Omaha daily bee., 1903-06-05
AS TO KEEPING NUN.

ton of The Omaha Bee that Auditor
Weston has proved himself a very
staunch and unfinching champion Of the
railroad corporations on the state board
of assessment last year and this year,
the World-Herald reproduces the follow
ing editorial from the Pender Times,
with an approving footnote:
1t seems to us that The Bee ought to go
away back and keep mum. 1t knew last
fall-as the above article indicates-that
Weston was railroad tool, and it also
knew that our Man Mickey" was nomi-
mated solely by railroad influences and that
his record in the legislature was of the
corporation brand Notwithstanding these
two we'll known facts 1t gave Mickey and
Weston its support. If Rosewater had done
by Mickey and Weston what he did for
Majors, w. H, Thompson would have been
governor and Charles Q. DeFrance auditor.
There would have been two men that would
have seen just and fair assessment of
railroad properties.
1t is in accord with the eternal fitness
of things for the World Herald to re-
produce a screed that re-echoes it's own
repeated excuses for popocratic defeats
brought about by incompetent and dis
trusted leadership. 1t is most decidedly
cool, too, for the paper which sold its
editorial page to the corporations that
backed Tom Majors to charge up the de-
feat of W. II. Thompson and Charles Q.
DeFrance to Rosewater and advise The
Bee to "go away back and keep num-"
People endowed with good common
sense know that the disaster which over
took the fusion reformers in the last
election was directly chargeable to the
lack of popular confidence in the World
Herald, which entered the campaign
handicapped by it's attachments and OBJ
legations to Joe Bartley, in consequence
of which fusion sump speakers were
| compelled to keep num- and fight shy
of the most vulnerable spot in the re-
publican armor. Another potential fac
tor In favor of the republican ticket was
the marked discrepancy between the
promise and performance of the last fu-
sion reform administration and the pop
ular suspicion that Mr.. Thompson could
not be depended upon to grapple with
the railroad corporations when he came
to assess the railroads
The Bee has no apology to make for
its course in the campaign of 1902. 1t
does not take much courage for news
paper to fire away at candidates OH the
| opposition ticket. 1t does take moral
force and nerve to antagonize the lead
ers and candidates of ones own party.
1t was good generalship for The Bee to
concentrate all it's fire on Mercer, whom
the corporations sought to foist on this
congressional district, and it would have
been foolhardy to scatter the fire in any
other direction.
As matter of fact, The Bee said moth
ing in favor OF Mr.. Weston during the
entire campaign and could not honestly
commend him. Its support of Mr..
Mickey was given on his personal pledge
that he would not allow himself to be
Influenced by the corporations in his acts
as governor. 1t is cheap demagogy on
the part of democratic and populist
newspapers to charge The Bee with cow
ardice or dereliction of duty in the face
of the fact that it has never failed to
sound the alarm when there was dan
ger, but it has fought the battles of the
people in season and out of season not
merely on paper, but in the courts at an
enormous cost and sacrifice of private
| interests for the public good.