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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 23, 1901)
'm THE OOURIEll 8 n-eat mans momer was ever uncov ered who was not noble, strenuous and trave Woman Suffrage There was a debate on the question 0f woman suffrage last week during Ihe annual meeting of the state woman .uffragists' association. The debaters were Miss Laura Gregg of Omaha and Mr A. I- Ulxby. a Lincoln journalist. ihousiunl or more people assembled in hear the discussion, hoping that it might be a dignified, able presentation of both sides of a most important cur vnt question. Mr. Blxby intimated that it was a "jaw match." He said that he could not understand why noman wanted to go chasing around over the country aner omce. wnen she should be at home cooking something to prevent men from nanting to kill the president. He said that the difference between men and women was illustrated by the dif ference between the character of the sytal meetings enjoyed by man and those perpetrated by women. Man meets with man to talk, smoke, and talk politics and the important hap Inings of the day. Men's clubs (in-fa-entially), stimulate the understand ing and are rich in social and spirit ual uplift. Woman's clubs and social meetings of various kinds are devoted to gossip if not to scandalizing. The women talk about their neighbors and any acquaintances who do not chance to be present, and return to their homes refreshed and strengthened by what would enervate and disgust a man. God created woman so that it was against nature for her to desire to have any voice either personally or by repre sentative in the deliberations of man concerning herself, her home, her city, her state or her country. Mr. Blxby seemed to have received an Intimate lrsonal communication from the Al mighty in regard to His plans for woman and the things which she must by no means be allowed to do. Miss Laura Gregg, of Omaha, af firmed that it was right and expedient for women to vote. She possesses that Quality in woman, a clear, reso- ant voice, and she enunciates con scientiously. She has an exhaustive knowledge of the subject of woman suffrage, the reasons for adopting it, its effects in the states in which it has been adopted and of the trite argu ments alleged against It since It was proposed. She has studied suffrage In Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and Kansas, and she has a thoroughly reasonable mind. She says there are no reasons against woman suffrage that may not be urged against man suffrage. Fifty years ago when women were striving to enter colleges there was the same opposition, the same prejudice, and the "ame fear expressed by those who pro fessed to have the tenderest love for oman. the fear that higher education would unsex her, make her like a man. make her disapprove of the marriage 'ate, render her obnoxious to man: and that if the movement to educate omen was successful in America it aeant the eventual death of the race for dearth of mothers. Prophecy is not argument; but it has terrifying potency in the days when 1 is ""ered by a prophet who claims be a Seer. When the prophecy is "Proved by time the prophet is not ehed at because he is forgotten. A fcn dead long enough Is safe from "dicule and all discomfiture. He is as "re from mockery as dust. Higher "cation has not changed the nature ' functions of woman and it Is at t questionable if any human Insti- 0n can change her. Prophecy can hi h refute1 by taling the course the prophets warn the com munity the against and Iettlmr time do rest- Analogy is not safe because :lcuime important- unrecognized par 'erent" ana,osue may be vitally dif- Mrs. Piper ,esembers ' the society of Psychical eareh thought they had established the possibility of communicating win, the world of spirits through the medium of Mrs. Piper, the celebrated medium who can at will lose conscious ness and answer questions addressed to her about people and things she never heard about. The society of Psychical Research is located at fain bridge and is composed of professors and post-graduates of Harvard col lege. The secretary engaged Mrs. Piper's time, or at least her tratues, exclusively. Several very learned monologues were published by Pro fessor Hyslop and Professor James, who were convinced that during the unconscious hours called trances, Mrs. Piper saw and conversed and correctly reported the con versations of certain long dead friends and relatives. During a trance Mrs. Piper is able to converse In foreign languages, though in a normal state she is familiar only with her own. A few weeks ago Mrs. Piper sent an article to a New York paper in which she said she did not believe that she conversed with the spirits of those dead and gone before, but that the ex planation of what she said and of the secrets she revealed is thought-transference. The communications, like all alleged spiritistic messages. were vagje. mournful and imbecile. If we go from mortality to a state of chaotic crude consciousness like that haunted by the spirits who report back through mediums, it is fortunate that the future is hidden from us completely, and the man or woman who endeavors to remove the veil is worse than a Mormon and deserves to have some kind of an anti-movement organized against him. During her trances Mrs. Piper trans mitted messages which Professor Hy slop concluded were from his father because they contained references to trivial occurrences of which she could by no possibility have had any knowl edge and which he had even forgotten himself until they were recalled by the medium. In regard to these matters Mrs. Piper says that they may have been sub-conscious thoughts trans mitted to her by the peculiar and un known laws of thought transference without the professor's knowledge or consent. The scientists engaged in the search for the psychical pole are undismayed by Mrs. Piper's "confes sion." They say that she was only a medium for the transmission of ghost messages and that while she was simply a telegraph instrument and the wires too, she was as unconscious as wires and brass. Her confession reads like the report of an honest woman who lent herself for the sake of undiscovered truth to the experiments or psychologists anx ious to discover the laws of the mind, and the connection, if any. between mind still confined to the brain and In corporeal mind alloat somewheie in the region of the doleful splrit-woild that the shabby spiritualistic fakirs are fond of talking about. In dis claiming conscious connection with the spirit world Mrs. Piper has placed the living under new obligation to her. The spirits of the Indian chief and the other doleful familiar who used Mia Piper's sensitive condition to com municate with a world from which they had definitely and Irrevocably re tired, are snubbed; but so long as she refuses to go into a trance again they can not touch her, and their disap proval of her conduct and renuncia tion can not have any effect. Mean while the society has filed away the records in her case and they will be used to convince future tyros of Tacts about which the medium herself was most doubtful. -i ' -it Special Privilege There is a city ordinance to the ef fect that merchants shall not place signs across the walks or hang them across the streets. Before the ordi nance was adopted by the council all sorts of signs swung from building to building above the streets. The town presented a ragged, untidy appearance, and pedestrians were in danger when ever strong winds blew, and strong winds blow in Nebraska from January first to January first, with intermit tent short recesses. A short while ago a local clothing firm petitioned the council for permission to build a sign, extending from the store front to the edge of the walk. The council granted the petition because the firm said it was an electric sign and would save the city from lighting that part of the block. The streets, the sidewalk space and the atmosphere above the streets and sidewalks belong to the people. The council has no right to grant the space to any man or corporation. The city Is unsightly enough as it is, covered with the hideous rotting poles be longing to the electric lighting plant and the street car system. The sucess ful merchant realizes the benefits of advertising, but the streets and the sidewalks belong to the people, not to this man or that one, and no man has a right to advertise his private busi ness in space or over it which belongs to the people. More than that, the city council has no right to give away, for any reason whatever, public property. Councllmen were elected to care for and prevent any one from making an improper use of city property. The signs suspended in the middle of the street and projecting from business houses into the street should come down. Klther that, or everyone should be allowed to build what obstruction he pleases. If so bo that It attracts attention to the ar ticles on sale in the adjacent building. It has been said that the greatest ob stacle to a city government by the people Is the opposition of successful business men to an honest and impar tial city government. Business men want special privileges not granted to everyone. If they were granted to everyone they would not be special, and neither would they be privileges. For instance. If all firms were allowed to project signs any distance Into the air space belonging to all. there would be mi object in it because In the con fusion of banners and street signs, one man's sign would be overlooked. The volume of people who pass up and down a given street make It val uable. To grant the privilege of the most conspicuous place In the street to one firm is an injustice to all other firms In the same business in the city, it trespasses on the prerogative of the whole people, it makes the law ridicu lous and teaches contempt for it. The city can afford to do its own lighting. It can better afford to lessen the num ber of lights than to allow one firm by the authority of the city council to defy Its own ordinances. Lincoln had a city council three or four years ago which was impervious to the blandish ments of this or that business man. and dealt out even-handed justice to all. The present council is now experi encing the result of granting the privi lege of sidewalk space to one firm. Many firms are now demanding that they be given the same privilege. The sign in question should come down or all the other merchants In the city should be granted the same privilege. The lattei alternative would make the city still more untidy and unattractive, but a material loss Is not of so much consequence as a loss of municipal In tegrity and a recession by the city council from its own laws. rtr Vv The Overcoat Gauge It is the hour of the overcoat! In the past two months the wholesale houses of Chicago have sold four hundred thousand winter overcoats, and every garment was sold before the cloth of which it was made had been received from the mills. Chicago is the proud overcoat centre of the world. More than that, the jobbers have solil the coats to the country west of Chicago and a tremendous sale of overcoats Is a reliable gauge of prosperity. When men are hard up they do not buy over coats. The most they can afTord Is to wear their old ones. At a lower stage of prosperity they give up the luxury of overcoats altogether, and buy food with the broker's loan. Notwithstand ing the failure of the corn crop, Ne braska men are wearing their share of the half a millon stylish long over coats. Forebodings of hard times have been dissipated by the overcoat sale. '.' JeSSfiaBi' - REV. II. T. DAVIS, First Pastor. REV. F. L. WHARTON, Present Pastor inong Methodists who took leading parts in dedicating St. Paul's church none were more prominent than Presiding Elder II T Davis of Lincoln district, and Rev. F. L. Wharton. The former is a pioneer of Nebraska Methodism, and one of the three surviving preachers who were members of the Nebraska conference when it first was organized ; he came to Lincoln in 1S6S. Rev. Mr. Wharton came from Columbus. Ohio three vears ago. and ha- done much toward the upbuilding of this chnrch. Thirty years intervened between their pastorates ! M