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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 5, 1901)
WA THE COURIER. A & LA- ; the matter to arbitrators to be ap- United States senate whose property pointed under legal authority, where interests are not principally within witnesses could be compelled to at- the jurisdiction of a foreigp govern- tendandsubniittoexamination under raent with which this. government oath; he offered to forfeit one thou- may possibly come in conflict, sand dollars if he failed to make good N0t only his loyalty to. party and his charges and placed in the hands.0Uritry are endorsed, but also the of the Mayor of Lincoln a certified "splendid character" of Mr. Tlfomp- check for that amount, the proceeds son.Opposition to this man has been of which were to be devoted to any very largely confined to his political religious or charitable institution action and methods, but when he in- whlch Mr. Thompson might designate uces public bodies to parade his in case he failed to convince the arbi trators of the truth of the charges which he had published; Thompson to withdraw as a candidate for United States senator in case the charges were established. An innocent man would never have permitted such an character it becomes a proper matter of comment so far as its real nature is illuminated by his acts which are matters of common notoriety or pub lic record. In November, 1897, the city of Lincoln employed a young man, George J. McArtliur, whose duty it opportunity for vindication to escape. was to inspect buildings and property The acceptance of that challenge and using water furnished by the city his vindication before the arbitrators, from its water system, for tbepur if vindication was possible, meant pose of ascertaining if the city was more to D. E. Thompson than all the receiving its just dues from consumers tirebv. mother" excursions, than all 0f cit,v water. Mr. McArthur reported the house-top charity in which he has ever indulged. He declined the challenge. Why? There can be but one answer. Because he feared to to the city council that after a care ful inspection of the Brace block at 1501 O street he found the water turned on at the stop box and imme- meet his accuser in a tribunal where diately inside the front wall and con he could be compelled to answerunder necttd with the. well pump and pipes oath; because he dared not face the Tunning through the entire building. 4h nnnnn intti. vam I rl V.r inll nrl T f v . M xne Jeager suowea no payments ior water for more than .two years. The schedule rate was 8214 per year. The property known as the Brace block was at that time under the control if not in fact owned by D. E. Thompson. The next day after this report was published Mr. McArthur was taken to witnesses who would be called to establish the fact of his proffered per fidy to the republican party. Would an innocent man have declined such an opportunity of forever silencing imputations upon his character and integrity which had been rife since the day that Senator Hayward was elected.' Three incentives to.tlie ac- the otlice of Thompson in the Brace ceptancc of the challenge, presented block and, as reported in a newspaper themselves; first, the opportunity of a at the time, when in the office homp- complete vindication if guiltless; sec- son applied to this public employe, pnd, the opportunity to dep'rivetiisac- whcesole offense was that he had cuser of one thousand dollars if inno- faithfully performed his duty, the cent;and third, the opportunity of most approbious epithets, using the oeste'wing that thousand dollarsupon most profane language at his com- some.religibus or charitable organiz- mana. Thereupon McArthur filed with the police judge his complaint charging Thompson with assault and with using language tending to pro voke an assault by applying to the complaining party grossly vile and in- tion which he should designate. No man- likes better than D. E. Thomp son to'dtstribute charity-wheh it is widely advertised and am'piy fertil ized with promise of profit to him; and yet he declined this opportunity, suiting epithets. The records in the Is" guilKbr innocence to"6e"iriferred from such refusal? Eliminate the sworn statements of Messrs. Allen, Schwind.and Hairgrove, and rest the matter upon 'the action of this man when'cballenged to submit his alleged action. to judicial investigation, and who can doubt his offer to betray the party'whose candidate he now claims to be? Brief as his-political career has been, it is long enough to show that his'political depravity has tried puhlic patience too long. When put to the test of party loy- ofilce of the police judge show that a warrant for the arrest of Thompson was issued, that he was arrested, and upon a plea of guilty of using the language complained of, entered by his attorney, was fined five dollars and costs and ordered committed until the fine and costs were paid; that he paid the fine and was released. If there had been at the Brace block a misappropriation of city water, using it without paying for it, apply ing profane language and insulting epithets to the city employe who dis- alty Mr. Thompson' miserably failed; covered and reported the facts hardly he has never proven his loyalty to his country because occasion has not arisen, -but when he shall be called to decide between his nativecountry and his personal interest what will his action be? principally compensated the city for the loss it had sustained: it was not, to many people, satisfactory evidence of the innocence of the responsible party. If there had been no such misapprc His property interests are priation the course pursued by Mr. in Mexico where he is said Thompson can hardly be supposed to to possess a valuable improved landed have furnished to an injured man an estate of upwardsof thirty-two thous- adequate remedy. Will people gen- wealth. This man's candidacy is in on a bank of wild thy ml and of himself alone. The, republi-1 the peonies dully glow cans of this state do not want mm as their representative in the United States senate. He is pursuing the same tactics now that he pursued two years ago; he has a "large number of men who continually assert that now he has enough members of the legis lature pledged in his interest to elect him. That song was sung with mo notonous repetition during the sena torial contest of 1699, but or sixty seven votes necessary to an election he was never able to secure twenty. In that contest he placed his political reputation upon a gibbet of infamy and it will take something more than a panegyric from a small minority of the Union Veterans Republican Club to take it down. j J v Maude Adams in L'Aiglon. Playingthe same play that Sarah Bernhardt is playing and playing it They rattle them off with a huckster" in iue saiuu uity siiuuiuiueuuai,y j& what Maude Adams is doing, The e, the heart of while Oberon sings of his love. At anl earlier staye of the development of electricity, be fore signs of Pansy's pills and soaps were strung all over the1 country and lighted up at night, there was somjj- thing'fascinating in the Faust dutfi where Valentine's sword and Faust'r struck real tlames in contact. But there is no illusion now and the (sparks and winking lights suggests somewhat too obviously the man at the switch-board. Nevertheless if the play were not put on with the aid of the latest electric illusions, Mis Kidder and Mr. .Tames might be ac cused of parsimony and of neglecting the latest inventions for making a pidsuramer Night's Dream more real. Authors are touchy about a change juf text. If Shakspere could hear hta lovely lines mouthed and ruined by the men and women who read his lines today he would be. very unhappy. and acres, operated by peon labor. The Mexican peonage system of quasi slavery -suits Mr. Thompson because in its practical operation it permits him to exercise almost unlimited pow er over the laborers on his hacienda. If complications should arise between this'government and Mexico, and the senate, with Mr. Thompson as a mem- erally infer innocence or guilt from such conduct? There may be. in fact it appears there are to be found those who are willing to endorse the char acter of such a man as "splendid," but to the honor of the organization in whose name the endorsement was published, the number participating m njc- euuursumeni, was small com- unintelligibility. For all the poetry, romance, literature, inspiration of the lines they might as well have been written by Hoyt. Miss Kidder and Mr. James respect their author and were willing to share honors, with him. A very attentive hearer could hear most of what they said. Pucks lines are of especial beauty, but the very graceful young woman who looked the part, did not-speak it. She might as well have spoken Hlndos tanee to us as the hoarse gurgles she used for Puck's dialogue. A laugh is the same in all languages and hers, revealed more than her lines the mis chievous impishness of Puck. The presentation as a whole, with Mendels sohn's music is very charming and in teresting and fully deserves the ap probation Miss Kidder and Mr. James are receiving. J J Bats the Imp Sarah Grand's use of what for of a better word, I call the superl ral, is interesting, but so far own experience goes, as illicit an introduction of genii to transp ones characters from place to pla! True, Scheherezade used genii ard such like fairy-tale properties, and hr stories are more widely read than any modern novelist's. But new rule? have been adopted by the association of writers since her time and the pub lic insists on obedience. Scheherezade. was trying, so the story goes, to amusl a bloodthirsty old Sultan who, to in sure his consort's faithfulness cut off her head, the day after he marriec her and in the afternoon on the sanit day married another. Scheherezade prophet, but first of all he was a play- invented the continued story, and wright with an actor's knowledge of never ended a story in the morning, stage effects. In the reading, the lit- She also invented the device of a erary beauties of Midsummer Nlgtit'f?"cnaiaofrstories, as for instance: the Dream; the poetry the airy inconse- first old' man's story, the second old quence of the sprites, and the fairy aa's story etc. The Sultan knew story are most apparent. In ftkernothing' about veritas, Veritas had . readintr. Ouince and his company Vtt .aotalmr'to'dnWith hjs court or harem. the play in the play of PyrarausaSl'BebeIieTidjtlrat he himself was de Thisbe are rather tiresome internahceaded from alpowerful supernatural tions of the fairy story. On tlte-stl-aeiafr. So Sclpierezade had not to Pyramus and Thisbe, and thecarrJaWnrlace an incredulous audience, t'ers, joiners, and other craftsmen tlit. jBilt Mrs. Grand' lives in JLhe time of most unsparing and exacting dra matic critic admits that she is pre senting the Eaglet as Rostand con ceived him, that the peculiar pathos and isolation of the persecuted grand son whose father is exiled and in prison is apparent in Maude Adams' interpretation and absent from Mademoiselle Bernhardt's, Sardou's brilliant, showy plays have rendered Bernhardt unfit, in her old age to play the poetic parts written by Rostand. Sardou is melodramatic, never poetic. Rostand :s always po etic. Sardou's are tragedies of the outside world. Rostand's are trage dies of the heart and inner life. The brilliant Sarah's technique is a trifle hard and rigid and I find myself thinking of the brilliancy of her per formance and not moved at all by the agony of a woman whose lover is be ing tortured and whose screams she can hear. Contrariwise Maude Adams is not brilliant. She has no technique that I can remember but she conveys emotion by the same subtle, indis cribable means adopted by Mrs. Fiske. It is of the spirit, spiritual and of literature, literary. Maud Adams has long been an idol and her latest New York triumph is a source of congratu lation, in this office, where no other sacred Ibis is quite so sacred. A Midsummer Night's Dream. Shakspere's plays were written by an actor who understood the oppor tunities of the stage. He was a poet. a statesman, a novelist, the most com petent student of human nature, a lover of his kind, a preacher and a qible. fuck tu- my Lie -t. bcrfrom .Nebraska, should be called paredwiththeentiremembership.lt up0n:to-act, is it to be supposed that is no pleasant task to unveil this he-could be induced to sacrifice any man's real character, but he makes it personal interest in order to support a pubjic duty when he produces testi in administrative policy which might mony of its value. It is no light admlttedlj be for the best interest thing that a-man, wholly unfit to oc of the nation? Where his treasure, cupy the "position, shall aspire to a his hacienda, is, there his heart will high and honorable place where he bealso. Are there not men compe- may be said to represent the people tentr:'tb "represent, 'Nebraska in the of a great and an i n tell i gent vommon- nlav lover, loved, the wall the II and scenery are welcome and er the scene of the tryst naturally. his lack, of pedantry and his contini reiteration of the clown's or rust place among courtiers and fine ladl and gentlemen Shakspere is a mc for the Andrew Lang people who cc sider onlv well-read associates al artistic properties worth their whil Kathryn Kidder and Louis Jar have assembled a large company ai a quantity of electric scenery all reaJ to be connected with local power. the moonlicht. where Tltania sleei i laboratories and of Dart :;falr'y aid ia the perforn lis forhltjaa by the ruled "principles ythis centur repeating xtf jjbey is uncertain1 s the voi on her eood in ana an ceof tasks nd by the thought of Yet I5ab ections to vhat to do s and N judgment ,,v... i " . . uaasnnouse, an exaltcti jomfflabs rejects only to haj made another wo- Pi' y proposing to her. oyuabs going off to Ing 4the voices repeat