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VOL. XV., NO. XXX
ESTABLISHED IN 18S6
PRICE FIVE CENTS
LINCOLN. NEBR.. SATURDAY. JULY 23 1900.
THE COURIER,
Official Organ of the Nebraska State
Federation of Women's dubs.
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OBSERVATIONS. 8
4-oo'fv
Selfishness and Altruism
It is an indictment of the plan or
scheme of creation, all this praise of
alttuism. Civilization owes the me
chanical and most of its scientific
discoveries to selfishness. We want
to save work, it is comfortable to
wear fine wools, to sit in easy chairs,
it is soothing to be surrounded by
soft, harmonious colors, music, fra
grance, color, graceful fonts are
pleasing, and man is willing to work
harder in the middle of the day that
he and those who minister to the
comfort of bis home and flatter him
as the bread-winner may the more
enjoy the evenings and the mornings.
In working for himself and hi3 family
with all his might and main, a man,
with no such design, makes it easier
for his neighbor to live. If he be not
a parasite, every man's success is a
blessing to the community he labors
in. and increases the happiness and
prosperity of the whole.
An occasional philanthropist who
has inherited his money is miserable
over the sorrows of others and yearns
to distribute his inheritance by gifts,
a method which nature and economics
both render ineffectual.
The race is to the strong and the
swift. The conditions of the race
were settled before the most pre
cocious monkey found out he was a
man and could vote and pose and
strut before females and intimidate
them by roaring and brandishing a
club. If altruism or devotion to
others, would develope ihe race fast
er, it is certain t!:at each one of us
would now be neglecting our own
business and busybodying ourselves
about the affairs of our neighbors,
who in turn would be trying to make
our fortunes. Such a law and regime
would be very unhandy. Our own
affairs are so niuch easier to reach
and to understand and to handle
than our neighbor's business. Be
sides the Bible recommends that we
treat others as. tenderly and consid
ately as we treat ourselves, thus rec
ognizing the universality of selfish
ness and establishing it as it gauge of
altruism.
The Harvard School for Cubans.
2Jot many Cuban teachers respond
ed to Harvard's invitation to them to
come and learn American pedagogy.
Those that came are having a good
time. Members of the W. C T. U.
and of the Woman's Century Club,
met them as they disembarked in
Boston, and with flowers and friendly
tokens and signs made them welcome.
The young ladies went to Cambridge
and settled down not entireiy to
study but to learn and practice the
customs of our country. Accustomed
all their lives to the strictest espion
age or cbaperonage, for women in
Cuba are still protected or tormented
by the duenna who insists upon an
antique seclusion of the female, these
young girls are eager for freedom and
in ignorance of the limits of Ameri
can co-association, have shocked some
of the Cambridge and Boston folk by
going unchaperoned to restaurants
with gentlemen. The Boston beaux
expected tbat the girls would be
beautiful and attractive, but they
were afraid that the short summer
term would be insufficient to over
come the shyness of maidens raised
behind latticed windows. But the
Cuban girls go rowing, riding, walk
ing and take their ice cream sodas as
willingly if not as nonchalantly as
the American girl. And the form
ers eagerness and appreciation is
very grateful to the Boston young
man, who is used to very independent
exigent ladies who take his offerings
as a matter of course.
In answer to criticisms of their
evident willingness to be without a
chaperone, the Cuban girls are very
docile and express a willingness to
conform to the customs of the coun
try. Conventional distinctions can
not be acquired, however, without
study and the signorinas cannot be
expected to know that though they
may walk with an escort or go to an
entertainment with him it is not
comme ilfaut to dine or lunch with
him at a restaurant or hotel unaccom
panied by an older woman.
The Boston papers report tbat the
women are good students, attentive,
intelligent and polite. The men are
much more sedate than the women
who impress the serious Bostonians
as being cheerful to the point of gid
diness. The Catholic societies of
Boston provide for their pleasure a
dance on Tuesday and Friday eve
dings of each week at the Hcmenway
gyunnsium
A Cambridge temperance society
asked President Eliot to send some of
the teachers to a meeting of the so
ciety in order that they might carry
back to Cuba witii them some of the
very latest American ideas on tem
perance and a new repugnance for the
rum fiend, but President Eliot was
disappointing He wrote the com
mittee: '"I cannot think that the
Cuban teachers would take any in
terest in total abstinence. They have
no tendency to drink to excess, and
cannot understand it in others. The
vice against which you contend is not
practised among them. Our people
have much to learn from them on
that subject: but they can get noth
ing but a warning from us." To the
zealous committee President Eliot's
note was a disappointment.
It is so discouraging to find after
one is thoroughly equipped for rescu
ing and converting foreigners, tbat
they do not need our process When
commercial development shall have
made drunkenness rare and confined
the intemperate use of tobacco to
men out of a job, when employers
have all joined a union whose bylaws
declare their rights to unmuddled
thinkin'g and undiluted energies, con
trary to tbe expectations of a number
of reformers who wish to hurry on
the millennium by pledges, there will
still be sins to preach against and
plenty of the fallen to help up out of
the gutter. In the case of Cubans;
inhabitants of a warm country sel
dom drink to excess. Their faults
are those of indolence and treachery.
Woman Suffrage in Colorado.
Women have voted in Colorado for
five years, but five years is too short a
trial of any suffrage system to base
any very important conclusions upon.
The Colorado women this year will
cast their second presidential vote
and because women always belong to
the conservative party, is a sound
reason for believing that the woman's
vote of Colorado will be for President
McKinley. In off years the woman's
vote iias been light and the testimony
of politicians that they do not count
upon it or pay a.iy campaign atten
tion to is doubtless correct. But
they will vote this year and every
presidential year will mark an in-c-ease
in the number of habitual wo
men voters.
An interest in politics is one of the
most vitalizing of medicines. Ennui
never attacks a politician. He has
loo many men to see and too many
interests, and candidates to remember
and pitfails to avoid. When women
begin to take an interest in politics,
they will have no more time to spare
for the consideration of Rome or the
study of Dante. Current events,
chances and combinations will expel
more academic thought. Then the
ward bosses will begin to think about
the "woman's vote"' and to lay plans
to conciliate and attract it. Saloon
keepers cannot be elected in that
time either to the school board or the
common council and in that day wo
men school teachers will receive as
much salary as men. Thirty years is
a short trial, yet in tbat time the wo
ni2n in Colorado should be able to
exhibit a creditable record of influ
ence in elections. A few good citi
zenship leagues like that one in Chi
cago which publishes tiie records of
notoriously corrupt candidates in
both parties would make tbe "wo
man's vote" of Colorado a force which
nominating conventions would bear
in mind. Unless all the women vote
it is inexpedient that a few should
and the women of Colorado, interest
ed or indifferent ought to know that
they are trying an experiment for the
whole United States and according as
they accept their responsibilities or
treat them frivolously, the question
will be settled in scientific minds all
over the world.
The Consent of the Governed.
A phrase occasionally fastens itself
to tbe language and tiie people ac
cept it as truly discriptive when it is
really meaningless. Ask any school
boy if the people of this country are
governed by their own consent, and
he will answer affirmatively. He re
members the Declaration of Inde
pendence and is sure tbat we govern
ourselves. Half of the people are
wmen and this hnlf of tax paying
orderly citizens are governed without
their consent. Perhaps a third of the
male population is under age and can
not vote. There are the Indians,
Chinese, convicts and idiots who can
not vote. It is reckoned that about
a fifth of the population vu'es, so
that it is not so spread-eagle but more
accurate to say that, this government
exists by tbe consent of less tban one
fifth f the governed. Even this
fraction, is lessened by the manipu
lation of men who make politics a
trade and a livelihood, who arrange
deals with candidates so that when the
time comes the delegates have ns
choice but to vote for a bad man or a
worse one.
In the case of children, parents do
not ask their consent. All children,
properly trained are put to bed, fed
plain foods and clothed under pro
test. Unless force were used they
would go to bed when everything
amusing or interesting ceased. They
would eat sugar until their stomachs
fermented and their teeth were black
ened. Tbey would wear the bright
est colors and play all the time. They
would not study. Of their own will
they would not prepare themse'ves
for a strenuous life. But armed men
and women coerce children to do all
these things. They teach them either
by moral suasion, influence, or a stick,
according to the disposition of the
governed, self-control, the satisfac-