THE COURIER.
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from other cities to theirs. Naturally
when they succeed the citizens of the
forsaken cities are enraged. The next
play Is not a blow, rage directed, but
the immediate adoption of tactics
superior to and calculated to foil
those the Omaha tacticians hare used
successfully. In the meantime there
should be between two adjacent cities
perfect good feeling and the confi
dence that one while man has in an
other even when they represent op
posing Interests. A warmer social
entente between the two cities would
quicken the mutual appreciation of
our common origin and common hu
manity. The college fraternities,
women's clubs, state societies of all
kinds, tend to make individuals bet
ter acquainted. In time, the number
of friends living in Omaha and Lin
coln will soften even commercial as
perities. So long as man remains gre
garious, the societies, churches, clubs
and associations which perform the
function of introducing him to his
kind, are alike beneficial. By empha
sizing the scciul and ignoring the ac
quisitive part of his nature, the soci
eties are making it easier for him to
obey the Golden Rule. They should,
therefore, have the encouragement of
the churches and of all teachers and
philanthropists; but the latter seem
to misunderstand their mission and
occasionally preach against them.-Yet
upon their prosperity depends the in
troduction of the citizens of this state
and of this country to each other.
Commerce is also a great civilizer:
whole districts of savages have been
reclaimed by the commercial develope
ment of a given section; but commer
cial relations lack depth. For this
reason, perhaps, they are almost inva
riably followed by the organizations
called by different names, butall exist
ing for the purpose of introducing one
man to another. Tiie men who never
go to church and who profess distrust
of all religious bodies are attracted
by the good-fellowship of the Masons
or of some other secret society. They
join it not acknowledging that the
society is accomplishing, in a less per
fect way, the same end as the church.
The evolution of man into an animal
of culture, fit to have children like
him, is a work of time, but the opera
tion has proceeded far enough so that
spectators who really care to investi
gate can see the plan and the rate of
speed.
J J
En Avant.
A courier is a man employed by
well-to-do travelers to go before and
find out the truth. In olden times he
was sent by the general of one army
to the commanding general of the
other army to ask a truce, to offer
terms which might pre rent bloodshed,
or to arrange a compromise of one
kind or another. It was a courier who
was sent to Cleopatra to announce
the marriage of Anthony. The cour
ier goes before and carries the news,
and though he be struck dead for it,
like Cleopatra's courier, he must tell
the truth. The truth is often brutal
and society has not much use for it.
Society only uses the beautiful, gentle
things. Truth is rude and careless of
its own effect. But a messenger who
goes before to find out actual condi
tions must, in all simplicity, report
only the truth, for that is why he Is
employed. "He goes before" and has
a first sight of the conditions which
will later confront the party which
has employed him. The god-father of
"The Courier" hoped that the paper
would always contain a report from
one who, through the foresight of his
employers, is sent before to investi
gate conditions which will affect the
main body, arriving later. For report
ing unpleasant truths Cleopatra's
messenger was slain, but his punish
ment did not divorce Anthony. It is
occasionally The Courier's function to
report unpleasant news, news which
will not be altered by revenge upon
the publisher. Just as long as the
paper retains its name it will perform
the function for which It was estab
lished. It would be useless to the
community it attempts to serve unless
it performs this one function faith
fully and with Integrity. To tell the
nearly always brutal truth, In-so far
as it has been revealed, is the mission
of the paper. In spite of his solemn
oath no one tells the whole truth and
nothing but the truth, not even edi
tors. Personal prejudices, vendettas,
an unfavorable point of view inter
cept the prospect of truth, and of
course the editor can not see the
facts through an opaque obstacle any
more distinctly than others. The
written word still receives more con
sideration than it deserves. It is
quoted as an authority when it merits
no more credence than the report or
opinion of any other man. Yet among
the large corps of reporters there is
always at least one who is distin
guished for his accuracy and discre
tion. The city editor waits for his
report before forming a conclusion
upon a complicated and disputed situ
ation. The newspaper which cares
more for truth than for brilliancy or
sensational speed in getting the news
to the public, will, in time, succeed to
the first place in the confidence of the
public. By the travail of conscience,
by an obstinate adherence to the prin
ciples accepted in youth, is sucli a dis
tinction won. Rigid adherence to a
chosen regime is called pig-headed-ness.
I know of not one paper in the
city which deserves the reproach, but
the time may come when The Courier
shall be anathematized as pig beaded.
Such anathema is equivalent to can
onizing, A Primitive People.
One of the morning sessions of the
Dunkards, at their recent meeting in
this city, was devoted to a discus
sion of whether or not women should
ride bicyclts. By an overwhelming
majority it was decided that for
females to ride bicycles is contrary to
the teachings of their religion. It is
of course unfair for an outsider, one
who is unfamiliar with the connec
tion between bicycles and their arti
cles of faith, to criticise such a discus
sion; but to an outsider it is incred
ible that at this period of time, two
thousand men should spend three
hours and a half solemnly discussing
the propriety of the farmers' wives
riding bicycles instead of the tired
horses to town, or to pay visits to
their neighbors. The arguments for
and against the proposition were
unique. Their point of view is that
of the middle ages. There is only one
man in Lincoln who could understand
and sympathetically report the meet
ing and'tbat is Bixby of the Journal,
but he was writing "poetry" at the
time, and could not be spared.
The Dunkards were here in very
large numbers. They bought grocer
ies and produce, they bought railroad
tickets and as they do not disapprove
of strong drink, they bought whiskey
and beer. They also bought the news
papers, which printed accounts of
their meetings. Therefore in the
newspapers tne Dunkards were char
acterized as wise men, desirable as
citizens, etc. Actually they are of
slow developement. The bright and
prospective youngsters born into
Dunkard households, leave their peo
ple as soon as they find out the rela
tive position of the sect to the rest of
the world.
Their preachers, who are the most
scholarly among them, are ignorant.
The congregations they addressed on
the Sunday they were in Lincoln,
with difficulty preserved faces solemn
or sooer enough for the sanctuary.
They roared like the old-time itinerr
ant preacher, they mispronounced
words, they assaulted the language by
disregarding its structure, they mixed
metaphors, and they were entirely
unconscious of their comic efforts.
That they are really living several
centuries ago is indicated by their
obliviousness to the effect of their
discourse upon their audiences. The
Dunkard preachers might just as well
have been in a trance so far as obser
vation of the condition of the audi
ence was concerned. A sensitive,
modern preacher immediately realizes
the effect his address is having. If he
finds that he is firing over the heads
of his audience, he adjusts his sermon
so that it will bit something. A
preacher of gumption never fires into
the air. Like gunners at sea finding
the range of the big guns, the first
few shots may be scattering and hit
nothing. It was the chief character
istic of Henry Ward Beecher that
after a few passes at an audience, be
knew its range and every period told.
The Dunkard preachers did what Mr.
Beecher could not do: preach- to an
audience for an hour and a half with
out receiving a sign of response or
agreement. Before such an audience,
if Mr. Beecher ever addressed unre
sponsive hearers, he would have lec
tured but fifteen minutes, for he had
learned the value of time.
A thoughtless dweller in this cen
tury frequently expresses the wish
that be could return to a previous
one or live over to another one.
The memory of the Dunkard preach
ers teaches us that the ordinary man
can speak only to his own generation,
fie is not on speaking terms with any
other. Of course there are a few men
to whom each generation turns a lis
tening ear, but they can be counted
on the fingers of one hand. Of the
brilliant Elizabethan, period only
Shakspere survives for the people.
Scholars and students read the poets,
essayists and dramatists. Not many
of the common people read even Shak
spere. The language he used is obso
lete. And with a barrier of an un
familiar dialect between him and
Shakspere, the ordinary unlettered
man will not attempt to surmount it.
So that as a matter of fact Shakspere
himself has not survived his period.
What hope then for a Dunkard
preacher in a university town, speak
ing to a congregation at least a hun
dred and fifty years in advance of his
own time? It was ministerial profes
sional courtesy of the resident min
isters to invite the survivals to occu
py their pulpits, but the sermons were
another reason why the church-going
habit islosingstrength. An intelligent
man does not care to trust his only free
forenoon in the week to chance.
Americans especially dread being
bored, and an experience, like the one
I am discussing, will have such a de
terrent effect upon a man that he will
not recover from it for weeks. His
pastor will ascribe it to indifference
of religion and to the things of the
spirit, when it is only a repugnance
to being bored, and the memory of a
Dunkard sermon.
The First Men in the Moon.
Munchausen, Jules Verne, Mayne
Reid, H.G.Wells, and occasionally
Frank Stockton tell marvellous
stories. The primitive love of mar
vels still survives in the race, for the
stories written by these men find a
ready market among readers who pre
fer the Thousand and One Tales of
the Arabian Nights to charactw-r
studies. Mr, Well's stories are to the
standard novels as vaudeville is t.
the stage. Vaudeville performance
amuse when they are clever. They
make no demand on the sympathy,
no especial.demand on the attention.
Tired men and women who wish mere
ly, to be amused enjoy Mr. Well's
works, and will not agree with any
adverse criticism of them. But the
day of marvels is past forever. Mrs.
Eddy and the prophet Dowiehave
established a religion and have at
tracted and attached to themselves a
number of disciples. There are peo
ple who believe that Mr. Wells' stories
of the men in the moon are true, and
that his investigations were conduct
ed, as the story says they were, name
ly by two men who invented an alum
inum sphere that they steered into
the moon. They found that the in
habitants of the moon are little men
who have the appearance of big in
sects. They are covered by shiny
breastplates like the shards of insects.
Their faces are hard and shiny too.
They have eyee and an opening for
the nose and mouth, but the effect is
of a mask rather than of a sensitive,
mobile, human face. The face of an
insect is inexpressive; the metallic
plates, which protect the face from
injury, never wrinkle into expression;
the eyes, seated behind immovable
lids, are monotonously and dully
fixed on this object or that. The in
sect men of the moon, Mr. Wells fan
cies, retain their insect origin as we
retain the aspect and habits of our
quadrupedal ancestry. Having estab
lished a proposition or analogy, Mr.
Wells developes it consistently. The
details are interesting and fit exactly
into the tale. So that it be is not
consistent with truth he is with him
self. The story is profusely illustrated
by E. Hering, an artist of unusual
graphic power. A daring imagina
tion, a comic touch, a delicate, unera
phasized satire found in these illus
trations impart a character to the
marvels related by the author that
is otherwise lacking. Mr. Wells
is not particularly happy in de
scriptions of machinery, but he is
much addicted to these, descriptions,
and if it were not for Mr. Hering's
pencil the story would make a con
fused impression on readers. The
author may have a clear concept of
the lunar machinery he describes, but
until the artist draws it, it is like a
visitor's first view of a carpet manu
factorya confused mass of belts,
wheels, and in visible things that whir.
Nevertheless Mr. Wells' imagination
has strong pinions that carry him
wherever his predilection for the
shoreless empyrean directs. His
flights occasionally weary those who
have elected to follow him with their
eyes, but he himself never falters nor
shows any effect of the influence of
the laws of gravitation which still
control those who watch him and
attempt, lamely, to review his flight.
Flying machines are no nearer perfec
tion now than they were two-hundred
years ago, notwithstanding the fact
that in every generation scores of in
ventors have given their lives to the
subject of flying. I do not believe
that a safe aerial motor will ever be
discovered. Until men fly, moon
stories will be fairy stories whose
properties are seven-league boots or a
magic carpet upon which the favored
prince has only to seat himself and
make a wish to be carried wherever
he wills. "The First Men in the
Moon" is concluded in the June num
ber of The Cosmopolitan. It has at
tracted pleased attention from those
who love marvels, as well as from
those who enjoy unique flights into
regions unexplored and unexplorable.
And the believers in marvels are many.
The unnumbered multitude of those
y
"X. II
