VOL. XIV., NO. XXXV.
ESTABLISHBD IN 1886
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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-
