Omaha daily bee., 1885-06-22
THE HoLDREGE CONTRIBUTORS.

THE HOLDREGE CONTRIBUTORS.
The names of twenty-five residents OF
Holdrege were for several days paraded
In the Omaha Republican as contrib
utors to the Eve cent fund which had
been solicited by the convicted libellers.
We should ignore this exhibition OF stu
pId and childish spleen were 1t not for
the fact that these names were coupled
with an attempted rebuke to The BEE for
It's course with reference to the burning
Of the Phelps county court house In the
fall of 1882. While 1t Is true that only
four of the twenty-five Indignant
citizens Of Holdrege have sufficient
commercial standing to be rated In Brad
streets directory, and one of these four
Is the keeper of gin-mill, and while we
believe that the majority Of signers were
probably induced to attach their names
to the paper by some political striker or
roustabout, we propose to show that there
was nothing dlsreputsble In the BEES
comments on the burning of the Phelps
county court house.
The campaign Of 1882 was very exoit-
ing, especially In the Republican Valley.
The popular feeling against the misrule
of the railroad bosses was intense. Jim
laird had forced his nomination
for congress through the republican
convention by the gravel-train brigade
With an unlimited supply of blank rail-
road passes he and his henchmen had
ralded the valley, bought up mercenariss
and pulldozsd homesteaders who would
not follow In his wake. On election day,
as at tho republican primaries, section
hands were carried on gravel trains from
station to station and voted promlH-
cuously. Men who had honestly been
elected to the Legislature by the people
were counted out through repeaterF,
nor. residents and ballot.box suffers.
This state of affairs was ali open secret,
and resentment ran high from one end
of the state to another. In Phelps
county and along the border the raid
upon the polls was represented as simply
outrageous.
The Phelps county court house burned
down few days after the election, end
when the news reached Omaha 1t was
also reported that 1t was set on fire for
the purpose of destroying the ballot boxes
and election records, 30 as to prevent @
recount of the votes. Our informants
were residents of the valley and credit
able persons. We did not hesitate to
denounce the burning of the court house
as dastardly outrage which should be
punished 10 the fullest extent OF the law.
Was thee anything wrong in such
course? Was 1t not the duty of any honest
journal, when such report reached it,
to denounce the perpetrators in vigorous
termsl That the court house was burned
was fact, but it was afterwards shwon
| that the records of the election were not
destroyed. That fact, however, did not
exonerate the scoundrels who were voting
gravel trains in the valley and sending
railroad cappers to the Legislature who
were not elected by the citizens. The
fact that Jim Laird, who carried the B.
& M. railroad pass-books, and was the
chief political striker of that corporation,
came before the legislature when it con-
vened and fought the contest on behalf of
the wretched scamp who misrspresented
Phelps county In the legislature of
1888, speaks for ITSELF 1t shows that the
BEE was engaged In political contest in
behalfl of the people with band of
political desperadoes, whose aim In
politics Is to serve the monopolies and
line their pockets with plunder through
the iobbers and swlndlers who infest the
halls of legislation of Nebraska every two
years. No wonder this class of patriots,
who hate the BEE as the devil does holy
water, were delighted with
the vindictive aud slanderous
harangue of John M. Thurston,
the champion of monopolists and the
apologist for all the villsinies to which
Nebraska has been subjected at their
hands. With this explanation We leave
the immortal twenty-five nickle contribu-
tcrs to their own reflections. Possibly
they will be ashamed of themselves upon
second sober thought.