Omaha daily bee., 1889-06-02
FOR PEOPLE WHO THINK.

Every observer must be struck with tho
vast Improvement made in those streets
from which the poles and wires which havo
so long dishgured them have been removed,
says tho New York Herald. And all must
wonder at the time IL has taken TO effect
reform so much needed. II is more than i've
years since the movement to abate the nui-
sance began in earnest. With dogged deter
mination the companies first opposed tho
enactment of the law and then resisted its
enforcement. Expert electricians insisted
that tho undertaking was impracticnbc.
Lawyers argued that the statute was uncon-
stitutional. Mayor Hewitt posed as the per-
sistept obstructionist TO law which 1t was
his Official duty to execute. But tho will Of
the people has at length begun to prevail.
The unsightly poles and wires are fast dis.
appearing from view, the success OF under
ground lines is assured, and even the stout
est opponents must soon admit that tho
change is great boon to the public. II is
triumph of substantial value for the people.
Englsnd is suffering heavy punishment for
its long misgovernment OF ireland, says the
st. Louis Globe-Democrat. When the homo
rule question forced all other Political issues
aside, some great schemes of reform were
indefinitely postponed. John Morley, in his
great speech last week, reminded his audi
ence OF this fact, and also IN their zeal TO i'm
pede Irish measures the electors had him
dered national reforms Of at least as great
Importance. The liberal party now stands
pledged to policy which includes legislation
to abolish trusts, excessive and perpetual
pensions, and state aid to or Interference
with religion, to reform and reorganize the
house Of lords, to abolish real in place of
nominal county self-poyarnrnpnt md IN z.
feet reduction in national expenditure by
abolishing whole host Of unnecessary Of
fees. Such programme should surely
reconcile the most anti-Irish radical to the
much-dreaded policy Of justice to Ireland.
The senate of the Massachusetts legisla-
ture has passed a bill giving women the right
to vote on the issue of liquor licenses Tho
democrats, of course, combatted the meas
ure, and it would seem that a great many
republicans also were opposed to 1t, but
were afraid to record their votes against its
passage. The bill has yet to pass the house
and the governor and its success is probably
not assured. But should this measure be.
come law Massachusetts will have the dis
tlnction of presenting to the world the novel
spectacle of a state which has entrusted to
the charge of the gentler sex the most difl-
cult problem of contemporaneous politics.
This, at least, would be the effect of the bill
should 1t become law, inasmuch as the
women are in a large majority in the state Of
Massachusetts. The purpose of the meas
ure is plain, says the Minneapolis Tribune.
The object is to force prohibition upon tho
people. 1t was defeated by an emphatic ma
jority at the recent general election,
but II women were given the right
to vote on the issue OF liquor
licenses, it is expected that every city
hamlet county or township would vote mo
license" The prohibtionists would thus
reach their Elusive goal by circuitous
route. Whether prohibition would prohibit
ii the sternness of the law were tempered
by the sweetness of woman is quite differ
ent question. 1t would not be safe to answer
in the Affirmative while doubt might be con-
sdered unchivalrous Whatever the prac-
tical consequences Of such a law, its enact
ment would be a great compliment to the
supposed civic virtues of women.
The Boston Globe thus comes to the de-
fense of the American muses.:
No wonder we are now passing through
the twilight of the poetsl" Here is Har-
per's Magazine for June, devoting ten pages
to two poems, one by Winthrop Mackworth
Praed, and one by William Wordsworth.
Praed was an Englishman who has been
dead fifty years, and Wordsworth an Eng.
lishman who has been dead about forty
years, though he was dead as productive
poet nearly twenty years before his funeral
Why should American magazines rob Eng
lish graveyards for their poetic livery, when
there are so many aching bards of native
breed, "who die with all their music in
them," because they cannot find publisher,
tba hicybtx, ,,nfx ybOo IL,
paved with rejected manuscrpts2 Messrs
Harper, we can read Wordsworth in his book
part of him voluntarily, part under extreme
compulslon. Let US have some native Amer
ican poetry. fresh with tho dew Of recent in
spraton. Give a little boost to our contem-
porary home bards, who are climbing up
Parnassus under difficulties, and not waste
so much encouragement on deceased foreign
ers, who are already warmly ensconced in o
Pantheon of their own.
The motion to abolish the house Of lords
as a part of the machinery of British legisla-
ton was regarded as a grotesque joke when
it was first brought forward a few years
ago 1t impressed mems minds very much
as might proposal to abolish the tides on
Goodwin Sands, or to reverse the order of
the seasons or in some other way to change
the conditions established by nature. says
the New York Commercial Advertiser. For
the house of lords has existed as part Of
British legislative machinery ever since
there began to be legislative machinery in
the Kingdom, and to the human mind, and
especially the British variety of the human
mind the fact that anything has always been
seems conclusive proof that it must always
continue to be, in form and nane, at loast
whatever may happen in effect.
..S