VOL. XVI., NO. XX
ESTABLISHED IN 1886
PRICE FIVB CENTS
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LINCOLN, NEBR., SATURDAY. MAY 18, 1901.
THE COURIER,
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Ektzudiv tbx wiiomcx at liscoln as
SBCOHD CXAMHATTZB.
PUBLISHED EVEBY 8ATDBUAY
TIECNI1EINIIIIKIRDNBUSBIR6C0
Office H32 N street, Up Stain.
Telephone 384.
SARAH B. HARRIS, : : : EDITOR
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2 OBSERVATIONS.
f
Trusts.
One of the reasons.wby the public
objects to the sale of the Burlington
railroad to the owners of the Great
Northern, is that it so largely in
creases the power of one corporation.
The public is a jealous divinity.
Power in and of itself is not objec
tionable. But when power is related
to our intimate concerns, if it be too
overwhelming, it excites apprehen
sion and finally hatred. Trusts de
crease the price of any product by
economizing effort and eliminating
competition. Yet the trust is a bogy
not for what it has done, but because
it has so much power and the public
is afraid it will exercise this power.
The immutable laws of commerce and
trade will prevent the new railroad
company from increasing freight
rates. There are other considera
tions based on fear of retaliatory leg
islation equally as effective In keeping
down prices.
In a small community every man is
inclined to be jealous of his neigh
bor. In a large community combina
tions are jealous of each other. In
the strife between Mr. J. Fierpont
Morgan and Mr. E. H, Harriman
thousands of people are personally in
terested. But it is a foregone cer
tainty that the results will be in the
interests of commerce, and the suc
cess of this or that man will not af
fect the country at large.
Municipal Bargains.
The city should be able to buy labor
in the open market in competition
with private employers. If firemen
working for the gas works receive, for
L -eleven hours work per day $45.00 a
month, the city should not be obliged
to pay fifty-five dollars a. month to
firemen working eight hours a day.
A fireman at the gas-works shovels
sixteen tons of coal a day. A fireman
in the city water-works shovels about
a ton and a half a day. Let the two
firemen represent energy, and the city
is paying more than twelve times
more for its energy than the private
corporation pays for it. Now the city
is composed of people, most of whom,
the very large proportion of whom
work harder than the fireman who
shovels a ton and a half of coal a day
and they receive less for it. Corpora
tions and individuals go into the la
bor market to purchase labor.and they
pay and expect to pay the price cur
rent. The new salary ordinance rais
es the price of unskilled labor, not
because the same labor cannot be
bought for the customary price, but
because it is the way of politics and
politicians. Forty-five dollars a
month to a fireman who shovels a ton
and a half of coal a day is at the rate
of a dollar a ton. It is proposed to
pay him more than a dollar a ton for
shoveling in the coal.
The city is just bearing a share in
the spring housecleaning by repairing
cross walks. The street commissioner
is connecting broad stone or asphalt
walks by two narrow boards on which
two pedestrians can, by exercising
care, continue to walk abreast. The
street commissioner or the city or
dinance prescribes the width of side
walks. If a private house-holder in
the best part of the city should lay a
walk in front of his property, con
sisting of two narrow planks, the
street commissioner would imme
diately pay him a shocked visit or else
send a shocked emissary to represent
his indignation. Yet if broad walks
are to be connected by narrow ones,
all might as conveniently be narrow,
for couples meeting, one must drop
.behind and the result is that conver
sation is broken. Remonstrances
with the city authorities elicit the
information that such abominable
cross walks are all that the city can
afford. Yet the councilmen are not
satisfied that a dollar a ton, for put
ting in coal is enough.
The salary raising ordinance which
Mr. Pentzer introduced last Monday
night raises the salaries of employes
performing clerical work beyond the
rate paid by other employers of that
labor. The price of a commodity may
not represent the value or worth of it,
but that is too fine a point for the
city to settle. It is the business of
the council to see that the laborers,
merchants and very modestly remun
erated professional men who pay the
taxes of this city do not pay a fancy,
arbitrary price' for services rendered
the city. Just an ordinary fireman
capable of moving a ton and a half) of
coal a day will satisfy the Lincoln
taxpayers one tenth of whom cannot
sell their labor at so high a rate.
Municipal ownership of public util
ities is susceptible of glittering
demonstration, but practically it is
rendered impracticable by this ten
dency of politicians to sacrifice the
public to individuals who want their
salaries raised above the current rate.
If Lincoln were to put in a lighting
plant, the council would consider the
wages to be paid the firemen, engin
eers, etc., not on the basis of the price
of current labor, but by some mys
terious,hypothetical reasoningof their
own would establish a scale twenty or
twenty-five per-cent higher than the
local price. Mr. Pentzer's ordinance
is arbitrary and illogical. The two men,
who more than any other employers
of the city,(always excepting the May
or) have siaved the city "large sums
of money, and whose services can
not be easily duplicated are the city
attorney and bis deputy, Mr. Flaherty.
Yet both of these men are ignored
in the new ordinance, which should be
defeated. All the men now serving
the city were glad to be elected. They
knew the present salary schedule and
there is not a book-keeper or clerk or
fireman or treasurer among them who
has shown his capacity to earn more
than the city is paying him.
The eccentric conduct of the pres
ent council has caused more than one
groaning taxpayer to sigh for the
days when O. W. Webster's shrewd m
financial wisdom inspired the delib
erations of the council and when
Scbroeder's insight was of constant
service.
"Gran-Dad."
Last week Governor Savage com
muted the sentence of an old man
seventy-one years old, sentenced to
the penitentiary for twenty years.
Cuyler Schultz was known to the oth
er convicts and to the officers as
"Gran-Dad." He was a trusty.
Faithful, good-natured, humble-minded,
the old man has expiated his
crime. He was poor and a vicious
neighbor set fire to his haystack, the
only crop of a lean year. The neigh
bor imprisoned his stock, taunted
him with poverty, swore at him, re
viled him, and the old man who was
shot in the head during the civil war,
shot his neighbor. Beloved by every
other member of his community, the
poor old soldier bad yet to suffer for
taking life. His release has been
earnestly desired for years by every
one familiar with his character and
the circumstances of his crime.
Reconstructed.
The elimination of the southern
negro from politics means the break
ing up of the solid south. The negro
question was .the only subject that
kept the south solid and on the cur
rency question, expansion, on the
Isthmian canal question, on all vital
and broad national issues the south
.era people are with the administra
tion. President, McKinley's speech at,
New Orleans, and its loud acclaim
proved that. Not that a republican
presidential candidate can yet receive
the votes of- southerners. The south
is still in bondage to a name, and the
people will vote for a democrat all of
whose opinions they disapprove rath
er than for a republican with whose
policy they are in complete accord..
With the darkey bogy out of the
question, however, a democratic can
didate utterly . objectionable to the
soutli cannot again be foisted upon it.
The south has been hampered and re
stricted, since the war, by fear and
hatred of negro domination. The re
moval of this fear by the temporary
disfranchisement of the negro is the
very best possible fortune that could
happen to him. The southern white
man has placed a reward for learning
before the southern negro which not
one of the youths of the race will
ignore. In twenty years an illiterate
darkey will be hard to find, while
the mountains will still be inhabited
by whites who cannot write nor read.
That is the 'point of time when white
supremacy in the south will really be
in danger.
A Church Trust.
In the process of changing from a
worm that crawls to winged color,
the soul of the worm which is the
same in worm and butterfly doubt
Jess revolts against revolution and
the loss of so much good fuzzy cover
ing and so many feet. But when the
revolution is accomplished the worm
finds that it does not take him a halt
hour to get over a yard of space, that
instead of crawling on the earth, by a
flutter or two he is out of the heart or
the rose and deep in a honeysuckle
blossom thousands of worm-miles-away.
The old way could not have lasted:
for many more centuries. Competi
tion produces so much friction that
it wears out machinery and dissipates
energy. Competition is friction.
The world's business is being reor
ganized. Not Pierpont Morgan, not
James Hill, not Rockefeller nor
Schwab, not any one man is accom
plishing the change. A universal
impulse of reorganization has seized
upon the men of the world. They do
not know why they are making these
enormous machines and organizing"
opposing forces into one magnificent
engine, ballbearing, that after a
while an ordinary engineer can at
tend to. Doubtless Mr. Hill or Mr
Carnegie think their Ideas original.
Such men have receptive minds. The
spirit of the age communicates Im
pulses directly to them. Fifty years
ago, they would not have been suc
cessful in the same attempts. They
illustrate the times. They are la
themselves America, modern emblems
of the unification of man's interests
and of the development of the tribal,,
the family; the brotherly idea.
The Reverend William Manss plan
to unite the denominations now only
divided by unessential, human, arti
ficial distinctions into one magnifi
cent engine of conversion and salva
tion is but another expression of the
spirit of combination. There are
half a hundred or more struggling:
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