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Show UTAH IS BACKWARD. Goodwin's "Weekly is contending for that which this paper has advocated in Utah politics the keeping abreast of the reform movement. move-ment. The last issue of the Weekly says: Did it ever occure to you that the Republicans In this state have been rather slow to grasp tho great national questions that have rocked other states In the countrv for the last two or three years' Tako, for instance, in-stance, the presidential primary and the election of senators by direct vote of the people. These havo been burning questions in many other and larger states, but here in Utah tho discussion of them has been slight. In fact, there has been llttlo or no progressive political action In this state and In that particular respect the business men havo far outstripped tho politicians. No banker, merchant or farmer Is backward in grasping a new Idea The banker adds all of the modern frills to his banking system, the mer-qhant mer-qhant keeps pa:ce with the leader in another metropolis, the farmer reads and studies advanced methods of agriculturo and keeps his farm In good tilth and his production on the increase, in the line of thought, these men act Independently It cannot be said that the same is true of the politician The dom inant party In this state has contented Itself for years with the threshing thresh-ing of petty problems, which, after all. simmer down to conflicts between this and that candidate. No candidate has gone before the people on a progressive, outspokon platform in ten years. None of the great national problems cut much ice in the Utah campaigns and while other states were choosing between issues lather than between candidates, tho politicians in tills state were directing a fight along narrower lines. Utah is n danger of so delaying in its reform processes as to be regarded by the nation as a "pocket borough" where political advances are subject to the approval or disapproval, not of the people, peo-ple, but of one or two politicians. |
