Hitting Back Hard

Republican editor Edward Rosewater attacks the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad as the silent moving force behind the conservative Omaha business men's associations and their efforts to persuade voters in smaller towns to support Tom Majors for governor.

HITTING BACK HARD

Vigorous Recoil of the Circular Sent Out by the "Omaha Business Men."

COUNTRY MERCHANTS NOT FRIGHTENED

Scarecrow Set Up by the B. & M. Politicians Only Hurts Omaha.

WHAT THE TRAVELING MEN ENCOUNTER

Representatives of Local Houses See Trade Go to Iowa and Missouri.

CONDEMNED BY THE COUNTRY PRESS

Untrammeled Newspapers Caustically Criticise the "Fool Movement" and Point Out the Folly of the Bold Effort at Bulldozing the Voters.

Every mail arriving in Omaha brings intelligence of the revolt that has been raised in the interior of Nebraska by the circulation of the manifesto of the Omaha Business Men's association. Country merchants in the smaller towns are resenting the attempt of the B. & M. depository banks and a few favored shippers of this city to dictate to the voters of the state. The conservative business men, who make up the greater part of the total vote, outside of the farmers, and who are not yet convinced that the future prosperity of the state depends upon the election of dishonest men to office, do not understand that the alleged Business Men's association does not represent the real sentiments of the commercial interests of this city. The fact is, that a number of business men who naturally remain aloof from active participation in politics have been drawn into the organization by the representations of a few of the banks who have in the past been especially favored by the B. & M. railroad. The backbone of the organization is formed of the B. & M. depository banks and the stock yards interests of South Omaha. The few score of names attached to the membership rolls do not by any means represent the solid commercial interests of Omaha. More than this, the association is being managed by men who have nothing to do with commercial pursuits. The secretary is John Peters, and ex-federal officeholder and a B. & M. politician from an interior town in the state. The active agents of the association, outside of a few of the ex-state treasurer's bondsmen, are irresponsible parties, who have no more interest in Omaha's prosperity than they have in the election of honest men to office. The ruling spirits of the association are such men as John Peters of Albion, Webb Eaton of Lincoln and two or three others of like character. These are the men who have been entrusted with Omaha's prosperity, and sorry work they have made of it! The injury they have worked to Omaha's commercial and manufacturing interests cannot be computed in dollars and cents, and cannot be repaired in months. They have placed a large majority of the country merchants of the state at sword's points with the wholesale interests of Omaha. They have done much to neutralize the splendid work done for Omaha's manufacturing interests in the past two years by the Manufacturers' Consumers' association. They have enlisted the sympathy of none but a few bankers over the state, who are so closely allied to the Omaha banks, to the B. & M. and to the state treasury that they dare not enter a protest. All this has been done for Omaha by two or three irresponsible parties who are only interested in elevating a man like Tom Majors to the governor's chair in order that frauds committed by the rigs may not be exposed, in order that railroad legislation may not be enacted, and in order that honest methods in the administration of the state's finances may not prevail.

KILLING OMAHA'S TRADE.

As a fair sample of the injury that has been wrought to Omaha's wholesale interests by the ill-advised work of the irresponsible parties who have been placed in control of the Business Men's association, the following incident may be related. Friday afternoon two traveling representatives for wholesale hardware houses entered the store of Smith & Zimmerman, hardware dealers, at the little town of Ulysses, Neb. One of the travelers represented an Omaha house and the other a St. Joseph company. Both were equally wall acquainted with the Ulysses firm, and therefore both entered the store on equal terms. After some little conversation, the Omaha traveling man handed Mr. Zimmerman, the junior member of the firm, one of the circular copies of the manifesto sent out by the Business Men's association. Mr. Zimmerman read it carefully and asked the Omaha traveling man how it happened that wholesale merchants of Omaha attempted to coerce voters of the state into voting for an objectionable candidate for governor. He expressed his sentiments quite freely in regard to the Business Men's association, and finished by declaring that Omaha could have no more of his trade. Then he turned around and ordered a bill of goods of the man representing the St. Joseph house.

Scores of country merchants all over Nebraska are refusing to buy fall goods of Omaha wholesale merchants. This fact is corroborated by letters and reports received from traveling men representing Omaha houses, and several prominent firms in this city have learned to their cost that business does not well mix with partisanship, especially when partisanship is exerted in behalf of an unpopular candidate.

An Omaha traveling man who returned to the city Friday evening, after a two weeks' trip through Southeastern Nebraska, states that he encountered over fifty traveling men from Kansas City and St. Joseph houses, all urging upon country merchants the unfavorable attitude of Omaha business men toward the interior merchants of the state. These traveling men were, many of them, supplied with railroad tickets which they furnished prospective customers whenever they could secure from them a promise to visit the rivals of Omaha on the south. In Northeast Nebraska the Sioux City traveling men are equally active, and the newspapers in that part of the state are urging local merchants to buy of Iowa wholesalers. Says the O'Neill Beacon Light:

Now let the farmers organize in school districts, townships and counties, and labor organizations in towns and cities do likewise. Let them resolve to positively boycott every business man who patronizes Omaha wholesale or retail firms until such time as the more sensible business men (and we believe a majority) shall publicly denounce these corporations and cause them to withdraw their anti-suffrage appeal and apologize to the intelligent sovereigns of Nebraska. Sioux City is a good enough trading point for northwest Nebraska and our people should move in solid phalanx and with no uncertain meaning against the insult of these Omaha merchants.

As a further indication of the sentiment of the merchants of norhwestern[sic] Nebraska the following article, signed by a large number of the business men of Pender, may be quoted:

PROTEST FROM PENDER.

We, the undersigned residents and business men of Pender, Thurston county, Neb., having noticed the articles sent out by the business men of Omaha, and having the general welfare of the great state of Nebraska at heart, and believing the action of the Omaha business men to be at the instigation of monopolies and railroads, and further, that it is a deeply laid political scheme to entrap the honest voters of our state, and also believing that the credit of the state depends upon the election of men who are in no way connected with trusts or railroads, and that the people of the country districts are as competent to judge these matters as these stock yards managers, railroad syndicates, merchants and clerks of Omaha, we therefore denounce their action and call upon all other towns in the state to at once organize Holcomb clubs to oppose these common enemies of our state:

This is signed by:

W.F. WILTSE of House & Wiltse, general merchants.

L.W. FANSLER, with Holmsquist Grain and Lumber company.

B.B. PORTER of Porter & Pratt, confectioners.

J. HARNES, with Porter & Pratt.

JOHN HOUSE of House & Wiltse, general merchants.

R.R. HEINEMANN, with House & Wiltse.

JOHN STOUT of the Pender Drug company and county clerk.

JAMES E. SMITH, cigar manufacturer.

E.J. TADLOCK, livery and feed stable.

M. WILLIAMS, general merchandise.

H.H. GEITH, with Williams & Co., general merchandise.

JOHN ROSENBURG, contractor.

GEORGE A. WACHTER and
T.J. KRAITH of Wachter & Kraith, hardware merchants.

H.C. McMILLAN, contractor.

W.C. BONHAM. Paint contractor.

W.S. CLEAVER AND
G.A. GREENAUGH of Pender Drug company.

L.W. NILES, real estate agent and former cashier of the Thurston County bank.

ROBERT McKINSTRY of Edgar & McKinstry, hardware

LARKIN WILLIAMS of Williams & Co., implement dealers.

OTTO DAHA, baker.

G.N. GREENAUGH, contractor.

F.D. EDGAR of Edgar & McKinstry, hardware.

WILLIAM VOGT of Vogt & Emmington, liquor dealers.

GEORGE STURGIS, with Vogt & Emmington.

I.H. CARY, stock dealer.

H. BAYER, with Holmquist Grain and Lumber company.

JOHN HALLBURG, blacksmith.

C. DAILEY, with Freid & Beckman, general merchandise.

FRANK GRIGS, drayman.

JOHN SCHARLICH, boot and shoe dealer.

B.L AND H.E. DOWNS, harness dealers.

H. FELDMAN, merchant tailor.

JOHN OTTMAN, director First National bank and stock dealer.

R.G. STRONG, attorney at law.

GEORGE H. SMITH, deputy county clerk.

JOHN BLANCHARD, money loaner.

T.H. GRAVES, retired farmer, with the names also of twenty farmers.

CRITICISED BY COUNTRY PAPERS.

The columns of the untrammeled state press continue to ring caustic criticism of the Business Men's association. The people of Nebraska outside of Omaha do not take kindly to the idea that they can be frightened into voting for so dishonest a candidate as Thomas J. Majors and for the element he represents. Their sentiments are voiced by scores of editors who have not as yet been controlled by corporate influences. The Silver Creek Times has the following:

One of the worst fool things we ever saw in politics is the organization of business men in Omaha to defeat the populist ticker, or, in other words, to elect Tom Majors, for that is really what they are after. No matter how much business men might personally desire the defeat of the populist ticket or any other ticket, it would certainly be very bad policy for them to organize as such for any such purpose, and, we apprehend, these Omaha jobbers will soon get onto that fact, even if they have not done so already. Their idea seems to be that business men may coerce customers who happen to be owing them, just as some of the loan companies are trying to coerce farmers against whom they may hold mortgages. It is only a short time ago that these "business men" were going out by special trains to encourage trade with Omaha, and now they are doing what they can to drive trade away from Omaha.

The O'Neill Tribune, speaking for the people in the northern part of Nebraska, says:

That bankers should combine to deliberately attack the political rights of the people of this or any other state in order to continue the special advantages they enjoy is not surprising, but that the business men of a city situated as is Omaha should lend their influence to such a scheme is incomprehensible. Do these men seek to build up a wall of prejudice and antagonism between themselves and their customers? Do they wish to make political enemies of their business friends? As individual members of society, or as members of their political party, these men have the same right to control, or seek to control, politics as anybody else, but when they organize as business men for the avowed purpose of preventing the people of this state from carrying out their political views, can they expect anything but opposition to their scheme? And that opposition may reasonably be looked for in a business way.