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VOL. XV., NO. XIX
ESTABLISHED IN 1880
PRICE FIVE CENTS
LINCOLN, NEBR... SATURDAY, MAY 12, 1900.
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Official Organ of the Nebraska State
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g OBSERVATIONS. 8
The State Convention.
It was a tangle of many threads to
the looker-on. A few astute and ex
perienced politicians kept their eye
and their whole attention upon their
own particular thread, tying a knot
here and untying one there until they
accomplished Mr. Dietrich's, 31 r.
Rosewater's and Senator Thurston's
nomination to the various offices they
are seeking. Senator Thurston was
the only one who was applauded with
any spontaneous enthusiasm. Men
found themselves voting by request
for candidates of whom they did not
approve and against others whom
they liked and wished to help nomi
nate. They were helpless in the
midst of a complicated situation.
Unless each delegation voted accord
ing to orders and agreement the con
vention would have become a mass
of individuals, disorganized and un
likely to accomplish anything that
would have pleased as many a? the
tinal compromise. The convention
demonstrated, among other things,
the strengenth of the organization
effected and controlled by Mr. Thomp.
son. But as an example of a part of
a great, free people in the act of se
lecting their state officers it was not
edifying. Kings and emperors that
inherit their places are quite as apt
to be useful to their people as the
choice of a convention the members
of which select candidates not for
their fitness but because they live in
a certain part of the state and be
cause their nomination will not in
terfer with the aspiration of some
other candidate for some other office.
Preparations for Summer.
Politics are more uncertain than
the weather, but nevertheless Mr.
Bryan is building a large porch on
his house. A two-thirds vote is re
quired to nominate the candidate in
the national convention of the demo
cratic party where only a majority
of republican votes will be sufficient
to nominate President McKinley.
That Mr. Bryan will not be nominat
ed there is only a possibility. The
last presidential campaign demon
strated the futility of chasing after
votes on a train. Speeches from the
rear end of a train of cars are lacking
in dignity. A snorting engine does
not-play second fidjlLe to any one.
And when the engineer of even a
Bryan special got his orders to move,
the engine started, though it split
periods in two and caused the orator
to end his speech in a shriek. Presi
dent McKinley stayed at home and
drank iced lemonade and was elected.
By staying at home he made the
small fortunes of a number of the
residents of Canton. The building
of the porch has rejoiced the Lincoln
hotel and boarding house- keepers, tor
it is a token of delegations and of
agitated conferences of the great
with the great. The seventeenth
street cars will be full all summer as
far as D street. The hacks of this
small city can bo relined and fitted to
new springs, for as sure as the ex
ample of Tammany has been except
ed, political delegations do not walk.
A hack and a stovepipe hat is the
sign and seal of Tammany and Tam
many is the Paris of all real demo
crats. Mr. Bryan is about to confer
prosperity in a small way upon Lin
coln. When the delegations on spec
ial trains stocked in the liberal fash
ion of man on a delegation from a
city, a club, or a state which pays the
bills, it will be a holaday every day
except Sunday. The railroads will
also do a good business hauling demo
crats to their Mecca and their Proph
et. It is not alone the dealers in
foods and drinks beds and transporta
tion intramural and overland, that
are grateful to Mr. Bryan for build
ing a porch and concluding to speak
to credulous generations frsm it this
atcd. Most of those citizens who have
essayed to beautify the city by a
structure of stone or brick have soon
er or later relinquished it into the
hands of insurance companies and
gone further west or returned to live
the peaceful life of their forefathers
in a New England village where men
are passing rich on an income of a
thousand dollars a year. The first
sounds of the campaign are not guns
and waving flags but the report of a
hammer pounding nails into resinous
pine, and this small part of Nebraska
rejoices, for whether it rains or not,
the hacks will roll up and down
seventeenth, between D street and
the depots, perspiring patriots will
make speeches to thirstiness and the
destruction of a mirror polish on col
lar and shirt bosom, the neighbor
hood will blossom into pop and lemon
and stands, while Mr. Bryan is run
ning for president on the porch of his
house on D street between
teenth and sixteenth streets.
Ada Rerun.
"The Taming of the Shrew," in the
reading is not so interesting a com
edy as "The Tempest," "The Mer
chant of Venice," ,The Winters Tale"
or "The Merry Wives of Windsor,"
but in the presentation it is much
more interesting. The action is
rapid, there are few long soliloquies
or explanations and the characters
are not archaic and strange to a mod
ern audience. The question top, is as
new and no older, and as current now
as then. A woman with the temper,
the wit, the will of Katharine and
the determination to rule a husband,
a father, a sister, and everyone else
in her fam must be conquered if
not far hefluke, for the peace and
comfort all these others. Petru
io's way'was brutal, but starvation
is the shortest road to humility.
Short and sharp were the pains Ka
tharine suffered before she at last
gladly acknowledged her master. In
spite of co-education, the leveling
influences of learning all women still
(though few acknowledge it) really
love only their masters.
Petrucio, who reduced Katharine
to Griselda in three days or four, was
Mr. George Clark, a very dare-devil
gallant from Verona; a man who
takes the world lightly but has his
own way through life by fertile wit,
good temper, selfishness and the con
sciousness of his own superior activi
ty. Other men had been cuffed by
Katharine, other men had wished to
woo her but none dared continue
summer, there-are'-the .htters, laun- after the firsjt rebuff, till Petrucio saw
she glides humbly into her trainer
she is too little on the stage. Uow
nobly she reads her lines! If the play
wright could hear her ho must take
new pleasure in his verse. Deliber
ately, always audibly, even when she
rages, Shakespcre's words arc never
sacrificed to any trumpery business.
Trained by an adequate, comprehend
ing stage manager, Miss Itch an is tho
only American actress, unless it be
Julia Marlowe, who has the voice,
the patience, the intellect, to play
Shakspere's plays and not transform
them into something either dreary,
pedantic, scholastic or flavored with
the vulgarity of the modern Hoyt
woman or worse still, an imitation of
the French. Miss ReLan is whole
some and frank. She has an exquisite
sense of proportion, of womanliness,
even of that which is most rare in
the women of the stage, I mean, of
literature. In her tour of the interior
seven- states of ibis country for their own
enlightenment I hope she may still
play to large and satisfied audiences
like that at the Oliver on Monday
night. Her company is large, thor
oughly trained and still under the
influence of that man of letters and
of the stage Augustln Daly.
dryraen, bootblacks, barbers and all
the purveyors of the ornaments with
which the gorgeous politician loves
to" deck his person though the effect
is not always chaste.
Other citizecs of Lincoln may build
palaces of brick and stone and bronze
without conveying the Impression of
loyalty and devotion to the city's
prosperity, that this little porch,
eight by ten feet or twenty has cre-
her and concluded that so spirited a
maid was worth subduing, and that
he was the man born to tame her.
Mr. Clark's spirited, determined woo
ing, wedding and breaking was tine
acting. Nevertheless there is too
little of Katharine in the play when
Miss Rehan takes the part. Prom
her magnificent entrance where the
portiere is thrust aside to admit her
shrewish body, to the last act where
The Protector of the Innocents.
Judge Holmes takes his own way In
divorce cases. Discriminating deci
sions are especially difficult is cases,
where husband and wife allege in
human cruelty, frivolity, failure to
provide support, chronic absenteeism,
or the statutory cause. Arter a heart
to heart talk wilh plaintiff and de
fendant which is oftenest not satis
factory and reveals two entirely dif
ferent and contradictory views of the
same subject. Judge Holmes addresses
a sermon to the mother and father
from the bench on the subject of
their duties to their child or children.
Setting aside the points of difference
between them, their mutual causes
of complaint, their long hoarded
grievances, their jealousies, well
founded or not, Judge Holmes ad
dresses them or their offspring. The
Judge believes that no man and wo
man should be permitted to ignore
the rights of their children whose
existence they are responsible for and
have forgotten. In the course of
seven yaars on the bench, Judge
Holmes has been impressed with the
sensual selfishness of the fathers and
mothers who appear before him seek
ing a divorce. They are willing in
order to obtain a decree that their
children of tender years should hear
disgusting testimony relating to the
character and conduct of 'both. It is
evident that the Judge has deter
mined that the corruption of the In
nocents in his court shall cease. The
men and women seeking divorce are
nearer forty than fifty. Imbittered,
coarsened, disillusioned, selfish, sen
sual, one or the other or both appear
before Judge Holmes leading a little
girl or boy whose, wide open eyes
mirror all the mother and father have
