Elia Peattie articles from Omaha World-Herald

A WORD WITH THE WOMEN.

Hold him close and kiss him many times. He's such a little fellow, and the world looks larger this morning than ever it did before! Such an absurdly little fellow! But then, it's the first day of school, and school is a thing that must be, so keep the tears back and kiss him many times and send him off. His eyes are like stars with excitement. He trembles just a little. You must give him courage with big words of comfort. If there is any crying to be done on your part, it must be after he is gone. Aren't his legs comical in the new cheeked trousers, with the tiny buckles at the knees --such baby legs, that it will really be a marvel if they can carry him in the opposite direction from his mother. His curls are gone, and the manly little head under its new cap is not the baby head you have been holding on your arm these by sweet, anxious years. It is the head of some beautiful little boy, like your baby, one firm and tough and mannish --your baby was so tender and so fragile.

No woman of any sense would cry. Of course not. You say so over and over. Boys must go to school. If they are going to be citizens of a republic, men who must make their way without favor, who must face poverty and fight in the competition. They would better start in at the public school at the beginning. You have thought that all out. You want to prepare them for the struggle. You can't do that by coddling them until the last moment, and then throwing him into the arena where men are flying at each other's throats. You must see that he is trained, and the public school is the great training ground. A boy has to find out how to hold his own there. It is the great leveler. Your name counts for nothing there. Your wealth is not even known of. The dirty boy has just as much chance as the clean boy. In the school room the boy who has the best brains, and on the play-ground the boy who has the best muscles, is the one who wins. And that is as it should be, perhaps. You have got back to the old primitive law, that it is the strong who wins, and that, whatever the proverbs may say, the race is very apt to be to the swift.

So he is going out to be educated. And when he comes home to you at night there will be an alien expression in his eyes and you will never again be the central figure of the universe to him. Another woman will represent more of wisdom to him than you do. He will obey her better, perhaps than he does you. He will begin to observe that there are a great many fascinating things in the world. His conading gaze will no longer be concentrated on you.

But what would you have? You didn't want him to sit and stare at you all his life, did you? You didn't want him dangling at your apron strings? It was a bewitching little tug he used to give your skirts, wasn't it? And it always made you laugh when he wiped the tears out of his eyes with the skirt of your dress. No, you didn't want him at your apron strings. But still-

Have you not heard it said that after an amputation a man feels his lost leg aching and pricking for many and many a day? The pain you suffer now that your baby is gone is not all mental, if you stop to dedue it. It is part physical- a very large part physical. Maternity has tortures and love that cannot be explained, and for which there are no names

What if they should be cross with him- he was used to being treated with such gentleness! what if someone should strike him! But let them try that if they want to know--How ridiculous again! Of course, if he goes to the public schools he must conform to the discipline. "A boy would better not be, than not be trained." Some old Greek said that. And your boy must be trained. You know it. You said so last night to his father. And his father went out for a walk and came home very silent and thoughtful. And when you kissed the boy's father good night your eyes were not the only ones with tears in them. The two of you stood by the little iron bod moment- the bed where the boy was. Such a bonny boy! Legs tough and strong, round and rosy, neck and face brown and beautiful! A grand head--a wonderful hand. Long lashes on the cheek, lips shut gently --Infallible sign of breeding! Hands brown and scratched up with his funny little experiments. They are very small hands with which to tear the world open. But that is what they have been trying to do. For doesn't a boy want to know how the world looks inside? You both kissed him softly --the future gladiator who was going out on the morrow to be trained.

And now he has gone. You don't care about sewing much today. There isn't a book in the house worth reading. The shopping can go till some other time. There isn't anyone you care to call on. The orphans you were going to visit can wait. You are sorry for them, but they'll have to wait. You and selfish and hurt and you want the world to go away and leave you alone for a little while. You've surely a right to lock your door and weep a little--weep for your lost baby!

MRS. PEATTIE ON LYNCHING

The Blot on the Name of Civilization and Why It Is There.

Something Concerning the Young Negro Woman Who Is Agitating England Against America.

A Graphic Description of One of the Incidents Which Cause the Lynching of Southern Negroes.

Mrs. Allie C. Willard, writes from England to the WORLD-HERALD, in a perturbed state of mind, concerning the agitation of Miss Ida B. Wells. Miss Wells is a colored woman, who despairing of finding any redress in this country for such of her race as are lynched for their wrong-doing, instead of being properly tried by law, has gone to England to arouse public sentiment there. Carried away by the subject, and by the bitterness which she naturally enough feels, she indulges in some severe reflections upon this country and upon its most cherished heroes, particularly Lincoln. At least, so Mrs. Willard complains. She has also assailed or reproached Miss Willard for her lack of sympathy with the cause of the negro. And she has been guilty of ingratitude for the sacrifices made by abolitionist heroes, and by soldiers of the civil war, who gave all the had to give for the independence of the slave.

One would be in a much better position to criticize Miss Wells if one had hoard her addresses. Mrs. Willard’s accounts of her exaggerations and misrepresentations may be colored to an extent by her resentment at the reproach leveled at her beloved sister-in-law, and by the natural irritation of an American at having her country abused among foreigners.

But on the other hand, is it not true that we hang, boil, burn and shoot negroes who break the law, and that when a negro commits an offense we are more inclined to lynch than to try him by law?

If so, why should we resent having it told?

There is never any use in trying to conceal the truth. Truth is like water and flows through the tiniest cracks. It will make itself visible somehow.

If we lynch negroes, and maintain that we have a right to lynch them, why should we object to having Miss Wells say so? Why should not England and he whole world know it?

And could anyone reasonably suppose that Miss Wells could talk upon this subject calmly, or that she would not represent us as monsters? It would not be in human nature to do otherwise.

To defend herself against the charge of ingratitude she very naturally attacks our motives and the motives of the men who led us in the civil conflict. And she says very truly that Lincoln was not in favor of emancipation. That is true. He fought to preserve the federation of the states of the union, and it is with reluctance that he signed the emancipation papers, feeling that he was disturbing property rights, and that he was precipitating men into a problem hardly less distressing than slavery, Miss Wells says negroes are socially ostracized; that they have none of them been elected to high office since 1876, that even when they fought as soldiers in the civil war they were enlisted for less pay than the other troops and that they were not treated as well as white soldiers. Miss Wells is mistaken about there having been no negro elected to congress or other high place since 1876. But as for the other facts, they are probably true. There is no denying the social ostracism of the negro. There is not a first-class hotel or a first-class theater in this country where they would be admitted to equal privileges with other guests. There is not a drawing-room in this country where they come commonly as the friends of the family, although in church, or political, or educational work they may occasionally be associated with those of social position.

Mrs. Willard is very deeply moved because the men of the north have been called cowards, and because Lincoln has been assailed. But it is no arraignment of Lincoln to say that he did not at first believe in the uncompromising and immediate delivery of the slaves. Nor is there any occasion for northerners to fret because they are called cowards. Some of them are. A great many of them are moral cowards, and in race questions they are apt to be narrow, arrogant and un-Christian. Since they are so, why should not England know it? We have really no right to resent Miss Wells’ endeavors to get the English to protect the blacks, since it was but a little time ago that many of us were advocating an attack upon Russia by all Christendom, for the purpose of forcing her to respect the lives of her Jews, her peasants and her convicts. If we have been as culpable, must we not face the mortification of being similarly criticized? If we have a cancer in the national breast, denying its existence will not keep the poison from our blood.

It is just possible that Mrs Willard may feel some undefined irritation at seeing on of the scorned receiving honors from the influential. For that Miss Wells has been made much of is shown by Mrs. Willard’s own letter. Speaking of Miss Wells, she says:

She comes indorsed by Frederick Douglass, and has been received by many of the high and some of the best in England. She is in with the leading London papers, such as the Daily News, really the government organ the Sun., T. P. O’Connor’s paper, and the like. The Chronicle has given her one column and one of its big leaders, the Echo was written her up, also the Westminister Gazette and many other strong and influential papers. Among the people she has interested is the Rev. Joseph Parker of the City Temple, the tragedian of the pulpit. She has come at a time itself opportune for all the big annual May meetings, has been received by many of them, been heard and got resolutions passed, etc. [Diued?] and [fensted?], as inclosed clippings will indicate. Her books reviewed and pictures published.

“Now this would be all right if she were honorable, honest and truthful, if loyal to country or party. But she has no good word for her country, and says some dreadful things, and inters others even worse. She is as sly as an Indian in her speech, and wicker as a tiger. She is rather fine looking, a good speaker, calm and possessed, and has learned her role well. It is still hard to understand, though, by what means she secures so many honors, seemingly without effort.”

Miss Wells’ published material, however, does not justify the accusation that she is shy or tigerish Here is a communication writen by her to the editor of the Daily Chronicle of London:

“Sir. Every moment of my time has been so fully occupied since Governor Northen’s letter was published that I have not before been able to reply to his charges that my statements are false. Your leader and Dr. Clifford’s splendid letter have pointed out that it is not my statements alone, but the reports in the American newspapers, which reveal the lawlessness of the United States. I have only given the negro side of these stories. I have cuttings of lynchings running back six years, which were taken from the columns of the American dallies. This news has been furnished by the Associated Press. Only one newspaper in the United State has kept record of these lynchings as reported, and complied statistics therefrom. The Chicago Tribune has made it a feature the first day of every year to publish a list of the yearly record of murder, suicide, railway accident, lynching, etc. This it has done for the last ten years, and, in keeping with its custom, on the 1st day of January, 1894, was published the complete lynching record for 1893. The list occupied almost two columns. and beginning with January 1, 1898, the date, name, rate, accusation, and place of lynching were given for every day in the year that a lynching took place. The Tribune and the Associated Press are edited and owned by white men.

Governor Northen says: ‘There is not a community or a government of

similar extent into which your paper goes, that is more law abiding and peaceful than the people of the state over which I have the honor to preside.’ The authority which I quote above shows that Georgia lynched fifteen negroes last year. Two of these were charged with ‘rape,’ three with ‘alleged rape,’ one with ‘attempted rape,’ one with ‘turning state’s evidence,’ one with assault and battery,’ and sever with ‘murder.’ The people of Georgia have never denied any part of this record. The state of Georgia’s lynching record for 1893 was seventeen persons, and for this present year, up to May 1, three negroes have been lynched in Georgia. This is all during Governor Northen’s administration, and beyond a few letters, and a word or two in denunciation of lynching in general, to deceive the outside public, nothing has been done by the chief executive of Georgia to stop lynching Several of these lynchings took place in broad daylight, and Governor Northen has done nothing to protect prisoners or punish lynchers. More than 100 negroes have been lynched in this manner in different parts of the state since he became its governor. If his neighbor, Governor Tillman of South Carolina, could invoke the military power of his state to enforce the liquor laws, surely as much might be done to protect human life, but Governor Northen has not a single instance of this kind to his credit. Indeed, there passed through Liverpool in March fifty negroes who came direct Atlanta en route to Liberia. They said they were willing to brave African fever, the jungle, anything, to secure freedom and protection of the law, which they were denied in Georgia. They said there were hundreds in Atlanta who would come if they had only money to pay their passage.

“Outside agitation has done some good even in the south, when the governor of the great state of Georgia comes forward to defend her. It is the truest kindness to him and his state to point out that if they would have the world’s good opinion and support they must put down lawlessness with a firm hand; that general denial in face of all facts will not be accepted. Governor Northen did not tell you that he signed a bill against lynching last winter which passed the state legislature. The bill provides that ‘it shall be a misdemeanor for any sheriff to fail to protect the life

THE WRONG VIEW.

“I doan wan’ do boss—he’s dun sprung on dis side.” “Lor’dent Jus’ look at him de odder side—yos’ crazy man.”

of a prisoner, and a felony to take part in any attempt to mob a prisoner of the law!’ To my way of thinking nothing could more vividly portray all I have claimed than the wording of the above law. It recognizes that sheriffs have sided and abetted mobs, and that the state considers it a ‘misdemeanor’ for them so to do

‘London, June 8 IDA B WELLS.”

The truth is, Mrs. Willard, we do burn, shoot and hang negroes who break the law. It is a terrible thing to have the world know this, but it is not so bad a thing as that we should do it.

And then—as to the cause!

Permit me to tell of one typical case.

The brother of a dear friend of mine lives in the south, on the Suwanoe river. He has cultivated his plantation there for many years—it is all he has in the world—and has raised his family of boys and girls there. His wife has been dead for many years, and the older girls have done the housework and cared for the younger children. It is a very free, delightful life they lead, and so much attached to it are they that life in cities has little attraction for them, and when they have visited relatives in cities they have pined for the beautiful, wild home on the Suwanee The planter has always been a friend of the negro, and has written some and worked much for the mitigation of the negro convict, especially those employed in the phosphate mines

Last summer, one of the daughters being ill, two of her sisters were sent on horseback to the nearest town, which is several miles distant, for medicine. The father stayed in the house to care for the sick girl, and his youngest daughter, a bonny thing 11 years of age was sent out to pick some berries for tea. She tied on her little sun bonnet, took her pail and went out.

She was never seen alive again.

Tea time came, the girls returned from the town, and Mary was called. She did not come. A search was begun No one doubted much what the result would be. There had been two tragedies in the same county, which indicated very truly what the terrified sisters had to expect. And they found what they expected—only 200 feet from the house, over among the scrub palmettos, beside a log. The little brown eyes had been cut out with a knife. The pretty white throat was cut so that the head barely

THE WRONG KIND.

She—I hear you bought a “brown stone;” where is it located? He—Wife cleans knives with it.

hung to the body. The sweet body was otherwise mutilated. And by the side of the body was the print of a huge naked foot—the foot of a giant.

Two negroes were arrested. A crowd gathered the next morning that numbered hundreds, and that grew as the day went on. Men and women came, and tied their horses to the oaks, and participated in the great trial which was conducted there. Four clergymen were present. The father hired an attorney to question and defend the negroes under arrest. By the evidence of white men, and by his own evidence, one negro was acquitted. The other was proved to be near the place of the murder at the hour of its occurrence. His foot was fitted into the print beside the body and found to correspond in every particular, and finally the bloody clothes he had worn were found hidden in his house.

Even then the men delayed.

“Let him live an hour,” the father said. “Give him a chance to repent. Let him confess, and die telling the truth.” He asked the clergymen to pray for him. They refused. He asked the attorney if there was any possible chance that a mistake had been made. The attorney told him not to make a fool of himself.

The men and women built a pyre of dry branches. But the father would not let them burn him alive.

“Do what you like with the body,” he said, “but you cannot burn him alive.”

They put a rope around the man’s neck. He begged for another hour, and said he would confess if they would give it to him. They consented. He made the confession. And one hour later, as the minute hand marked the sixtieth second, they drew the rope up over the bough of a tree. When they took him down there were thirty bullet holes in him. They laid his body—it was almost seven feet tall, and the head was like that of a chimpanzee—upon the dry boughs, and it burned until it was but bones and ashes.

There, in language that tells the whole revolting, hideous, brutal truth, are the facts of this typical case. The negro showed himself a brute—like some monster of the African forest, born to waste, and kill and tear. And he was treated like such a brute. No gorilla, or wild boar, or wolf could have been treated worse.

It is almost useless to expect that any

THE WRONG VIEW.

“I doan wan’ do boss—he’s dun sprung on dis side.” “Lor’dent Jus’ look at him de odder side—yos’ crazy man.”

one could suffer as that family suffered and not be forever injured. Neither the heart nor the brain, and, perhaps, not even the body, could ever again be quite as normal as they had been. Merely to read the tale is enough to destroy one’s sleep. And it would be a shame to write it if it were not that a tremendous line of defense must be offered to justify even to the least degree the manner in which revenge is taken upon the negroes.

But even this will not justify it. Nothing justifies the taking of human life.

But, all the same, any man, no matter how temperate in his passions, would, under circumstances such as I have portrayed, go out to bunt to death the wild beast who had entered his home and wrought there a friend a ruin.

So stands the case. And Miss Wells has point of view—and no wonder. And those who see the other side have theirs, and no wonder either. It s a condition which must be faced, and which cannot be denied. And the world will know of it.

There is a war between the races. This war does not extend to every member of each race. Some negroes and some white men and women are good friends. And perhaps the friendship will grow. But meantime the outlook is discouraging. Even the working men, combining, fighting and working to keep their just rights from being taken from them, have refused the admission of negroes to the American Railway union. They believe that the carner has rights that ought to be [reenacted?] by the employer. But they have not yet discovered that the negro has any social rights that his fellow laborer is bound to respect.

So we grind each other! So we crash! So the greeds meet like opposing floods. And in the fury of their meeting men go down.

There is no use of trying to find the right in this war of races There is no right. There is nothing but wrong Espouse no side. Neither side is worthy of espousal. It is an episode of history that one contemplates with horrified eyes. ELIA W. PEATTIE.

A SUMMER BREEZE.

A tiny willful summer breeze Went roving through the fields and trees; He started in the early morn When [duy] was yet but newly born And wandered through the livelong day Ever playful on his way, He roughed the feathers of a bird Whose morning song no more was heard, For quickly he began to’ prim To get himself once more in trim, He blew against a laden bee Who flying homeward heavily, Was made to take a wider flight Before at home he could alight. The petals of a lovely flower He scattered in a pretty shower. Then dipped his zephyr fingers in A brooklet with its merry din, That through a wood so dump and cool Flowed onward to a money pool. He changed the emerald poplar tree To shining silver fair to see, And swung a bird’s nest to and fro That held three eggs as white as snow, He left the field, and wood and down, And blew into the busy town Where soon he raised the dust in clouds And sifted it among the crowds. A person’s window he crept in, The sermon’s leaves he gave a spin, Then out again he flew straightway Sent only on his fun sad play A church door open, up the aisle He pushed his way in playful style And lifted up a bride a white wall And kissed the bride all fair and pale. Across a new born infant a face He crept with fond and [?] ring pace And loitered for a moment in The dimples in its cheek and chin. Through corridors where marbles gleam And riches weave a golden dream— Through huts where poverty is found And shadows fall with depths profound, He traversed ‘till the night began With darkness all the world to span; Then wearily he homeward flew All damp with softly falling [dow?] And in a moonflow r opened wide He laid him down, and greatly died.

NW. REED DUNROY. ------------------------------- The natives at Colon and Panama were lately discovered in a fairly sharp scheme to rob the steamship company. The transfer of bales and packages of India rubber over the isthmus is always large in volume after the arrival of steamers from Peru and Mexico Then there are constant arrivals from Columbia and Nicaragua, as well as local receipts from within a few miles of Colon. These, pilled on the docks, make a large aggregate and at favorable opportunity a bale or two would be dropped overboard, and as rubber naturally will float, it was comparatively an easy matter to pilot the booty to a point whence it could be readily landed and disposed of by a “fence.” As a bale weighs from 100 to 200 pounds, the haul was a good one to the native. The less could not be discovered until after the steamer reached New York, and it bothered American detectives for months, until the leak was finally located.

THE HERMIT OF SOUTH OMAHA.

Down in the green freshness and beauty of Syndicate park there is a little cave or dugout that shelters a strange personage. He is a short man with stooping shoulders, and has long hair of a reddish brown color and a tangled beard of the same hue. His face is tanned until it resembles parchment, and with his old clothes all stained, he makes a study in brown that is rather picturesque. Amidst all this brown the only thing that has life and color are his eyes of blue that seem ever restlessly looking for some unseen-object.

“Old Charlie,” for that is the only name he is known by, is a tinker by trade. Every day he comes forth from the park carrying his little furnace and tools and makes a tour of the streets, looking for [?]ware to mend. He has become a familiar figure to the housewives and he receives many a little job of work. Day after day he trudges on, heading not the taunts of the boys whose delight it is to torment him on account of his uncouth appearance.

After the day’s work is done, he creeps slowly down through the trees in the park until he reaches his cave hidden by the branches of alder bushes, and swings himself down and it lost to sight. Here he shuts out the world from his joys and his sorrows, no jeering boys come nigh him, and no sound from the busy world disturbs him as he dreams his dreams and lives over again the past. And who can tell what his thoughts may be, there alone in the damp earth? He seldom says anything about himself, but once in a while the longing to sell some one of his sorrows becomes too great, and then he tells his story. It is but a simple tale, old as human nature itself. He tells how that in a land far across the sea he loved a beautiful girl. He worshiped her with all the ardor of his young soul, and it seemed that he could hardly live except when he was in her presence.

She was his promised bride, and he had made all plans for coming to this country as soon as they were married. But alas, for his high hopes Just one short month before the day set for the wedding he received a letter from her, stating that she would never see him again. She was going away with a man she loved better. She begged him to forgive her. He was found lying in his rooms some time after by his mother, with the fatal letter crushed in his hands. He was ill for many days with a brain fever, and when the fever was gone a great change had taken place in [?] He was no longer the happy lad as of [?], but was the prematurely aged man that we see today.

They said that he was insane, slightly demented, and perhaps they were right. Who can test? He then left the old home in the land across the sea and drifted hither and thither over this broad land. And at last he came [?] South Omaha and took up his home and the beauties of our little park. Sometimes he is driven, by thoughts of the [passge?] the cup, and there for awhile his poor, muddled brain forgets the miserable past.

And then he will go realing down to his home the forlornness looking mortal that over walked. He says that he has relatives who are wealthy, but they will have nothing to do with him. Perhaps they do not like his eccentric ways.

Old Charlie, old in sorrow but not in years, lives on, shut up within himself. Some say he is queer and think he is insane, but who of us have not felt the same desire to flee from the world and all its hollowness and mockery and be alone with self and God? If only we might sometimes go away and let ourselves down into a cave, and there dream our dreams and fight out battles and conquer ourselves, then there might be more happiness than we see now.

We build a ladder of our hopes And climb high up tow [?] heaven, But soon the rude shocks of this earth Its frail supports have riven, And back we fall all bruised and torn And few again have braveness To rear once more the golden stairs And climb high up to greatness.

W. REED DUNROY.

Not complete 7/8/2020.

MRS, PETTIE IN BEBUTTAL ---------------- Just a Word or Two in Passing Concerning the Society Question. ----------------

The Poor and How to Help Them----The 'Problem of' Poverty Fashionable Charity------Little and Big Things. ---------------------- The few remarks I made about a part of Omaha soolety the other day have aroused must comment. This may have been because these remarks were just or because they were unjust. It does not much matter. I could have retored with personalities, but that would have been disagreeable. And life is so short it is surely not worth while to be disagreeable unless there is something to accomplish by being so. I know what the facts were that prompted me to make the crictcim I did. The reply of Mr. Chase in Exceisor was an expression of his views, to which he was entited, and as the editor of the journal of society in this town if was proper that he should do what he did. Life said he thought one way I said I thought another. That's all there is to it. Concerning the critisim of myself in the Bee-- an anonoymous criticism----I can only say that it was very amusing. I've wirter accuses me of settting my information from two papers of unsavory reputation, which I have never held in my hand, nor even seen, and which I would not wilngly see. He says my article was prompted by pique because I cannot get in Omaha society, He might as well say that my criticsms upon train robbers were inspired by my inability to join the ranke of the train robbing entry. I dare say I would not be invited to join any sort of society. I certainly never clamined to have had any such opportunity. I have a few friends, it is true, some of whom I know and some of whom I do not, but they are my friends all the same, and give comfort to me, as I hope I do to them. Some of these friends of mine live in houses with frescoing on the walls, and some of them in houses where the walls are covered with patches of old newspapers. I move in human socitey, I beileve, But not by invitation. No one asked me to. Futher than I can lay he claims to social distinction, But I have become so accustomed to this state of things, it having existed from my birth, that I really cannot plead guilty to pique. And it must really be admitted that in this controversy society has had the best of me, because I had to arraign it generally, and as a body, whereas it could put me straight up in a public pullory and hurl arrows at me. But they were not poisned arrows, and I am none of the worse, thank you, and have been quite exhilarated at the commotion. And I feel almost proud of myself when I think of thing I might have said---and haven't. But enough of this. Let's "move on," as the consrrative gentlemen of the city want the men at Rescue hall to do. * * * * * * * Those men at liesue that are, by the way, the graphic presentaion of a problem that hitherto has presented itself in a detached and vague sort of way. There they are----storng, healthy, wiling to work, or to they any----and here we are, eager to give them work, and with none to offer. Meantime the men lay along the floor like soldiers in blvonac, wrapped in their old quilts. And comfortable folks who have beds and furnaces, and breakfasts, and other appuriancess of moder civilization come in look at them. Oddly enough the men on the floor don't like it. They smile shame-facedly, or cover their heads with their blankets, or dart angry and proud glances at these vistors. I suppose they feel like a job lot--lying there altogether in a rough classication, with no particular individuality, at least to the prosperous persons who come to stare at them. Now in peniterataries, and in work houses, and in gamgs on railroads, or digging ditches, must all I suppose, feel like job lots. And I can imagine nothing more annoying. I do not wonder all that some men are starving here today and wearing a smilling face, and saying that they are maaging very well, when is reaity they are fainting with hunger. Would not you do that, too, rather than be marshaled with a gang of other two-legged animals to be filled up in a soup kitchen, or looked over like a car of cattle dumped at the stock yard gates? I tell you, there are those who prefer death to being in a job lot. * * * * * * * * Dr. Duryea says it is very difficult to get at the real condition of many of the most needy in town. We have pauperized a good many hundred, by our careless charity, and they come around cheerfuly when they need anything, and ask for it. But there are combaines of workingmen and women in this city who are resorting to every device rather than ask for charity. The double up and crowd into the small houses, two or three familles of them together, to save coal. They are facing their necessity with the calm reason of heroes, and abortion rations to their families, and live on one meal a day. It's astoniding how little a person can live on, for a while. And while I want these men and their wives and children relieved, I shudder when I find they have really been persuaded to take assistance from the relief furnished them this winter. For I fear that in some cases their self-respect may go with it. Only a few natures are strong enough and philosophic enough to take privation as an episode, and to accept the division of property as a right, and to accept it without humiliation. I am bound to say I wouldn't be that philosophic myself.

The Western Laborer said the other day that I did not dare face what all this discrepancy in our social system meant. Confession is good for the soul. I do not dare face it. I do not dare say what I think. I would not willingly put in words all that I fear. I must not let my lips say how awful the iniquity of hungry working men seems to me here in our America, which was going to give us all liberty.

And some of us, it seems, have not even liberty to live.

The Caliphs of Morocco, in the ancient times, met the same problem we are now struggling with- met it and overcame it. Away back in the days of the Cid, these wise governors projected a system of public works of vast scope and importance. This included hundreds of massive bridges, miles of aquaducts two and three tiers high, fortresses, city walls, storehouses, thousands of miles of level roadway, prisons, palaces, galleries, quays and residences. They did not try to build these all at once or continuously. They did not attempt to carry on the work in times of prosperity. It was only when work in trades was ''slack," when there were many unemployed, when shopkeepers compisined of business and there was a scarcity of circulating medium, that they recommend to labor. As to wages, the price was fixed at a figure below what was commonly paid to stone masons, day laborers, etc., in order that men ight not be tempted to remain at public work when times bettered and business in their own trades improved. This government work, was necessary, but not imperative, and the Caliphs were thus enabled to kill two birds with one stone. They got their public work done and kept the people from becoming public charges on the government. They also prevented discontent and penury from undermining public loyalty. The example of the Caliphs of Morocco can be emulated in America. Some of our laws might have to be amended, but that would do no harm. We might, however, have plenty of funds for public improvements in times like this if our assessments were properly made. This is the idea of the "minimum point, concerning which Mr. H. Andrews of this city has often written.

I am told a great many remedies for the social disturbance." One man says land is at the bottom of all our trouble. He tells me that Henry George is the philosopher of basic truth. My friend who tells me this is a cobbler, with a beautiful smile, and a perfect trust is the ultimate happiness of mankind. He thinks we would all be free if we all owned land, and if we bald but one tac and that on land. Another friend says money is the trouble, and that if we had money enough to pay for the earnings of man, no one would be hungry, and men could not then speculate in money and acquire wealth at the expense of others. Some tell me that whisky enslaves us, and that intemperance in this and other directions is what is at the bottom of our woes. There are those who think that the practical disappearance of handwork and the introduction of machinery is to blame for much of the speculation in the labor of men's hands, and the consequent inequality in the distribution of profits, and I even met a man the other day who said he thought the stress and distress of these days was due to the invention of electric lights. Of course everyone says we need socialism. And it is that fact that I suppose the Western Laborer thinks I am afraid to face. And I am, God knows we all are. For the woes that would come of it are as terrible, surely, as any we have now.

"Now understand me well- it is provided in the essence of things that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary."

That's what Walt Whitman said, and what he thinks. But Hamlin Garland thinks and says constantly that the day will come when all men will be free - when none will be at the bidding of the other.

There are certainly enough opinions about what we ought to do to be saved. We are all conscious one way and another of the insidious means which some men employ to rob other ment of the results of their labor. But we make strange prescriptions for the cure, and we diagnose the social disease in eccentric ways. Perhaps this confusion comes partly from the fact that none of us are willing to be veritists. We exaggerate conditions. We make them wrose than they are, or else we idealize them. We decide that all well-bred people are kind people, when as a matter of fact the best bred and most delightful gentlemen we know may be grinding the face of the poor. And while he compliments us in elegant phrase, he may be driving some other women to shame from the miserable wages he pays her for her service in his store or factory. Or we decide that the poor are all deserving, that they are languishing for work, and that they are crushed by society. Whereas, it may be that the oen we most pitied would run from work as from the plague, and, so far from being a victim of society, is, and always will be, a prey upon it. It is the constant taking ti cognizance of these things that makes charity come at last to its scientific basis and gives it the statistical aspect which is so offensive to our sensibilities yet which we all admit is a necessity of our present conditions.

A man well known in this city in "labor circles," as the newspapers say, wrote me the other day, and, in the course of his letter, spoke with much impatience of the fad for charitable work which the fashionable, were now amusing themselves with. I think he under-estimated the purity of motive which prompts most of those women in their work. We have all been tellings them they ought to divide their surplus with the needy, and they are trying to do it the best way they know how. They have given of their surplus; they have also given of their time, and of themselves. I don't say that it may not have filled some of them with virtuous self-gratification. Or that it may not have served to lull into temporary peace a heart much troubled with private griefs, or that somewhat perfunctory giving of goodness in which some women indulge themselves. But what of it? Women have a right to their consolations. If they want to use all opiate for a broken heart, or fill idle hours, or deliberately add to their good acts, they surely have the right. No one can escape from selfishness. For, finally, everything is selfish. But to be selfish in that sense is no sin-- it is quite the opposite. We are born to make the most of self- to do that is selfishness, or at least, it is selfish.

This much good has come of the dread year of 1893 - we are all trying to look more closely at the fabric of society which each one of us assists in weaving. We are noticing, for the first time, how gigantic and impressive is the pattern. We are astonished to find how gray and dun the whole things looks, and how startling those splashes of red in it are. Whether we he on the floor of Rescue hall, rolled in an old blanket, or under elderdown in a perfumed chamber, we are troubled with inquiries which will not let us rest, but which din at us with imperative voices, and ask us for how much of this suffering we have been personally responsible.

"The times," said a well-known lady of Omaha, the other day, in a meeting of women assembled to consider the need for systematic relief measuress, "are revolutionary or evolutionary, and I defy anyone to tell me which." No one ventured a reply.

ELIA W. PEATTIE.

THE "BAG OF GOLD CASE."

Brooks R. Johnson, who figured in the rather novel case where the Nebraska National bank applied to a count of equity to have certain property owned by Johnson turned over to it on the ground that the property was purchased with money which had disappeared from the bank while Johnson was janitor of the building, has filed his bond for an appeal to the supreme court.

The money which mysteriously disappeared from the cashier's cage was $5,000 in gold coin and was in one of the canvas sacks used by banks for specie. The case is known among attorneys as the "bag of gold case," and is chielly, remarkable because, though the bank officials went into court and obtained an order to have the property of Johnson transferred to them by a dead of trust, there was never any criminal proceedings.

THE MEN OF THE MOUNTAINS

Mrs. Peattie Writes of Them and of the Capital of the Rockies

Denver as Seen With the Eyes of a Visitor From the Frairies-Views and Impressions.

Cities, like plants are the result of conditions; and the nature of those conditions determines the quality of the plant-or the city. That is to say, man makes some cities by force of attrition, production and competition. Human like itself is the soil grom which the city grows. The precious manure is prodigally exponded to keep in existence such hotbeds of effects civilization as Berlin and Paris. The necessities of man, the meeting of his demands, the catering to his pleasures, his education and his vices, are the causes of the city's prosperity and its continuence. It is like the sea, in which fish feeds upon fish, and some fishes seem born only that others may fatten upon them. Such cities are like coral reefs, which the builders build with their lives, making the voluntary sacrifice naturally, and in obedience to the instincts of their nature.

But here is the western part of this republic are cities which have come into existence, and which are sustained for different reasons. These are the cities born literally of the earth. They feed men and do not prey upon them.

Two such towns are Omaha and Denver. Both are the fruits of earth. Both the natural, healthful offspring of the vast mother. One is born of the plains; the other of the mountains. One is the result of corn, wheat, hay and the garden. The other of gold, silver, lead and coal.

One does not talk about one's own town any more than one puts his own portrait on his writing desks. As it is pleasanter to look at the face of another, so it as pleasanter to talk about another city than the one of which he is a part.

Denver is the miners' paradise. To earn-Denver considers that stupid. Like Timon of Athens it digs 'roots, roots, roots," out of the earth-roots which make the wealth of nations. The streets upon the streets of business blocks, residence, schools and churches are built literally out of the mountains. The many colored stone that architect and builder have used with exquisite art were quarried from the mountains. Giant powder, hydraulic machine, and miners' pick brought out the lead and silver that filled those homes with luxury and paneled the club houses with onyx, and wainscoted the hotel rotundas with marbles and carvings of wood. Minerva did not more triumphantly spring from the head of Jove than Denver has sprung from the mountains. And above her those mountains hang always, inscruiable, terrible, beautiful, always changing, warred upon by the elements, making in tender mists a mask beblud which their sterness bides fascinating and inviting the beholder.

There is in Denver a peculiar class of men. They are essentially men of the mountains. They may have their weaknesses, but cowardice is never one of them. They are men with a peculiar development of certain faculties . They handle money as a farmer handles seed corn-only as a means of producing more. They are always spendthrifts. Misers do not live a mile above sea-level, where the ether intoxicates, and a hysteria of hope disturbs the emotions of even the best poised.

Physically, these men of the mountains are remarkable. Their chests average four inches more in breath than those of the men of the cast. They do not become giddy. They can climb anywhere. They can walk all day. They can sleep anywhere. And they can eat anything, but are naturally luxurious, and the miner's cabin frequently knows finer viands than the dining room of the conventional and pretentious citizen.

Denver has lived like a Monte Chrislo. Now suddenly, it is in the midst of poverty. The people who live in those magnificent homes are many of them penniless. They are haunted by the sheriff, who follows them like a Nemesis. Yet the old habits of luxury will not easily desert them. They give banquets for which they cannot pay. They lock the door on the sheriff and drink their champagne. They refuse to be dull. When they are melancholy it is with a sort of furore that makes them threaten secession. Not that they mean anything treusonable. They are the most loyal people in the world. But up in that altitude you have to be more or less spectacular.

Besides, to have been one day the Sodom of this republic, that is the richest and gayest of cities, and the next to be panperized-isn't that enough to furnish excuss for a little ill-advised verbosity?

Not that Denver is discouraged. "Just let the government decide what sort of money it really wants," said one of its citizens, "and we will go out to our mountains and dig it up."

Apropos of the effect of Denver upon the emotions, it may be safely said that it arouses the ambitions as no other city does. It is, perhaps, for this reason that there is within it a more brilliant "smart set" than it is to be found anywhere else in the United States, excepting New York. But there is this difference: The leaders of the New York smart set are women. Those of Denver are men. They are of various nationalities, but mostly English and American. They keep elegant establishments, stables of blooded horses, are members of the Denver club, and connoisseurs in the giving of dinners. They are collectors of bric-a-brac, pictures, rugs, horses, and picturesque personal episodes. Prodigality is their foe of entrance into social circles. Omaha has some rich young men, but the most reckless of them have never essayed the dash that is the leading characteristic of the Denver smart act.

Of course, where there are ten persons of this sort, there are a thousand domestic, quiet, modest, hard-working citizens, who love their own homes better than society, and a reputation for reliability more than a glittering popularity. But no home is so modest or no family so domestic and steady-going that dreams of sudden wealth have not entered it. The slow earning of money always seems the last resort to the Colorado man. He cannot get over the idea that he has only to go out there among the mountains and dig it out. In his dreams he sets the dull glow of the preclous ore in the cold recesses of the long, draughty shaft.

In short, the Denver man has become so accustomed to the unnusual that he cannot accept the usual with anything save feelings of protest and impatience.

Where people are prodigal and gay they are also generous. No one is going to starve or freeze in Denver, bad as the times are, and formidable as is the army of unemployed men. Until recently the state hardly knew what it was to have a poor person-one dependent upon charity. One has to be very careful in Colorado not to judge a man by his dress. The man in torn jeans may have his hundreds of thousands in a pretty little pocket up on the dark mountain there, where you see that snow-wreath whirling so cruelly. If every the whirligig of time wrought strange tricks, it does it in Colorado.

Politics out there are perplexing. There are seven tickets in the field. There are the result of divergent business interests. To understand the political intrigues of Denver is as difficult as to understand the court of Louis XIV of France. Every man is attached to his own little particular faction, and for reasons which are apt to be strictly personal.

Almost every man in Denver, and at least half of the women are in favor of equal suffrage. The daily journals advocate it openly. The leading women of the city in intelligence, wealth and social position are for it, and are conducting a dignified campagin in its behalf. It is much more than likely that Colorado will join with Wyoming in giving equal suffrage to its men and women citizens.

The last time I was in Chicago a woman tried to board one of the Harrison sirect horse cars. She had a heavy 2-year old child in her arms, and made several futile attempts to get upon the crowded car. Her strength was hardly equal to the task. None of the men near her moved or offered any assistance. The conductor stood with his hand on the bell rope, watching her angrily. Everyone glared at her as if she were a vampire, sucking their lives-as, indeed, they considered that she was in thus compelling them to-lose a few seconds of the time they affect to consider so valuable. At length the conductor could conceal his rage no longer.

"Give me that there young 'un," he cried snatching it from the frightened woman, who looked, not without reason, as if she expected it to be dismembered before her eyes.

The other day, when I was in Denver, a home-bound car at the busy hour of 6 in the evening was stopped by a very sweet faced old lady who was leading two tiny children by the hand. The motor had not yet reached a full stop before two gentlemen and the conductor were on the ground besides her assisting her and her pretty charges into seats that had been vacated for them. Then everybody smiled pleasantly at the party, and the ladies who sat nearest played with the children. That makes one of the differences between Chicago and Denver.

There's no denying that they have red blood out in Denver.

One thing is noticeable to a stranger which does not strike him pleasantly, and that is the nonchoiance with which theft, waste and misappropriation in public office is spoken of. Men do not resent the words "theft" and "boodie" as we do here. Perhaps this is one of the invidious effects of living in a speculative country.

Denver has more fine residences than any other city of its size.

The streets are narrow, but beautiful. The architecture is distinct, intelligent, consistent, and original.

A frame building is an anomoly. In the residence district the hard alkali roads are as nature made them, without paving of any kind. In the business district asphalt is used.

Bicycles are almost as much used as legs.

Even the boot-blacks understand the silver question.

Some of the clergymen enjoy an enormous popularity. One of them is a poet. Another was asked to run for congress, but refused.

The school buildings are magnificent. The women dress like New Yorkers; and the men are also fashionable and fastidious.

Electricity is used to the greatest extent. Almost all the nicer houses are lighted by it and many of them are heated by it as well. It runs the street cars and illuminates the streets.

GReat is Denver! An intoxicating volatile, bewitching town! May its prosperity return! And may adversity inculcate some useful lessons.

Look, see the mountains, where a mist, like mother of pearl rises, swathing the highest peak of all! And over yonder is a mountain wrapt in purple, and with bent brow, like a sad king. And there is a slender peak, rosy as dawn, and looking as if only summer airs blew there! Who could guess the bleak pass at its side, and the canon where men die forgotten in the sephulchers shaped for them when the hills were young? ELIA W. PEATTIE

WHY THE CITY EDITOR FAINTED.

He was a young man with a bright face and he told the city editor that he was very anxious to become a journalist. He said that he had graduated from college last June and that while in school he wrote a number of "items" for the paper, and his friends said they were splendid and that he should be a reporter.

The city editor was short man and so he told the young fellow that he could go around to the undertaking shops and see what was new. He was gone for an hour and when no returned he sat down at a desk. He destroyed a ream of paper before he got started and then he turned in his copy. I was seated in the next room and I heard the city editor grumbling to himself as he read the new man's copy.

"Holy Neille! but that man is a terror." I heard the city editor mutter, " I don't believe he knows what a paragraph is. Now wouldn't this kill you; The corpse lay quietly in the casket." I suppose he thinks the corpse should have turned over a couple of times and whistling "Buffalo Girls are you coming out tonight." or something else. Great Len! how's this; The relatives of the girl stood silently by.' I suppose he thinks they should shoot craps or dance!"

There were continued mutterings and comments on the new reporter's matter and then I heard a body fall heavily to the floor. I rushed in and saw the city editor lying prostrate on the floor in a dead faint and with a sheet of the new reporter's copy clasped in his hand.

I hastily raised his hand and poured a few drops of whisky from a convenient bottle down his throat; and as I did so I saw the cause of his faintness, for his thumb rested on the sentences;

"Her untimely end casts a gloom over our entire community!"

RAY EATON.

LET US NOT BE VANDALS

Mrs. Peattie Asks That Historic Buildings Be Preserved for the Future.

Old Landmarks in the Life of the Republic Which Deserve a Tender Care in Their Day of Decay.

There used to be an idea that a republic should not indulge in reminiscence. It was supposed to be the duty of citizens of a republic to look forward and not back. But there never yet was an arbitrary rule made for the regulation of man's emotions, which was not speedily broken. And thus it has come about in 200 years of hot history that we are as fond and proud of old associations as any other country.

In some ways we have a great advantage over other countries when it comes to dealing with historic persons. And that is that our distinguished personages are honest in their distinction. They are not noticed because they are Stuarts, Howards or Guelphs, but because they have individually done something heroic, or brilliant, or sacrificial. And the lives of such are bound together in a bundle- as David would have said--with the history of this republic. In short, the history of this republic is the history of individuals, and little by little this intensely interesting fact is coming to be appreciated.

A number of gentlemen at the city of Washington have been laboring recently to promulgate this idea, and they have formed themselves, or been formed, into the Memorial Association of the District of Columbia. This association has been formed for a threefold purpose:

First-- of preserving the most noteworthy houses at the capital of this country, that have been made historic by the residence of the nation's greatest men.

Second--of suitably marking, by tablets or otherwise, the houses and places throughout the city of chief interest to the multitudes of Americans and foreigners who annually visit the capital.

Third--Of thus cultivating that historic spirit and that reverence for the memories of the founders and leaders of the republic upon which an intelligent and abiding patriotism so largely depends.

The membership of this association is interesting. It is composed of Chief Justice Melvill W. Fuller, General John M. Schofield, ex-Secretary of State John W. Foster, B. W. Warder, S. P. Langley, the astronomer; A. B. Hagner, J. O. Bancroft Davis, once assistant secretary of state, and the nephew of the historian Bancroft; Walter S. Cox, a judge of the district court; S. H. Kauffmann, A. R. Spofford, the librarian of congress; John Hay, the poet, J. W. Douglass, Myron M. Parker, Gardiner G. Hubbard, W. D. Davidge, S. R. Franklin, Charles C. Glover, and the Rev. Tennis S. Halin of the Church of the Covenant at Washington.

The little circular sent about the country by the association contains the following:

"The rapid growth of the city of Washington and the transformation of residence streets into business conters are already obliterating many of our historic buildings. Few people know that where even the very greatest of our statesmen had their homes while they were making, or interpreting, or executing the laws of the republic. We have names that the civilized world honors; their chief work was done in this city, yet the visitor here has no means of satisfying his praiseworthy desire to look upon the places they made memorable. The vast work of building up a young nation has left us little time for cultivating the historic spirit. But we have now reached a period when we need no longer bend every energy to subdue nature and to insure material prosperity. We may pause a little to secure the higher refinements of a splendid civilization. And among these refinements, none is more precious than that worthy pride in our best national traits and achievements which cannot exist apart from some intimate acquaintance with the life and work of our greatest men.

"Moved by such considerations, we have formed the Memorial Association of the District of Columbia, and have secured incorporation under the laws of the district. Pursuant to a joint resolution of the two houses of congress, approved June 14, 1892, we have been appointed, six each by the president of the United States, the president of the senate, and the speaker of house of representatives, as members of the association. The term of service is three years, one-third of the members being appointed annually. We have adopted by-laws, elected officers, and chosen a board of five directors to manage the details of our work under the instruction of our association. We are prohibited by our charter from receiving any compensation for our labors. We have recently issued a small pamphlet of twenty-seven pages, giving careful information as to a few of the historic houses and places within the district. We desire as soon as may be, to mark with suitable tablets the most notable houses still standing, in which the greatest men of our nation's earlier years have lived and labored. And we especially wish to purchase the house on Tenth street in which President Lincoln died. It is the only building at the capital distinctly associated with him. We wish to restore it to the condition it was then, both externally and internally to gather in it such mementos of Mr. Lincoln as can be procured, and to make it a perpetual shrine of patriotic pilgrimage for the millions that venerate his memory. The title to this and to any other historic houses or places preserved by the labors of the association will, by our charter, vest in the United States, and remain under the control and management of the association at the will of congress.

"We look to the congress to enable this work to be speedily entered upon, and these patriotic designs carried out, which we believe will greatly inure to the benefits of the whole nation, which takes a worthy pride in its magnificent capital. No time could be more appropriate for the inception of such an undertaking than this historic and memorial year."

This sets forth succinctly the plan which this company of gentlemen, with Justice Fuller as their president have laid out. It is one in which every American must feel an interest, and which the romance regards with affection. For he knows that pressed like leaves in books, the rich colors faded, but still apparent, the histories of fascinating men and women lie impressed in the personality of these old places.

In the current number of Scribner's Magazine is an article by the Rev. Tennis S. Hamlin on the "Historic House of Washinton." It is rich with the stories of the men and women who have made Washington the "Paris of America," and one is perplexed at the idea of making selections from it, for its stories have suggested one another in a way to form a happy sequence, which isolated quotations cannot but destroy.

In the article are the descriptions of famous houses--houses renowned for hospitality, for brilliant company for adroitest lobbying--and the article is agreeably illustrated with views from these historic mansions.

But if one would be glad to see the home where the fascinating and benevolent Mrs. Van Ness lived, and to walk in the room where Decatur dined with his guests, and see the room where Colonel Taylore danced, it would still very much more like to have reverently preserved the house associated with Lincoln, and to have it filled with all the mementos of him which can be procured and authenticated.

Apropos of mementos of Lincoln, there is a little story told of Richard Harding Davis, which it is not particularly pleasant to associate with that brilliant young writer. He was to be presented to Edwin Booth at the Actor's club, and wishing to impress the occasion in some way upon the mind of the venerable actor, and to give him some token of his respect, Mr. Davis met him with this speech:

"This is a very great pleasure, indeed, Mr. Booth, and was of so much import to me, that anticipating it, I looked among my theatrical curios to select some souvenir. Will you let me give you the one I consider most interesting! It is a copy of the program of the play at Ford's theater the night that Abraham Lincoln was shot."

Poor Davis! He had the pain of seeing Booth reel and nearly full. Someone hurried him away. And then, for the first time, Mr. Davis learned how closely associated with the assassin was Edwin Booth. How he ever escaped acquiring that knowledge before is one of those things which no man can explain.

It is a fact as certain as that smoke flies upward, that if there were a museum of Lincoln souvenirs at Washington, that not an American or foreigner of intelligence would visit Washington without looking at these relics. For beloved as Lincoln was in his life, it is only now, with the focus that time gives, that the true proportions of the man became apparent. There is not, in history, a man so revered. About him there is the halo of martyrdom. And stronger than that is the luster cast by a character which stands for the American ideal. He is what all Americans would like to be, and in searching for a man who seems the best result of our republican institutions, we point to Lincoln.

Let his homely, familiar, restful face but appear in the transformation of a stereopticon display, or in the extravaganza or in a play; and the audience cannot get enough of it. They look upon it as if it still had the power to protect, guide and encourage. And the flag itself cannot inspire them to equal demonstrations.

Yes, decidedly, the house associated with him, and many another mansion of the beautiful capital, ought to be preserved. How numerous the associations are in connection with certain of these houses, it needs an article with the space and scope of the one referred to in Scribner's to set forth. They are filled with illustrious associations.

And we have reached another rung in our evolution when we perceive the educating influence that a preservation of such memorial has.

ELIA W. PEATTIE