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Show a voice Wmsi teo Mapfli, the Author Vf "As You Like It' Send His Compliments and Well Wishes for the Suc-ceis Suc-ceis of "The Dispatch." In Which He Rakes Away the Co bwebs of the Past and Talks of Bygones. i 11 id-way, Utah, Feb. 19, 1891 Correspondence of The Dispatch. It is strange that I should write for a Dispatch again; but then isn't this the age of dispatch, when everything Is done at an accelerated pace, when messages circle the globe in a minutt and passengers cross the continent in four days? It is, indeed, the ago of electricity, which means the epoch of dispatch. And with what fleet feet Time has sped on, whirling my humble smallness along ia the mad career, since the winter of 1389-90, when I used to write for Judge Brewster's Dispatch at oOgdin, one of the ofirse Liberal papers in the Northern metropolisand me-tropolisand one of the numerous tenants in the Newspaper Row of Ogden's Cemetery of Departed Greatnesses. Great-nesses. It was quiet in those days, and the political pat never rose above a gentle simmering point; hence a good deal of writing was on art and science. Well, I remember my "Sophomore" article on "Wilhelmj" (please don't miss the "j",) the celebrated violin artist, whose weird Hungarian tunes were equaled only by my weird, steppelike steppe-like prose, rolling as the purztas where roam the herds of the Czikas. This brings me to . Major Jess M. Langsdorf. then a leading man in the Commercial National Uauk on the then Fourth street, and manager of the Union Opeiv House, the best Og-den Og-den could show in those days of a de-minutive de-minutive present and gigantic future in the line of amusement halls. It was on his suggestion 1 filled a column, or so.ol tlie i'lewester X)sp?ci (published in the "Freeman" building, opposite the Ste idturd structure on Twenty-fourth Twenty-fourth rtseet), where now Hon. A. II. Nelson, ex-President of the Ogden Chamber of Commerce, and one of the most promising and pushing public men of the Junction city (so rich in valuable citizens and city lots!) has his well-frequented real estate and abstract office, "climbing tip the golden stairs" of which I have seen many a lucky investor. in-vestor. The Major was then taking a finishing touch in German from me, that means he polished up his almost native tongue against my own tongue, as it were. He might have been preparing pre-paring for "the great tour of Europe;" but at any rate, when he left the ledgers ledg-ers and ciwh books of the bank, he settled up in Ogden valley, establishing a model ranch with standard stock and turning himself into a gentlemaa-cow-boy, so to speak, greatly to the benefit bene-fit of his own health and that of his most estimable family. lie became, as it were, a Cincinnatus, or a Diocletian, Dioc-letian, and it was either from the Slowshare of the former ancient ,oman, or the cabbage plantation of the latter, that his old fellow-citizens recalled him into the busy marts of active ac-tive life, "in the maddening crowd" of Ogden's "Wall street.,' Was it a surprise sur-prise to me, to hear hi3 nomination fort be Mayoralty hfc-Je Citizjtaj" Bef vveHtf fe" mans,, who, burring former political feuda and waiving all religion differ-( differ-( ences, joined hands to cleanse out the more than -Egean stable into which the McNutt rinff had turned the Oirv Hall, that beautiful civic monument to the economy and public spirit, enterprise en-terprise and taste ci the last People's administration in the Junction City? No, it could not surprise me to hear of Major Langsdorf being chosen the standard-bearer of the combined auti-ringites auti-ringites and People's party, when I remembered that in the early eighties when the most hopeful Gentile despaired of ever seeing a non-Mormon rule in Ogden, the character of j Mr. Langsdorf had so stroncrlv recom mended and endeared him that his name was not infrequently whispered as a possible candidate for civil preferments pre-ferments at the hands of his Mormon fellow-citizens, when they held supreme su-preme sway, while they were willing to accord the minority a right and representation which their successors of 1S89, in their mad intoxication and brutal Joy over a fraudulently achieved victory never thought of according. Well.then as now, the Major preferred the independence of private business to the nerve-straining responsibilities of high public station, and the sweets of an unclouded domestic life of blissful bliss-ful peace to the empty, tinsel-like honors of a public exaltation, the ! crown of which Is often one of thorns rather than of laurels or roses. Indeed, to cleanse the aforesaid .lEngean stable of mismanagement, called th.s public affairs of Oden monicipality, requires a broom with iron withes and hickory handle, with a brawny hand and a strong wrist to swin' the pruning tool. Such, I am glad, will bo applied honestly and iearlessly, by day and by night, in sunshine and rain, in summer and winter, by Wm. II. Turner. Let me impress it upon all your readers, though scores of miles away from Ogden city, the contest there on the Hth inst, was one of vastly more than local importance or significance. The influence by its result will be felt throughout the length and breadth of this large and populous, thrifty and prosperous territory. Utah is beset bv a horde of un scrupulous carpet-baggers of all sorts and kinds, political free-bootars of every nation and denomination. Talk about "priest-ridden," ai the Dibune and its brood of no less poisonous poison-ous but less able whelps are wont to splutter in tfceir rabbles: I think the real evil of "boodlerriddenness" exceeds ex-ceeds all imaginary evils of "prust-ridden" "prust-ridden" condition as Mont Blanc pales the mole hill at its foot. But of this comprehensive subject more in the near future, for the final outcome at Ogden has given us something substantial sub-stantial on which to base well-founded prognostications for the immediate or of this territory, so beautifully dotted with proud cities, busy towns, prosperous pros-perous tillages and lovely hamlets all the home of a happy population, happy as long as the designs of the wiley intruder or brutal assailant can be successfully withstood and per manentlr repulsed. An this letter has already reached an inordinate length for a mere (but I hope not idle) thought on political topics, 1 will close it. In my next I may continue the subject, or substi-I substi-I tute for it something more immediately immediate-ly touching myself and also more directly touching the interests of your own constituency. Meanwhile allow me to extend to The Dispatch the best wishes of one who is to no small : degree conversant with the manifold vicissitudes of newspaper enterprise in the "wild and wooly West." May fair Dame Fortune blow with full-swollen cheeks into the sails of your trim and neat journalistic craft, and send you with all needful dispatch over the shoals of popular indifference, past the cliffs of professional rivalry, into the calm harbor of peaceful success. Let your ' helm .be Justice, and your bow armored with Horace's where it des triplis ("oak timber and threefold bronze plates") of enterprise, and you'll "get there." One, who is proudly willing to "fight withWallis." . Leo Hajcfeli. |