Omaha daily bee., 1889-02-17
AN ou1StDE v,rIv OF oMaya,


A candid and we'll considered article
on Omaha, by William Willard How
ard, with illustrations, appears in the
current issue OF Horper's Wecklq. The
writer was careful TO obtain his facts
from authentic sources, aud conse-
quently his article Is not married by
historical and statistical errors, us ave
teen embodied in letters published by
the eastern press regarding Omaha
past and present. Mr.. Howard Wis.,
tied the city and made a careful
study of its business conditions,
its public improvements, its archi-
lecture, and the character OF its people,
and was therefore enabled to write from
personal observation rather than from
hearsay. He "a evidently without
prejudice. as every true historian must
be, and he has hence written with fair
ness and candor. a citizen of Omaha,
imbued with pride of everything con
nected with the city, may not approve
all the conclusions of Mr.. Howard, but
he will have to conCede that they are
frank and obviously we'll intended. Tho
important matter is not what an out
slider thinks of us as a social city,
or how he regards our methods
Of providing for the cost of public
education, which, in the opinion
of Mr.. Howard is not to our credit, al
though he comedies the excellence of
the public schools, but what he believes
to be substantial and sound in our con-
dition and prospects as Il city. In this
respect Mr.. Towards conclusions are in
the highest degree gratifying. Find
ing the best of reasons for the growth
of the past, the foundations OF business
and enterprise securely laid, and the
conditions necessary to make u great
city steadily increasing, he believes not
only that the future OF Omaha is safe.
but that the Nebraska metropolis will
do credit to the American nation.
Mr.. Towards impressions of Omaha are
compressed in this single sentence:
Omaha makes "a speciality of doing
business" This pointed remark is
amplified by the Observation-Disclosures he
who runs may read in this that the city
of Omaha is the commercial gateway of
Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah and part of
Colorado Few persons need TO be told
the material significance of this condi-
ton of things.
AS to the future of Omaha, Mr.. How
ard, after comparing her substantial
growth with the Blooms and boomlets of
other western cities, reaches this con
C~lusion: Omaha has made herself so
i~ndisputably the northern metropolis of
the plains that no neighboring place
can make Roadway against her"
AS an evidence of the genuine and
substantial character of the city's pros
perity Mr.. Howard says:
Large financial corporations would not in
vest a million dollars in an office building
unless there was a certainty that it would
pay. Proprietors of newspapers do not usu-
ally spend half a million on a new building
unless their business warrants it. | faucy
that Mr.. Edward Rosewater would not put
up his magnificent new Omaha BEE building
if he did not have an ~ironclud faith in the flu
ture of the city. For a city Of only one
hundred and twenty thousand people, this
BEE building is a remarkable thing. There
are in the city of New York only two, or
possibly three, newspaper buildings superior
to it. In a section of country so accurately
represented by its newspapers as the west
is, the erection of this large mass of brick is
a significant indication of a solid general
prosperity.
Mr.. Towards article concludes with
this encouraging assurances: in all
practical and material ways, the Omaha
of to-day is a broad foundation for the
city of half a million people that she
may become early in the next
century. All that she needs is
the superstructure of population. The
opportunity for the building of q great
city is seen in the millions Of acres of
fertile lane that await the plough on
the western plains. To the people of
Omaha is given the inestimable privi-
lege of building as they will. The flu
ture is theirs"