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Show THE ARGUS. 2 Zb e Hrous. Issued Weekly by THE AROUS PUBLISHING COHPANY. Entered at the Salt Lake City Postoffice as second-clas- s matter. SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, MARCH 27, 1897. ...... TERnS OP SUBSCRIPTION. Any part of the United States, Canada or Mexico, one $1.50 year, postage paid England, France, Oermany, and all countries embraced 2.00 in Universal Postal Union, one year, postage paid 2.00 . . Other Countries, one year, postage added . 2.00 advance when not for or in paid By Carrier, Postmasters Bending subscriptions to Tiie Argus may retain 25 per cent, of subscription price as commission. , New Subscriptions may commence at any time during the year. sent by mail, should Le Payment for The Argus, when bank in a postoffice money order, draft, or an express monuy order. Week neither of these can be procured, send the money in a registered letter. All pcstmr.sters are required to register letters whenover requested to do so. If the Paper is not desired beyond the date subscribed for the publishers should be notified by letter, two woeks or more before the term expires. Discontinuances Remember that the publishers must be notified by letter when a subscriber wishes liis paper stopped. All arrears must be paid. their papers mailed to a new Requests of Subscribers to have must mention former as well address, to secure attention, as present address. Address all communications to high-kicke- THE ARGUS PUBLISHING COnPANY. Salt Lake Utah. City Journal was up on demurrer this week in the First District Court. Stewart claims to be a Democrat, and as such has persistently sought offiee in that party. Last fall he went over to the opposition and became a canditate for legislative honors on a mongrel ticket with a manifesto platform. Needless to say he was snowed under by a majority of about fifteen hundred. During the campaign the Journal called attention to the fact that Stewart had held office in Logan City and Cache county for a period of twenty years, that he had been careless and inefficient and, from his own accounts and record, had failed to account for public funds entrusted to him. Whether this was a result of negligence or theft the Journal did not say but left for the gentleman to explain, believing the public entitled to an expla nation. Stewart, however, had no excuse to offer, but, instead, has undertaken to make his kook? balance by heroic methods, and distract attention from his accounts to himself r while ho poses as the in a legal comedy. The law of libel should be remodeled so that newspapers may do their duty to the public without the annoyance of being dragged into court by men who feel damaged whenever the searchlight of investigation is turned upon their public records. If a man has held office, handled funds and failed to account for any portion of them, although frequently requested in private to do so, it should be the right of any taxpayer to publicly demand an accounting, or to expose the real or apparent shortage in the press, particularly when an official of that description applies to the public for another office of trust. It is the moral duty of a newspaper to warn the taxpayers of the community wherein it is published against fraud and to enlighten them concerning every misappropriation of public moneys ; it should be the legal privilege of a newspaper to warn electors against a candidate whose previous experience in public office would stamp him as an unfit or unsafe man for the place. No newspaper should go out of its way to attack the record of an official, but when that record is an issue, made so by his own act, when a knowledge of it is a matter of vital importance to the public, it should be exposed, and the paper which makes ttie expose should be regarded as a public benefactor. Justice of the Peace Haynes of Nephi is receiving considerable at-Hyde Case Nephi. tention just now and very little is being said in his favor. He has placed a market value upon female honor and has served notice on the young girls within his jurisdiction that his sympathy is with the betrayer, and that victims of misplaced confidence need not apply for protection to his court. A young man by the name of Hyde seduced the playmate of his youth, a very respectable young lady who confided in him, who relied upon him, who gave her affection and honor into his keeping and expected some day to become his wife. It was the old, old story. The girl confessed her undoing, the young man admitted his guilt and expressed a willingness to repair the wrong as far as possible by making her his wife. But he was not of lawful age and his father refused to consent to the marriage. This fixed the ufifortunate girls fate and fastened the shame upon her life and memory ; but there was an outraged justice to demand certain dues, a law to be enforced, a penalty to be inflicted. Young men were to be taught a lesson to obey the law, to honor and respect womanhood, to feel the responsibilities of paternity, to know the obligations of friendship and confidence. Fathers were to be shown that money is not an equivalent to virtue, that they have no right to shield their sons from the natural consequence of their acts any more than girls have a right to avoid the same responsibility through the commission of another crime. Fathers were to be shown that tli9 fatherless girl is entitled to some consideration and that the laws and courts of this great commonwealth afford her a reasonable protection. These lessons should have been impressed upon the minds of youth and age and the penalty should have been severe enough to have made the impression lasting. Instead, the Justice of the Peace convened his court in the night-timcarried out a programme, received the young mans plea of guilt, heard his fathers objection to the only method of saving the unfortunate girl, and then he inflicted the disgraceful penalty of a nominal fine. Shame upon such a tribunal Out upon such a farce enacted in the name of justice! There is a blot upon the history of Nephi, and Justice of the Peace Haynes placed it theie. At e, 1 Every now and then a country newspaper is treated to the metro- Duty of Newspapers. pofitan luxury of a libel suit by some broken down politician clamoring for notoriety. The case of Stewart vs. the Logan What is fame? For a quarter of a century the Hoosier Poet has been building up a reputation in one corner of the field of letters. He has written for almost every leading magazine in this country, and his poems have been copied in English periodicals the world around. He has received the editorial attention of almost every popular magazine and newspaper in America. His vol limes have been published at home and abroad and many of his poems have become household songs. They have been favorably noticed by many leading lights of the literary world. From Holmes, Whittier, Longfellow, Howells and Field his work has received . the highest praise. One of his earliest and most widely celebrated productions is Nothin to Say, a pathetic bit of dialect which the author has frequently recited in all the principal cities during his many lecture tours of the Eastern States. Thousands and thousands have heard the poet repeat that sad, simple story, and hundreds of thousands have read it time and again. But now comes one I. Milton Smith, a Sothoron magazine contributor, who palms off on our Philadelphia contemporary that poem as his own. Not one alteration is made; not a change of punctuation ; but just as Riley first let it go to the printer fifteen years ago I. Milton Smith republishes it this month over his own signature. And such is fame Riley, Riley ! Little did you think as you sat in your attic thinking and writing and rubbing out, that the child of your fancy would be stolen from the household of your fame by a literary gipsy who may be holding it for ransom or claiming it for baser purposes. When I. Milton sends in Old Fashioned Roses Little Orphan Annie, or The Old Swimmin' Hole, it would not de- tract from the general reputation of Sothorons magazine if his methods were exposed and the name of the real author given. 1 ) : i ; There is a disposition on the I part of many people to criticise any Legislature. body whether its work has been reasonably good or unreasonably bad. Considerable fault has been found with the sec- ond State Legislature of Utah, and The Argus has contributed its quota of complaint. But, after all, it was a fair assembly, composed of men and women who really accomplished a great deal, considering the amount of time lost in the senatorial contest. The number of bills introduced was enormous, and the number of laws enacted compares favorably with the work of other Legislatures. Some good bills were killed and some good laws enacted. Some unnecessary and unwise legislation was rushed through, but, on the whole, the work was fairly good. It was a generous but not an extravagant body, for, while the State institutions received increased appropriations and liberal donations were made for the Pioneer Jubilee and Tennessee exposition, still taxes were lowered and expenses generally cut down. Elsewhere in this issue a number of complaints from State exchanges are reproduced. law-makin- g well-meanin- In these harvest days thiri of hood, when, with a sickle of : g 1 state-f- n eccles-Fiei- d. iastical power men are reaping their carefully cultivated crops of revenge, retaliation and personal aggrandizement, there are gleaners to be seen in every field sycophants who hope to gain recognition or reward by doing the bidding or supposed pleasure of those in authority over them. Every servile understrapper who has neither manhood nor independence to rely upon, studies out the dislikes of those who wield the land of freesceptre and mitre in this dom and undertakes to treat those hatreds as his own. There are men who bid for preference by turning their backs upon lifelong friends in order to win the plaudits of those in power. There are others who seek for business advantage or security by trampling under foot the most sacred ties of kinship. There are teachers who only hold their places in some academy because of the manner in which they attack the object of some leaders wrath. In order to obtain the benediction of certain powerful men who do not hesitate to use the favors of a people for private purposes, it is necessary for the applicant to assail, in the pulpit or press, a certain man. A mild censure may invoke a blessing, but a vicious tirade is sure to be rewarded. If a man desire smooth" sailing in the political or ecclesiastical sea he has but to cultivate or simulate an aversion to the object of royal ill will. Such an attitude will excuse a lack of character in an ecclesiastical officer, it will cover up the ignorance of a teacher and sometimes enable him to retain a position for which he is not qualified and which he only holds by reason of his servility. so-call- ed -- well-know- n The Provo Enquirer already has a candidate for the next United States Senator from Utah. It remarks that if the Democrats are victorious two, years from now, with a good record, Congress man W, H. King may succeed Senator CannoaJ ; |