THE' COURIER.
v
I
X
and almost their only defense against
destructive insects are the birds and
man and woman are rapidly extermi
nating' them. The electric lights are
also friends whose services may not
be overlooked. The globes emptied
by the care takers every morning con
tain thousands of moths and bugs
with mandibles made for and sharp
ened on tree bark. Lured from her
habit of fastening ten thousand eggs
to the leaves of the tree, by the bright
light in the big globe, the mother of
caterpillars makes up her mind to in
vestigate it and then return to her
''sphere." But the globe is a trap and
catches most of the gadding, faithless
moth and bug mothers before con
science is able to get them away from
the fatal incandescent fascination.
, Nothing mitigates and diversifies
life in Nebraska so much as the trees.
They break the wind, they conserve
moisture, they interrupt the direct
rays of a long summer's sun, they har
bor birds as well as insects. The lat
ter kill them for their service and the
former would slay the tree s'ayers if
man would but let them live long
enough. As it is the enemies of the
trees seem to have conquered, and
the only way to keep shady is to
'Plant Trees."
Five Hundred Dollars an Hour.
Politics costs most defeated candi
dates more than their other business
will bear. Most defeated candidates
who return to law or medicine or to
teaching or keeping store, do so sad
der, wiser, poorer men. Mr. Bryan
has been able to turn defeat into
success. The gossiping instinct in
Lincoln has never been satisfied as to
just how much Mr. Bryan charges
for a speech. Mr. Bryan's recent re
ply to the manager or the Fountain
Park assembly at Indianapolis, In
diana, has quieted- the speculation on
this important question.
This association is a literary guild
for purposes of literary study. Mana
ger Parker's letter was a diplomatic
document, intimating that the funds
of the association Were not large and
that the utmost that he was au
thorized by the board of directors to
offer was $200 00. For this sum Mr.
Bryan was asked to deliver an hour's
address upon any subject h3 might
select, current politics, literature,
science, finance, American history and
biography, or upon any one of the
many subjects of which Mr. Bryan
has made so exhaustive a study. Mr.
Bryan replied that be did not lecture
for less than $300 an hour. The stu
dious members of the assembly were
much disappointed but the board of
directors was unwilling-or unable to
increase the offer.
T' ji o
Precedent, or Progress.
inherited from the fathers of his. constitutional
country their spirit and not their
aphorisms Many a good man has
made a will based on conditions he
thought eternal, and the next decade's
development and change has made it
inoperative and the will a dead
letter. The fathers of this country
accepted the conclusions of events.
Their patriotism was not brilliancy so
much as manly recognition of the in
evitable logic of circumstances and
events. You cannot run the United
States from a hundred years ago, or
as Mr. Dooley says, "according to the
new illiction laws, we cannot vote the
cimitries." Washington's example in
daring to accept and act upon the
situation is his legacy to us. To give
over the Filipine islands to one of the
tribes there, a tribe hostile to the
other peaceful, pastoral, or more com
mercial tribes, would be a gross cow
ardice and a rejection of all the good
examples Providence has seen fit to
set berore this country.
Mr. Bryan thinks Washington would
have advised us to haul down the
American flag and leave the Filipinos
to cut each other's throats. I do not
thus interpret Washington's life and
utterances. He was pre-eminently a
man of inspiration. When the crisis
came, that would have overborne a
weaker man, George Washington
read the writing on the wall and he
was never unready. He was a man
of action, not of surrender, and. there
is every indication that the American
people have learned the lesson of his
life and will sustain the administra
tion which is nobly obeying its plain
est lesson.
convention with the
well known purpose of taking a like
action. The movement is under such
headway in Alabama that no one
doubts its early success there also.
The matter has been much discussed
in Georgia, where apparent setbacks
do not seem to us to indicate any
likelihood that this state will not also
in the early future follow the exam
ple of its neighbors. The movement
began under the apostleship of the
late Senator James Z. George, of
Mississippi, some ten years ago. The
South Carolina enactment following
that of Mississippi bears the date of
1896; that of Louisiana comes a little
later. In so far as franchise restric
tions on their face apply equally to
the entire citizenship, and do not set
up class or race distinctions, they are
not likely to be annulled by an ap
peal to the supreme court of the
United States. But they have one
very practical bearing that interests
the people of the whole country.
Under the amended constitution of
the United States, representation in
congress Is not based essentially upon
the relative number of people living
in the various states, but rather upon
the number of legal male voters.
This distinction was not of sufficient
practical importance to be observed by
congress in making the reapportion
ments that followed the enumera
tions of 1880 and 1800. But the reap
portionments which must take place
by virtue of the census of the present
year cannot be properly made in dis
regard of the profound changes that
four states ha.'e now enacted in their
suffrage laws.-
Limltation of the Suffrage;
Frpm, the point of view of the
southern negfo the 'franchise bill
which excludes1 illiterate negroes
from the privifege of the ballot, it is
beneficial. As 'an encouragement of
education the bill is unique. It is
better than a compulsory school at
tendance law. What sincere, fervent,
missionaries to the -negroes have not
been able to accomplish, the ambi
tion that Mr. Booker T. Washington
has tried to appeal to and failed, this
bill perhaps conceived by the whites
in an unfriendly spirit will accom
plish for the Carolinian, negro. It Is
not conceivable that any black boy
who may learn to read and thus
measure up to the state constitutional
requirements of a voter, will refnse.
No man, and especially no colored
man who is endowed with large ap
probativeness, will long remain under
such a constitutional anathema.
With such a literate clause in the
suffrage laws of North Carolina, there
is every prospect that the state will
make a record in the next twenty
years that will induce Massachusetts,
VOICES FROM THE TOMB.
George Washington and the mem- New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois
bers of the Continental Congress were to incorporate such a law in their own
men of power and of individual initi- statutes. If the illiterate could be
ative. If their lives and words mean excluded from the ballot in New
anything at all, they inspire toreso- York and Chicago, the-saloon might
lute, timely action. George Wash- lose its gtipon polling booths. Even in
ington cared not a fig for precedents. Lincoln the unintelligent vote of the
He had not time to look them up and, bottoms is an unknown quantity. It
besides, he was invariably controlled
by the logic of that present he was
such a large part of. If he and the
f ramers'bt the Declaration of Inde
pendence had been the slaves of his
tory and precedent, the stamp act
might have raised the revenue the
British expected of it. Americanism,
the spirit of the race, would not have
endured injustice for long, but consid
ering the average man as he is born,
acts, talks and gives up easily today,
it would have been some time before
another George Washington would
have happened along.
Governor Theodore Roosevelt has
cannot be appealed to by the argu
ments which convince good citizens
and it has elected men who have
never known the meaning of civic
duty or responsibility.
It is said in the Review of Reviews
for September, that this North Caro
lina amendment will disfranchise
75,000 negro voters. Mississippi,
Louisiana and South Carolina are the
three other states that have taken a
similar action; and it is alleged that
the aggregate result in these four
states is the exclusion of from 400,000
to 500,000 colored voters. The state
of Virginia has voted in favor of a
Mr.' Dooley, fa Htfptr'i Weekly. -
"1 don't think," eaid Mr. Dooleyi
"that me frind Willum 'Jennings Bryan
is aa good an orator as he was four
years ago."
"He's th' grandest talker that's lived
since Dah'l O'Connell, said Mr. Hen
neesy. "Ye'vo heerd tbim all an' ye know,"
said Mr. Dooley. "But I tell ye, he's
gone back. D'ye mind th' time we
wint d6wn to th Coleesyam an' he come
out in a black aiapaca coat an pushed
into th' air th' finest wurruds ye iver
heerd spoke in all ye'er bor-rn days?
Dear me, will ye iver frget it, th' way
he pumped it into th' plathocrats? 'I
tell ye here an' now,' he says, 'they'se
as good business men in th' quiet coua
thry graveyards ir Kansas as ye can
find in th' palathial lunch counthers iv
Wall Sthreet,' he says. 'Whin I see th'
face iv that man who looks like a two
dollar pitcher iv Napolyeon at Saint
Heleeoa,' he says, 'I say to mesilf. ye
shall not ye shall not' What th'
divvil is it ye shall not do Hinnissy?
"Ye shall not crucify mankind upon a
crown iv thorns," said Mr. Hennessy.
"Right ye ar-re. I forgot," Mr.
Dooley went on. "Well, tbim were his
own wurruds. He was young an he
wanted something ..an' he spoke up.
He'd been a rayporther on a newspaper
an' he' rather be Prisidint thin write
anny longer f'f th' pa-aper, an' he made
tb' whole ir th' piece out iv his own
head.
"But nowadays he has tin wurruds
f'r Thomas Jefferson an' th' rest iv th'
sage crop to wan f'r himsilf . 'Fellow
Dimmycrats,' he says, 'before goin
anny farther, an'-maybe farm' worse, I
reluctantly accipt th' nommynation f'r
Prisidint that I have caused ye to offer
me,' he says, 'an-good luck to me, he
says. 'Seein'th' counthry in th' con
dition it is,' hejaye, 'I cannot rayfuse,'
he says. 'I will now lave a subjiit that
most be disagreeable to manny ivye an'
peak a few wurruds fr'aa th' fatotrs ir
th' party, iv whom there ar-re manny,'
he says, 'though no shame to th' party
f'r all ir that,' he says.
"Tian't Bryan alone. Mack's the
same way. They're both ancesher
worshipper?, like th' Chinese, Ilinnissy.
An' what I'd like to know is what
Thomas Jefferson knew about the
throubles ir ye an' mc? Divvle a
wurrud have I to say again Thomas.
He was a good man in his day, though I
don't know that his battin' av'rage 'd be
high again th' pilchin' ir these times.
I hare a gr-reat rayepict f'r th' sages an'
I beliere in namin' sthreets an' public
schools afther thim. But suppose
Thomas Jefferson was to come hack
here now an' say to himself: 'They'se a
good Dinimycrat up in Ar-rchy road an
I think I'll drop in on him an talk orer
th' issues ir th' day.' 'Well, maybe he
cud r-ride his ol' gray mare up an not
be kilt be th' throlley cars, an' maybe
th' la-ads d think he was crazy an' not
murdher him f'r his clothes. An' may
be they wudden't. But anny how, sup
pose he got here, an' afther he'd fum
bled ar-round at th' latch f'r they had
sthringson the dure in thim days I let
him in. Well, afther Pre injooced him
to take a bowl ir red liquor f'r in bis
time th' dhrink was white an' explain
ed how th' seltzer comes out, an' th'
cash raygisther wurruks an' wathor is
dbrawn fr'm th' fassit, an' gas is lighted
fr'm th' burner, an' got him so he wud
not bump his head again the ceiliu" irry
time th' beer-pump threw a fit afther
that we'd talk ir th' pollytical situa
tion. '"How does it go?' says Thomas.
'Well,' says I, 'it looks as though Ioway
wps sure RaypuMican,' says I. 'Ioway?'
sayB he 'What's that?' says he. 'Io
way,' says I, 'is a State,' "says -I. 'I
mrer heerd ir it ' says he. 'Faith, ye
did not,' says I. 'But it's' a State just
' th' same, an full ir corn an' people,' I
says. 'An' why is -it Raypublican?'
says he. 'Because,' says I, 'th' people
out there is f'r holdin' the Ph'lippeens,'
says I. 'What th' dirrle ar-re the
Ph'lippeens? says he. 'Is it a game,'
says he, 'or a food?' he says. 'Faith,
'tis small wonder ye don't know,' says I,
'f'r 'tis meilf was weak on it a year ago,'
I says. 'Th' Ph'lippeens is an iesue,'
says I, 'an' islands,' says I, 'an public
nuisance,' I says. 'But, says I, 'befure
we go anny further on this subject,' I
says, 'd'ye know where Minoysota is, or
Westcon6in, or Utah, or Californya, or
Texas, or Neebrasky?' says I. 'I do
not,' says he. 'D'ye know that since
ye'er death there has growed up on th'
shore ir Lake Mitchigan a city that
wud make Rome look like a whistlin'
station a city that has a popylation ir
eight million people till th' cinsus ray
port comes out? I says. 'I nirer heerd
ir it, he says. 'D'ye.know that I can
cross th' ocean in six days, an' won't;
that if annything doesn't happen in
Chiny I can larn about it in twinty-four
hours if I care to know; that if ye was
in Waah'nton I cub call ye up. be tilly
phone an' ye'er wire d be busy?' I says.
'I do not, says Thomas Jefferson.
'Thin,' says I, 'don't presume to adrise
me,' I says, 'that knows these things an'
many more,' I says. 'An' whin ye go
back where ye come fr'm an' set down
with th r-rest ir th' sages to wonder
whether a man cud possibly go fr'm
Richmond to .Boston in a week, tell
thim, I says, 'that in their day they
r-run a corner grocery an today,' says I,
we're op-ratin a sixteen-story depart
ment store an pattin' in irrythiag fr'm
an eiecthric ligbtin' plant to a set ir
false teeth,' I says. An' I histed him on
his horse an' asked a polisoian to show
him the way home.
"Be hirins, Hinnisjy, I want me ad
rice up to date, an' whin Mack and
Willum Jennings tell me what George
Waeh'nton an' Thomas Jefferson said, I