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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 9, 1899)
sssl THE COURIER. IN V fe r- r Visitor to Utah sees, are not typical Americans. They have the broad face, and blunted features of the Man with the Hoe, an essentially foreign type. Miss Gould spent much tlmo in In vcstlgatlng the religion and customs of the Mormons and the spread of Mormonism before she decided to use what inilucnce she had and what money was necessary to prevent Con gressman Roberts from being seated. The more she studied, the more she understood of Mormonism the more she was shocked by the horrid heathen' rites and the perverted standards of the Mormons. I cannot sec, however, that the gentiles will gain anything if congress refuse to admit Mr. Rob erts. TheMormonB themselves are cun ning evaders of tho law. Above the law their church stands. Admitting a more rigid creed and claiming furth er enlightenment, Congressman Rob ert's case should be settled with strict regard to constitutional law. Wo con demn them for taking the oath of office administered by United States' officials and breaking it because of another oath sworn In their temple. The congress of the United States can resort to no such evasion. Here is no union of church and' state and this question of Congressman Roberts should be settled without regard to anything but the constitutional rights of comrrcss, and the rights of a citizen of Utali elected to the congress of the United States from Utah. Uniform Marriage Laws. A blow to polygamy much more se Tere than the refusal of congress to. receive a congressman with three wives would be the passage of 'a fed eral law making the laws in regard to marriage uniform in all the states of this country. The absurd contradic tions and inconsistencies which the legislatures of the forty-two states, in course of time, have managed to frame against each other have made divorce merely a matter of crossing the state line. For example in Ne braska it is against the law to be di vorced and married again on tho same day but Lincoln peoplo are in the habit of getting their divorces here and going to Council Bluffs, Iowa, for the wedding on the same day. So long as transportation is cheap there is no reason why incompatible couples should live together, especially if life seem pleasanter with someone else. A federal law would decrease the popularity of divorce, increase the sacredness of marriage and dissipate into thin air the talk about affinity, unhappiness, etcetera, etcetera. Comparing us with the Mormons, this communlty(and a thousand others like it) has more enlightened views but it is just as indisputable that the individuals composing it, have no in spiration to spare. The lunatic asy lums in this state are crowded and In timate conversations with some of the inhabitants still at large will disclose to a scientlllc Investigator many ex amples who at least need to take a rest and mind cure. Unsound views of marriage are alarmingly prevalent. A large num ber arc willing to sacrifice society to attain for themselves what has the appearance of happiness. If they have made matrimonial mistakes they will not take tho consequences for the sake of society and their children. A federal law and tho vislcn of a federal judge with vcrystltr, unsym pathetic and uncompromising views of divorce and ( lie inviolate nature of marriage might encourage flabby back bones and throw a new light upon society and its claims upon in dividuals. If Mormon Roberts and the discussion which his claims to a seat in congress lias caused will but harmonize tho contradictory laws re lating to marriage in this country, he will become a benefactor, unworthy instrument though he may be. Modjcska As Marie Antoinette on Monday night Madam Helena Modjeska was very impressive. The play is a thing of gloom weighted down by childrens' agony and a mother's torture. Unre lieved by Shaksperian clowns or fools the tragedy of the French revolution has an opportunity to express some of its cruelty. The prologue is laid in Petit Trianon where the Queen in shepherdess' costume and crook takes the principal part in a play surround ed by the courtiers as audience and as sisted by them in the caste. Modjeska was never more graceful then when she played she was a queen and the queen plays she is a shepherdess and the shepherdess plays she is a court lady. The role is not much more of a psychological mixture than we play everyday, but Modjeska archly and mysteriously keeps Marie Antoinette in the foreground and Modjeska in the back ground and suggests the shepherdess. The prologue is a portent fully accomplished in the other four acts. It shows the love between the .king and queen, the gaity of the queen and her Ignorance of life and suffering After the mob has threatened herlife and she has seen her faithful Swiss guard die while protecting her, her brave, queenly character is displayed in relief. Without raving or any stage convulsions Modjeska conveys the effect of intense suffering. She does not need to resort tc artificial de vices. Her voice, its womanly melody, its abrupt stops, and prolonged vow els, her scholarly reading of blank verse distinguish Madam Modjeska above all other American actresses. It is impossible for a sensate person to read about the French Revolution without being conquered by horror and pity. ' The actual sight of the frenzied women, the headsman and the blood thirsty men, of a brutality which even hunger does not excuse makes an Ineffaceable impression on an audi ence which cannot comfort itself by the reflection that those men and wo men are puppets and nobody really suffers. 'A hundred years ago the scenes of the French Revo'ution, of which the play presents only a sugges tion, a faded copy, were enacted by men and women and little children, in and outside of the Conciergerie. Mr. Whistler reserves his scant praises for the painter who keeps his pictures inside the frame. Modjeska has so true a conception of historical perspective and of tho law of gravita tion that she never for a moment steps out of the frame or of the com position. Her acceptance of realism stops short of familiarity and we who suffer the intrusion of the vulgar be cause it is said to be the 'truth are grateful to her for not encouraging It. , A Misstatement. A few months ago a London corrcs pondent announced in a New York paper that English residents of Brit ish Indi? objected to rendering hom age to the American family of Lady Curzon. The letter was widely copied and commented upon in tho papers on this side of the ocean. The corres pondent was probably out of a topic for his weekly letter and Imagined all he wrote that time. Mrs. Loiter has never been in India, and Lady Curzon's sisters are very pretty and fascinating young ladles with irreproachable man ners, Tho inexcusable habit of writing to fill space is continually getting news paper writers Into' trouble and is a cause of annoyance to tho innocent objects of their desperate essays. Mr. and Mrs. Lelter arc wealthy people with a handsome and interesting family of children. A daughter mar ried a brilliant English statesman who was after his marriage appointed vicegerent to India. As if this was not enough to make the family the prey of space writers, the only son al most succeeded in cornering the Chicago market. For weeks the pa pers printed the details of his partial success and then of his final failure. After people have been written about so much they enter the region of fable. At most they are real peo ple, only to a thousand or fifteen hun dred people. Everybody admits the existence of Queen Victoria and Em peror William but should either of these two eelf willed but very different sovereigns appear in America the people would gasp at the sight after lighting their way to it. These stor ied people are as unreal as Hamlet or Pickwick. We meet the latter in lit erature and the former in the news papers, and when we see them in the round looking just like other men and women and very like their pictures we gasp, and if they cough or sneeze we say "Did you hear them do that? how natural it was." As though they were wonderful automata whose life like conduct was positively miraculou Now In the case of Mrs. Lelter who never went to India and of the Misses Lelter of whom British India only knows as charming young ladies very welcome wherever they choose to go the newspaper correspondents are in grievous error. Mrs. Lelter is a culti vated, gracious gentlewoman quite in capable of the faux pas sometime at tributed to her. To remember that the people who live on the other side of the world or in quite another sphere are of flesh and blood, with tender feelings, which a pen can torture and a printing press can crush, is the duty of every man and woman who writes for the press. For although their work in general, lasts no longer than the dew, the drop poisoned with a lie or a half a lie is sure to be tasted sooner or later by the. innocent vic tim. Then the injury is done and there is no antidote. Though the poisoner confess his crime and Ire pent, he cannot recall the wrong, however loudly or publicly he may confess. It is fitting therefore that a self-convicted publisher should also never be able to forget the wrong he has committed foolishly and for lack of a topic and carried away by the temptation to make a sensation. Peccavi. Woman's Sphere Bixby. Mr. Bixby is constantly assuring those who are patient and tolerant enough to read him on "The Sphere of Woman" that ho has a large admira tion for her. He tells her that as a valet do chambre, brushing his coat or blacking his shoes, or lighting his fire, she is adorable and by him adored. The guerdon seems to the ordinary woman rather slight but woman's wage Is ever low and tho sex, as a whole, is not exigent. He tolls her to stay at home and be happy scrubbing the floor lie rents for her, and In peel ing the potatoes he has ordered for his dlnner.and he warnsherjlko tho cred ulous ostrich, not to bo deceived by women like Mrs. Catt who would have her think she was a human being cre ated to think and to havea word to say absut how her own proport lull be taxed. Mr. Bixby warns all wo men away from women who preach in dividuality and against tho crime of human slavery. It was the same down south before the war, whero, I think, Mr. Bixby used to Hyo at. The owners of the slaves who brushed their coats and blackened their shoes, cooked their meals and bore slave children to their masters, were very much afraid that their useful slaves might be de ceived by the dangerous doctrine of those who preached freedom. They were continually talking about tlic contentment of those whose deep scarred backs bore the marks of the whip. Tho slave owners did their literary best to convince the slaves that they were contented and happy, that freedom was never meant for them but only for white folks and that the Creator himself designed them for chatties and that it was pro fanity to urge freedom. Mr. Bixby uses exactly the same arguments to women, over and over again, but there is still a stirring that is growing to a whispering,and that will grow until no human being holds another in leash. Mr. Bixby has grown very funny over Mrs. Catt's name which she was generous enough to accept from some man. Mr. Bixby has been juggling with words long enough to know the banality of punning with names. It is a tawdry and a coarse expedient of the cheapest wit and Mr. Bixby knows enough to know better. The woman suffrage convention lately con veued here in Lincoln was composed of intelllgent.logical women. The president of the convention wa9 so unfortunate as to have met a man by the name of Catt. She was willing for love of him to bear the jibes of cheap wits who would not allow them selves to remember that the name was a wedding gift and not an inherit ance or a character indication. Nev ertheless, all the time the convention was in session the little slave holder on The Journal was ridiculing Mrs. Catt and her services. "The serious responsibilities of gov ernment should be borne by man who is fitted by nature to look after such things without disturbing the social forces that make for good order in so ciety and the state. Mrs. Catt is nothing more nor less than a fanatic on the subject of woman's rights, and. it is a duty to humanity, in the broad est conception of the word, to strive to counteract the pernicious influence she exerts upon her sex. Wherever she goes she sows the seeds of domestic unrest and political disorder. Women begin to neglect those sacred duties' (cooking man's food and blacking his boots) ln which they once took de light in order to meet together and pass burning resolutions denouncing male men for having usurped political frlv lieges to which women are as ustly entitled as any other man. We are therefore opposed to Mrs. Catt be cause she is unwittingly a disturber of the peace and a promoter of domes tic infelicity and ought to be abolish ed." And to her voice along the Platte I hope I ne'er again hall hear, At this or any time of year I mean the voice of Chapman Catt. A woman should foe glad to stay And cook, and mend her husband's coat g And let him go and cast a vote; f Or feed the hogs or bale the hay. This is the thing that makes me growl To hear the pops and democrats, The Gougars and the Chapman Catts Out making Rome eternal howl. Bixby in State Journal. V Clancy Oim after a ticket ter Chi cago. Ticket Agent Do you want an ex cursion ticket? One that will tako you there and back? Clancy Phwat'a the ainse of ne payln' ter go there an' back when Ol'm here alriddy? Cholly-You Thankful? Chappie Yep. Cholly- What foh? Chappie Credit with tradtBmon. , nfrr- - ii,n.i rwi'i'i' imm 1 1 .' yiy TUnnaiMitojy-Y r i;nm . '. - ti w .-... '4rtJ-.Mj .1 VtiM