Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-08-24

| fresh cut flowers on his desk. There Is al
| ways one on the desk of the Secretary of
| Agriculture. The flowers come from the
| department conservatory, and 1t has been
the custom to decorate the Secretary's desk
with them since the conservatory was built.
| Behind Mr.. Morton, hanging above the
| mantel was a three-quarter length oil
painting of his predecessor, Secretary Rusk,
life-size. and looking very natural. On the
| south wall of the room was a modestly-
| framed picture Of the Secretary's home in
| Nebraska. Ranged along the mantel were
| a few calendars issued by firms interested
| in agricultural specialties. But any one
who expects to find prize pumpkins decorat-
| Ing the corners of the Secretary's office, or
| hayseed in the Secretary's hair, Will be
grevously disappointed Mr. Morton's en-
vironment is not in the slightest degree
| agricultural.
West of the Missouri.
1.-THE first newspaper work did was for
| the Chicago Times" said Mr.. Morton, and
while he talked his right hand moved cease
| lessly, signing long, blue documents. Il
was In the university then. The first of my
work that attracted attention was series
OF articles against the know-nothings-
against secret societies. When was twen-
ty-two years old issued the first newspa-
per ever printed on the other side OF the
with an Omaha date line issued July 4,
1854 but it was printed in Council Bluffs.
7 he first issue of the Nebraska City News
was the first paper printed west OF the Mis-
souri,, 1t was issued April H. 1850.
with a sworn circulation Oh:
"Oh, we had population of only hun
dred people. But the paper was not issued
to make money. Its object was to attract
attention to the town and help us to sell
town lots. The town company paid for
getting it out and paid me salary for
running it. 1t was circulated chiefly out
side the town. I was member of the
town company, and as 1 had had some
experience writing for newspapers-for the
Chicago Times and the Detroit Free Press
4 was chosen editor at salary OF 100
month. My pay included also certain in
terest in the sale Of town property. The
original contract is on file with our His
torical Society. We had quite an estab-
Eshment. There was a foreman, jour.
printer and devil.
Those Buckskln Trousers.
IT have kept up my acquaintance with the
devil-that particular devil-to this day. 1
hear from him every little while. He is
living in California. Johnnie Freeman he
was in those days. He was sixteen years
of age, and his one ambition in life was to
own a pair of buckskin trousers-you know
the kind, with fringe down the side, such
as cowboys wear. Well, Johnnie achieved
his ambition and became the owner Of the
GuckSk1n trousers, Out the nFSL time ne
rolled he got them all smeared with ink.
That troubled him. He knew that buck
skin had q habit Of shrinking when wet.
He knew that If he took off those trousers
and cleaned them there were chances that
he would not be able to get into them
zs s:so he determined to keep them on and
wash them. He went at it, and got Off
trousers dried they shrank so that they
rearly killed h.>n They fitted him tighter
than his skin. He stood 1t as long as he
could and then he begged some one to cut
them off. That was the end Of the buck
skin trousers. Not long after a freighter
came along and offered Johnnie $50
month and found to drive bulls across the
prairie He left us and went out to Cali
fornia. There he made some money pros
pecting, believe, and became rich growing
wheat He lives in Woodland now. He
sent me a picture Of the town not long
ago and one of the finest houses in the
place is the home of Mr.. John Freeman. I
have never seen him since he started across
the prairie punching bulls.
I'VE had hard time attracting. atten--
ton to our town. said the Secretary. you
see, we labored under the disadvantage of
being just above Kansas. We were a quiet
unassuming people who had come west be-
cause we wanted to make our homes there
and open up the country. Kansas was set
tied by lot of Blue Lodge people from the
south, who had come there to make slave
state, and a lot of people from Massachu-
Bibles to establish a God-fearing abolition
state. Kansas began suffering and bleed
ing and kicking up great row before Ne
braska had chance to attract any ones
attention.
Still Bleeding Kansas.
"And do you KNOW" said the Secretary,
1.-The experience of Kansas has made me
a believer in communal heredity. Kansas
has always been the same sort of state,
with the same stick. AS I said, Kansas
absorbed public notice, and. as a result,
we couldn't get anyone to look at us for
a time. We circulated our paper through
the east, but it never got US notice from
an eastern journal. Finally I made up my
mind to do something to make people talk
about us. I sent to st. Louis and got some
Of the old cuts used in the slave states
to advertise for lost slaves-you remember
them-the figure Of the negro with a stick
figures of negroes and had some of our
people run away with them, and I adver-
tised them i'll the Nebraska City News
as run away negroes. The New York Tri-
mediately. Up to that time Nebraska had
not been thought Of as a point of con-
troversy in the slave question. The Tri-
bune started us, though, and after that we
got plenty of notices from the eastern pa
pers.
"Of course, I wrote the entire paper in
those days. And I want to tell you that
1 think the country paper of that day
was a great deal better in every respect
than the country paper of today. There
was a column of good agricultural notes
and a column of religious matter, and
the paper was full of original stuff In
these days of patent insides, the country
paper is made in the city. 1t does not
furnish the wholesome reading that we
used to find in the paper of forty years ago.
and it does not give the training to the
uyhn a1f re In hn n1d dow
had to work if he was the editor of
country weekly. And I think, too, that
the average of the literature which went
into the farmers home in those days was
better than that of today. I mean the
serial literature. The farmers reading
now is chiefly Wild Bill literature whose
tendencies are far from good,
II ran the Nebraska City News for
some years. 1 turned it over to several
people at different times, and had to take
it back again. Finally 1 got rid of 1t en-
tirely, and I have done no newspaper work
since, except some occasional writing for
the Chicago Times when Wilbur F. Story