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VOL. XV., NO. XXIX
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ESTABLISHED IN 1886
PRICB FIVE CGNTS
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LINCOLN, NBBR., SATURDAY, JULY 21, 1000.
THE COURIER,
Official Organ of the Nebraska State
Federation of Women's Clubs.
KBTTBRXDIX THE POSTOFFICB AT LINCOLN AS
SECOND CLASS MATTES.
PUBLISHED EVEBY SATURDAY
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SARAH B. HARRIS.
Editor
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OBSERVATIONS. 8
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2 OBSERVAT
Expansion.
The Swiss people can see the ad
vantages of becoming one of the
American federation of states. The
editor of the Allgemeine Schweizer
Zeltuug says: In spite of dark
sides which are also found there, the
United States is full of the air of free
dom. Switzerland would lose noth
ing if she should become a state of
the United States of America. It is
a well known fact that the several
states of the American union are
much more independent than the
several cantons of Switzerland, and
our country, by such an alliance
would sacrifice none of her liber
ties. All she would have to do
v would be to send her representa
tives to Washington. Economically
and politically she would gain every
thing. Itremainsto.be seen what
the Americans would say about an
alliance with Switzerland. For a long
time they have tried to gain a foot
hold in Europe. Every citizen in
Switzerland who has the welfare of
his country at heart should ponder
this alliance."
Democracy among the Swiss is
highly developed. It has been grow
ing since the beginning of the con
federacy in 1315, when the mountain
eers concluded a successful reDellion
against the Austrian tyrant Since
then the Swiss republic has grown by
mutual agreement and by armed con
quest. Realizing that the oriental
people are about to be compelled to
accept liberty of the kind that Is
grown in Switzerland and developed
in America this Swiss editor got the
idea that it is not impossible for the
people of the Alps and the Jura to
join'the federated states of America.
The democratic stronghold north of
Italy, west of Austria, south of Ger
many, and east of France, would be
amalgamated with the biggest ex
periment in democracy ever at
tempted. J j
How to Preach.
The determined refusal of Chicago
employers of boys to accept the sleepy,
red-eyed kind that smoke cigarettes
is having more influence in suppress
ing the sale of cigarettes than all the
laws ever passed and all the anti-cigarette
leagues ever formed.The Chicago
boys have discovered that they can
not be employed in counting room,
office or store if their fingers are dis
colored by the yellow stain of the
cigarette. The cigarette fiend has
heard from his mother and his teach
er and a sister or two, the evils of
cigarettes. His mirror has shown
him red eyes and the daily lassitude
of the victim of a narcotic has made
him more and more indolent, but
none of these arguments has had any
effect. When the time comes that he
must earn his living, or help earn it,
and the uninterested, business man,
to whom he applies, examines his yel
lowed fingers, or takes a whiff of his
hair and clothes and declines his ser
vices, the cigarette smoker begins to
think that, there may be valid objec
tions to the habit. If Lincoln em
ployers who are served by boys whose
wits are dulled and whose energies
are relaxed by cigarettes, would do
what the Chicago employers have,
such concerted action would do more
to lessen cigarette smoking here than
weeks of preaching and dozens of
leagues.
The City and Corporations.
In granting to any corporations or
any individual a right or franchise to
use the streets of this city as though
they were the private property of
corporation or individual, the coun
cil represents the city alone. The
streets belong to the citizens. They
have been heretofore leased without
rental to various companies. The
to the man who weaves a network of
wire over the city and puts in a tele
phone service at four dollars a tele
phone per month. Citizens might more
properly pay a bonus to the grocer
whose carts bring them groceries
or to the dry goods merchant who
arranges rest rooms in his store and
incurs large expense just to please
that part of the public which passes
by or enters his establishment. The
merchants and the manufacturer sup
port a town. They make it a good
place to live in. Their enterprise,
which receives no municipal encour
agement or recognition, largely sup
ports the schools and churches of this
city. They are doing business for
what money there is in it. They
charge for their goods or service what
price, a fluctuating market, the law
of supply and demand, and their com
petitors fix. They ask no favors from
the city whose healthy functional ac
tivity depends on them. The gas com
pany, the traction company, and the
telephone company fix their unfluctu
ating prices without reference to com
petition and with no special or oner
ous reference to the good will or con
venience of the public. The wires of
the gas and electric light company, of
the telephone company and of the
traction company are a menace to the
lives of the people whose streets and
alleys they occupy. The ugly poles of
all three companies disfigure the city.
Yet we suffer these things from pur
veyors of transportation, sound and
light because of an aboriginal notion
that the man who sells light, sound
or heat is entit'ed to more consider
ation than the man who sells flour by
the pound or calico by the yard.
The company which occupies the
middle of the street or the sides of
the streets and alleys should pay a
yearly rental to the city. The poles
and wires would be no less ugly and
dangerous if their owners paid a
ground rental, but the price of spoil
ing a view is apt to lessen the com
plaints from abutting property own
ers. Merchants must buy or rent ground
and erect or rent bulldinge in which
companies have provided certain ser- to sell their produce. We do not al-
vices for which the citizens have paid
the full price. The companies have
charged what price they could get
without reference to their own free
occupancy of the people's premises.
It is not expected that any company
will pay for a franchise that can be
procured at the price of a little argu
ment with councilman. No man and
no collection of men will pay for a
franchise when talk and influence will
get it for nothing a year.
The notion is an old one that the
citizens of a town must give a bonus
to a man who will supply them with
artificial light at so much much per
foot, or to the man who digs a well
and erects a pump to supply them
with water at so much per gallon, or
to the man who lays rails in the street
and places cars on them to carry pass
engers at five cents per passenger, or
low a fruit or shoe-string merchant
with his whole stock in a basket or
tied about his person to sell his wares
on the highways without first procur
ing a license, which is, in effect, a
rent to use the highway as a place
of business. Even the expressmen
who make a precarious living by mov
ing heavy articles from one part of
the city to another and thereby "serve
the people" and "enhance the value of
property," pay a license.
Yat since Lincoln was first settled,
the council, in accordance with cus
tom, has given first to the gas com
pany, then to the street car company
and last to the telephone company,
the free occupation of the streets.
Would it not be wise for the coun
cil now, before any other company
applies for the free use of the streets,
to serve notice on old mendicants and
new ones that the streets are the city's
and the franchises thereof are for sale.
The city needs the money. Taxes are
burdensome because those who enjoy
the largest privileges get them for
nothing. But each new general man
ager or board of directors that desires
to sell something to the citizens
through a pipe in the streets or to
convey them from place to place by
means of wires and poles and a track
in the middle of the street naturally
expects to . be given the privilege be
cause Lincoln always has been piped,
tracked, poled and wired without
rental or consideration of any sort.
Sophomore Oratory.
As a matter of current experience
sophomores In any college or univer
sity of the first class no longer use
extravagant or hyper-poetic forms of
speech. Mr. Bryan has studied the
oratorical models of a generation that
is gone and he still uses a phrase
ology which scholars and modern ora
tors have discarded. But Mr. Bryan
Is a magnetic speaker, he has a won
derful voice, smooth, melodious, ten
der, that effortlessly carries his syl
lables to the furthest corner of large
auditoriums. He has a frank, manly,
American, open-hearted, open-minded
way about him that, I know no
definition for except "temperament."
May Irwin has the same tempera
ment: When she appears before an
audience, she takes for granted she
has seen all the people before, takes
for granted that they like her, and in
a second, they know that she likes
tticm. She is not upon the stage and
they in the seats. Whatever impal
pable, nameless barrier there Is be
tween them, May Irwin tears down
and immediately, before she has spok
en, sLe is with friends. Americans
like this. The humblest prefers that
his humility should be ignored. Mr.
Bryan has exactly this effect upon an
audience. His smile includes the
humblest and his presence is cheer
ful and stimulating. The opening
words of his speech are always simple.
He is on a level with those he speaks
to. It is said that in a conference
wjth the fusion governor and other
state officials of Nebraska, he is
haughty, isolate and dictatorial, but
no republicans have ever seen him
otherwise than cheerful, convinced
of a high destiny, and sure of his un
derstanding ot the needs of the peo
ple and of his ability to cure a'l their
ills by some legislation either for
silver or against expansion and trusts.
No other actress possesses May Ir
win's instantaneous gift of conquer
ing an audience though she may have
no more than the usual allotment of
private friends. Mr. Bryan is the
only politician whose smile and greet
ing from the platform creates an im
mediate response. Other men and
orators have to convince an audience
of their sanity by logical and states
menlike arguments. Other political
orators must demonstrate their good
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