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Show H LIQUOR LEGISLATION FARCICAL. H The "official" liquor bill passed the Senate Thursday. No one H pretends to say what the bill stands for, If enacted into law, it will H .mean nothing until the courts have passed upon it, for it is a jumbled H "mass of legislation. The Salt Lake Tribune described the measure H when that paper said: M "The Senate passed the magnified liquor bill which was report- H ed by three Senators, and whioh may fairly be called the giant bill. M ' It is an immensely long, complicated measure that would give rise M to no end of litigation, and would be of not the least benefit to the j State or to any community in it if it were enacted. The passage of fl i a bill like this is a clear defiance of common sense and of candid m public service. Wc judge it can hardly be possible that the House H would agree with the Senate in the passage of a monstrous bill like M "There is absolutely nothing to gain by the people of this State M from the passage of any such measure as this. There is nothing but M contention, wrangling, and bitterness to be derived in any possibil- M ity through this evil measure. Nor, it must be confessed, does the M House measure present any relief. In fact, both are about as bad H as possible, each in its own sinuous way, and each containing H 'jokerB,' provocative of litigation and imposture. H "It is singlar, indeed, that a body such as the Utah legislature H will bevote a large portion of its sixt3' days' session to undertaking H to foist upon the people extravagant and tricky measures such as H these. It is especially amazing, that this should be done, when we H have in the State already a perfectly adjudicated and well settled H basis, the very thing that all. of these measures nominally undertake H to bring about. There is not the slightest gain in any direction H possible to hope for in any of the liquor bills that are introduced, H and specifically from these two, which are now prominent. Neither H offers any relief, but each presents a mass of complicated machinery H whereby the result, which we already have in full measure, is to be M reached." M Evidently there has been no sincere, earnest effort on the part r of the legislative leaders in legislating on the liquor question; there H has been no honest endeavor to comply with the promises of the Re- B publican campaign orators in the last election. The whole proceed- M ings are degenerating into a farce, and no one is being fooled, ex- H cept the crafty manipulators themselves, who think they are deceiv- H ing the people. |