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VOL. XVI., NO. XXIV
ESTABLISHED IN 1886
PRICE FIVE CENTS
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LINCOLN, NEBR., SATURDAY, JUNE 13. 1901.
THE COURIER,
appointment. If these
are true now they were
EBTEEEDIK THE rOSTOFFICE AT LINCOLN
SECOND CLASS MATTER.
AS
PUBLISHED EVEBY SATURDAY
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TIE GNRIER MIITIIG HID PUBLISHING GO
Office 1132 N street, Up Stairs.
Telephone 384.
the appointment, but they were not
expressed until after when it is sup
posed the appointee has power or in
fluence. Thus is the independence of
the press manifested.
Suicide.
When a man ki'ls himself, or tries
to, he lacks even the average endow
ment of sense, which, we all know, Is
expressions cretion is dishonorably discharged by
true before society and recovers his rank only by
grace and intercession extraordinary.
Commercial routine is slowly respond
ing to the teachings of Christ. Busi
ness is business and has nothing to do
with philanthropy, or pity. But in
the last one-hundred years, even com
merce has responded to the influence
of Christianity. Kindness and for
bearance is increasing. And because
of this latest developement of the
brave and discreet, we can influence,
is sufficient for the wise man. Should
every man be controlled by the
thought of the long procession from
the past into the future and his own
insignificant, but potentially momen
tous, part in it, how rapidly that pro
cession would move onward and up
ward? The suicides who seltishly fall
out, the murderers who pick out a
man here and there from the lines,
all the men and women who prey upon
SARAH B. HARRIS, : : : EDITOR not distributed in excessive quantities Principles of love, there is a second their fellow-men orwhoassault them
Subscription Rates.
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Communications, to receive attention, must
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r
8
OBSERVATIONS.
1
The Toadyism of Flunkydom.
Last week a citizen of Lincoln was
appointed by President McKinley col
lector of internal revenue, succeeding
another citzen of this city who for
the past four years has fulfilled the
duties of the ortice with a rare fidelity
and ability, which have been repeat
edly commended by his federal supe
riors. The new appointee lias never
been credited with a remarkable de
gree of political sagacity, much less
with success in his efforts in political
matters. A few years ago he was a
candidate for the position of clerk of
the district court, but his efforts in
that direction resulted only in disap
pointment. Two year? ago lie was
recognized as one of the managers
of the senatorial candidacy of Mr.
L E. Thompson which in its ter
mination presented a most lamentable
proposition to defeat the regularly
nominated selection of the party.
Last winter he again appeared as the
principal manager of the senatorial
candidacy of Mr. Thompson and failed
again. It is probable, however, that
lie did the best he could, and for that
he was entitled to reward at the
hands of the defeated candidate and
in accordance with an agreement with
to man. Occasionally an individual
is afflicted with an incurable and very
painful disease. Life, under such cir
cumstances, loses significance. Yet
there have been people whose days
of agony iiave been conquered by a
great spirit. Stevenson supported
himselt and two other people; he gave
the world a new series of novels; bis
letters, written while he lay propped
up in bed, are a new example of gen
tleness, love and charity. If he had
not been indomitable his genius would
have counted for nothing. Pain would
have conquered him and he might
have taken poisor. like the two miser
able suicides, one of whom killed her
self, and the other of whom tried to
kill himself, last week, in this city in
a hotel which is acquiring an unde
sirable reputation. The woman is
dead and is therefore beyond criticism.
She was a siliy woman whom vanity
and drugs had already destroyed. The
man was in the habit of threatening
suicide when there were friends near
enough to prevent him. He had at
tained more than ordinary success as
a salesman, and he still possessed a
fine physique, though he has lost the
principal element of success, the re
spect of his fellowmen. The slow
growth of common sense in such peo
ple is very remarkable. Most of the
boys in the public schools posses more
discretion than the man Brink who
induced a woman to take poison under
the impression that he had taken it.
Yet until he demonstrated inferiority
he was intrusted with important af
fairs. The schemes of the socialists prom
ise fascinating results, but the success
of all of them depends upon the in
dustry and discretion of the men and
women who accept and agree to de
velope the sj stem. The incompetent
and the lazy, who are now pupils in
the school of life, are already in suf
ficient numbers to defeat any scheme
in which they must be depended upon
to bear a part. Under the present
the two senators from Nebraska the system the world ignores them, except
appointment has been made, lmme- for casual charity. They do not ob
diately upon the news of the appoint- struct progress, although the proces
ment being made public The News sion has to go around them occasion -indulged
in a paroxysm of toadyism ally. In a scheme where every one
which would receive the highest en
comium in the kingdom of flunkydom.
Expressions like these, "As an organ
izer of political movements he has
few superiors In Nebraska." "He is
one of the shrewdest and best noli
must bear his part or stop all the rest.
many more would have to suffer for
the guilty than under the present
system. The rules of commerce in
contemporary operation are natural,
not Christian. In nature, rotting use-
chance for men who have voluntarily
demonstrated their incapacity to con
duct their own affairs. Brink, the
young man whose imbecile conduct
has been so thoroughly advertised,
was drunk when he committed the
crime. Temperance reformers have
accomplished such a reorganization
of society that it is now almost as
reprehensible to get drunk as it is to
kill ones-self. So that Brink's condi
tion is not a palliation but an exag
geration of his offense. But because
he is not the only one who has sinned,
because other men and women have
numerous un lucid moments too, be
cause of the infusion of Christianity
into the world's business, the world
will forgive him and someone will
give him a job.
Some individuals at the age of thir
ty or even at forty have less sense
than the average youth of fifteen.
Brink's case may be a case of retarded
developement. If hecan be induced
to stay alive until he has reached the
age of seventy, it ma be that in the
meantime lie can still find some op
portunity of usefulness. Although
he has grown some six feet above the
ground, mentally he is an infant, who
with the childish idea that his friends
would regret his loss and pity his
sorrows, in a maudlin state took an
insufficient dose of poison. The at
tention his adventures have excited,
is quite likely to induce other defic
ients to take an under-dose. The only
ditliculty is in graduating the dose to
a size that will frighten one's friends
into nervous prostration, and still not
place one's self beyond the possibility
of resuscitation.
Suicide is the most foolish and cow
ardly of crimes. A man sometimes
justifies it to himself by convincing
himself that his sorrows are too heavy
to bear, although he knows his death
will complicate the situation for the
survivors whom his crime or indiscre
tions have already compromised. The
man who kills himself or tries to, is
an egotist. Of course he fails to com
prehend the immensity of the uni
verse, he does not even realize the
world and his relations to a part of it.
The suicide is essentially subjective.
He translates the world into himself,
and is to himself the centre of the
system. To take one s place in the
great procession, to know that the
long line stretches back into an
tiquity, that Homer's feet and Shak-
selves, have neither looked backward
nor forward at the significant proces
sion. From the despondenfs own point of
view, and selfishly considered, suicide
is the silliest expedient. In the first
place he does not know what he is
getting into. Then a man generally
kills himself for one of two reasons:
love or money. If he is a thief, why
should he kill himself? Afterwards
he is but a dead thief who can never
be reformed. If he is an honest man
through whom others have lost large
sums, he will set himself strenuously
to assist his creditors to save as much
as possible out of the wreck he has
made of their fortunes. If he is in
love and his sweetheart prefers anoth
er, let him travel or occupy himself
with exhausting labor for a year and
before he realizes It, and in spite of
the love-stories that deny it. other
roses will smell as sweet, and all the
other fish in the sea will begin to
flash brilliant scales into his some
time disgusted eyes. Time is the one
infallible cure for everything. It
heals lacerated hearts as effectively as
broken heads, and no man can say
when his wound ceased to smart, but
only that, where-as a year ago he was
an anatomical wreck, now the valves
of his heart are in perfect order and
his ball and socket joints work with
out friction. To kill one's-self is a
denial, an irrevocable heresy, an un
pardonable assault ou life and a post
ponement of the triumph of goodness
and of universal sanity.
Omaha-Lincoln Amenities.
A few people in Omaha know a few
people in Lincoln, and 'occasionally
they visit each other; but commercial,
political and journalistic rivalry ha
influenced some of the prominent peo
ple in Omaha to conclude that the
merchants of Lincoln are horned and
hoofed. Likewise residents of Lin
coln seem to believe that in Omaha
men and women grow unusually ma
licious and spiteful. Really they have
passions and prejudices like our own.
Omaha merchants, like ours, are en
deavoring to sell goods at a profit, to
live within their incomes, to educate
their children, to give a little to
church and charity, and to gather up
as much sweetness and light as pos
sible in their pilgrimage. The Ak-
Sar-Ben association and the Commer-
ticiansin the state," are due simply less matter is cast aside and reabsorb- spere's trod our dusty way of life, and cial club of Omaha are trying to make
to the fact that the man of whom ed into the fibre of something useful, that the dim van leads Into the fut- of the city a busier place and toat-
they were written lias received an A man who demonstrates his indis ure, the course of which, if we are tract men of means and brains away
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