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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 12, 1901)
; VOL. XVI., NO. XLI ESTABLISHED IN 1886 PRICE FIVE CENTS LINCOLN, NEBR., SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1901. THE COURIER, 00'''9 KXTSKKDIH THK KMTOmCI AT LINCOLN AS KOND CLASS MATTKK. PUBLISHED EVERY SATDBDAY bi TIE G0QR1ER FRIIIIHG HID PUBLISHING GO Office 1132 N street, Up Stairs. Telephone 384. SARAH B. HARRIS, : : : EDITOR Subscription Rates. Per annum Mli fl 50 Six months..... 1 00 Rebate of fifty cents on cash payments. Single copies 05 Thx Cocktkk will not be responsible for to! notary communications unless accompanied by return postage. Communications, to receive attention, must be signed by the full name of the writer, not merely at a guarantee of good faith, but for publication if advisable. V r 9 OBSERVATIONS. &'.0O' Of the People. Mr. McKinley came of Scotch-Irish stock. His ancestry was not feudally above labor. His grandfathers fol lowed the plow. His short, strong figure had nothing of the willowy, graceful aristocrat about it. He did not cultivate simplicity, because he was simplicity itself. His dignity was of the inherent, human kind that separates a man from vulgarity and insures him freedom from intrusion and from all impertinence in the midst of a crowd, whatever his occu pation. He was essentially a public man and his gift of arousing the esprit du corps of the American peo ple and including in the corps mil lions of men who voted for Mr. Bryan, was not the least part of the value of bis services to America. But if Mr. " McKinley had been a farmer or if he had continued the practice of law and had never held a public office, he would still have been a typical Amer ican: shrewd, kindly, canny, honest, loyal and loving to his fellowmen. Mr. Roosevelt's bon-homie is partly cultivated. He has the good heart, the humanity, the shrewdness, the patriotism, and a large part of the judgment possessed by McKinley. The latter grew every day he was president. He was a better president and a wiser man on Tuesday than on Monday. There are some boys who do not learn in either the academy or in business. They are as ignorant of the real secrets of life when they die as of scholastic lore when they are graduated. But President Mc Kinley was of the kind that learned from all things and from all men. Like Shakspere, no man crossed his horizon without paying him toll of knowledge and experience. McKin ley was the author of a most strin gent tariff bill. When he was first elected his fame rested on the bill of which he was the author and which he had induced congress to pass, a feat that showed even then his tre mendous power of getting enough men to agree with him to accomplish a national measure. When McKinley was elected he was one of the fore most believers in America for the Americans. When he died he was no less an American, but he had learned as president America's relations with all the other countries and the fu tility and unwisdom of attempting to sell everything and buy nothing. From the most sincere and convinced protectionist, McKinley was educated by the presidency into ardent ad vocacy of the principles of reciprocity. His last speech was full of the most profound truth for Americans. In itself it should be adopted by his countrymen and especially by the men of his party as a primer ot American polity. It is so wi:e, so true, and so sound. We are no longer infants. Our in dustries are giants. It is absurd to nurse them and it weakens both their power of standing alone and our own dignity. Besides, a protective policy as stringent as ours creates a retalia tory policy in other nations and no really great nation can long enforce it. A more self-conscious man than McKinley would have hesitated to publicly confess that he had learned something which made the object of the bill connected with his name un worthy of attainment. As the knowledge of the statesman who has just died grows upon the people, it is likely that his opinions, his enlightened opinions will have a larger anc larger influence upon them. His advice was sound. He occupied a higher eminence than any of us. He could see farther and his vision was clear and uninterrupted by shadow of himself. The narrow and necessarily temporary policy of shutting out the nations of the earth from our mar kets for the benefit of a few manufac turers can not long endure. A bank er might as well attempt to live in Lincoln and buy nothing of the local merchants. What is true in prin ciple and practice of individuals and in a small town is true of the nation at large. Truth always has the at tribute of universality of application. President McKinley's humble walk, his nearness to the people and his demonstrated good judgment have given him a place next to Lincoln. The republican presidents since Lin coln have been good men and true, and as a whole they have done well by the country; but since Lincoln there has been no oracle. General Grant was a great soldier, and en thusiasm for military glory elevated him to the presidency. Mr. Garfield was a trading politician and the pres idency had just begun to make him great when he was shot. We need a modern oracle. Washington can not help us with the best wisdom of the eighteenth century. After all that heroic figure in American history was but mortal. He could not foresee the problems of today. Neither cculd Lincoln. Busy with reconstruction, he did not foresee the inevitable growth of America. With the prescient and shrewd qualities of Washington and Lincoln, McKinley belongs to the twentieth century. The race and the nation are not what they were in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The movement of the last few years has been espec ially rapid. McKinley has moved with and been a part of the current. Better than any other American he understood just the stage of develop ment America has reached. If the republican party accept his advice he will not have died in vain. If he had lived Congress would undoubtedly, before his administration was over, have modified the high tariff. With out his inspiration and the compell ing power of his presence, it is not so certain that the tariff, which needs reforming more than Tammany, will be lowered. The party will make great oratorical use of McKinley's life and speeches, but it is doubtful if his incorporeal word will be sufficient to induce the politicians to lower a tar iff which has become a war-cry and a fetich. The tendency to let a dead man se&ve only on public occasions when poetry and sentiment are useful, is not confined to politicians. Men fre quently quote their mothers and refer feelingly to the intluence a good wo man has had upon them, but when it comes to driving a sharp bargain and taking an unfair advantage, their mothers! Oh! where are they? While the memory of McKinley is still sharply outlined in everyone's mind, while he is still modern and reverenced as the most clear-sighted statesman for a long time in charge of American affairs, let us ponder up on his conclusions, unselfish and sound, conclusions that swept awaj the work and accomplishment of his first triumph in public life. Not by tears, not by granite monuments, however lofty, can we testify our be lief in him, our grief for him. The conduct of the war, our present in ternational dignity, the state of the country, the strength, harmony and cohesiveness of the republican party as well as the unity of north and south and of all America, not one of these but all prove conclusively Mc Kinley's pre-eminence as a president. The most brilliant period of national accomplishment since Lincoln's ad ministration was ended by the bullet of an anarchist. It was not an ad ministration in which large things were promised but in which they were actually consummated without revolution, much commotion or the sort of fits into which Americans and Frencli throw themselves when ab rupt national changes take place. What the nation owes to McKinley Is not yet recognized nor will be un til fifty years from now when the secrets of the lack of modern powder and arms when the war began, and other matters of national housekeep ing, may be revealed. In the mean time his last words to this people arc fraught with large meaning and for tune to America, if his prophecy and warning be accepted. President Roosevelt. After the death of the Emperor Frederic the attention of the world was directed to his successor, Will iam. He was young and very ambi tious. He had ideas in-regard to the nation and to the army; and he was opposed to the policy and supervision of Chancellor Bismarck. So anxious was he to brand his reign with his own mark that he obliterated un important signs of his predecessor's rule, dismissed Bismarck and reign ed as nearly as the reichstag would let him, by himself. It is a higher type of man that has succeeded to the presidency of the United States. As restlessly ener getic as William, as ambitious, as fond of military history and accom plishment, as fond of hunting, and more devoted to literature and to scholarly pursuits, President Roose velt's ambition is tempered perhaps by no more intense patriotism, but by a patriotic democracy that Will iam nor no ruler who believes in the divine right of kings, knows any thing about. President Roosevelt's conscience is severe. Instead or at tempting to stamp the administra tion with his own individuality he has asked every member of McKin ley's cabinet to remain at his post. The restless ambition which made Emperor William in too great haste to get rid of reminders of other rulers does not control the young American president. He is not so impulsive that he speaks before he thinks. With all the fire and impetuosity of William and of a young man, the President's words and acts are de liberate, well-considered. His con duct at the time of the assassination of McKinley and since his assumption of the office has allayed anxiety and established confidence. From the moment he was elected vice president Mr. Roosevelt accepted the comparative obscurity of the po sition. Accustomed to challenging attention, to applause and to a vic tor's legitimate spoils from his youth up, he resigned himself gracefully to the comparatively obscure duties and limited intluence to which usage re stricts the vice president. The comic cartoonists twitted him; but he spent his leisure writing biographies and essays on various top ics for the magazines, and no one found out whether or not he enjoyed-