The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903, September 29, 1900, Image 1
K , . A" n (P : 7 VOL. XV., NO. XXXIX ESTABMbhEDlN 1$SS PKICB FIVE CENTS w f LINCOLN. NEBR.. SATURDAY. SEPTEMBER 29. 1900. THE COURIER, Official Organ of the Nebraska State Federation of Women's Clubs. RNTKBKDIN TBE POSTOFFICE AT LINCOLN AS SECOND CLASS MATTES. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BI HE COURIER PRINTING AND PUBLISHING GO Office 1132 X street, Up Stairs. Telephone 384. SARAH B. HARRIS. Editor Subscription Kates In Advance. Per annum II 00 Six months 75 Three months 50 One month 20 Single copies 05 - The Cocbike will not be responsible for vol nntary communications unless accompanied by return postage Communications, to receive attention, must be turned by ttie full name of the writer, not merely as a guarantee of good faitb, but for publication if advisable. ''V'''oa''' OBSERVATIONS. g 4w o c k004 Wealth. The hope (,t the country is the man who goes out from his father's house to build one for himself, who ceases to eat at his father's bountiful table and eats the meagre fare he earns himself, who chooses a wife and sets her at the head of his household, and who resolutely depends upon himself in all things. Sucli men have made Nebraska. There are thousands of men in the state, old men now, who have made it rich by building their homes in it, rearing their children here, developing the schools, planting and cultivating the soil, and by estab lishing manufactures. Men who have done business successfully in Nebras ka have enriched the state and made its reputation. They have not gone into business for philanthropic rea sons, but the success of one man means the inevitable and consequent prosperity of many. The man who builds his fortune is not afraid of for tune; sure of the integrity of his in tellect and purpose, he succeeds per force of initiative, and he deserves success. Mr. J. Sterling Morton of Nebraska City and his sons have established, and they conduct, a starch manufactory there. Nebraska is a corn state and a starch factory and cereal mill such as they operate at Nebraska City stimulate the pro duction of corn. The former is the of coal, costing $22,796. Factory labor, largest of the kind in the United States. The Argo starch factory was.estab lisiied in 1891 and the producing capacity has been quadrupled since that time. It is equipped with the latest machinery, and a tour of the works shows one hundred and fifty men and seventy-live women at work. The starch arrives in front of the young women, who break it up, in large slabs. They break it into cubes with very rapid movements of their fingers. An experienced worker earns two dollars a day. The management has never even been threatened with a strike, and the entente between the employer and the employed is cordial and entirely satisfactory. Perhaps this business was the only one in the state that ran full time and full force during the hard times. Nebraska City did not have to vote bond8 to get this factory started. The masive tire-proof buildings of yellow brick were built by the Morton family because it is their birth place, and be cause members of the family believed that a factory in the center of the corn-raising region would pay. Good management, a confident initiative and energy has produced a business constantly growing, and, in its growth, enriching Nebraska City. There is not a citizen of any city that would not be glad to hear that such a pros perous manufacturing plant was to be established in his vicinity. I know Lincoln people would not get over smiling and exulting at such news for months. Attorney General Smyth's attack upon the Argo Manufacturing Com pany is resented and condemned by everybody who realizes what wealth is and how it is made and distributed. If he has made this attack on the living of two hundred and twenty-five men and women because of Mr. Mor tou's criticisms in The Conservative, he is unfit to hold any public ofllce. If his motive is single, his knowledge of economics is crude and his observa tion of the conditions at Nebraska Citj most prejudiced. It is said that the Argo company will not defend itself from assassina tion, but if forced to leave the state, will establish itself at Kansas City or in some other welcoming commu nity. The records indicate how prof itable such a factory is to a corn rais ing community. For the years 1897 '98 and '99 this factory purchased 1,543,000 bushels of corn and paid for it $391,000. The production for the same period was 46,000,000 pounds of starch. The factory burned 22.300 tons of coal at a cost of 836,800. For those yerTs 8156,000 was paid to oper atives. Bought for the Cereal Mills for 1897, '98 and "99: Corn ground up 1,753,976 bushels, costing 8419,403; oats, 1,052, fc38 bushels, costing 252,133; 14,397 tons an average of one hund-ed hands, 893,671, and the gross sales were 81,000,394. Jt J The Fairy Prince. It is still debated whether to let children believe that there are fairies and a Santa Claus and other delight ful, unseen beings who leave their foot pnnts on the window-panes, and gifts in stockings and on trees, or to erase romance entirely from their lives and to begin in words of one syl lable to tell them the truth about everything just as soon as they can sit up straight or after their second summer. To be sure, the first shock of realization that Santa Claus is many people, that he does not reside in perpetual snow and ice, that he has no reindeer nor furs, that he is not a little hideous, pot-bellied elf, with a round, red lump of fat for a nose, and a face expressive of nothing but jol lity, makes cynics of children. For a year or two they look upon all grown people as deceivers, who, for their own purposes, have prepared an elaborate scheme, utterly unrelated to the facts of life. But adults realize that fairy stories are truer than child ren ever find out. There is one familiar plot that the brothers Grimm, Hans Andersen and the author of the thousand and one tales that the lovely, brave Schehera zade told to the woman-hating sultan, make use of many times. It is the one where a king has a lovely daugh ter, bewitched or imprisoned. The man who attempts to cure or rescue her must do it or die. He lias not the chance of trying and escaping with his life, if he fail. The guerdon is half a kingdom, a whole princess (of daz zling beautv), and an athletic and in tellectual reputation, comprehensive and bright as the dreams of a college foot-ball champion. This plot is en acted and re-enacted in the lives of men who are living and dying now-a-days. Where one man succeds a dozen fail, and as the thirteenth man goes into training, he can see, if lie wishes to discourage himself hy looking, twelve heads that once wagged on shoulders, as strong and confident as his. But the thirteenth man is a hero, even if he Jose his head, for not being daunted by the gruesome heads of his predecessors. Chancellor . Benjamin Andrews is the right size to undertake the job of steering the university of Nebraska. He has never learned how to shiver, and he contemplates history with no arriire pensee that the same combina tion of faculty, politics, students and citizens will defeat- his labor and plans. The chancellor's inaugural address on last Saturday morning was listened to by a thousand or more people with judicial attention. We are a critical, carping public, and we do not regard the ditliculties of the chancellor's place with consideration. But there is always a thirteenth man in every succession ot governors or dynasties, and this big-boned charicel lcr has come here to stay. Every graduate of the university and every loyal citizen of the state, welcomes him. and is ready to give him his sup port. The Nebraska State University needs a man that looks exactly like Chancellor Andrews. He announced his creed and his policy last Saturday morning, and it was unequivocal and satisfactory to partizans of all politi cal parties. The students of the university arc ready to respond to frankness. An ex ample of simplicity in the treatment of all university questions will have an immediate efTect upon tlie stan dards and traditions of the students. Mr. Andrews has arrived at the'Ne braska university at a favorable pe riod in his career. He is not afraid of politics and politicians, but he has learned something about them and their metiiods that will not be with out value to him in Nebraska. With, a scholar's enthusiasm for truth and expression, lie possesses the subtle rer sources of the stag who has been hunted. The final impressions made by the two addresses I have heard him deliver are of sense and sanity and large-mindedness. Perhaps we will be patient enough to give this stranger a chance to develop Lis plans and show us what he can .do as the head of one of the largest schools in the United States, and potentially one of the very few great universities. Snobbery. Andrew Lang regrets ia "The Critic'' that Omar Khayyam is no longer the poet of the few. "Long ago," he says, "Omar was a favorite of a very few persons. Mr. John Ad dington Symonds gave me a copy, nearly thirty years ago. which some one bad given to him, and which 1 was to hand on to another, as I did." The snobbery of literary men who are snobs is more olfensive than the airs of the opulent. It is less excus able. Writers are supposed to be within range of literature, and if they are unaffected by its ratholicitytheir own contribution, can have no per manent value for mankind. A snob who is exclusive and fastidious be cause his father is rich, is like the heathen who die unconverted they do not know any better. If Om.ir Kliayyam is a bore, as Mr Lang says, because so many distinctly unlitcrary people quote him, then Shakspere probably wearies Mr. Lang. The com mon people quote him so in their daily talk. What is the use of enjoy ing a writer unless the appreciation can be kept in the family? Mr. Lang says he knew Omar thirty years ago, and had the Rubaiyat from a, man who secreted the tent-maker's sayings just as long and ha Jded them .on to Mr. Lang, with instructions to keep the book among the elect. When the common people begin to quote Omar, this unmitigated aristocrat twits them with a desire to be literary, be-