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Show ITS BIGOTED MENDACITY. Tho oditorial treatment of the Parkinson Park-inson case 1)3' the Logan Republican is a miracle of falsity and dishonest-. That editorial finds that Parkinson "gave his support" to the Oneida Ditch proposition in place of plundering plunder-ing it. That in taking the treasurer-ship treasurer-ship of the company ho "rcluctaptly yielded to the importunities of its shareholders" this "that ho might pub-licty pub-licty signify his deep interest in tho project." The developments show what direction that deep interest took, and the apostolic commission found that interest in-terest to be at once dishonost and scandalous, scan-dalous, unworthy of a churchman in his position. But tho Logan paper finds this to be simply that "discontent and dissensions have arisen until it seems n victim ij; demanded to bear the brunt of these misfortunes, " and that Parkinson Park-inson is that victim, Tho apostolic commission, however, found that the people that Parkinson had robbed wero the victims, and that thoy wore fully justified in demanding the investigation which resulted so disastrously for Parkinson. Tho Logan paper finds also that "tho company has not lost one dollar of it money by any act of its treasurer," which, of course, is sheor falsehood. "True," it is conceded, "Mr. Parkin son drew a salary in his office and collected col-lected certain oxpense accounts, but be made it plain before the investigating committee- that he had renderod valuable val-uable services to the irrigation com pany b' obtaining legislation at Boise City which brought tho compan- upwards up-wards of $30,000." That is, Parkinson as a lobbyist obtained for the company $30,000 which it would not otherwise have had, and by reason of this dishonest dis-honest act which cheated the State of Idaho, he is to bo excused. A queer sort of defense that is, to be sure. Still, anything will serve the purpose of helping a scandalous thief when the advocate of that thief finds it necessary neces-sary io procure a cloak. And, further, the Logan paper says that "his expense as handed in was economical in ever particular and appears to be a direct compensation for services rendered." How an expense account could be at the same time a compensation might puzzle puz-zle the common mind, but Parkinson found no trouble in solving that difficult dif-ficult problem. He carried an expense account without incurring expense, and therefore his expense account was compensation. com-pensation. But singularly enough this is exactly what the apostolic commission commis-sion objected to. They did not think that expense should yield compensation, and they accordingly found that Parkinson Park-inson had robbed tho company by charging charg-ing this expense against it, and condemned con-demned him without reservation for this act of plunder. Continuing, tho Logan paper sa3s that "in regard to tho man Gasto whose letters about the ditch scandal have been appearing recently in The Salt Lake Tribune, something should be said." We should think something ought to be said. There have been no such letters, and Casto has not been wriiing anything recently in The Salt Lake Tribune about the ditch scandal or about anything else. The Casto letters let-ters written along last spring and printed print-ed in The Tribune were undoubtedly correct; so far as the- related to Parkinson's Park-inson's steal from the Oneida Irrigation Irriga-tion district, they wore unquestionably true. So far as the' related to other matters we believed them to be true at the time they were printed, and we still believe they wero true. But in stating that Casto letters have been "appearing recently in Tho Salt Lake Tribune" the Logan paper states an absolute ab-solute falsehood. With regard to Parkinson Park-inson 's coercion of Casto, the Logan paper undertakes to make it simply "a personal attack upon Casto" when in fact it was something far worse. Casto was at Parkinson's house. Thc' passed the afternoon and the fore part of the evening agreeably enough, in conversation, without an- menace, without with-out any personal assault, without any indication that Parkinson contemplated any attack. Later in the evening Casto was lured into the remote tithing house and there was compelled to sign a retraction, re-traction, which was false, of what he had then written for The Tribune, which was true. The act of coercion lasted for many hours and Casto held out against the attempt to make him retract re-tract until he was choked into unconsciousness uncon-sciousness and feared for his life. It was not alone Parkinson that engaged in this coercion, but a friend and abettor abet-tor of his whom Casto had previously regarded as a friend also to himself. The retraction obtained b3' this murderous mur-derous coercion was undoubtedly false, and yet the Logan puper passes the whole outrage off as simply "a personal per-sonal attack" made upon Casto in retaliation re-taliation for vile and disrespectful language lan-guage applied to Parkinson b' Casto. Finally, the Logan paper finds that "on the whole the chargos which were sustained by the ecclesiastical court v.'hun summed up do not amount to a very great deal." Well, that docs not seem to be the community opinion, and does not seem to be the opinion of the "ecclesiastical court;" neither, is it Parkinson's opinion; neither is it the opinion of anybody except one bo-sotted bo-sotted in prejudice and bigotry, and of exceedingly small mental caliber. ' Tho opinion is of suflicient consequence to oust Parkinson from his church position, posi-tion, to cause him to offqr his property for .sale and to announce that he is go-" ing elsewhere. If that is something that does not amount to much, tho. Logan Lo-gan paper has a very curious idea of what would amount to something. . In conclusion, the Logan paper gives Parkinson a certificate of character for ; integrity, and untiring and life-long effort ef-fort to avaucc the community "intel lectual!', morally, and materially." There would bo a good deal of humor in that word "morally" rf it wore not such a serious mntter to the scores of people whom Parkinson and his helpers help-ers plundered and ruined in their swindling swin-dling operations in connection with the Oneida Irrigation district; and when tho Logan Republican undertakes to whistle tho thing out of the way with the observation that "a few trifling discrepancies in the books of the Oneida Irrigation district will not destroy or tarnish the character and reputation of this sterling man" (referring to Parkinson), Park-inson), it writes itself down as a more blithering ass. deserving of nothing but tho contempt and contumely of everyone who is possessed of even a small measure of horse sense. |