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Show Published Every Saturday BY GOODWIN'S WEEKLY PUBLISHING CO., INC. A. W. RAYBOULD, Business Manager SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: Including postage in the United States, Canada and Mexico, $2.50 per year, $1.50 for six months. Subscriptions to all foreign countries, within the Postal Union, $4.50 per year. Single copies, 10 cents. Payments should be made by Check, Money Order or Registered Letter, payable to The Citizen. Address all communications to The Citizen. Entered as second-clas- s matter, June 21, 1919, at the postoffice at Salt Lake Act under of March 3, 1879. the City, Utah, Phone Wasatch 5409 Ness Bldg. Salt Lake City, Utah 311-12-- 13 6 IMITA TION STUFF AND THE A SSESSOR The timely action of County Assessor M. L. Cummings in adver-tisinto the public the fact that his office force does not consist of booze ferrets or moonshine sleuths and that his field men will carry ample documentary evidence of g their peaceful calling, is actually to prove a boon to the taxpayers of the county, this year, if all present indications of popular acclaim by those with property to be assessed, is not villainously falla- no-ma- cious. believes Assessor Cummings that his workers will receive such courteous treatment and such superior recognition, when duly accredited and branded at the hands of the taxpayers, that they will be able to list for assessment much personal property and some considerable intangible assets, which have escaped their vigilance in former years. The facts are, says the astute assessor, who proposes that his field force shall circulate free of any camouflage or taint of misrepresentation, among the residents of the city and county, that never before, so far as he can learn in the history of county taxation, will the man who can positively identify himself as a mere deputy assessor be so welcome at the doors of both humble and resplendent mansion, as he will be this year of our Lord 1923. To know that they are real tax minions of the law with power only to snoop around Qor taxable wealth, and not gifted with mandates to tear up the kitchen floor or remove the parlor stove in a wild search for illicit moisture, will according to reliable evidence act like the magic wand of an impish Irish fairy and flouted deputy assessor in for a queen and let the erstwhile very pleasant and cordial reception, indeed. Aside from the fact that Assessor Cummings is about the only county official, thus far, who has had the termerity to throw down the gauntlet to the Blue Law Sheriff, he is also attempting, every day in every way, to bring down the operative cost of his department, or at least hold them within that reasonable range in which they were held during 1922, when he did business at an actual saving of S6,000 under the 1920 record of his Democratic predeilly-treate- they holding office if they dont know the law in such misrepresentation matters, or are at least imbued with that spirit of helpful service which precludes their taking such deceptive steps? Why dont they read up on the law if they dont know its provisions? Some day, perhaps, the City and County building will again be open to all mankind for the full and free exercise of their personal prerogatives of citizenship. Just at present the halls and the front offices of die various city and county officials are closed territory lands real to those individuals who ease their conscience with an occasional smoke. If the administrative city and county boys want to smoke they must retire to their inner sanctuaries. They cannot puff in any other part of their official domains, which a certain fantastic Utah law says is a public place. Sheriff Harries has highballed this smokeless mandate all the way down State street from of city and county official Capitol heights and has nailed it to the mast-heaactivities. d cessor. And The Citizen understands that Assessor Cummings has received the felicitations of thousands upon the action he has taken to compel recognition of his official prerogative as the duly elected County Assessor. It is not taken enough that those who stand guilty in the eyes of the people for having recourse to a most despicable misrepresentation to gain their ends, now claim Why are that it was done without a full knowledge of law and law-effec- t. ns d And Harries has only been in the saddle for a matter of three short weeks, yet his deputies have greviously infringed on the official rights of an equally responsible county administrative officer and a state law that was framed in the spirit of coercion and put over during a season of legislative madness, has been envoked against county officials as well as the public. Evidently Harries and his busy bees are going to do the obvious thing! Assessor Cummings is not fighting Sheriff Harries in the discharge of his duties to his constituents, or to his ministerial guides and mentors. Assessor Cummings merely wants and insists upon fair play and realizes that if this first instance wherein his office was misrepresented to the public, was not resented and clarified; that if his men were to be generally taken for booze hounds, that many doors would be slammed in their faces and perhaps one or two be shot at while banging door bells! Anyhow the assessor feels that he has done the right thing and the square thing in warning the public and advising them of the fact that all his employees will carry proper credentials, and so does The Citizen. The assessor also realizes that such imitation stuff would soon lead to wholesale emulation by the vicious clement, that makes ransacking homes and porch climbing its regulation activity. The vast increase in our export trade since the enactment of the new tariff law is complete refutation of the Democratic whine that the law would destroy our overseas business. The act is working out just as its Republican authors predicted it would. Our domestic industries are encouraged to go ahead and foreign business has been stimulated. The tentative proposals to limit Utah business men to the ramifications and amenities of Utah state insurance, when taking out policies on their emform ployees, as provided by the State Industrial Act, presages a pernicious of paternalism that is hardly wanted. It smacks of other mandatory laws and measures designed to compel rather than to guide the people. |