VOL. XVI., NO. IX
ESTABLISHED IN 1886
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LINCOLN. NBBR.. SATURDAY. MARCH 2, 1901.
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v I OBSERVATIONS. 8
Mayor Winnett.
The congratulations on bis renonii
nation to tbe mayoralty that Mayor
Winnett is receiving are very hearty
and sincere. Towards the close of an
administration in which the city has
materially decreased its outstanding
indebtedness, wherein it has been
ridden of a detrimental class of citi
zens, and in which the etliciency of
the fire, police, and water depart
ments has been trebled, the demon
stration that enough republicans rec
ognize a good administration to in
sure its continuance for another bi
ennium, is very gratifying to a dumb,
helpless class of tax-payers whom the
law classifies with idiots, indians, con
victs and the insane.
Strict administration of the laws in
regard to saloons, and the regulation
of the police is impossible unless the
mayor Las the cooDeration of the ex- breezes
that the law is enforced according to
the ordinances but that the excise
board shall be composed of men of
the same mind and steady nerve.
Two of the candidates are known
to every citizen interested in Lin
coln. The other two are not so
well known. Mr. Frank Woods
is a young lawyer, who in the
few years since his graduation has
earned the respect of every one for
whom he has done business. Although
a young man he has made a certain
steady and stern choice of the paths
of virtue that makes his election to
any post of municipal performance,
absolutely without risk. Dr. Finney
has been city physician and his excel
lent record speaks for itself. He is
not an untried man. In nominating
him men who have boys that are
growing up in the midst of tempta
tions, my be sure that those tempta
tions will be minimized and neutral
ized as the law directs. About these
two men there is no ambiguity in re
gard to their attitude to saloons. The
republican portion of the. city has
just signified approval of Mayor
Winnett's administration, the most
significant element of which is his
regulation of the saloons and insist
a nee upon compliance with the laws
regulating liquor selling by drug
stores. Unless the excise board had
been in complete harmony with him
the mayor would have been powerless.
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The Senatorial Situation.
The deadlock is just as firm as it
was last week. Mr. Thompson is de
termined not to withdraw and it is
doubtless within his power to prevent
the election of any senator though
he can not elect himself. He has the
power to name anyone but 1). E.
Thompson or E. Ilosewater for sen
ator. He can move his checkers for
any man he pleases, and if he really
cares for the gratitude of a bored and
weary people lie will give a last exhi
bition of his power and secure federal
gratitude, he will name his man and
move to Mexico, where the soft, dry
rustle the grasses on one of
cise board. The second primary will
be held on next Tuesday. It is the
duty of every republican to investi
gate the records and form some
notion of the character of the four
men who are candidates for the ex
cise board.
Municipal laws all over the United
States are very much alike. Yet
some towns are wide open and hold
up men and burglars operate without
fear of interruption from the police,
In other towns the saloons open and
close according to the legal schedule
and grafters are not permanent resi
dents. The only difference is in the
character of. the mayor and the excise
boardor whatever may be the name
of the local board, which in conjunc
tion with the mayor controls the
saloons and the police. It is there
fore essential, not alone that we have
a mayor with a single purpose to see
the fairest spots in the old kingdom
of the Aztecs.
Mr. Charles E. Perkins.
For more than twenty years Mr.
Charles Eliot Perkins has been presi
dent of the Burlington road. Never
forgetting his obligations to the
stockholders of tbe road Mr. Perkins
lias administered its affairs with bril
liant success. The wheat and corn
fields of Nebraska have emptied their
harvests into the B. & M. cars rum
bling heavily towards Chicago. In re
turn tbe Burlington management has
unceasingly advertised Nebraska, its
climate, resources and unique-wealtb-producing
characteristics.
It is a phenomenon of business life
that the directing, controling man in
charge, of any business, impresses his
habit of thought, his manner of doing
business, and bis principles on nil of
his employes. In a small city like
Lincoln it is an interesting experi
ment to visit the different dry.goods
stores in the endeavor to get a like
ness of the proprietors. The sounder
the proprietor's principles and prac
tise the more definite and distinct is
the impression. made by his employes
upon customers. In a large business
like that of a railroad, few employes
come into direct contact with the
president, nevertheless if that presi
dent is a man of catholic judgment,
of sound and fearless initiative, and
of absolute devotion to the task he has
been appointed to perform, these
characteristics will reappear in the
employes, until the character of the
road has been established in the
minds of the people by means of the
thousands of employes faithfully
carrying out instructions in harmony
with general directions from the pres.
ident. Many years are required to
stamp a system composed of many
thousand men with one likeness, in
impressing his principles and habit
of fidelity upon the thousands of men
connected with the Burlington road,
Mr. Perkins has done incalculable
good to his generation. The virtue of
solvency is not often heralded. Man
aging a large business so that divi
dends may be paid fourteen thousand
stockholders every year, so that, in
good times or bad, men's faith in the
permanent value of its stock is un
shaken, requires a moral as well as
intellectual elevation.
In placing more than a million dol
lars of liis private fortune at the ser
vice of the First National bank of
Lincoln at the climax of the years of
panic, Mr. Perkins saved the bank,
this city and all the tributary banks
of the South Platte country from in
solvency. Ilis generosity saved for
tunes and lives. This c:ty would not
now be enjoying the effects of more
prosperous times had Mr. Perkins not
averted thedisaster which would have
destroyed the business and credit of
Lincoln. He therefore enjoys the
gratitude of the people of Nebraska,
and especially of Lincoln. His unos
tentatious service has been com
mented upon at various times, but it
is fortunate that the full meaning
and horror of the disaster lie averted
can not be estimated, only the actual
suffering from such a calamity could
do that.
Mr. George B. Harris.
Having traversed all the way from
a clerk in the land-commissioner's
department of the Hannibal and St.
Joseph railroad to the presidency of
the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy
road, Mr. Harris understands all the
departmental machinery of a great
business. Like Mr. Perkins, his suc
cessor belongs to that not large group
of men who can keep still, knowing,
at the same time, a number of very
interesting secrets which have an im
mediate bearing upon the plans of
their friends, but which it is essential
to the interests of the company they
represent be not revealed. There
are elective positions in which chance
occasionally places men of mediocre
ability, dark horses who have not
demonstrated their strength, but on
whom the harness is thrown because
.they happen to be handy when poll
tieians cross purposes have blockaded
progress. Directors of a railroad
never elect an untried president of
properties which if mismanaged
means their own ruin and loss of rep
utation. The selection of Mr. Harris
as president of the Burlington road is
a testimonial to his ability and faith
fulness very much appreciated by his
family and by the new otllcial himself.
Newspaper Women.
An article has been going the rounds
of the newspapers about the effect of
newspaper writing upon women.
When a short, crisp article derogatory
of women gets into one paper it is
apt to appear eventually in all of the
papers from California to Connecticut
vand from Maine to Florida. Cus
tom has penned women up for so
long that when one woman gets out,
there is a hue and cry raised and she
is chased from one retreat to another,
until she is either dead or back in the
pen. This chasing and final surrender
has a salutary effect upon other wo
men who have dreamed of larger
freedom, and a wider field, than that
selected and insisted upon by men like
the ossified Bixby or Bok. The first
women doctors started similararticles
in the newspapers. Horrible exam
ples were constantly being cited to
frighten female students from the
study of a profession which old prac
titioners assured investigators would
turn women into something which
swore, used vain oaths and spit con
stantly. Nevertheless women studied
medicine and are making valuable
contributions to the literature of
their profession. There are probably
less than three thousand women in
tills country at work upon newspapers.
All the newspaper women whose ac
quaintance I have been privileged to
make bear a striking resemblance to
women teachers, doctors and the
other women engaged in earning their
own living. These are distinguished
from other women by a certain com
prehension of business, and of the
commercial value of their own ser
vices not possessed by some of the
modest haus-frauen who have la
bored life long for clothes, board, and
lodging. Legitimate newspaper re
porting does not make a womanly wo
man unwomanly. I have noted its
occasional effect on young men, who
are perhaps not old or wise enough to
realize their unimportant relation to
the paper they are employed by.
Given a little time and subjected to
the discipline of an experienced ed
itor, the intoxication of seeing their
own sentences in print soon wears off
and they learn to approach a subject
of investigation with no apparent
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