Show THE UTAH GERRYMANDER About once in so often THE HEBALD raves at the unfairness of the commission Jn redistrict i l ug this territory after the last census Over a nd over again the Jrttune has shown that there I ever was a more honest or a more successful Jlort made to do the square thing than was done by the commissioners and still with its old pertinacity THE HLIIAAD returns to the subject every few months AS to following unit boundaries there is not the eliRhtest round for complaint there never has been Tribune And about once In so often THE HEU ALP proposes to rave over this in qulty than which there never vas a more outrageous one in the history of partisan politics The act of ConRress of March 3 ISI Imposed im-posed the duty upon the Utah commission to redistrict the territory for members of he council and house of representatives on the basis of the census of 1890 to provide as near as may bo for an equal representation representa-tion of the people excepting Indians not axed according to numbers and by dts rtcts as nearly compact as possible The plain meaning of this was after ascertaining the total population of the territory and the number of members of each House of the general assembly to make as many districts for the Council and for the House as there were members of each in this case twentyfour representative repre-sentative districts and twelve council dis ricts as compact and nearly equal in pop ulation as possible Instead of this the commissioners arbitrarily settled upon seventeen representative and ten council districts There is not the slightest ground to question what this was dona for It was a bald partisan motive and related not to the convenience of the voters as the act of Congress intended but to how to circumvent and harrass them Whether such an apportionment is valid or not as to the grounds mentioned we leave to the lawyers The commissioners found they were to apportion twenty four representatives among 207906 people which was the census cen-sus enumeration of 1S90 The ratio therefore there-fore was 8003 The first thing was to give Salt Lake city six representatives with a population that entitled it to but five The next was to give Ogden two whereas it lacked 2435 of the requisite number of inhabitants in-habitants By this sort of manipulation less l than 60000 people in the two cities named havo a voting strength equal to 80000 In other portions of the territory Parts of Salt Lake county are united with Davis and Morgan to make one district with parts of Utah to make another and parts of Juab and Tooele to make a third whilst other parts make two independent districts Utah county with 23768 population popula-tion could properly have been given three districts with nearly 8000 people to each instead of which c portion is saddled on tone one precinct of Juab and four precincts of Sanpete The two Independent districts of Salt Lake county are based one on 9024 population ana the other 9179 whilst the six districts of the city contain an average I of 7476 Davis and Morgan together are I within 131 of the full ratio Yet three pre cincts of Salt Lake county are taken off and added makingvtho population of the district 9024 Whilst the average population to a district is 7476 and 7445 respectively in Salt Lako and Ogden It is more than 9000 In nine districts and more than 10000 in five The same proportion prevails in the council districts An illustration is found in the fact that whilst 14SS9 are enough to elect member of the upper house in Og den it takes 21030 in Wasatch Grand Emery Em-ery Millard and Sevier counties Of the whole number of council districts there are but three conforming to the rule of unit boundaries THE HERALD repeats therefore that nowhere in the United States has there been a more partisan and wicked violation of the principle of observing primary unit boundaries and drawing election lines than L in this territory under tho Utah L commission Measured by the late decision de-cision of the Wisconsin supreme court it would not stand a minute and measured I by any standard of fairness not to say a i decent regard for political propriety it Is I worthy only of the severest reprobation II It is impossible not to believe that the ap portionment was made with tables of election elec-tion returns before the commissioners The evidence of this is too plain and convincing con-vincing to admit of any question whatever No pains are taken to conceal the fact Nor can it be supposed that the commissioners commis-sioners themselves are familiar enough with the voUn strength of parties in the territory to have drawn the party lines in so smllful a manner The map of Utah they constructed is a curious looking diagram dia-gram of zigzags and wonderful geometrical geometri-cal forms The night of it would have driven the original inventor and patentee of such contrivances the Hon ELIUUDOE GEKKT of Massachusetts to convulsions of envy |