VOL. XVI., NO. II
ESTABLISHED IN 188
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LINCOLN, NEBR., SATURDAY, JANUARY 12. 1901.
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OBSERVATIONS.
1
t
Mr. Tatt.
Mr. Lorado Taft is a graceful, witty
speaker. He is a familiar number at
Chatauqua assemblies and lie escorted
groups of disciples and believers
through the art building at the
World's Fair explaining to them what
was good and what was bad in color,
composition and drawing. His feat
ures, vocabulary and style nre there
fore familiar to a very large number
of people, principally women, through
out the United States. Women gen
erally have an enormous bump of rev
erence and they invariably worship
the nearest and largest lion. These
verv larce groups regard Mr. Taft
with an idolatrous respect and convic
tion of the iinality'of his judgment
that is one of the most interesting
features of his lectures. Mr. Taft's
i manner is very modest, and I do not
remember ever to have heard him
speak with the tinality accredited
him. Quite to the contrary, he is ac
customed to preface his lectures with
an explanation that he is a sculptor
and talks about pictures because peo
ple seem anxious to hear his opinions
rather than from any internal con
viction of a special call. It is not his
fault if his disciples swarm around
him with solemn, eager, uplifted eyes
as though he were the source of light,
or the young man in Patience. In
fact, hke some virile clergyman, he
looks, after his lecture when the
swarming begins, as though the idol
atry bored him, though the fame and
effects of it are more or less profit
able.
As the comments of an artist, of a
traveled, well read, and highly culti-
; vated gentleman, Mr. Taft's lectures
tare interesting enough. This mild
f protest against regarding him and his
lectures as something supernatural-
ly final, will not affect the Chatauqua
attitude, excepting as an impertinent
and atheistic criticism.
Mr. Taft's talk to the members of
the Nebraska Art Association was ex
ceedingly interesting. He has liter
ary grace, instincts, and the charm
of a man in his prime who has spent
his life in successful endeavor to add
to the world's scant treasure of art.
And of all who gratefully heard him,
he himself was least conscious of and
not at all affected by his elevation by
the cult Chatauqua.
New Gty Officers.
Everybody who knows anything
about the history of Lincoln is anx
ious that Mayor Winnett should be
renominated. He is honest, able, con
scientious, economical. It does not
matter who wants it, it is to the in
terest of the city of Lincoln to elect a
man who has proven his ability and
will to render the city good service.
Mayor Winnett belongs to the type of
men elected mayor or councilman in
England or Scotland. A successful
doctor and financier in his own affairs,
he was chosen first by his neighbors
as councilman from his own ward,
not because he wanted the otlice and
urged his claim upon the party for
something as a reward for partisan
service, but because these neighbors
were impressed with his good judg
ment and integrity. As a council
man these qualities were apparent to
the city and he was nominated for
mayor by one of those inspirations
which occasionally guides a democra
cy. He was elected by a large major
ity and his economical, honest ad
ministration has been a very bright,
clean spot in our municipal history.
We know what evil a corrupt
mayor and chief of police can work
and that, so far as experience can
demonstrate , their fitness, the mayor
and chief of police of Lincoln are in
corruptible. A vain, babbling, weak
man in the mayor's place can get the
city into debt by employing twice as
many men to add to his popularity as
Mayor Winnett has hired. But this
is the very kind of man we tried be
fore Winnett' time. For the sake of
the present, the past, for the sake of
the fire, police, and water depart
ments, for the sake of the republican
party which can safely point with
pride to this administration, and
warned by our past experience, I
hope the primaries will set their seal
of approval upon a most creditable
and irreproachable administration.
The Police and Criminals.
In a scientific spirit, and with an
explorer's inspiration Josiah Flynt
spent several years of his life tramp
ing from Buffalo to New York and in
stealing rides to and through the
west in company with the nineteenth
century nomads. He was known by
hundreds of tramps as "Cigarette."
They did not suspect him, while he
was tramping of leading a double life,
and it is questionable if they have yet
found it out. Students of criminolo
gy, policemen and chiefs of police
have known about the understanding
and comradery between criminals and
the men who are hired by the people
to hunt them up and v arrest them.
But no one has expressed'it so clearly
as Josiah Flynt and Francis Walton
who in their stories about the Under
World, the Powers that Prey, the Pow
ers that Rule and Things as they Are,
have frankly related their own expe
riences with the criminals. The
worid that reads he magazines, goes
to churches and receptions, sells and
buys and neither begs nor steals for a
living, has finally accepted the truth
that between the chief of poljce of
every large city and the professional
criminals there is a pact, an under
standing. The chief gets a certain
percent of a thief's "earnings' for
allowing him to pursue his calling
without too much surveillance. Po
licemen justify the bargain to them
selves by acknowledging what is true,
that if it were not for the criminal
classes there would be no need of
policemen. Chiefs of Police like
Devery justify to the public their
tithes and their contracts with crim
inals by the reasoning that "a com
munity wholly policed by men of per
fect integrity would be at the mercy
of its criminal contingent." Most
taxpayers however, if given the choice
would prefer to pay policemen whose
relation to criminals is as cats to
mice. A man who receives pay from
both sides is likely to serve best the
employers who pay the most, and
criminals in large cities are sure pay
and their numbers insure large re
turns for the "understanding" they
have with the chiefs, much larger
sums than their comparatively small
municipal salary.
Nebraska policemen are unsophistir
cated. In Omaha, for instance, chief
Donahue's loquacity and impotent
activity in the Cudahy kidnaping
case are doubtless genuine manifesta
tions of helplessness, If he had had
any general understanding with Pat
Crowe, public horror and clamor
would have induced him to give up
his per cent of the $25,000 in order to
make a capture, that would net him
more than the "privilege" and immu
nity that may have been granted to
Crowe and his pals.
Investigation into'chief Devery's'ad--'
ministration has demonstrated the
truth and realism of Mr. Flynt's and
Mr. Walton's New York stories about
the league, between the powers that
rule and the powers that prey. The
authors have selected certain real
criminals and their crimes, given the
perpetrators new aliases and made
stories of them fit to prints The last
one, which appeared In McClure's
Magazine was about a circus mana
ger and bis preliminary arrangements
in regard to gambling privileges with
the mayors and chiefs of police in the
towns where his circus was billed.
Both the illustrations and the letter
press present familiar types of the
genus criminal.
Cad Morton.
Of the type American, energetic, of
sound judgment and confident initi
ativj.jMr. Morton, although ,onIyUiir-ty-iiveyears
old. has earned " distinc
tion as an entrepreneur. The starch
works at Nebraska City are Die result
of Carl Morton's intelligence, energy,
and of the confidence he inspired in
other able men. There are men who
succeed fairly well in a beaten road
that other men have leveled and
smoothed for them. There arc other
men of original inspiration, and flex
ible winds who would succeed any
where, for whore ever they are placed
they conceive and establish new en
terprises that employ men and make
capital. Such men are the true banc
factors of a community. Mr. Carl
Morton had a fertile mind and energy.
Restless except when his energy was
exhausted in work, after the success
ful establishment of the starch works,
the invitation to take charge of the
glucose factory, at Waukegan, tempt
ed him to leave his native place,
which his constructive genius lias
done so much to improve. With the
generosity of a young man newly dis
tinguished .by. public recognition or
his creative ability, Mr. Morton prob
ably gave more strength than lie
could spare to his work, so that his
system was not able to resist the at
tack of pneumonia which cut. off his
beneficent career. He was the young
est of the four brothers whose
achievements are a credit to their
native state. He was worthy the tra
ditions and name of his family
which has the sympathy of Nebras
ka where Carl was born and reared
and- to whose wealth and fame lie
made such worthy contribution. It
was'his ambition and purpose to build
glucose works in Nebraska City, for
which he had a peculiarly tenacious
loyalty rare enough in the west where
people move from place to place with
little of that love for home which dis
tinguishes citizens of older countries.
TfccSalvatioaeiCkicf.
If it were not for the broad lone
some fields that when in wheat, droop
under the noonday sun, jf.itiwexe.not
fortbethick-bpoted.gingbwjsiiirted,
' tanned, silent 'farmers walking up and
down and across the furrows of the
fields, there would be no cities. The
farms feed them and keep them alive.
If it were not for the morality and
simplicity, continually shipped into
the city from the farms the supply of
great men would be short. the Crokera
would not need to justify themselves
or explain to investigating, commit
tees why they were in politics. If it
were not for the state and itajntlu
ence upon the city the periodical re
forms, each one of which leaves at
least a vestige of the purifjing move-
