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Show : KIEL WOOi BILL SAYS 'PROGRESSIVE' I Party Organ Wants Liquor Question Submitted to People of State. REASONS ARE SET OUT Declares That Betterment League Has Changed Plan Since Election. The Progressive, the official organ of tho Progressive party, now comes to the fore, opposing the Wootton prohibition hill After some monthB of seclusion the litLlo political paper comes forward under the sponsorship of five of the leaders of tho Progressiva party in the State. On ' tho title page of tho current issue appears this advice to the members of the legislature, legis-lature, and especially- to the Democratic ami Progressive members of the legislature: legisla-ture: Liquor Question Initiative and Referendum. The question of the prohibition of the liquor traffic should not be made a partv issue. It is a moral issue upon which individuals of all parties honestlv differ. We declare that such uuestions should be determined by the referendum provided for in our con-stitution, con-stitution, which we pledge ourselves to make effective by proper legislation. legisla-tion. Democratic platform. Want People to Decide. Liquor. Question We believe that the liquor question i should be referred to the people, whose expressed voice shall be recognized as supreme on this, as on all other questions ques-tions of public policy; and to this end we pledge our party to submit the question of state-wide prohibition to the vote of the people by referendum. Progressive platform. In the present session of the Utah legislature the initiative and referendum referen-dum and the liquor question are twin measures. There is but one honest course bv which both may be realized: real-ized: Kill the Wootton liquor bill and pass the Shields bill, and submit the liquor question to the Utah electorate. Referring editorially to the situation, the Progressive calls attention to the fact that the Betterment league, prior to election, secured pledges from candidates for the legislature to pass a law submitting the prohibition question to a vote of the people. peo-ple. None was pledged, it asserts, to an arbitrary state-wide prohibition measure. On the other hand, It declares the Betterment Better-ment league had pledged itself to work for the passage of the initiative and referendum refer-endum bill that the people might have the opportunity to vote on the question. Continuing it says: The members of the present legislature legisla-ture were elected by votes from both ' sides of the liquor question. They owe allegiance to both prohibitionists and antl-prohibitionists to submit this question to the electorate of Utah, Charge Against L-eague. No legislator is bound to follow the Betterment league when it abandoned its position of submitting the question ques-tion at an election held to determine tliis issue without regard to party ties. The Betterment league of Utah deserted de-serted those who promised to champion cham-pion its cause when it without excuse abandoned all effort to submit the question by a referendum. The league promised the Progressive service ser-vice to aid in securing a referendum law. The Betterment league may have the highest ideals, but tt should receive re-ceive its lesson along1 with others who are less pretentious, that political plans and promises are made to be followed and kept. AVhatever the motives mo-tives of the league may be, the Wootton Woot-ton bill is not a fulfillment of its pledges, either to the legislators who espoused its cause, or to those wiio joined it in an effort to solve the liquor li-quor question in Utah. The league's action is a bitter disappointment to its real friends, and it must not be disappointed if Ha former friends rebuke re-buke its surrender without any honest hon-est effort to get the initiative and referendum. |