Salt Lake Telegram | 1936-04-21 | Page 6 | A Rotten Situation

i I A Rotten Situation SO FAR tIe the e public has been permitted to form 13 only a hazy notion of what it is the state liquor commission has been promising promising- for some sometime sometime time tilDe to probe to Uto the bottom It has given out from time tim to time that it Wants facts not rumors leaving the inference to be drawn that it doesn't want to be bothered by citizens calling to report even well-grounded well suspicions of law violations Is this what the commission meant when it assumed office and called upon the public for its cooperation Decent people over the state have assumed with good reason that the commissions commission's staff of Inspectors agents and attorneys abundantly equip it to ferret o out t the facts when a persistent rumor is brought to its notice by an interested Well-intentioned Well and sustaining law-sustaining citizen Whatever may be the doubts in the public mind as to the official viewpoint there is no doubt whatever but that there will be general Agreement that Commissioner Whitmore chose the one apt adjective in describing the situation as rotten He went on record with the declaration declaration declaration dec dec- that No one is going to be spared andall and andall all l facts will be made public Commissioner Whitmore also remarked that Cashman's beer garden is only one of several rotten joints in Salt Lake City and county He Ho also charged that the killing of young Aimon Jardine at the Mill Creek beer parlor resulted from lax enforcement t of the state liquor control act act act-a a statement well sustained by the failure of sheriffs men and liquor commission agents to carry out a raY raid as ordered The alibis offered make all who have tried to explain why they misunderstood each other supremely ridiculous ridiculous and and at the the cost of a f human life Rumors The air is thick with rumors In the public interest it is the reasonable responsibility o of the liquor commission to run them down do to sift the true from the false to inform the public to clean house within the commissions commission's personnel if irregularities are found The liquor commission has a praiseworthy praise record in its handling of hard liquor sales throughout the state state not not perfect yet creditable Still it has much to do to stop clandestine fic tic But it should blush for its shortcomings in inthe inthe the handling of the beer situation It cannot plead lack Jack of funds in the light of its profit statements t plead lack of power and authority The supreme cour court has affirmed the of f th these seIt It It validity se- se cannot excuse se itself on the ground of nO by b local authorities It promised full enforcement with its own re resources resources resources resources' re re- sources sources' if it jt should be denied this It cannot evade responsibility by blaming subordinates for incompetence laxity or even graft or cor cor- The commission must accept full responsibility re re- re f for r the acts of its entire personnel which is of its own creation