OCR Text |
Show " - - . I i s Published Every Saturday BY GOODWINS WEEKLY PUBLISHING CO INC. A. W. RAYBOULD, Business Manager SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: Including pottage In the United States, Canada and Mexico, $2J0 per year, 11.60 for six months. Subscriptions to all foreign countries, within the Postal " Union, 14.60 per year. Single ooplaa 10 eenta. Payments should bs mads by Cheek, Money Order or Registered Letter, pay- bls to The Citizen. Address all eommunleatlons to The Citizen. Entered as second-clas- s matter, June 21, 1910, at the Postofflee at Salt Lake City,. Utah, under the Act of Msreh t, 1879. 81 Ness Bldg. Phone Wasatch 9409 Salt Lake City, Utah. a? OUR BLUE AMBASSADORS reform season of Local clamor for an has made it difficult for us to hear much outside of our own boundaries of what is doing along the lines of bringing all Americas civic activities under sway of the churches. But evidences are multiplying in every direction as well as in Salt Lake City and county, that the hand that pens the sermon will soon be framing a new code of laws, punctuated with restraint and glittering with theological generalities, for all mortals to observe or suffer the penalties of law evasion. And if the manner in which the good people of this and all ultra-repressi- ve so-call- ed other states observe the mandated prohibition amendment and other blue law ordinances, is any criterion of what is to happen when this new regime comes into full force and effect, then the issue may be safely adduced in advance. There will be riotous opposition and perhaps a recation to such repressive codes that will rend the very foundation of our national structure. There is increasing evidence that our blue ambassadors hope to control the minds of the people through fear. Not through the fear of a righteous Diety, his angels or supposititious devils, but through the fear of man made laws. How the fanatics hope to politicians into passing such laws as they beguile the sponsor to curb mans natural instincts to lead an earthly existent according to the dictates of a normal consciousness, is a matter of much concern to those of us who are familiar with the average politicians natural bent for intrigue and evasion. It is incompatible with political trend of the times to suppose that the preacher element can gain full control of all the politicians or even scare them into case-harden- ed passing all the repressive laws they will naturally want, when they gain their political objectives. And there is a middle ground' that the preachers, and the elders, and all others, who are obsessed with ardent desire to control others O than themselves, may take and accomplish some little good in this world, without fear of bringing on a debacle that may topple our democratic form of government into the ash heap! They can gain a knowledge of the spiritual realities of life that will prohibit asceticism and repression, the same as it will prohibit license and perverted use of the human qualities. To err on one side is just as contrary to the ideal life man is seeking, as to err on the other. All things jippear to be for a purpose, hence all should be used and enjoyed; but all should be used rightly that they may be the more fully enjoyed. It is the three-fol- d life that is wanted, spiritual, mental and physical. This gives the rounded life and renders man happy and contented with his lot here on earth. But what is man to do to save himself if a certain portion of the race becomes enamored of the. thought that it was put on earth to have full sway over all spiritual and temporal affairs, and seeks such control through the process of instituting new and repressive -- codes of law, designed to curb people who naturally supposed they were free moral agents ? Such reformers forget that each one has his own peculiar trials and tribulations and sorrows to bear ; that each struggles with habits to overcome, and that this is but the common lot of the human race ; that humans are not angels and cannot be made such by any law ! It is a simple psychological law that any type of thought, if long persisted in, will by and by reach the motor track of the brain and burst forth into action. It is becoming increasingly evident that the element has been entertaining such blue thoughts pertaining to suppression of mans liberties and of his absolute mental and physical cotrol, by law, for such an indeterminate period that it has finally become an urge from which their mentalities cannot now escape. It is a thing to be borne constantly in mind that the thought is always the parent to the action and that we have it entirely in our own hands to determine what thoughts we shall entertain. We have had a fair sample of the thought emanations of our blue ambassadors, which rose to the surface during the late election; and which promises to engulf us in a chaos of dismal doubt and dispair unless we are prepared to match thought with thought ! More people in Salt Lake are interested in knowing whether a state constitutional provision may be disregarded or not than have thus far spoken on the subject. It is to be hoped that the men. back of this test will carry it to a logical conclusion. self-righteo- us THE COW COUNTY BLOC. As usual the opening days of the Fifteenth Utah biennial legislative session were consumed in spreading the customary amenities around, electing a speaker of the house, naming a president for the senate chamber and passing the honorable salary roll which went over unanimously, albeit it was ten thousand dollars higher than that of the previous lamented session. There is more than mere significance of approaching Cow County control of legislation originating in the house during the session just starting, in the combined action of the nineteen Republicans and eleven Democrats who plugged in on the same line and put Representative W. W. Seegmiller, of Kane county, in the speakers chair. It is virtually a Cow County bloc which may function, hereafter, in placing laws on the statute books of the state contrary to the belief and desideratum of our more citified legislative membership. This combination if carried to its logical conclusion might bring on another spasm of fanatical legislative attempts but it is still young and in some respects an unsophisticated legislative body, and to anticipate results is neither praiseworthy nor necessary. But future legislation by the the body now in session will write the next politcal ticket for Utah. At this session the men and women, as well as the two major politcal parties they represent, arc on trial. |