THE COURIER.
reported the dignity, seriousness, and
perfect breeding of the Moslem, a
breeding which refuses to be amused
at variations in bodies, characters or
lives of the human beings that sur
round them. How grateful would be
an infusion of Turkish manners into
American life in a country town.
The amenities of life in Lincoln are
saved for church, for parties, recep
tions, and other functions where we
are obviously conscious that the wool,
cotton or silk that clothes us Is the
best we have and rather elegant too.
Among us for forty years Mr. Barr
wentto and from his business as iso
late as though he walked in a world
of ghosts, the only live man. His isola
tion was temperamental and not to
be entirely destroyed by friendly in
sistence but there is no record that
anyone ever tried. He has gone and
these reflections were untimely if
there were no lonely and mistranslat
ed ones left.
Ah, make the most
of what wt vet may spend,
Eefore we too, into the dust descend;
Dust unto dust, and under dust to lie.
Kentucky Women.
The Emergency Association of
Louisville, a club of women, ca'led a
meeting at one of the churches and
several thousand women attended it,
for the purpose of discussing the law
less acts at Frankfort. The mass
meeting was addressed by eloquent
women anxious to do what they cou'd
to prevent what was then a cloely
impending catastrophe. Bishop Dud
ley made the opening address and he
was followed by splendid men and
women who plead for more patriot
ism and less partisan politics, more
statesmanship and less trickery.
Mrs. Ida Harrison, of Lexington, read
a set of resolutions that were prompt
ly and unanimously adopted by the
audience. These resolutions, after
expressing the hope that the united
intluence of the women of Kentucky
might incite men to rise above party
for the honor of statehood, urged the
cooperation of parents, teachers, club
women and kindred organizations in
Kentucky to this end. The resolu
t'ons specifically condemed the car
rying of deadly weapons, concealed or
not, and ascribed the disorder and
crime to this characteristic Kentucky
hibit. They urged that public opin
ion should insist upon the enforce
ment of the law against carrying
deadly weapons. The presidents of
the dubs which are members of the
emergency association and their de
legates held a supplementary meet
ing In order to put the resolutions
into dynamic form. Mrs. C. P.
Barnes, auditor of the General Fed
cration of Woraens' Clubs moved
"that a special committee be appoint
ed to convey to the women of Ken
tucky the sense of this meeting, also
to formulate a plan whereby its pur
pose may be made practicable." This
was unanimously carried and 8137
subscribed by the women present to
provide for the expenses of carrying
out the pwisions of the motion.
The Stotsenburg Fund.
It is doubtful if Mrs. Stotsenburg
will be granted a pension of even fifty
dollars a month. How difficult it is
to rear a family on that sura no one
knows who has not tried. Several
papers of the stale have urged the
raising of this fund. If all the pa
pers of the state would undertake to
receive contributions from their dis
tricts a fund might be quickly rais
ed. Nebraska owes this debt and Ne
braskans should pay it voluntarily.
The Courier has received oue hun
dred dollars to be applied to this
fund. Nebraska people are just
emerging from a financial climax but
this is a debt of honor and a general
subscription such as Californians
made to the Lawton fund will not
rest heavily on any one. The Ne
braska press, democratic, populist,
republican and non-partisan has
never been united for one purpose.
This debt to a brave man, who for
the glory of his country and to save
the lives of Nebraska volunteers stood
up in a field where the men were ly
ing down and where no other officer
ventured, to leed a charge on the in
trenched Filipinos, should be recog
nized. It cannot be paid, but we
can breathe more freely if we accept
the commission that Colonel Stotsen
burg, with his last breath must have
committed to us.
The Jury System.
Theoretically the jury S3'stem is a
guarantee of justice, and a bulwark
against tyranny in high places, but a
study of the individuals of a jury is
disheartening. The system unfolds
in a book like public ownership of all
municipal service. If all men were
honest, able, discriminating and un
prejudiced, the jury system, like the
puhlic ownership system, would be
worthy of real as well as of oratorical
enthusiasm. But jurymen are select
ed mostly from the hangers on, about
the court room, men who have nei
ther the ability nor the energy to
make a better living than that af
forded them by occasional employ
ment as jurymen. One who, either as
defendant or plaintiff has studied the
faces of jurymen while testimony is
offered for their consideration or
whilea judge is instructing them has
enjoyed the best opportunity of study
ing the system and of comparing the
acumen of one roicd with twelve. The
judge generally comprehends the
point at issue between plaintiff and
defendant. He understands the gen
eral law which applies to this or that
case and explains in what way it may
be fitted to the case so that the ver
dict and the law may not conflict.
Meanwhile the jury of ditchers and
diggers, give no sign of intellectual
apprehension and the verdict is apt
to reflect the jurymen's inattention
and intellectual barriers to the en
trance of an idea. Those who have
had much to do with the Saw, and
there aie those who cannot be cured
of the chronic tendency to litigation,
prefer to have their disputes settled
by a judge. A litigant convinced of
the justice of his cause would invari
ably choose a judge. The latter has a
reputation to maintain. His decis
ions become precedents and they are
fiequently taken to a higher court.
A jury is composed of Tom, Dick and
Han-, men of no distinction, of a
past whi;h may be summed up in
the phrase "hangers on about the
court room," of no future and of no
definite responsibility. Such men are
weakly sentimental. What opinions
they possess have been cultivated by
the anecdotes they swap with their
kind and by the sophomorical appeals
of clever lawyers who understand
their juries. An intelligent man oc
casionally strajs into a jury after hav
ing passed the examination for stu
pidity which it is the custom and the
law to hold, hut the average juryman
is candidly not a "peer"' capable of
delivering an equitable judgment
founded upon the testimony and the
law.
The Western Art Association.
The formation of the Western Art
Association has been accomplished
by merging the Haydon Art Club
into the staire association. Haydon
was an English artist whose work
was done in the early part of the
nineteenth century. The Haydon
Art Club was named for him, but not
because his pictures are of any great
value. He painted pictures, which
looked like tableaux of The Judg
ment of Solomon, The Rising of La
zarus, Napolecn Musing at St. Helena,
etc. They are hard and even the most
technically ignorant know that Hay
don's message was long ago delivered
and his meaning exhausted. The
club was named rather for tUe effort
Haydon made to oppose the formal
ism and conventionalism of theday.In
his time -he -stood for -breaking the
bondage of tradition, for the same
thing that the impressionists signify
today. Therefore the Haydon Art
Club was named for him. Ficture
dealers and artists who have pictures
to exhibit when they receive letters
from the corresponding secretary of
the naydon Art Club are discouraged,
thinking we are still clinging to chro
mos and story pictures. Then besides
the name has no locality significance.
The idea of the reorganizes is to
unite dwellers this side the Missis
sippi into an institution for the fos
tering and love of art. For this pur
pose the board of directors is to be
composed of prominent men and wo
men of the state who have already
shown an interest in and a readiness
to make sacrifice for what is known
as "art."
The Western Art Association's spe
cific aim is to provide an exhibition
every year, and to offer prizes large
enough to attract new pictures from
the best artists. On Tuesday evening
the Twentieth of March, the new club
will meet to hear the report of the
nominating committee which has
been appointed to nominate the presi
dent and directors of the new as
sociation. .
Reorganization.
Every club woman should read the
remarkably plain, clear statement of
facts in regard to reorganization
made by Mrs. Decker of Denver. It
disproves the charges of unwieldiaess
and overcrowding made principally
by womeu who did not go to Denver.
Women have much to iearn from men.
What man or men having accomplish
ed a large success like the general fed
d rat ion of womens' clubs, would be
dissatisfied because it was a national
organization and insured the atten
dance of delegates from all over the
United States? No man and no men
would venture to alter the basis of
representation. An aristocratic or
ganization, only remotely connected
with individual clubs and their mem
bers cannot be popular. Its biennial
meetings will not be crowded, There
"will be no surge beating on the doors
of the auditorium the exclusives elect
to meet in. The newspapers will let
the little tea party quite alone. All
the unwieldiness which bothered
s me of hem at Denver will disap
pear. There will be no unseemly
quabb'e for office. The few ladies
sifted from state federations will cast
their voie deliberately and the presi
dency of the obscure committee into
which some of the Massachusetts
club women desire to convert the fed
eration will not be weighted with a
national honor as at present. Mrs.
Decker, whose chief characteristic is
common sense and whose diction is
neither flowery nor sophomorical, ex
presses a common sense view of the
proposed reorganization. For stat
ing the question without sentiment
ality, but with plainly and business
like directness every publisher of a
woman's club department is grateful
to Mrs. Decker. I hope Mrs. Decker's
letter will be widely copied both be
cause of the way she sajs it and for
what she says.
OOnmilMOOCOOIOOMOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
:the passing show:
I WILLACATHER ?
tlOOMMMMMOIOOOOOOHOOIMOMtOOOof
A Lyric Poet.
There is nothing so unmistakable as
a true poem; there is nothing over
which the conventions of men and
the laws of the schools have so little
control as poetry. There is no art in J
which ambition and effort and cul
ture count for so little. This is pe
culiarly exemplified in a recent vol
ume of verse by that eminent scholar
and critic, Mr. George E. Woodberry.
This volume contains many ideas set
forth in verse, many musical lines,
but not one poem. It is not within
the power of any man to attain unto 1
poetry by much labor or wide learn
ing or faultless taste. A man can no
more write a poem by mastering
poetics than a botanist can make a
rose, or an astronomer fashion a star.
Even true poets do not always write
true poetry. The t'rue poem is and
must remain largely a happy acci
dent, and the gift of the man who
writes it is accidental, unquestion
able. And about this gift there is a
mystery so impenetrable and so be
yond the range of our analysis that
it has among all peoples, even the
most skeptical, been accounted as a
certain touch of divinity in man. In
all other arts perfect execution and
complete mastery of form insure a
large measure of success, but a man
either is a poet or he is not. Burns, W
who was a plowman might make
poetry, Mr. Woodberry, who is a
scholar, may not. This is as far as
we are enlightened tin the matter.
Some three years ago an English
man calling himself simply A. E.
Housman published a volume of
lyrics which carried the hall mark of -
true poetry. Their quality is as un
mistakable as it is rare. I do not
know who Mr. Housman is, but I
know that he is a poet. I have
sought far and wide for some infor
mation concerning this man, and
have been unable to obtain even the
most meager. Miss Louise Imogene
Guiney has tried to locate him and
has met with no better success. I
have decided to let him remain a
literary mystery and the theme of
many imaginings. He called his sin
gle little volume of verse "A Shrop
shire Lad." The lyrics composing it
bear no titles, but there seems to be a
vague sort of plot running through
ttera all, binding them together.
They might be grouped under two
general headings; songs of Shropshire,
and songs of exile. It seems that Mr.
Housman was once a Shropshire lad
himself, and that there were many
lads there who fished and danced at
the fair and worked in the fields and
were staunch comrades and true.
Then the lassies began to figure in
their lives and there was trouble
a-brewing. Ah! such sad endings
they came to. those merry Shrop
shire lads, and to what dark havens
and down what black streams were
they born, those gay crafts that put
out into the Severn tide in the g'ad- '
some morning. One lad, an athlete
died young, before the laurel of his
triumphs had withered, and his sweet
heart married his best friend. One
killed his brother by the haystack and
was hanged in Shrewsbury jail.
"There sleeps tonight in Shrewsbury Jail,
Ur wakes, as may betide,
A better lad, if things went right
Than most that sleep outside."
Another of the Shropshire boys
went into the army, and fell into
some black disgrace and shot him
self, and still another, the singer of
fi
A
