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Show George Sheets Will Probably Resign Donaldson a Pho nograph no-graph The Flannel Merchant as an Entertainer. i 9 Chief of Police George A. Sheets will, in all probability, tender his resignation, pending a disposition dis-position of the felony charge which Was lodged against him last Monday. In doing this the chief will be guided by the advice of many American party leaders, who, much against their will, and despite their confidence in his inoncence, feel that, in view of the bitterness of the fight which has been waged against him, and the fact that he is now oharged with a penitentiary offense, he should step aside until his guilt or innocence has been determined by a jury. In justice to Chief Sheets it should be said that, ever since the first complaint was filed against him last fall, he has been willing to re-" re-" sign at any time when the leaders of his party felt it was his duty to do so. He has thus far won every point in the case, and the conviction ji that he is innocent of the charges against him is as. firmly implanted in the American party lead ers as ever; but the campaign is approaching, and leading Americans feel it would be unwise to divert di-vert the attention of the voters from the real issues of the campaign to a fake issue of Sheets; and such is bound to be the result if the chief retains his office while he is under indictment for a felony. The chief's resignation, therofore, is to be expected within a few days. Lawyers and laymen alike believe that District Dis-trict Attorney Loofbourow, whom the Republican machine leaders, much against their will, have been forced to place in charge of the Sheets prosecution, prose-cution, has drawn a complaint which will hold water, wa-ter, and that sooner or later a jury will be called upon to determine the chief's 0milt or innocence.. If Sheets remains in ofllce, however, it is the determination de-termination of the machine to delay his trial until after . election, and use the fact that the chief is under indlotment as a campaign issue. This furnishes fur-nishes an additional incentive for the chief's resignation. res-ignation. sJpC 1$ Many thoughtless people have been inclined to condemn Chief Sheets because of his apparent unwillingness to face a jury, and the disposition of his attorneys to fight the case on technicalities. technicali-ties. This criticism is not justified in view of the abnormal conditions which surround judicial proceedings pro-ceedings and jury .trials in Utah. Chief Sheets' case has assumed the nature of a rellglo-polltical contest, with the Morman church crying out for his conviction. I . ' When Sheets does face a jury a majority of it "will no doubt be composed of Mormons, who, in convicting him, will believe they are doing a rell- gious duty, and one which their spiritual leaders wish them to do. Any man, under such conditions, $ is justified in fighting off a jury trial as long as possible. . It is idle to say that jurors will not take an oath to give a man a fair trial, if they do not intend to keep it A. Milton Musser, the bitterest and most rantankerous Mormon of them all, when examined as a talesman in .the Donaldson trial, swore with a perfectly straight face that, while i he liad read every word published in every Salt I Lake paper about the case, he had formed.no opinion about It. Everybody in the cqurt room knew that Musser was lying, and, still worse, he I know they know It. Luckily in answer to a ques- I tion he gave away all his animosity to Chief : Sheets. A. fine chance Sheets would stand before a jury I composed of A. Milton Mussers! Yet, of such as ho are our Utah juries made. it & & j Poor, half-crazed' Jim Donaldson has volun- , teered a confession implicating Chief Sheets. DonaldBon has talked unceasingly about his case' to everybody who would listen ever since he was first arrested. Finally he was locked up in the county jail, where he had nobody to talk to, so he summoned a stenographer and talked a confession con-fession to him. Donaldson's habits and mode of life have been such that no statement which he makes is worthy of a minute's credence. District Attorney Loof-bouroW Loof-bouroW knows this so well that he will not place Donaldson on the witness stand. Neither will he recommend any clemency or reduction of sentence. sen-tence. Donaldson has gained nothing and lost everything every-thing by his confession. Had he gone to the penitentiary peni-tentiary like, a man, instead of whimpering like a whipped cur, he could at least have had the compassion com-passion of many and the admiration of a few. By his latest performance he has forfeited the friendship of every friend he ever had, and has earned only the contempt of the prosecutors and peace officers, who cannot utilize his confession. . .e .ft The attenuated and Illiterate flannel merchant who acts as Joe Smith's agent in the gubernatorial chair of Utah, abetted by his cheaply contemptible contempti-ble private secretary, has transformed his high ofllce into a bureau to prevent visitors from the outside from coming in contact with Gentiles who might, in a chance moment, give them some light on conditions here as they really are. Let the word go out that any visitor of prominence promi-nence or importance is about to visit Utah', and ex-scissors wielder gets busy in a minute arranging arrang-ing for his reception. The visitor is met at the train by the governor's representative; , he is wined and dined out of the governor's contingent fund, the local guests being invariably confined to Mormon and Jack-Mormon officeholders; ho io permitted to hear the pin drop at tho Tabernacle, Taber-nacle, and he is given a free ride to Saltair. Be his stay long or short, no ungodly Gentile is permitted per-mitted to have a moment's conversation alone with him, and all the while he is here he is filled up with a lot of hot air and buncombe about the virtues of the Mormon priests and the villainy of their traducers. The visit of the Secretary of the Interior Garfield Gar-field was a conspicuous example of this sort of thing. An abortive attempt to repeat it on a smaller scale was made this week, when a party of eastern newspaper men who are the guests of the United States Reclamation Service came through Zion. Cutlah and Done had framed it up to capture them, and Apostle Snioot from Provo way in on the play. Unfortunately for this little plan, however, the party arrived twenty-four hours before it was expected. The newspaper men from the oast hunted up a lot of local newspaper men, of tho ungodly Gentile breed, who not only showed them a good time, but gave them some real dope on the local situation. The official haberdasher to the Lord's prophet was permitted to give them a dinner afterward at the Commercial club, but tho mischief which he had hoped to prevent had already been done. Among other Information which the visiting newspaper men had imparted to them was the nature of the cheap, ignorant and insignificant incompetent who had been selected by the Mormon god to be governor of Utah. Willard Hanson has been summarily discharged dis-charged from the further conduct of tho Sheets prosooutlon. The order-for his retirement was issued is-sued by the local machine bosses who are tired of his incompetency, bordering on idiocy, and who curse the day they ever made him county attorney. Hanson can hereafter disport himself ' trying petit larceny and assault and battery oases, I while all heavy work will hereafter bo done, by-District by-District Attorney Loofbourow. Hanson Is a "one t&rmer," but the pity is tha bo 'aa'sn't served half of his one term. The meri who put him where ha is regret this oven more than does the long-suffer ' ing public. The jnan isn't oven competent to do the dirty work the machine bosses elected him to do, & & The Inter-Mormon and its weekly vermiform appendix never overlook an opportunity to throw dirt on District Judge George G. Armstrong, and the Wednesday morning issue of the Smpot hand; bill contained one of the usual brand. Evidently Judge Armstrong has boon marked for slaughter by the federal coterie and their imported copperhead. |
