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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 19, 1901)
1 THE COURIER of the question to have, realized on them so quickly. Taken all in all, the settlement of the bank's complicated affairs has thus far been most creditable to those concerned in it. The whole incident again proves, too, Low far from prob able it is for depositors in a national bank to lose, no matter how complete its wreck by. trusted. officials. So many safeguards does the national banking law throw around the con fiding depositor that in any catastro phe, no matter bow others suffer Io?s, his safety is generally perfectly assured. APotatof Honor. The code of honor has so many and diverse variations. It is honorable to do things -in the north that a man in the south would lose caste fordoing. Right is right in Russia, in Jerusalem and in the United States, but the codes of honor adopted by the society of those nations have Utile similitude. The cadets at West rint are said to regard truthtelling as the highest and most indispensable virtue. On their oath they testify that they were hazed and that all freshman cadets are hazed. Yet on their oath they testify thatCadet Boozwasnot hazed. Therefore truth is practised with dis cretion by West Pointers When to tell the truth involves condemnation of themselves, they unanimously agree to avoid it. If every freshman cadet is hazed, and Booz was a cadet, then he was hazed. But according to tiie testimony Booz, who died of some thing.was not hazed. Truth is second ary in this case to the tenets of the code of honor which demand that no-cadet shall ever assist by his tes timony in the punishment of a guilty fellow student. To prevent such a consummation the cadets violate their oath. When right Opposes hon--or, honor must give way. For a long time at the south, in Italy, in France, the code duello superceded law and ethics and its supremacy is not yet en tirely overthrown. It is deplorable thai as late as the first years of the twentieth century so barbarous and brutal a code as the one in force at West Point should be obeyed by the youths who may become lieutenants, captains, colonels, generals, and finally the commander-in-chief of the army.. The army exists only to en force ue law. Therefore the mili tary, first of all, should hold the law in highest reverence. It is fortunate that the attention of the highest of ficers of the armv and of congress should have been called to the condi tion of affairs at West Point, where hazing is more severe than at any other academy in the Uoited States. An officer's authority is so unques tioned and unlimited that abuses when it is exercised by a bully are in evitable. The training at West Point should from the first year to the last one, consistently discourage bullying. Gentleness and generosity are essen tial characteristics in a man who has absolute authority over a number of others A course of hazing can not be a suitable preparation for theassump tion of absolute authority. Colonel Mills, the present superintendent of the academy, is doing his best to erad icate hazing and has discouraged its most brutal forms. It is very easy for the editor in Ins sanctum to an nounce that the little boys must be "toughened." It is questionable if second year boys have discretion enough to do it The committee has found out that in many cases cadets are exercised until ttey become un conscious or go into convulsions. One of the cadets, who testified, asked to have cotton stuffed in his mouth to prevent his involuntary outcries from being audible to the officer of the day. Torture, such as this, must be inflict ed by the thoroughly brutalized. In fact the testimony of most of the cadets indicates that brutal hazing is confined to a few disreputaole mem bers of every class. High-minded ca dets fail to understand the pleasures of inflicting torture upon younger and weaker boys, who if they refuse to obey the commands of the upper classmen must be assigned to fight with a boy a year older and stronger, by a year's setting up exercises at the academy. In slavery times the negro overseer who had been the mot cru elly treated himself was the crudest taskmaster. Cadet3 therefore who have been tortured Into unconscious ness are the ones most likely to tor ture the freshmen of their sophomore year. And after graduation those cadets who In secret have tortured the class oelow them, make overbear ing, brutal officers according to army officers testimony. To Prevent Disease. Chicago's city council has just passed an ordinance against spitting on the sidewalks and on the floors of puolic buildings. Alderman Goldzier is the name of the councilman who finally induced the council to pass the ordinance. If Chicago, where men are not allowed to line up along the street, needs such a law, Lincoln where the policemen allow loafers to lean up against the same railing all day long, surely needs it. The halls of the public buildings of Lincoln are disgraceful pens disgusting to the clean men and women who are obliged to enter them. In the courr-house, notices placed at frequent intervals on the walls prohibit spittiog on the floors. But the notices might as well be posters, for the tobacco chewers pay no attention to this attempted in fringement of tfceir privileges. The steps and foyer of the postoffice are dirty and evil smelling, though I be lieve they are washed, daily. There is no polite word to describe the con dition of the capitol. The demoral izing effect of the dirt and squalor of a city like Lincoln, which is neither town nor city, where loafers occupy the sunny corners in winter and the shady ones in summer, is more appar ent when compared with a busy and much larger city. Just at present when smallpox, grip and pneumonia are attacking everybody an ordinance against spit ting, where women s skirts can carry germs into homes is especially expe dient. Alderman Goldzier's resolu tion reads, -Whereas, Spitting upon sidewalks, in public places and in public con veyances is detrimental to health, by reason of the danger of spreading con tagious diseases, and is also a public nuisance which should be abated, therefore "B it ordained by the city council of the city of Chicago: "Section 1. No person shall spit upon any public sidewalk or upen the floor of any public conveyance, or upon the floors of any theatre, hall, assembly room or public build iug. "Sec. 2. Any person violating the provisions or this ordinance shall upon conviction be fined in a sum not less than one dollar nor more than five dollars. "Sec. 3 This ordinance shall be in effect from and after its passage and approval by the mayor." Mr. Goldzier said in support or the resolution: "The latest discoveries in science and medicine have shown that disease germs are spread broadcast through Uiis habit or expectoration, and In the present epidemic of such diseases some precaution should be taken to prevent it. Similar ordinances are in force in New York. Paris and a num ber of European cities, and the trial has been successful. We have never had an ordinance in the Chicago code, though Commissioner Kerr at one time issued such an order. The health authorities wish to do so again, but they have not the authority." J J Lehrfreftcit. This is a free country, freer than any other country. The expression of opinion is occasionally somewhat hampered by the commercial, politi cal and consanguineous relations of man with men. Merchants consider the feelings and opinions of their cus tomers, doctors their patients, and lawyers their clients. The larger a man's business becomes the more con siderate and conservative be is about expressing his opinion. This Is one of the blessings of competition. It is in consequence of the fact that there are other men offering the same goods and services for sale that merchants and professional men handle the trade with care and that the community is spared the infliction of a large num ber of undigested carelessly consid ered opinions. Professors in American universities are an exception to all the rest of the world. They are accustomed to the expression of absolutely untrameied opinions. Men who work for any other large corporation possess an in creasing interest in and respect for the power and influence of the agency which employs them. The wages that are paid them, every month and from year to year, finally effect a return of something more than the nominal services for which they receive so many dollars a year. The loyalty of the agents, superintendents and man agers or a great insurance or railroad company, loyalty not only to the cor poration but to the founders and high, er officers of the business is one of the compensatory features of modern busines life. The average modern col lege proressor has little reverence Tor the rounders or the institution he works Tor and immediately resents any hint that his indiscreet language may cripple the resources or the insti tution and discredit other members or the faculty. If college professors were in the habit of making gifts, to public institutions even in proportion to their income their ocasional atti tude of contempt towards the mere money-maker who gives of his abund ance to college and charitable insti tutions might be more justifiable. But members of a college faculty live in a community as a set of men apart, critically deploring this or that ten dency of the times from an academic distance. ' Senator Stanford, who founded Stanford university was not an edu. cated man. He went to California in the early days when the times and men were rough. He had more initiative force in his little linger than all the men who are taking advantage of the height and fame of the monument he built, as a vantage point from which to abuse him. The founder or Stan ford University is dead. His widow has given up more than nine tithes of her property to the university. These two well-meaning, but mistak en people thought to benefit their state and succeeding generations by relinquishing all they had to the uni versity. The childish audacity, lack of good manners, the heathenism of Proressor Ross' attack on the charac ter of Leland Stanford is character istic or the belieMnthe infallibility or his own opinion and the inerrancy or his judgment. As a graterul alumna or the state university or Nebraska, 1 regret that this young man of raw opinions and reckless propriety is to lecture at the university. In Cornell and :n Stan ford be has been a firebrand and there is plenty of material at the university smouldering since the dismissal or Wolfe, ready to be ignited. Professor Ross is a fluent and emotional speak er, just thesort of a man to inflame college students, newly settled to the solution of problems which have vexed the world since the organization of society and the beginnings of com merce. The university which is supported by the people of this state should re turn citizens sworn and educated to the conservation of society rather than to its destruction. The wild-eyed anarchists should receive no rein forcements from university ranks and since the days of Wolfe alumni of his sort are rare. The arrival of a more cultivated, gifted, magnetic speaker than Wolfe, threatens the university with the same sort of an influence The faculty of the university of Ne braska at the present time is com posed of men of seasoned judgment and of salutary influence over the undergraduates. A very small minor, ity of the faculty is wild-eyed, un seasoned and ungrateful to the tax payers who support the institution. It is comparatively easy for an un scrupulous, man to influence students to an expression of passionate, per sonal loyalty and of enmity towards the institution which has made their education possible. It is only an oc casional teacher who is willing to take advantage of his position and of the impressionable nature of students to influence them. Professor Woire made use of such unsportsmanlike means of accomplishing a result. But since his time the faculty have set tled the inevitable differences of opin ion among themselves. . jit The Shooting Cure. Mrs. Kennedy of Kansas-City, cha grined because her husband deserted her after being forced to marry her, went to his place of business and killed him. If Kennedy was what verybody, who justifies her conduct, says that he was, then he was not worth shooting with the effect or in evitably ruining a good woman's life and reputation, ir Mrs. Kennedy was a designing adventuress, of previ ously bad character who had made up her mind to make some man marry her, then she is a murderess and should be executed. Dr Cross' tes timony before the coroner's jury indi cates that she is not the wronged and innocent girl she pretends to be. Mrs. Kennedy alleges that Kennedys de sertion injured her standing in the community. By shooting Kennedy her affair and her character are known to everybody who reads the qewspa pers. By shooting him she proved that his aversion for her and avoid ance of her was justifiable. It she had loved him, she would not have shot him, kicked his head arter he wa dead and testified the next day berore the coroner's jury, dressed iu a " brilliant red dress, jacket and red hat trimmed with white lace. She will be tried by a jury or men, which will be appealed to by her attorney to con sider the wrongs or a maddened and desperate woman, pursued by a scoun drel and then deserted. There arc some such cases, where, for the sake of impartial justice the jury should be composed of women who could not so easily be deceived by the appear ance and pleas of such a woman as this notoriety mad Kansas City murderess. Society should mete out justice with a more even haod. Murder is murder and if it were young Ken- fv"3r,WSlSBW8WBl jKatrrewmv
