
pino government Into our conildence.
A new set of natives must be put at
the head of any native government
established here, and in order to do
this the force of Aguinaldo and his
party must be .broken. Nearly all
the conservative Filipinos left him
when a breach with the United
States was imminent. At present he
is surrounded by the very worst ele
ments among the Filipinos. Any
negotiations with the insurrectionists
today, ttierefore, will encourage these
men to make exorbitant demands and
ultimately may mean death of ttie
thousandsof misled Fillpinosas well as
many of our own soldiers. Any com
promise will mean the triumph of
the lawless party and in the end an
infinity of trouble. Let us show that
firmness and energy which might
have prevented this outbreak if used
eight months ago. For if we vacil
late now, Isee nothing but dark days
ahead for the Filipines
Occasionally a woman with her child
renoran old man sat disconsolately
near a heap of smouldering ashes; ao
I rode through mile after mile of this
desolation the conclusion forced it
self upon me, that our government
with its weak, vacillatory policy and
want of tact, and Aguinaldo and his
followers, with their nagging trlcki
ness, and their misrepresentation of
our every act, would be called to
account for all this destruction, when
history, In cold blood shall write the
truth. Either we must show we aro
stronger than thl3 people or get out of
the islands. Otherwise how can we
hope to establish any government
here?"
Tills from a correspondent of a paper
strongly opposed to American suprem
acy in the Filipines to a paper with
which he is in harmony, is fairly good
evidence as to the character of Aguin
aldo and his followers and the high
lumped course which It is absolutely
necessary this country should pursue
there. All the correspondents arc
unanimously of the opinion that
Aguinaldo Is working for his own
exaltation and does not know Inde
pendence from absolutism. American
belief in the insurrectionists is hut
(liscouragenlng the lovers of law and
order in the Filipines and lessening
the faith they have in the United
States as a strong government and
the ultimate source from which in
depence will come.
The Strategical Filipinos.
The telegraphic reports and sol
dlei.V letters from the Filipines aro
invariably encouraging. They say
Aguinaldo, Del Pilar and the other
Insurgent commanders "wish to sur
render'' that "the insurgent army is
utterly demoralized'' et cetera, et
cetera. Yet on the very next day the
lirst pages of the daily papers are full
of reports of a battle witli these same
discouraged and disorganized Fili
pinos who have killed Americans by
the hundreds since the insurrection
began. After all, they are very clever
fighters, and dig their trendies just
in front of a cover of timber into
which they retreat before the Ameri.
can charge which is all in the open,
and beyond the timber and another
open stretch the Filipinos dig another
trench from whicii to fire at the
Americans. In consequence, the
American campaign lias been a scries
of charges across exposed ground on
soldiers In trendies. Yet the In
trenched soldiers have never been
able to hold their position against
the impetuous assults of the Ameri
cans, who would be certain to slaugh
ter them in the trenches when they
reached them. Butbefore the Ameri
cans reached the trenches, as one of
the correspondents said, the killed
would out number the living. It is
fortunate that a barbarian is mortally
afraid of the civilized man, as an
animal is afraid of man, and Aguin
aldo himself cannot keep his panic
stricken soldiers In their trenches
before a fierce American charge.
The fear of the unknown and of the
supernatural, of tire and of water can
make poltroons of Americans in the
same way. Barbarians are more
ignorant than the Americans, there
fore the terrors of the unknown are
increased for the barbarians and that
terror is added to the actual prowess
of the American.
College Riots.
The public is accustomed to excuse
the tendency of college boys to ignore
property rights and the laws of
decency whenever they desire to ex
press their joy over a college victory
or disapprobation at an infringement
of what they consider their rights.
Separately, undergraduates aro apt
to conduct themselves like other boys.
There are no more petty thieves among
them, or rowdies, or bullies, or dls
orderly individuals than among the
youth of any other class. But to
gether, under the excitement of vic
tory or defeat or on any college an
niversary or festa they will steal any
small object like chickens or signs,
they will dl8.lKi.ro public buildings,
and behave generally like rowdies
and bullies. If they are in sulllcient
numbers they will attack policemen
or shop keepers or anybody who
chances to object to being bullied and
imposed upon. The mob of Prince
ton students who attacked a Wild
West show for daring to give the
customary parade upon the streets,
was a good example of a college riot.
The students attacked the procession
of cowboys and Indians from behind
buildings and when one cowboy
turned his horse to charge twenty or
more of them they tumbled over each
other to get out of his way and most
of their injuries were received in
flight. Tho trouble was, the cowboys
are in the habit or resisting evil with
force. They have not learned that
petty larceny which places a young
man in the chicken thief class, if he
be outside of college only gives him
an enviable reputation for frolicsome
ness If lie is. Tho community is
really to blame for tho habits of
students ensemble, and like fond and
Indulgent parents of troublesome
children tho community is not to be
pitied for tho depredations which Its
own imbecile good nature has en
couraged and developed.
Queen Victoria's Abdication.
There seems to be a more than
usually strong rumor that Queen
Victoria after liur eightieth birthday
which will occur on next Wednesday,
will withdraw to Balmoral. The
Queen, it is positively alllrmed, has
given her last drawing room and has
revisited for the last time the scenes
of her childhood in Kensington
Palace. In another month the Prince
of Wales will ho King of England,
according to the assertions of many of
the English correspondents who have
ribked their reputation for accuracy
on the positivism of this prophecy.
The Czar's Sincerity.
The sincerity of the Czar's dis
armament proposition has been
questioned and his attitude or that of
his official representative at the
Peace conference towards the first
practical proposal made by England,
appears to justify suspicions which
the Czar himself is said to resent.
England's proposition was that the
nation's regard the merchant marine
of all nations as neutral in time of
war, the merchant ships to carry no
arms. The merchant marine of Eng
land is so much larger than that of
any other nation that such an inter
national agreement would be of
greater advantage to Great Britain
than to any other nation. Russia's
merchant marine is comparatively
insignificant. If the Czar is In earn
est, however, and is really trylngjto
bring about universal peaco his re
presentatlve might, at least, have
discussed the subject with the dele
gates from other nations, but ho
peremtorlly refused oven to argue the
. i .