THE COURIER
I-
visitor returns be can only say it is
"great" and look dazed. But there is
not a melodious bell in Lincoln, not
to mention chimes. It is proposed in
memory of McKinley to place in tbe
belfry of tbe Methodist church which
is situated nearer the centre of the
city than any other church, a chime
ol bells which shall play "Nearer My
God to Thee.'' If the chime is chosen
by a musician who can distinguish
tuneful sounds, and not by a com
iltte of citizens selected for their
prominence in some other department
of knowledge, the detached notes as
they slowly proclaim the hour of noon
and recall the memory of one of tbs
.greatest Americans, will be an in
spiration and a call to everyone with
jn reach of their melody. The Turk,
wherever he is, responds to the muez
sin's call, and it is said by travelers in
Turkey that the response to the call
-of religion by the whole nation at
tbe same moment is most impressive
and has an important effect upon the
-national life. Suppose all Americans
dropped upon their knees at noon,
and for an instant there was silence.
So cne can estimate the effect of a
chime of bells ringing at noon every
day for a long period of years. To
many it would be simply an an
nouncement of the noon hour, and
that would be a great convenience;
to others it would be essentially re
ligious and a daily reminder of the
great man who has just died.
jt jc
Woman Suffrage
In about a month Mr. Bixby, a very
funny man on Tbe Journal, will de
bate the question of woman suffrage
with Miss Laura Gregg, the state
organizer of the cause in Nebraska.
Whatever opinion one may bare of
this question tbe debate will be in
teresting. I think Mr. Bixby makes
the mistake of underestimating tbe
ability and knowledge of all women
and of women suffragists in particu
lar. He has stated a number of
times that woman is incapable of
understanding the principles of gov
ernment, that her horizon should be
bounded entirely by the palings of
her dooryard and that if women were
to vote, men's stomachs must pay too
dear a price.
As to the ability to understand the
principles of government, the intel
lectual attainments of the modern
college women have settled that.
Woman's function has been preor
dained and no legislation can change
it. There' are millions of dollars
worth of property in Lincoln owned
by spinsters and widows that is en
tirely unrepresented. The council
men frequently have a very small
property interest in Lincoln. Every
4ne has noticed how easy it is to dis
pose of other people's property.
Think of the reams of advice Carne
gie has received about disposing of
his surplus from poor but penurious
busybodles who, if possessed of his
income, would not give away a dollar
of it. A father in this city has two
sons. Oneisearninga hundred dol
lars a month. The father clothes,feeds
and lodges the other one. The two
young men needed suits of clothes
and they went into a store together
to buy them. The one who supported
himself bought a suit for fourteen
dollars and the one who is support
ed by his father bought a suit for
twenty dollars. The one who was
spending his own money was more
careful. Councilmen who have small
or no property interests are inclined
to be open-handed. It is natural, not
vicious. Every one likes to spend
money and if the desire can be grati
fied without decreasing one's own sur
plus tbe temptation is irresistible.
Each piece of propert should be rep
resented by a voter. According to the
present system the widows acd spins
ters are paying taxes voted upon their
property by men whom they have had
no share in electing. The American
heart burns when the principle of
taxation without representation is
advocated. There are few Americans
who will admit that the principle was
not worth fighting for by our ances
tors, yet the same men ridicule wom
en for objecting to paying taxes on
property which is unrepresented.
j J
'Grafting."
Certain councilmen have agreed to
oppose whatever measure Mayor Win
nett desires. On his part the Mayor
resists all attempts at "grafting."
In tbe past certain councilmen eked
out their meagre salaries by negotiat
ing with the men who sell staples
of various kinds to the city. The
Mayor is making and has made a
strenuous effort to interfere with the
long established "grafts" that a cer
tain kind of councilman has worked.
In revenge the councilmen make him
what trouble they can. A "graft"
that has been successfully operated
for years Is very difficult to obstruct
or interrupt. The mayor is doing his
conscientious and able best to accom
plish this feat and he has tbe sym
pathy and confidence of all those who
understand the situation. We groan
and sigh over Tammany-ridden New
York, not realizing that there are
grafters in Lincoln who are doing the
same thing in a smaller way. All
dealers have a right to demand an
impartial consideration of their bids
for supplying the city. It may be
that the same men get certain con
tracts yeir after because they sell
-superior qualities at more reasonable
prices. If this be so it can be demon
strated and tbe dealers and citizens
too are right to demand tbe demonstration.
Napoleon: The Last Phase.
There are two human beings about
whom the world is never satisfied,
who are still and to every one a mys
tery. There are other mysteries that
a few study and wonder about. But
all the world is interested in Napol
eon Bonaparte and eagerly reads every
new book about him. And Joan of
Arc is the woman whose life and vic
tories have never been explained.
Between the stations which both
these people occupied at birth and at
death there is a wide gulf of impos
sible achievement. A gulf so wide
that no other man or woman has
crossed it unless it be Mahomet.
Of tbe innumerable self-made suc
cesses,no other woman has ignored the
bondage of sex which prevents a wo
man from becoming a soldier, con
quered poverty and obscurity and
learned tbe art of war in one inspira
tion. Alexander was born a king and
when he conquered the world it
was a small place: tbe shores of
the Mediterranean. Napoleon was
a subaltern in the army
at the time of the French Rev
olution. By seizing one opportunity
after another he made himself an
emperor and placed bis relatives on
the thrones of Sweden, Spain, Italy
and the Netherlands. If the fatigue
of superhuman accomplishment had
not conquered him, if he had been as
competent at Waterloo as at Tilsit,
Napoleon would have defeated the
allies and eventually have become tbe
ruler of Europe. But he was fat and
on the night before Waterloo he slept.
He had never slept before on the
eve of a battle. He was indifferent
and be was defeated. He was not
the Napoleon that conquered. That
Napoleon would have conquered a
gain. He had the army, and diffi
culties were not so great as those he
had overcome in many harder cam
paigns. Lord Rosebery's book deals with
Napoleon at St. Helena, as tbe title
implies. Most of the members of tbe
small suite which accompanied him
to the island of exile have published
memoirs of Napoleon. They purport
to be extracts from diaries kept at
the time, but there is internal evi
dence that the diaries were written
long after the events recorded.
The manuscripts have been so doc
tored that documentally they are in
competent. Lord Kosebery has made
a comparative study of the various
"diaries" and conclusively proves
their partial unreliability. "And yet
to accuse all these authors of unve
racity would not be fair. It was rare
ly, if ever, wanton. Partly from
idolatry of Napoleon, partly to keep
up a dramatic representation of
events at St. Helena, and so bring
about bis liberation, facts were omit
ted or distorted which in any way
reflected on their idol or tended to
mar the intended effects. There
seems to have been something in the
air of St. Helena that blighted exact
truth; and he who collects tbe vari
ous narratives on any given point will
find strange and hopeless contradic
tions." Gourgaud, who was a sort of Forest
of Arden Jaques for solemnity and
disgruntlement, has still, says Lord
Roseberv, written the capital and su
preme record. His journal is genuine
and it was written entirely for his
own eye and conscience. He alone of
all the chroniclers strove to be ac
curate, and on the whole succeeded.
For no man would willingly draw
such a portrait of himself as Gour
gaud has page by page delineated.
He takes, indeed, the greatest pains
to prove that no more captious, can
tan serous, sullen and impossible a
being than himself has ever existed.
"He watched bis master like a jealous
woman; as Napoleon himself remark
ed, "He loves me as a lover loves bis
mistress; be was impossible."
In spite of tbe contradictions of bis
material the author of "The Last
Phase" has drawn conclusions and
presented them with great discrim
ination and convincingly enough.
Of the many memoirs of Napoleon I
know of none more satisfactory than
this. It is the more satisfactory that
it does not attempt to deal with more
than one phase and period of his life.
For as Metternicb, Napoleon's enemy
and most hostile biographer, says of
him: "He was born an administra
tor, a legislator, and a conqueror."
In all the days since tbe creation
there has been only one Napole
on, and one author, no matter how
gifted, has yet succeeded in pre
paring a satisfactory life. Lord Rose
bery suggests that four qualified men
might accomplish it. "Tbe conqueror
of 1796 -1812 and the defender of 1813
and 1814 would require a consummate
master of tbe art of war to analyze
and celebrate his qualities. Again
Napoleon tbe civilian would have to
be treated as the statesman, the ad
ministrator, the legislator. Last of
all there comes tbe general survey of
Napoleon as a man, one of tbe sim
plest characters to his sworn admir
ers or sworn enemies, one of the most
complicated to those who are neither.
And for this last study the most
fruitful material is furnished in tbe
six years that be spent at St. Helena,
when he not merely recorded and
annotated his career, but afforded a
definite and consecutive view of him
self." From a study of this period and tbe
voluminous if unsatisfactory records
r
made by Napoleon himself, uhi ,..
tated what he desired the wor t
think of him, and of the doct
diaries left by the men who acr- ,.
panied him into captivity, Lord It -., -bery
has drawn the likeness of a v ,
great man, not of an aristocrat, r
Napoleon was bourgeois to the la-1
but of a man patient and conn ,
of the greatness of his inspirati- u.
Of Governor Lowe, who persecu'ul
Napoleon and made his wretched hV
as uncomfortable as possible, not eun
his countryman has a word of t i
erance. jt jt
Faitb.
In spite of the real snobbery that h i.
invaded naval affairs, Americans lute
it. The mourning for Mr. Mc
Kinley is so deep, personal and sin
cere because he was such a simple-
hearted, good man. We do not mourn
for him because be enlarged the mar
kets of this country, because be ruled
wisely and well, but because he loved
the people, believed in their integrity
and love, and was a simple man w ltli
a child-heart and a child's laitli.
Not for a long time have tbe north and
south, east and west, been so emotion
ally and demonstratively of one mind.
The atheist is an egoist supreme.
Nearly all the men who make a virtue
of unbelief are egoists. Their own
person and personality hide God. The
man of faith does not talk much
about his faith. It is a working plan
and he knows it by heart. The athe
ist is always striking an attitude and
defying something that does not an
swer challenges.
It is curious that the faithful fol
lower of any religion does not say
much about what comforts him in
sorrow, brightens bis life and makes
him willing to die. A man's belief is
an important matter. It is like the
plan of bis bouse. According to the
owner's taste, it may be a stone or
brick or wooden house, it may hare""
windows that afford a magnificent '
view or it may look out onto alleys
and polluted places. There are houses
built with no windows on the out
side, where all tbe openings give on
an inner court which may be pretty
enough, but small and with no hori
zon. The latter is tbe sort of a plan
tbe atheists prefer. They have too
short a rieion to be really useful t
tbe world and their generation.
They say that a cowboy of the wet
can see further than other men. II -eyes,
trained for years to see sma 1
specks of things miles away that lie
knows are cattle, are educaterijfin see
ing. It is only necessaryi for city
people to see across the street an t
they cannot see much farther. The
optic nerve is not trained to long
distance seeing. Mr. McKinley wa
accustomed to strain his vision to tU
most distant corner of America. I be f
lipvp t.hpro wan nevpr a t.rnlv hplnftll '
great man who was at the same time
an atheist. To help others one must
believe implicitly, and without de
manding proof, in God and man.
"This document," said the Sultan to
a visitor he was showing through th
Yildiz Kiosk, "I prize greatly on account
of its rarety."
Closer inspection showed it to be a
receipted bill, but politeness prevented
the obvious comment. Town Topics.
"Miss Sharpe Vera," he began, "yoj
must know why I've been coming here
so much; why I sit here in the parbr
with you night after night, and"
"I Buppose, Mr. Pinchpenny," Mis
Vera Sharpe interrupted, "it's cheapen
to do that than to take me out an -where.
Philadelphia Press.
