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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 2, 1899)
VOL. XIV., NO. XXXV. ESTABLISHBD IN 1886 PRICE FIVE CBNT8 LINCOLN, NBBR., SATURDAY, SKPTHMBIiR 2, 1809. ENTEBEDIN THE P08TOFFICE AT LINCOLN AS SECOND CLAB8 MATTER. POBL18HED EVEBY BATDRDAY BT THE COURIER PRINTING UNO PUBLISHING GO Office 1132 N street, Up Stairs Telephone 384. SARAH B. HARRIB. Editor Subscription Katep In Advance. Per annum 9100 8ix months 75 Three months 60 One month 20 Single copies 05 The Courier will not bo responsible for vol notary communications unless accompanied by return postage. Communications, to rocoive attention, must bo stoned by tiio full narao of the writer, not moroly as a guarantee of good faith, but for publication if advisable. l OBSERVATIONS. 8 The Street Railway Compromise. Instead of finding fault with the city council for the compromise It has made with the street railway company,, the council deserves, and should receive our thanks for negotiate ing a very satisfactory settlement. The petition drawn up by Dr. Farn ham's attorney! contains, according to the president of the council, Mr. O. W. Webster, a number of mis statements. Mr. Webster tabulates them as follows: Firstly, as to the amount of judgment and interest, ' which is $100,000 Instead of $110,000 as alleged in the petition. Secondly, the petition states that the council holds Mr. Little's note. This is not so. Thirdly, the petition states that the street railway company has used corrupt means to procure this settle ment. This is a very serious charge 'and an implication against the hon esty and good faith to the city of every member of the council. At torney L. C. Burr and his client should bo compelled to produce the proofs of such a statement). The council is singularly free, even from a suspicion of double dealing and such an allegation Is both Impolitic and unjust. Considering the reputation Mr, Burr has acquired by a long resi dence in Lincoln, the members of the council may not regard themselves as Insulted by any statement, however derogatory, proceeding from him. Yet a legal paper, like that which contains ah appeal for an injunction, after it leaves the attorney's office, has more or less of an Impersonal character and those who near and argue its .points forget the moral obliquity or irrcproachublencss of the instrument which drew It up. There fore it Is incumbent on the individ ual members of the council to show that the charge of corruption is as baseless as the other paragraphs which president Webster contradicts. Fourthly, the petition recites that a majority of the city officers entered Into an agreement with the street railway company, early in the year, to settle this suit. The president of tiie council, one of the most intelli gent and faithful of the city officers says: This has not a word of truth In It." As chairman of the finance com mittee, Mr. Webster Is exhaustively acquainted With the past and present status of this case. For a longer time than any other citizen he has been a member of the city council and to a larger degree, than others on account of his long and faithful service, ho enjoys the confidence of his associates in the council and of his fellow citi zens. Perhaps two men of more antipodal reputation could not be se lected than the attorney who drew up the petition for an injunction and the president of the council who de nies every clause of it in toto; and 'for this reason the other councilmen are doubtless content with his simple denial. The Workers. The men at work upon the streets are surrounded, or rather, flanked on both sides at all times by a' crowd of men and boys who shift their posi tion with the progress of the work and appear to be deeply interested in Its processes which are repeated over and over again at Intervals of half an hour or less. Among the audience there is little conversation and among the workers only laconic directions from the boss of each gang of ten or twelve men. The work is accom plished with surprising quickness and the men work harmoniously ' and make no false or unnecessary motions. It is perhaps the rapidity and har mony and purposefulness of the work that attract the town loafers from the vicinity of O and Tenth and O and Eleventh. They are so unaccus tomed -to the energetic accomplish ment of a design which involves hard and continuous labor tnat workers of the kind described fascinate them and they uproot themselves from Tenth street and send down a tap into Twelfth street which fills the' merchants on that street with con sternation, this location having been comparatively free from this local pest in the past, except for the few degraded specimens which grow on the Funke opera house steps. And these loafers remind me, that in America the only men and women who resemble Edward Markhara's dull-eyed ox are not the laborers, but the loafers. The latter have the open mouth, the stupid stare, and the ar rested" development features of "The Man with tho Hoo." Tho workers In tho street aro alert and resourceful, tho men with nothing to do but to lean and gaze and spit are a disgrace to their families, their country and their race. If anything were needed to make one feel the educational of' fects of labor these two groups of men composing the workers and their audience might supply it. Of course passers-by, on tho way to or from activities of various kinds, stop to look at tho really Interesting pro cesses of making a durable asphalt ro.id, but these men and the cigarette boys watch them all day long only shifting their position with the ex tension of the asphalted rock or '"binder" or final asphalt frosting. Gazing upon these two types of men, the conviction must seizo tho passer by that labor is not the curse it is supposed to be and on tho other hand that whatever circumstances have produced tho degenerate young men extended upon the curbstone, they are unfortunate. For truly tho only hopeless human being is that ono who refuses to work and instead smokea cigarettes extended upon the curb stone or upon an advertising trunk or a convenient bicycle rack, showing both that he is lazy and js not ashamed of it. A western city like Lincoln contains the extremes of both types: the energetic world-conqueror and the lalssez faire young man whom there are not enough policemen in town to keep moving any faster than from a stationary po sition on one corner to a- stationary position on the next one. Two Kinds of Democrats. The contrast between the political leaders of eight years ago and those that are prominent and powerful now, ' is graphically presented in last week's Harper's Weekly. The difference In the aims, characters and inspiration is shown by portraits of Charles S. party. And Messrs. Aitgeld Bryan, Hogg, Burke, Tillman and Gahati aro miming it. On all tho faces of tho latter group rests an expression of self satisfaction, of vanity, of self consciousness. The other group have the air of statesmen and the expression of unconscious manliness that characterizes every man who has led his people into a larger life and not into mischief, from Moses to Abraham Lincoln. The Color Line in England. A few Matabclo savages have set up a kraal in London and some well bred women have become fascinated with the stalwart blacks. One wo man, Miss Florence Jewell has run off with Lobengula and married him, and others have shown signs of a pre ference for the bronze men until a strong demand is made by the white men that the kraal, where tho na tives live be closed. Lobengula and Miss Jewell vainly tried to get married in London but could not find any one to perform the ceremony. They have started for Africa. To his credit Lobengula tried to persuade Miss Jewell to give him up when he found her country men and family were entirely opposed to the match, but he did not succeed. As the groom has no money and his tribe In Africa is all broken up and In the first stages of civilization, no body knows how tho pair will live. A Matabele hut, without windows or doors and only a hole for ingress and egress which is too low for a young lady who cannot crawl on her hands and knees, will not seem so romantic and picturesque to Mrs. Lobengula from the inside as it did on the out side looked at from a London street, from a girl's romance-loving eyes. The foolkiller slays millions every year. People get sick and die, not from malaria or from accidents on land or sea or even from microbes, Faimiiiiri and .tohn P. AitocM. Rmv- but juBt because thev have not sense er Cleveland and William J. Bryan, enugh to ,I,ve' J111 ,8 the ,novl' John G. Carllslo and James S. Hogg, ab e re?ult f tMe cumulation of Patrick A. Collins and Robert E.'f0,Ue8' Mrs. Lobengula, has a small Burke, William L. Wilson and Ben- ,nlcomo bequeathed her by her father jamln Tillman, Clifton R. Breckin- w"?wa8 u n,n,n& engineer, a sum ridge and Thomas Gahan. It will be wh'c,h as educated and supporlod her, observed that the first one in each but ,8(iulte insufficient for an extrava couplo is a type of tho old style and ant 8avae' Tne,r 8Ure l ''a voluntarily retired democrat and tho J0. u8eo w,,08e walls, hospitable second is a representative of the new- " will probably bo tho set est and most prominent democrats. J.1"0' th,s gM of twenty-one when It Is fitting that tho picture of tiI0 k,,,or arrives. Charles S Fairchild should lead the group. He was an Intimate friend of Municipal Ownership. Samuel Tilden, attorney general of In Philadelphia city administration New York and secretary of tho treas- of the water supply has been a fallurp. ury. He was genuinely interested in 'In London private control afid ad public matters, not entirely, for the ministration of tho water supply Is a political advancement which follows failure. The English drought Is the active participation in the discussion ( most severe in seventy years, and it is of national questions, but' because ho t reported that the Lea which runs who iiiicrcaiicu ju HtiHUAiiuiia nMUjifAUj uiyufu a UUrtWn pari OI JjOQdOn IB 40 a patriotic desire to aid in the "real low tat Jtls nothing more than an expansion of democracy, But air the .open. 'sewer. The poorest bionST first mentioned men it) i(each grou rver. devotedly aitaohed o Water have retired from tho councils of 'the 'either for external or' 'internal use, L iHKAM-
