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VOL. XV., NO. XLIl
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g OBSERVATIONS. 8
To Help Lincoln.
It is a favorite argument with the
men who believe that Mr. Thompson
would make an ideal United States
senator that his election to such a
position would be of great benefit to
Lincoln. It has not been urged that
his counsel and advice would be of
any particular value to the United
States or to Nebraska. Though to
legislate for the whole country was
Washington's idea of the senate's
function. The reiteration of the ar
gument that Mr. Thompson at Wash
ington would be good for Lincoln
entitles.it to consideration.
Mr. Thompson has financial acumen.
He belongs to the motor type of men,
.and his prominence in this locality
is due to tireless activity and accurate
judgment as to the action in crucial
times, best for his own fortunes. I do
not say "good" judgment, because the
word has an ethical meaning entirely
out of relation to Mr. Thompson's
creed, conduct and character. It is
granted that Mr. Thompson has rare
foresight and proved ability to con
duct and make a good sale of institu
tions. Through the bard limes the
gas .company, and the insurance com
pany, of which Mr. Thompson was
president, were prosperous institu
tions, and he sold them in better
times at a top price. Such talent is
not common and it is only just to ac
knowledge it. Mr. Thompson was once
in a position to help Lincoln at a
time when the fortunes of her citi
zens were in one side of the scales and
his own peril in the other. A brave
man possessing his financial resources
and acumen who really cared for the
hundreds of tired mothers whose
children's patrimony was deposited in
the Capital National Bank, would
have put his shoulder to the wheel and
set his God given wits to work to save
ignorant, innocent depositors from
penury. Probably it never occurred
to Mr. Thompson when lie learned
the condition of the bank that to pre
vent just such an impending catas
trophe men with wits and money
were set in high places -iliat they
might warn the people in the valley
who could not see. He was a director
in the Capital National Bank and the
only one who knew of its condition in
time to save it. If Mr. Thompson had
realized the sacredness of a represent
ative position at that time, if, realiz
ing that hundreds of people had de
posited their money in the bank,
trusting to his sound financial judg
ment and rating, he had braced him
self to receive the brunt of the shock,
instead of selling out part of his stock
to an ignorant buyer and slyly retir
ing from the directorate, the name of
Thompson would be venerated in Lin
coin now.
Mr. Thompson has ben tried in
two conspicuous trials for fidelity and
found wanting. As a director in the
Capital National Bank, he lied from
the first glimpse of approaching
calamity, he fled and left a helpless
lot of people to sutler the miseries
consequent upon the discovery of a
looted bank. As a candidate of the
republican party, he broke his word
to abide by the decision of a republi
can caucus, and conspired with the
populists to betray the republican
party into their hands. Mr. Thomp
son has passed the meridian of life,
and there is no record of an instance
where he has sacrificed himself for the
interests and the people he represent
ed. This sense of his human debt to
the community is lacking. He may
have been born without it, in which
case a gentle and wise Judge will
take the extenuating circumstances
into consideration when tiie Thomp
son case is reached. Or he may have
ignored those sub-conscious prompt
ings so long that they have ceased
altogether to attract his attention.
In either case his record and his char
acter indicate entire unfitness for a
representative position. Represent
ative means standing for and acting
for others, and I have shown that
these ''others" do not exist in Mr.
Thompson's world.
It has been frequently said that all
good financiers would have acted just
as Mr. Thompson did in the Capital
National Bank failure. That is not
so. For the honor of their name, to
keep faith with the people, to avert
disaster from Lincoln and the whole
South Platte country, one bank presi
dent gave up his fortune and then his
life and another man, a director, gave
a fortune frou his private resources.
Neither of these men ever posed as a
hero or as a martyr. They recognized
the situation, the consequences to the
people of their cowardice, bent their
backs to the burden, atd one of them
died without knowing that his sacri
fice had been an acceptable sacrifice,
fair and pleasing.
The Nebraska State Fed
eration of 'Women's Clubs.
The sixth annual federation meet
ing of thtdelegates from thc-Wo-n.en's
clubs of Nebraska was an en
couraging sign of an increasing inter
est in the work of the world. As I re
member the second and the third and
perhaps the fourth meeting of the
Federation, most of the speakers were
content to express a very earnest but
vague belief that woman's sphere
was enlarging, and that her contribu
tions to the century were signal and
worthy of glittering celebration. The
earnestness of the addresses was what
most attacted me. The speakers did
not say as much as they seemed to
say, though the saying it deeply
moved them. The emotion was elu
sive, but I understood, at last, that
the flowers of speech, the figures taken
from Rome and Greece (as Napoleon
ravaged Italy to decorate Paris) were
only the signs of a triumph and of
a progressive campaign which the
speakers were too subtle to express
more bluntly. Last week's orators
spoke of ceramics, of music, Indian
and Negro, of how the woman of leis
ure and wealth can help the woman
who is striving to earn her living, of
food adulterations, of the servant girl
and mistress problem, of cooking, of
the school laws of Nebraska, of indus
trial laws and of the work and pur
poses of the National Consumer's
League. Mrs. Decker of Denver, one
of the best speakers in this country,
said that a woman appeared before the
Denver Woman's Club to tell the
members about a certain kind of wrap
per which she was making and which
was on sale in one of the dry goods
stores of Denver. In the next .few
days perhaps ten members of the
club enquired for that garment at
the store. Mrs. Decker said the
clerk whom she asked for the wrap
per rushed to the manager of the
store, exclaiming: "Here's another!
There must have been a thousand
women in here asking for that wrap
per in the last week." There had not
really been so many, but commerce is
very sensitive and a demand repeated
a very few times to the proprietor of a
store seems to him importunate.
There is no doubt that that one wo
man's business was helped by the
esprit dit corps and applied earnest
ness of the Denver Woman's Club.
Inspired by this true story, Mrs.
Decker's audience received the appli
cation of it to Nebraska with convic
tion. One way to express true fra
ternity is not by dropping a penny
into a beggar's hat. but by upholding
and helping the orphaned and widowed
women who are in business over
against our own house. The ceramic
program of Tuesday evening was a
demonstration of this spirit of esprit
dit corps as well as of an appreciation
of the creative result accomplished by
the china decorators in Hastings, in
Ashland, in Omaha, in Lincoln and
in many other towns of the state.
A. woman who made a very elTect-
ive speech on the school laws of Ne
braska said that it was of no conse
quence, except for tbc passing mo
ment, whether she spoke well or ill,
if the women-returned to their honied
and continued to take no actual or
corporeal interest'in the publicschoois
which their children attended. This
spirit of disregard for personal
praise or criticism, so that the mes
sage be delivered effectively, was ap
parent in more than one speaker.
For instance, on Tuesday night the
church was packed by an audience,
most of which was gathered to sec
Mrs. Hall's lantern pictures of the
chief works of art of the Paris exposi
tion. When the program was half
completed Mrs. Hall explained that
women's clubs and women's club speak
ers had talked about art in the ab
stract long. enough, and that the au
dience must listen to women who are
really creating artistic monuments or
this period.
The next reform in the program of.
the Federation meetings is suggested
by this Tuesday night ceramics pro
gram. The audience was only half
composed of club women and the oth
er half was not interested in the re
ports of the biennial meetings, and
this other half was pointedly restles
when obliged to listen to the reports
of this meeting. Men, considering
their large liberty, and hereditary
powers and position, exhibit a
patience with our mistakes, which
ought riot to be too severely tried.
They had come to see the pictures
and they might have seen them be
fore the last car had been shut up in
the car barn if the biennial numbers
in a prcgram devoted to pottery and
pictures had been delivered at a mor
ning session.
The growing friendliness and even
intimacies between women from ail
parts of the state whom club work
has introduced was a noticeable fea
ture of this Federation.
At the present rate of growth only
the auditorium will house the Fed
eration on the next occasion of it-
assembly in Lincoln.
Mrs. Decker of Deavcr.
There are only a few "natural born"
orators. Mrs. Decker can claim her
birthright whenever she chooses. Like
Mark Antony, she discounts expecta
tion before beginning her speech, by
saying she does not understand the
voluntary of applause that, I think,
must always greet her, being only a
plain woman from Denver, come to
talk over the evolution of clubs with
her colleagues in Nebraska. Some
thing more beautiful than beauty to
in her face and in the tender flexible
voice that car'ies aa far and as well as
Mr. Bryan's, and is much more musi
cal. In apt anecdote, in inimitable
style of telling stories, in quick sym
pathy, in largeness of heart, and ex
haustless tact and gentleness, Mrs.
Decker is among the elect. There is
no club woman in all the country so