THE COURIER and follow him loyally another mort gaged delegation is quite likely to be elected from Lancaster. In which case Lancaster will again occupy the anomalous relation to the delegation that it did last winter. It will be remembered that the representatives of this county in the state legislature were unanimously for Mr. Thompson, while all the representative republi cans in the county were conscien tiously opposed to his election. The vitality of every party is the men who, for the sake of the princi ples it represents are willing to work for it without promise or surety of personal reward. There are such de votes in Lincoln and on the farms which surround it, but nobody has yet found a way to unite them before it is almost too late. When your enemy uses smokeless powder, use it yourself and use it first. Wlien your enemy has a defi nite, clear purpose, have one yourself; when he is straining every nerve to attain a point of vantage, reach it first, joursclf. The great mistake in all the opposition to Mr. Thompson is that we have not used smokeless powder and modern methods of polit ical warfare which are as different technically, from the old methods as are the new guns from the old ones of the civil war. It is apparent that the party needs a leader, who added to the righteousness of his cause and the purity of his character will pos sess the energy and purpose and ex hibit it, of the opposition. The Courier is not aware that Mr. Thompson is more scrupulous now than he was while conducting his campaign last year, no news of con version and of an entire change of plans from those employed when he was the intimate of Frank Graham and the men who have made the political history of Lincoln a shame ful record has reached this office. But added to the ordinary cons-derations of public morality, all of which should defend the people against such a senator, there Is the argument of his offer to the populists after the republican caucus whose decision he and all other candidates had agreed to accept, had decided upon Colonel Ilayward. And the subsequent death of the Colonel was due to the nervous lesion produced by the news of Mr. Thompson's intrigue with the popu list members of the legislature. These are only a few of the reasons why The Courier under its present management will remain opposed to the elevation of Mr. Thompson to any important place in the gift of the republican party which cannot en dure catanadromous candidates that select a republican element in the fall and a populist element in the spring. Gty Improvement. The habits of the citizens them selves arc the greatest and most im movable obstacle in the way of city improvement. Pedestrians going to and from their important business of selling peanuts, popcorn, legal opin ions and pills, are absorbed in thoughts of how to sell the most pea nuts and popcorn, or of how to create an artificially feverish desire for the opinions and the pills. In thinking and planning for their own prosperity and distinction the pedestrians forget their neighbors' inalienable rights and tramp across his lawn until it is as bare of grass as the school play grounds. In passing, if flowers or fruit arc handy they pluck them for their button hole or their stomach, quite without prejudice. They throw paper bags and letters into dooryards impartially. The delivervmen and the army of hucksters and hawkers select the front gate and tramp over the carefully seeded lawn as though the kitchen were not at the back of the house and the inevitable depot for potatoes, cabbage, Hour, etc. All grocers are anxious for business but they do not instruct their delivery men to. ride up the alleyways and ap proach the houses of their customers from the rear. Yet such tenderness and consideration for a housekeeper's lawn would make ter a loyal cus tomer of the grocer. Lincoln pedes trians' feet are so accustomed to walk ing on their neighbors' feelings and on their most sacred plots that there is no way of confining their depre dations to the walks but by building fences and even then they will un latch the gate and trample the in nocent, green blades of grass with their large, repulsive but free Ameri can feet. A policeman on every cor ner might protect the trampled rights of the householders, but policemen are luxuriously confined to the busi ness portion of this city. Blessings are invoked on the man that makes two blades grow, where before his advent only one sprouted. Let us hope there is adequate punishment for the ruthless, useless man who, kills the grass. There are many plans made by the city improvement society for the im provement of the city. Some means of suppressing this public, universal nuisance must tirst be operated, for with him passing six times a day it is impossible to coax the grass to grow. Reorganization. The minority and majority reports printed in last week's Courier were presented by the reorganization com mittee after much discussion. After a majority of seven had voted for a plan which recommended the reten tion of direct relations between local c'ubs and the General Federation a motion was made by Mrs. Lucia Blount, that the five in favor of state federation representation prepare a minority report recommending it and that the majority sign it with them while they should also sign the majority's recommendation. In other words, that the whole twelve sign everything. This motion was doubt less prompted by a generous impulse on the part of a member of the win ning side, but upon a little considera tion, it seemed clear to the mover, as well as every other member of the committee, that such a course would render the entire action of the body pointless. For twelve women to say, '-I be lieve thus and so" and, at the same time, to say, "1, also, believe exactly the opposite" would render their pro ceedings meaningless and defeat the object of their appointments. So apparent was the justice of this reasoning that the motion for every body to sign both plans was lost, by a unamious vote, the maker of the mo tion and Mrs. Penozer L. Sherman, of Chicago, voting aga'nst it. What the Federation does on this or any other question is the business of the women who compose it: the president does not expect to dictate its po'.icy. As to reorganization, Mrs. Lowe is in favor of any plan which will draw all American women closer together in the bonds of club frater nity, and concerning the methods by which this shall be accomplished she is indifferent. The Loud BUI. Publishers of cheap books are ob jecting much more strenuously to some provisions of the Loud bill than are the regular newspaper publishers. The twenty millon dollar a year def icit in the United States postal de partment is due to the abuse of the franking privilege, to the cheap books which are issused monthly and are listed as periodicals. A dry goods manufacturer might as logically be allowed to distribute his spring, sum mer, autumn and winter goods through the mails at one cent a pound, on the ground that he sends them out periodically. These books are cheap reprints of stories first pub lished a century ago. Then there is n sound reason for not charging the pound rate to the country publisher for all subscribers who live within the county limits. There is also an insutlicient reason for the privilege now possessed by news dealers of returning at pound rates, through the mails to the publishers magazines, books and newspapers. The title page and dates of unsold newspapers may be returned to the publisher by the newsdealer for pur poses of checking or verifying ac counts with the publisher.The heavier magazines and books may be return ed quarterly by freight. It is esti mated that the cost of transporting the cheap books and of the return of unsold magazines to publishers in ex cess of the rate paid for them was 524,000,000 last year. Newspapers should be allowed to send out sample and marked copies of their papers. It is the only way in which a new publication can be in troduced. Owing to the peculiar na ture of the product, manufacturers of nev periodicals have no oppor tunity of exhibiting their product except by sample copies, and the mails should he open to them at the same rates charged for old, establish ed newspapers. On the other hand, when an editor of an old paper has a particularly bright and useful idea which the statesmen of his party are anxious should be read by a larger number than the regular subscrip tion list, it is bad politics to prohibit its distribution through the mails at pound rates. It does not matter what party distributes them. Tie people should be reached as easily and cheaply as possible by the greatest and soundest thinkers of both sides. Thus the demagogues and sophists of both sides may be the more quickly detected. The return of periodicals from the newsdealers to the publish ers is a matter of private bookeeping the expense of which it does not seem fair to ask the whole people to as sume. In one important particular the bill does not go far enough. It does not attack the franking abuse, for the obvious reason that it is so much easier for congressmen, as well as for other people to reform some other person's abuse of power. The silly packages of common garden seeds, too ancient to germinate are still franked through the mails an?, upon the postal service is placed the weight of helping the congressmen to keep solid with the farmers. If this abuse, andthe cheap book abuse were reformed, and the newsdealers privileges were revoked.the postal ser vice would be relieved of the incubus that produces the deficit and letter postage might then be reduced. Colonel Bryan's Eastern Trip. Eastern editors of republican pa pers now mention Colonel Bryan with cordial esteem. He has succeeded in melting their hearts in some way which is still an oriental mystery. Boston and New York papers now write the mildest editorials about the "man wno has made more speeches to more people and shaken more hands than any man that now is, or ever was in the world.' Forty years from March 19th, 1900, "Colonel Bryan," says The Sun, "was born in Salem, Illinois, at sixteen minutes to one A.M." "He believes in the Chicago plat form and in any additions to it that may come handy. He is for congenial annexation but finds the Filipines un congenial. He holds that the Fil pinos are capable of self-government but not capable enough to belong to the United States. Militarism makes him sad, although he has been a war rior bold. He trembles at Trusts and will keep on shaking as long as they are able to produce goose flesh in any body else, and not one moment long er. He has fits at the word "im perialism," but what and where "im perialism" is, so far as the United States are concerned nobody has been able to find. It is a good enough Mor gan for the Colonel, and that is all. "Colonel Bryan has called on Moses to awake, rung the Liberty bell, ralli ed around the Constitution, discover ed the Declaration of independence, wept over the wrongs of the 'produc ing classes,' to which he does not be long, lambasted the Crime of Gold, thrown bricks at Mammon, Moloch and Juggernaut, said Boo! to the Oc topus, been dry nurse to the income tax, bit his thumb at the plutocrats, invaded the enemy's country and there provisioned himself, prospected for issues, excommunicated commer cialism, ridden a bronco and blown a cowliorn in the streets of Austin, trained for the Presidency and an ostrich race, written leading articles with a pen of fire for the Omaha World-Hearld, lectured, made a book, and is believed by his friends and pro bably by himself to be the Jefferson-Jackson-Webster-Clay-Lincoln of Lin coln, Nebraska. His voice is so sweet that it swamped the Honorable Gam aliel Bradford in his own tears. His touch is so magical that, according to some enthusiastic Bryanists, it heals the sick; and according to the Honorable Champ Clark he is touched hopefully by the Missouri Democrat3, probably for contributions to the cam paign fund. "In short, the Honorable William J. Bryan is as busy as a bee, as lively as a cricket, as industrious as an ant, as talkative as a sparrow, as cheerful, about his own prospects, as a blue bird, and as despairing about the country as the cow seems to be about the scheme of things in general. 'Such is Colonel Bryan now he is come to forty years; and he is a pretty good fellow in the bargain, for all his play-acting manner on the platform. A man's fortieth birthday is not. much to congratulate him about. It is much better to be thirty, and very much better to be only twenty. But. we can and do sincerely felicitate the Colonel. He never will be old. He never will be older. Ever young and ever fair to middling. The Sun. The Pebble. The Pebble is a new magazine of Philistine size, edited and published monthly at Omaha' by Mary D. Learned and Louise McPherson. The coat of arms is a shield with the western sun on the horizon inscribed on it, and supporting two side arms one of which is the stylus and the other a dagger or a sword, probably the latter on account of its controver sial relation to the pen. The contents consist of bright commentary on the war in Soutii Africa. Paderewski's playing, Elbert Hubbard's visit, the Persian Garden, and editorial mis celany. Mr. Hubbard's happy talk about his own magazine and how lie started and lias since conducted it, inspired these young women to pub lish a small magazine. The Courier X. -A -A v 17