If the preceding 200 years had recorded on a phonograph all of the inventions, improvements, and labor-saving machines for production and distribution, would they have equalled the showing which the last twenty-five years can make?

But leaving the United States east of the Mississippi river, how has Nebraska been shriveled and tortured under the gold standard since civil government was first established within its boundaries?

Who present of the members of the first legislative assembly of the territory of Nebraska can recall the physical conditions by which that deliberative body was environed in January, 1855?

Was it not more than three hundred miles to a railroad? Were there more than two thousand men, women, and children resident in all the seventy-six thousand square miles which make up the area of this commonwealth?

And yet in forty-two years have not the material, mental, and social conditions-under the gold standard of value-advanced from the crudities, discomforts, and discouragements of the furthermost frontiers to the environments, comforts, conveniencies, and luxuries of modern civilization in all the older settlements of Nebraska?

And will not the acre of land which would buy but a dollar and a quarter in gold in 1856 now purchase from ten to a hundred dollars of the same coin?

And cannot money, which in 1856, 57, 58, 59, and '60, and even down to 1867, which loaned in Nebraska upon farm mortgages for 12 per cent. per annum, now be borrowed for 8, notwithstanding the alleged appreciation of the dollar?

And cannot railroad bonds, issued upon lines in Nebraska which originally bore 8 per cent., now be floated at 4?

And are not wages more now than forty-two years ago? And with interest lower, wages higher, and the values of all real property enhanced ten-fold during the forty-two years, how can a truthful man, a sincere lover of big facts, declare that the gold standard has been and will continue to be a blighting curse upon the people. J. STERLING MORTON.

THE FIRST TERRITORIAL LEGISLATURE OF NEBRASKA.

REMINISCENCES BY H. P. BENNET.

DENVER, COLO., September 15, 1896.

To the Nebraska Historical Society: At the earnest solicitation of your assistant secretary and librarian, I will attempt to express what I can remember of the first territorial legislative assembly of Nebraska. Forty years is a long time to retain in one's memory anything of interest concerning the assembly not found in the journal of its proceedings, so you need not expect a very extended statement. I might, indeed, draw upon my imagination for embellishments; but such you would not want. Nor would I like to give you anything but the plain truth of the matter so far as I can, even though it be not so strange as fiction.

At the date of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, in May, 1854, I resided at Glenwood, Ia. My oldest brother, Isaiah H. Bennet, was in the employ of the government in the Indian service, and located at Bellevue. He and I were among the very first to locate claims in Nebraska after the passage of the bill. We made our locations on the Papillion, without, however, moving our families to the ground.

Late in the fall of 1854, S. F. Nuckolls, who had located at old Ft. Kearney (Nebraska City), persuaded me to move from Glenwood, Ia., and join him at Nebraska City. This I did, taking my little family with me in a buggy, and leaving all my household and other effects behind. We boarded at the Downs house, the only public house in the city, for some few weeks before the first election in the territory. At that election I was a candidate for the territorial council from Otoe county, which was entitled to two councilmen, and I was elected, together with Captain Bradford, long since deceased. As I remember the matter, I owed my honorable position as a member of the first session of the Ne

braska legislature more to Stephen F. Nuckolls than to the fact of any long or well-known residence in Nebraska prior to the election.

I was elected as a South Platte man, which meant that I was in favor of the location of the capital at Nebraska City. In other words to remove the capital from Omaha, where Thomas B. Cuming, the secretary, had established it, to a point south of the Platte, where I and my South Platte colleagues and constituents had more corner lots than in Omaha. The corner lot question was the great political question at stake between the two Nebraska parties-"North Platte" and "South Platte"-of that early period. Party spirit, of course, ran high, as it naturally does when, as in this case, a great principle is involved in the issue. Just consider how many

"City lots were staked for sale
Above old Indian graves"

north of the Platte, at Omaha, and south of the Platte, at Nebraska City. In such trials the issue cannot be found by proofs of the right beyond a reasonable doubt, as in criminal cases, but only by a preponderance of corner lots. And it was so found in this case, in favor of Omaha.

However, I must ask you to pardon these reflections, as I am not writing an essay on the righteousness of mankind, but only a few reminiscences of the early and half-forgotten days of the great state of Nebraska.

The legislature met at Omaha a few weeks after the election. It assembled in the old capitol building situate on the bluff near the Hemden house. All the parliamentary law I knew I had gained from study of Jefferson's Manual, which I had borrowed after my election. Notwithstanding my meagre knowledge of the subject, I was considered by my South Platte colleagues to be the most capable and best equipped member to put into the chair as pro tempo president of the council.

On the day the legislature met feeling between the parties was very hot in regard to the organization of the two bodies. I know that most of the members of the council were very much worked

up, and the greater portion of the crowded lobby was near the fighting pitch. So far as the council was concerned, the South Platte men had the advantage in nerve and fighting quality, and could have bullied the other side successfully. But the lobby was made up of the friends of Omaha. Some of them were armed, and quite as ready and willing as were our side to have the council organized their way peacefully, even if they had to fight for it.

The North Platte members had a further advantage in having several men of brains and experience. O. D. Richardson, of Omaha, knew more of what the matter in hand was about and how to accomplish it than the entire delegation from South Platte. Besides him on the Omaha side there were B. R. Folsom and Goodell and other cool, able, and experienced men.

Secretary Cuming, after "swearing in" the members of the house, came up to swear us in. We all stood up and he proceeded to swear us to support the constitution of the United States and the organic act of Nebraska, and was proceeding to swear us that we were all citizens of Nebraska and over twenty years of age, when I dropped into my seat, pulling Lafe Nuckolls, the "member from Cass," down with me, thereby declining the oath. This I did because of doubts as to my own or Lafe Nuckolls' residence in the territory, and for the further reason that I knew Lafe was not yet twenty. So I kept him company, and afterwards Judge Ferguson came in and administered to us the proper oath, omitting the matter of age and residence. Lafe was a bright and ready fellow. Some one, pending the arrival of Judge F. to swear us in, asked him his age. Lafe answered at once: "Ask my constituents, as Henry Clay once said.” This by-play on my part in regard to the oath I suppose furthered my being selected to occupy the chair during the organization of the council. This position I filled as best I could for about an hour, in the midst of great excitement on the part of the members, the lobby, and everybody else in the chamber. What occurred during the short time I presided, or pretended to preside, I cannot remember, except that I most assuredly did

not know "where I was at." I was put into the chair by a majority of one; but on the vote for permanent president, the Omaha side, having won over one of our South Platte members by offering him the presidency, elected J. L. Sharp, of Richardson county, and I stepped down and out.

Frank Welch was an enrolling clerk of that session, and a good man. He could sketch with his pen almost as well as Thos. Nast, and during the session he made many caricatures of the ridiculous things that occurred. I remember one on the committee of the whole; and another on "the final departure of the gentleman from Cass," as Lafe Nuckolls was called. The latter represented the council in session and Lafe at the door, his right hand extended in farewell to the members, while in his left, rather back of him, he carried his carpet bag, gorged to overflowing with stationery and other accumulated perquisites of office.

J. Waldo Thompson (son of the Widow Thompson who afterwards married Steven Decatur) was our only page that session.

I cannot now recall to mind that I had any pet measure at that session, other than the location of the capitol, nor that I introduced a bill for any purpose whatever, unless it was for a tollroad bridge or ferry charter. There were hundreds of such bills introduced, and all passed, covering every buffalo and Indian trail to and from watering places and fords on the Platte and every other known river or stream in the territory too wide to step across. In respect to private charters this first legislature did all that was necessary so far as they knew at the time. Future legislatures, I am pleased to hear, followed the precedent set by the first upon the discovery of fresh trails and dry creeks in the then unexplored regions of that part of "the great American desert."

But I must cease this gossip about the great state of Nebraska. It is all right now, however crude and uncouth in its beginnings. It has grown many men of ability, quite a number of whom will compare favorably with the average statesmen of our land. And