THE COURIER.
X.
ing to state pride when the university
catalog announces that freshmen in
the Nebraska university have passed
the same examination offered to ap
plicants for admission to Ann Arbor
and Princeton. The national stand
ing of the university would be low
ered if the entrance examinations
were made to fit the actual educa
tional conditions in Nebraska and
without reference to what other uni
versities exact. But in building from
the ground on a solid foundation
there are substantial advantages. In
order to fit the public school scholars
for the university, which is only the
last and the highest four grades of
the public school system, more work
is assigned to each grade than its
ivcrage pupil Is capable of perform
iag wel!. The lack of sincerity in the
school curriculum, its variety and the
consequent hurry and superficiality
of the training produce just the sort
of pupil who without knowledge of,
or practice in good English, ap
plies for admission into the state uni
versity. Their general education be
iag what is called finished at the
atate university, tbey erect a legal,
Medical or commercial career on the
baky foundation built for them by
the public schools under the stimu
lating influence of the university.
Thus it happens that the court must
contend with ambiguous legal papers,
and that all sorts of "misleading com-'
munications and documents drawn
up by young gentlemen to whom Ne
braska has given her most munificent
gift, are daily annoyances of commer
cial intercourse.
When a great university like the
one in Chicago begins to perceive that
her alumni do not think or write
lucidly or spell correctly, there is
Dome hope that the unnatural system
may he corrected. And in time, of
course, the Baconian method of mak
ing a school system conform to the
needs and capacities of the scholar,
instead of crowding the scholar into
the system, may appeal to the Ne
braska educators who have induced
school boards to bring high schools
into the accredited list, without re
gard to the-overwhelming majority
who never go beyond the high sch'ool
grade and without regard to the edu
cational needs and conditions of a
Bew state-
Jt Jt
Mr. Thompson and His Plain Letter.
I. E. Thompson has written and is
circulating a "plain letter" evidently
called for by the prevalent belief
that his action after being defeated
in the senatorial caucus which nomi
nated M. L. Hay ward was such as to
call for the defeat of the legislative
'nominees in this county pledged or
'instructed to support him for the
senate. By way of excuse for putting
forth his letter he therein says: "I
make it that those who are seeking
the truth, and the success of the re
publican party, may know the facts."
He would leave the Impression that
the truth relative to the facts may be
tfound in his letter. The value of Mr.
Thompson's statement, the credit that
is to be given to his word can be best
determined by facts. In an adffidavit
sworn to on the 5th day of last Juoc
and published in the Journal on the
10th of last June E. E. Hairgrove
swears with reference to the signa
ture of Thompson being attached to
the proposal which it has been re
peatedly charged that he signed, as
t -Hows: "1 am well acquainted with
the signature of D. E. Thompson and
know that the signature to that pa
per was the signature of D.E. Thomp
son." With reference to the same
.affidavit of Mr. Hairgrove Mr. Thomp
son in his letter says: ' One republi
can, a Mr. Hairgrove, a lobbyist, wht?
was much opposed to me in the last
campaign, made an affidavit that he
believed it was my signature." Why
does this man over his signature write
that Hairgrove swore he believed the
signature to the agreement was
Thompson's? The searcher after truth
will hunt long before he find an ap
preciable quantify in Mr. Thompson's
"plain letter."
J Jt
"an 'women."
Mr. Bryan said in a just-before elec
tion speech to a yelling, interrogative,
just-before-election crowd, that as Le
traveled up and down and across
America, he had noticed what a lot
of wan faced women there' were. He
attributed their. wanness to a repub
lican administration. The poor, wan
women in the crowd he was address
ing at that time were doubtless en
couraged to believe, that when Bryan
was president all the conditions
which make women pale, such as the
constant care of a brood of children
and incessant house work, would be
changed. Women under a Bryan ad
ministration, tbey inferred, would not
age nor stale with time. Bryan abne,
of all presidential candidates, that
ever ran, is willing to promise to
change woman's woe to gladness.
His promises read like the confident
ones of the traveling patent medicine
"fakir, but as there are hopeless oges
who believe the latter and buy his
bread pills, so these wan women, suf
fering from one knows not what pre
disposition to melancholy or real
misery cheered Mr. Bryan and longed
to vote for a man who could promise
so much so prettily.
Jt Jt
The Western Toman Voter.
The statement that women do not
vote where the state constitutions
permit them the privilege is disproved
by the facts in the case. Some prophet
who is the author of a long article
upon the history of female suffrage in
the four states where it has been tried
says:
Very few of the western women
take mush interest in politics, and
not more than fifty per cent of the
female vote of these four states will
go to the polls .this year." The rea
son, he alleges, is that "the novelty
has worn off."
Nearly every paper in the United
States has repeated- in substance his-prediction-and
the belief obtains that
women in the west take very little in
terest in politics. In Wyoming wo
men have had full suffrage for thirty
one years. The novelty might be sup
posed to have worn off there if any
where. Yet the official statement of
the Wyoming secretary of state says
that at the last presidential election
ninety per cent of the women voted.
Iq Colorado, not long ago, a joint res
olution was passed by an almost unan
imous vote of both houses of the legis
lature declaring, among other things,
that ever since the suffrage was
granted, women have exercised the
privilege as generally as men." Gov
ernor Frank Steunenberg of idaho
says in a recent article in Harper's
Bazar that the women cast forty per
cent of the total vote of that state at
the last elections, and that their vote
promises to increase.
Any one who has been reading in
the newspapers from day to day the
accounts of the enthusiastic crowds of
men and women that have greeted
both Roosevelt and Bryan in the en
franchised states will hardly believe
that very few of these western wo
men," whether democrats or republi
cans, "take very much interest in
politics. '
I claim to know just as much about
women from a life-long association
and from identity of sex as this dis
credited prophet, who says that "not
more than fifty per cent of the female
vote in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah
and Idaho will go to the polls this
year, because the novelty has worn
off." The novelty never wears off of
politics for woman whether she is
free to vote for the officers who ad
minister the taxes she pays or not.
In England the women who go about
to the borough meetings are pelted
with stale vegetables and eggs, but
that does not weaken' their enthusi
asm. .Women are more emotional
than men and that sort of opposition
only intensities whatever opinions and
personal preferences they hold.
Neither one party nor the other need
-convince - Itself that the women
of these western states will not vote.
To a woman, they will vote and they
will stand in line for hours if neces
sary in order to deposit their ballots.
I have not seen nor heard of a woman
from Colorado who does not intend to
vote. My acquaintances and those of
others who possess friends in Colorado
are not remarkable. They represent
the average female resident of Colo
rado. Utah is the only western state
that possesses a unique female popula
tion and the plural wives are meeker
than the lone mistress of one heart,
Bnd will vote as their Mormon hus
band directs. He will get his harem
out because Utah is peculiarly and
very closely related to politics.
No one who has attended state and
national federations can have the
least doubt that women are interested
in politics. They are intensely inter
ested in the issues involved and in
the candidates. There are no neu
trals. Every delegate takes one side
or the other openly and with a con
viction indiscribable. The large pro
portion of female saints in the calen
dar suggests the tendencies of women
to take sides and die for her choice or
faith. She is just as willing now to
die for a platform and the incarnate
representative of it as she was five hun
dred years ago to be burnt alive for
the doctrine of the Trinity or for the
doctrine of transubstantiation.
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Imperialism.
Mr. C. O. Wbedon has issued a
pamphlet on "Mr. Bryan and His
Platform." some parts of which for
their timeliness and for their con
crete replies to the vague, oratorical
accusations of Mr. Bryan are here
with reprinted:
Upon the subject of "Imperialism"
and "The Consent of the Governed,"
Mr. Bryan expresses himself thus in
his platform:
'We declare again that all govern
ments instituted among men derive
their just powers from the consent of
the governed; that any government
not based upon the consent of the
governed is a tyranny, and that to
impose upon any people a government
of force is to substitute the methods
of imperialism for those of a repub
lic. We hold that the constitution
follows the flag."
Imperialism then consists in impos
ing upon any people a government to
which they do not consent, a govern
ment of force. If this is a correct
definition of imperialism it has ex
isted herefrom the beginning and the
complaint against it comes too late to
be effective. When our ancestors
purchased Louisiana from France did
they obtain the consent of the in
habitants of that territory? No.
Thomas Jefferson was president when
that purchase by which 1,171,931
square miles of territory was added to
the national domain was made. He
bought the territory and the treaty by
which the purchase was evidenced
provided that the inhabitants of the
ceded territory should be incorporated
into the union of United States. Was
their consent to such incorporation
asked? Never. History records that
the people of Louisiana were opposed
to the transfer and that in New Or
leans many wept when they saw the
flag to which they had rendered alle
giance pulled down. Suppose Jeffer
son bad waited for the consent of the
governed before acquiring Louisiana,
when would the state of Nebraska,
carved out of the Louisiana purchase,
have furnished a presidential candi
date? Raving concluded the purchase
of Louisiana without waiting or car
ing for the consent of the governed,
President Jefferson on the 31st day of
October, 1803, approved an act of con
gress wbirb gave him imperial power
over the newly acquired territory.
That act is to be found in the second
volume of the United States statutes
at 'large, page 245. It authorized the
president to take possession of the
newly acquired territory and to main
tain order therein to employ any part
of the army and navy of the United
States or of the militia authorized
by the act of March 1st of that year.
The act provided that until the ex
piration of that session of congress,
unless provision for the temporary
government of the territory should
sooner be made, by congress, all the
military,- civic and judicial powers
exercised by the officers of the exist
ing government of that territory
should be vested in such persons and
exercised in such manneras the presi
dent should direct, for maintaining
and protecting the inhabitants of
Louisiana in the free enjoyment of
their liberty, property and religion.
W.hat greater power could be con
ferred upon an emperor than all the
military, civil and judicial powers of
a government? Jefferson derived
none of these powers from the gov
erned nor did he acquire them by
their consent. They were conferred
upon him by congress and without
any carping about "imperialism" or
the "consent of the governed," that
man who wrote the Declaration Inde
pendence accepted these powers and
exercised them.
When we acquired Florida by the
treaty of February, 1819. and thereby
added to the national domain 50,268
square miles of territory, the presi
dent sent Andrew Jackson to occupy
the country and to make and execute
laws for the government of the in
habitants; was the consent of the
governed asked or solicited? Not at
all. We never sought nor obtained
the consent of the Mexicans to the an
nexation of the 600,000 square miles
of territory acquired from Mexico.
Upon the people of that territory we
imposed a government of force and
when they revolted and murdered the
governor appointed over them by
President Polk, the army inflicted
severe and merited punishment with
out waiting for the aid or consent of
any other nation on earth.
The 577,390 square miles of Alaskan
territory we purchased from Russia
for $7,200,000 and we never thought to
enquire whether the people consented
to the government which we imposed
upon them or not.
And now we have acquired from
Spain by the treaty of Paris 119,868
square miles of territory for $20,000,000.
So great a bargain, so valuable an ac
quisition that Mr. Bryan's duty to his
country, as he viewed it, impelled
him to resign his commission as com
mander of the Third Nebraska, then
about to embark for Cuba, and hasten
to Washington to exert his influence
in favor of the ratification of the
treaty. That treaty contained ths
clause.
"The civil rights and political
status of the native inhabitants of
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