OCR Text |
Show THE HYPOCRITICAL NEWS. The Deseret News opens an article deploring the prevalence of gambling in this city with these words: "That Salt Lake City, which admittedly stands for a stronger morality and for a better, cleaner, purer life for herself and people than any of her sister cities in the Great West, etc." Referring Re-ferring to the same matter editorially the News thinks the startling news will create wonder why such evils are permitted in this city, "which once had the deserved reputation of being the most moral place of its population to be found in America." Neither statement is correct; both statements are slanders upon the American people. Neither statement is backed by facts; both statements are without justification on any grounds, either of facts, probabilities or common sense. The truth is there has always been as much gambling in Salt Lake as in any other city with the same population and the same amount of money. In the days when there was no gambling here, there were at the same time east of the Mississippi Mis-sissippi river a thousand villages of the same number of people where gambling was never thought or heard of, and where the masses of the people had no possible conception of the paraphernalia para-phernalia of a gambling house. The assertions of the News are in keeping with the often-repeated assertion that "the first saloon in Salt Lake City was opened by a Gentile," meaning to carry the idea that there was no drinking of strong liquor here until the Gentiles came, though at that time there were thirty-two distillers in the Territory and Brigham Young himself had practically a monopoly of the liquor business here, and it was sold from a cupful up to a barrel in the church store that had "holiness to the Lord" painted above tho door and the all-seeing eye on its lintel. And it was of a kind that would kill at thirty paces. It is in keeping with the other charge that the first houses of prostitution were opened here by Gentile women, the Intention being to convey the belief that until the Gentiles came all was purity here, though the very teachings of the creed, the teachings of woman's peculiar dependence depend-ence upon man and of what is essential on her . - , j part in order to attain to glory are directly cal- fifj , t H culated to kindle rebellion in tho heart of a wo- ti V wfl man of spirit, to make her desperate under the jjilj k fl degradation imposed, and to surcharge her heart I ; ," iffl with a fury sufficient to set on fire the souls of m -$W her unboi n offspring. Those effects were and still 1 V are visible enough. Mi l' ? Through all those yeai-3 referred to by the News ,-t 1 f jfl the Eastern States were filled with villages of the ' j jfl population of Salt Lake where during all the life !,L 1M of those villages tho people had not known one !f j (j jfl gambler or one lost woman. ,1 I yfl In seaport towns where sailors come from the jf oH world around; in great manufacturing centers ki'V rlfl-l where there is a surplus of females, and in great (J '' ' jB mining camps where the. surplus is the other way, ! JjH all these evils are magnified and their publicity ! 1 ' JjH is more and more pronounced, but to bewail the J ,, ' ijM change since Salt Lake was a hamlet and the peo- , i ' t fi Jfl 'pie lived through agriculture and stock-raising im 'i'flH and most of their business was but barter, to the 1 Jjji ' TH prese'nt with the changed financial status of the ' jj i? j 1H place and tho increase of people, and to seek to M & J,JB ascribe the increase of the vices to the falling off M &'!$ of the ancient virtue of the older times is as con- jjl Y'H temptible as it is dishonest. ' $ r jt'jTB As to the gambling here it should be driven to jl ft 'itiB such obscurity that only men who are careless of m t Sm their reputations would venture to searoh out tne M dens, for gamblers are mere human birds of prey, J , J B their purpose being to flece suckers out, to try .$ !t 'fl conclusions with sharpers, and no game law should .J) j sUrJH ever protect them, but to take their sinister ex- 'jj ( !i- Jfl ploits as a text from which to spin a web of "J i ' jjljfl righteousness, and with the robe so woven wrap Ha'' HH the memories of the old settlers here, picturing i tufl this as the one pure spot between the seas until Hit' fl it was contaminated by Gentiles, is to falsify his- M H tory and to slander the brave men and pure women on , 1 iifM who wore out their lives In converting the wilder- Mil' ijfl ness of the continent into fruitful fields, covering f hljflM those fields with virtuous homes and creating this i i , jjH nation. . ' B f jHflfl |