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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 25, 1899)
.7 jf . ?n (i- t .- t in-irrr" ry (ran r, T VOL. XIV., NO. XLVII. ESTABLISHED IN 18f8 PRICE FIVECBNTS 1 ssErH'-BBBBHfl(?jBy ' j ' BL.AB---'- aaBB?V&3tff:9vBB?BBBr--BBZ.BB BJSaPr -rf 'LINCOL'N, HEBR., SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25,1800. 4ftKto- ENTEBBD1N THE FOBTOrnOB AT LINCOLN AS SECOND CLASS MATTES. THE COURIER, Official Organ of the Nebraska State Federation of Women's dubs. PDBLIBHED EVERY 8ATDBDAY -BT- Mf COURIER PRINTING AND PUBLISHING CO Office 1132 N street, Up Stairs. Telephone 384. 8ARAH B. JIARKIB. Editor Subscription Kate In Advance. Per annum 11 00 8ix months ...., "5 Three months : 50 One month 20 Single copies 05 Tna Cocbieb will not bo responsible for vol notary communications unloss accompanied by roturn postage. Communications, to receive attention, must bo eianodby tnofull name of tuo writer, not moroly as a guaranteo of good faith, but for publlcatipn if advisable, : u QBSERVATIONS. 1 sLvevev4MyfvfvfVfvtvfvv Justice to a Mormon. Congressman Roberts lias been reg ularly and constitutionally elected to congress by the citizens of Utah. There is no federal law against polyg amy, but all the states Jin the Union now have one forbidding it. There is no evidence that Mr. Roberts has married any more wives since "the passage of the compulsory monogamy bill. Roberts appears to be living the same sort of humdrum matrimonial existence which other members of congress appear, on the surface to be living. If congress decides that he cannot take his seat among other members, the irony of such a vote would bo overwhelming to anything but the congress of the United States. The hardest thing any human being has to do is to look hissoul squarely in the face, often assuming a highly virtuous and outraged attitude of very gieat strain, and impossible to maintain long. I have heard of several women's clubs (and there is Anna Gould) who have petitioned their congressmen to take a firm stand on the Roberts mat ter, meaning thereby to vote against his occupation of the seat he has been elected to fill. Mrs. Burnett's old mountaineer while dying advised his daughter "Not to do no one an on jestice." It is easy to do the stranger, a devotee of a religion abhorred by christians, an injustice. Mohamme dans have a contempt for a man who drinks wine or spirituous liquors. Missionaries report that it is most difficult to explain to the Mohamme dan almost persuaded to accept Christianity why the church allows its members to drink. Their moral sense is deeply and unfeignedly shock ed by christian use of liquor. This same man may have twelve or fifteen wives. Congressman Roberts is the son of a Mormon family. He is said to be an honest and able man. He supports all the wives he Ird when a law was passed which, If he obeyed it, would compe1 him to choose one wife and leaving all others, cleave only unto her. Tills he may have done. But he supports the other women who had contracted an alliance with him in good faith before the passage of the law Which declassed them. Polygamy is an abomination. Nine teen hundred years of experience has proved that, polygamous communi ties are made up of under-sized, low browed, dull-eyed men ' and women and witless children. Musicians, writers, artists, statesmen, warriors are not developed in these communi ties. Nevertheless we have no right to retroactively deprive congressman Roberts f his seat in congress for a crime committed before a law forbid ding polygamy in Utah had been passed', and while he was a faithful member of a church Into whose fold he was born. We claim and, I think, we can demonstrate that polygamy is a crime. In their wisdom the Mor mons think the gentiles are in error. We are-not so likely to convince them of their mistakes by denying Con gressman Roberts the position to which he has been elected. For the good do justice all the days of their life. dub Amenities. In every club there is doubtless .a guiding spirit. It is also true that when twenty or thirty or five nun, dred agree to associate together for purposes of self culture, or benevo lence to some one outside of the or ganization, or for the purpose of self discipline which association with nineteen, twenty-nine, or four hundred and nlnety-nlnecranky and self-willed club 'members will certainly accom plish, the opinions and wishes of each individual must yield and herein is the club an evangel. Women are very touchy about any public criticism even If that public bo no larger than nineteen of their intimate friends. If clubs Anally accomplish no more than the cure of that sore feeling caused by a difference of opinion frankly express ed, they will not have been formed in vain. Men's debating and culture clubs are treating the same sensitiveness in men. To differ with a whole club or part of It, to have our pet theories ridiculed and destroyed, to receive good naturedly evidence that our own logic is faulty requires a cultivated social sense very few of us possess. The practise of toleration Is much easier theoretically than practically, but it has been found that club dis cussions developc it better than soli tary contemplation. The man who puis on his hatand goes home becauso his false premises have been exposed rejects the very means which If he ac cepted them cheerfully, would revise him into a more perfect edition. And the woman who declares to her hus band that she will never go to the club again as long as that smarty, Alice Brown, is a member, Ignores a means of education which might have made a woman if not a scholar of her. We none of us see the same rainbow The angles of all topics as well as of all objects are different to every pair of eyes. Then why does it irritate us when in giving our impressions of a topic or object we find that our own view is unique and that no one else agrees with us? After all we may be right and our disputants the mis guided. A Free Gift. In spite of Admiral, Dewey's reluc tance to accept the gif t of a house from the American people, in spite of the counsel of those who instinctively recognized the awkwardness of the gift, a few inveterate and insatiablo hero-worshipers persisted in buying and presenting Dewey with a house. As soon as it was his, Admiial Dewey gave it to his wife along with Ills' other worldly goods. This did not suit the people. Both those who did, and those who did not contribute to the house fund announced in news papers, in clubs, and wherever a large or small herd met for grazing and gossip, that the Admiral was guilty, if not of ingratitude, at least, of an unpardonable faux pas. The Admiral and Mrs. Dewey having both eyes to see and ears to hear, heard the gossip and read the newspaper opinions and quickly enough came to the conclusion that tho house was entailed to the Dewey suueesssion. Realizing that the American people in a bunch ob jected to her enjoyment of her wed ding gift, although the few real sub scribers to the house money were not those who were pulling the string, Mrs. Dewey has deeded the house to Admiral Dewey's son. She at first proposed to give it to the Catholic church. Even in his honeymoon the Admiral had sense enough to know that those who had and those who had not given the house to him would have very strong and very voluble ob jections to its transfer to the Catholic church. And so this house which neither the Admiral nor Mrs. Dewey really need has made more, trouble than it is worth. If the money had been given to one of the truly great American sculptors with instructions to mould a statue of the Admiral, It would have remained for all time a monument to a great American. For such is the character and effect of symbols. Before his statue the gratified sub scrlbers to the fund might have stood and admired their own magnanimity and good taste. They and tho people who had not given tho Admiral any thing would havo beon quite satisfied toseo their gift In the open air. No member of tho Dewey family, no wife who has supplanted the people in tho Admiral's affection could monopolize the statue. Tho Americans who love publicity and freedom better than everything olse could not be thwarted in the enjoyment of tho eight of their bounty, as tho visitors who want to see the house that Dewey got, so fre quently are by the doorkeeper at the Deweys. Gifts by a republic to a warrior unless they be symbolic or portable like a loving cup, a gold model of a ship or something which a hero Is not likely to melt down or transfer, are embarrassing. The difficulty Is, the ownership of a national or serai-national gift is never quite settled. If the Admiral had bought or inherited the house that has made so much pother no one would have ques cloned his right to give it to his wife or to anyone else. A gift from anyone but a king or a queen has strings to it and these strings interfere with Irrespon sible and unmitigated enjoyment of the gift. Prlncelincss disdains a return and forgets benefits bestowed. Every body knows of the almost famous Lin coln man whose left hand never be stows a gift that tho right docs not immediately set it up in, print and de- mand, if not simultaneously, then eventually a quid pro quo. In his1 case, for he is a good business man, there io lltt'e reason to believe that he is skeptical about tho greater bless edness of giving. Such gifts snap gyves upon the spirit and between his benefactor and an unpleasant con sciousness of obligation the prisoner walks until he comes to the occasion' and the time when the debt must be paid. For there is nothing free In this world No; not one thing. A Sped out Comparisoa. The questions of morality or justice or abstract right and wrong have not much to do with ruce movements! Tho Goths and Vandals took Rom and replaced the Roman by a bturdier, younger race. What was good in Ro man law and custom survived and was incorporated later by tho Ger mans. The Normans took England without much discussion. The fJt test In America drove the Indians from the Atlantic coast and later beat back the English not because either one or the other was right but because we wanted the land and we took it first from the Indians and then from the English. It the Dutch in Africa aro strtMsf enough to beat back the English, Well, God will be said to be on their side. On the other liand if they are beatea the Dutch and the English together will develop the resources of the coun try faster than the Dutch have ever done by themselves. ' There is little doubt that railroads ffMArfaJL&te&kmA" mm-- A.Jo.js