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Show THE CITIZEN 4 that the board was acting within its authority. A mandate was granted and on May 8, 1920, a warrant was issued for the payment of the $20,330 from the states funds in the National Copper Bank of Salt Lake City. Acting within their authority the land commissioners have a right to make foolish investments. The only way to prevent foolish investments such as the loan of $110,000 to the tiny town of Orem is to eliminate a foolish state administration. The $110,000 will not be lost to the school 'children.. The puts the states guarantee back of the school funds, and the taxpayers must make good. Meantime the taxpayers of Orem arc reveling in the states money, and they should worry. LEGION PROBES DEMOCRATIC INSULT TO SOLDIERS Democratic wheelhorscs who obtained nominations at the state convention became afflicted with a chill shortly thereafter when they . began to realize what their insult to the soldiers meant. They went about making all manner of specious excuses, whereas the obvious fact was that they had wanted the nominations so badly that they were willing to insult a service man to attain their ambitions. Mr. Williams had been invited to enter the race for the congressional nomination. Some of the men who combined to nominate Thomas hypocritically urged Mr. Williams to seek the prize. Naturally he believed that he was to hiave a fair field and that, at the But as soon as he was vervy least, he would be accorded courtesy. y nominated the cry was raised, The American Legion should not mix in politics. The cry was raised by the backers of Thomas, not because they cherished a patriotic desire to keep the Legion from taking sides in politics, but simply with the idea of securing of the party. the nomination for one of the veteran office-seekeOne who said he was a Legion man made a speech opposing the nomination on the ground that Williams was using the legion in politics. To rectify the convention blunder as far as possible the machine men resunied their promises to the service men, promising to get some of the minor nominations for them. But the wrong has been done. Although the delegates at the San Francisco convention made magnificent promises of what the Democratic party would do for the soldiers if it had a chance the Utah state convention, when it had a chance, brushed aside a soldier as if he had been some stray dog who had wandered in among the delegates. If the Democratic argument is valid then no former soldier, who happens to be a Legion member, has the right to run for office. In other words, a soldier disfranchises himself by joining the Legion. The Legion man who did the bidding of the Thomas ring did the very thing he pretended to condemn. Williams was not runnning as a Legion man. He was running as a citizen. In fact, he had been invited by Democratic leaders to enter the lists because he had been a soldier. In their hypocrisy they prevailed upon him to seek the nomination and then betrayed him. It was not he who injected the Legion into politics, but his critics. They used the Legion cry in a low political game to defeat a soldier. Following the , convention the legion men, Democrats and Republicans alike, held indignation meetings to denounce the action of the convention. The subject was brought up at the regular meeting of the Legion at Barratt Hall on the day following the convention. A committee was appointed to investigate the circumstances under which Walker, a Legion member, had condemned the candidacy of Williams in a speech on the convention floor. He will be asked to explain how he came to inject the Legion as an issue into the convention proceedings. Some of the speakers at the Barratt hall meeting declared that it was time for the Legion to go into politics if politicians were taking the position a Legion member disfranchises himself as an American citizen. By way of excuse the Democrats are saying that some one who seconded the nomination of Williams alluded to him as a member of the American Legion and that this was the ground for the attack. The friends of Williams declare that they do not know the delegate who made that seconding speech and they suspect him of having been in a conspiracy to discredit the soldier cand- idate. In fact, the entire attack on Williams had the appearance of e machine politicians who were having been staged by the anxious to carry out the scheme to nominate Mathonihah Thomas. They even went so far as to urge the candidacy of Thomas because he was a soldier, too, having fought the battles of Democracy for thirty years and because two of his sons served in France. The members of the Legion, Democrats and Republicans, take the view that the Legion was made an issue in the convention, not by Williams or his supporters, but by Walker and the tricky, treacherous manipulators who were willing to go to any extreme to defeat the only soldier who asked for recognition. old-tim- GIVE THEM BACK, MR. GREEN rs -- When Herman Green, city commissioner, gave up the department of parks he retained unto himself the municipal baths and the city cemetery. The present commissioner of parks, Mr. Crabbe, is denied the administration of the city cemetery and the baths simply because Green wanted to keep them under his supervision and control. If there was any other reason why the Democratic city commission allowed Green his way in this matter it has not been disclosed. Naturally the municipal bathhouse and the cemeteries should be administered by the commissioner of parks. There appears to be no reason why the commissioner of finance should continue to control these departments. Certainly the public interest is not being served when he has his house painted by workmen employed at the city cemetery. The Warm Springs baths and the city cemetery should be turned over to Mr. Crabbe or the city commission should confide sufficiently in the taxpayers and citizens generally to tell them just why Mr. Green is granted the special privilege of carving out his own department for himself at the expense of other departments. Moreover, the Warm Springs is being badly administered. There is too much room for graft. Proper steps have not been taken to safeguard the money taken in every day by the bathhouse. Democratic commissioners have not looked upon the citys property as wholly the property of the public. One city commissioner paints his house or has his gardens set out by city labor. Another uses city materials and labor to build handsome front and rear porches and cement walks. Some months ago Mayor Bock called up a wholesaler o! automobile oil and asked how much a certain oil was a gallon. Ninety cents, was the reply. Doesnt the city get it at a cheaper price? inquired the mayor. The wholesaler quoted the price to the city. Well, send it up to my house and charge it to the cemetery account, said the mayor. The cemetery account, we assume, was under the supervise n aid administration of Commissioner Green. Will lie explain to tl.e l11' lie why automobile oil for the mayors private cars should be c argcJ to the cemetery account? Was it the custom of the commit doner.' to exchange little courtesies of this kind at the expense of ti - taV payers ? These arc examples of Democratic administration of city flair We have seen that in state affairs also the Democrats seem im-.ipab- k ; i j : : . J |