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Show THE CITIZEN 4 To allow such testimony to be dignified as evidence would open wide the doors to unrestrained perjury. That is what has taken It has taken place place in the Wheeler committee investigation. because Wheeler and the majority of his committee deliberately It is so easy to prove things by desire. that sort of evidence. conversations with dead people I One is not embarrassed by the ... truth ! The star witness of the Wheeler committe was Gaston B. Means, in the employ 3 who first came into nortoriety as German spy of Count Von Bernstorff, whom President Wilson kicked our of the during the war. His next bid for country, and Captain Boy-E- d first page position was in connection with the murder in North Carolina of his associate, Mrs. Maude A. King. Means was acquitted of the charge after long deliberation by the jury. In connection with the murder of Mrs. King, Means produced a will which would have benefited him. This will was pronounced a forgery. Means and his attorney, Thomas B. Felder, are now under indictment in the federal courts, charged with a conspiracy to bribe Attorney General Dougherty. Means and his secretary, Emil W. Jarnecka, are also under indictment in New York for conspiracy to remove millions of dollars worth of whiskey from government warehouses and permit it to reach bootleggers. Means, on the witness stand before the Wheeler committee, admitted that his principal business wras anE-1- swering criminal indictments. Other witnesses called by Wheeler in the effort to besmirch Attorney General Dougherty admitted on the witness stand that they were boodlers and have been engaged in bribery conspiracies to corrupt public officials and break criminal laws. Some of them are under indictments in the criminal courts. If the innovation of proving honest men and public officials guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors by introducing testimony of convicts and crooks, forgers, bribe takers, murderers, train robbers and other criminals is to be followed, then there is no end in sight of the present investigations until all the inmates of our penitentiaries have been put on the stand. Too bad this method was not thought of years ago! Jesse James and Calamity Jane and all the other cutthroats of a generation since died too soon. Some of them ascended the gallows and met a felons death, when, had they lived in these times, they might have taken a de luxe trip to Washington at the. expense of the taxpayers, paid out of the Senates contingent' fund. ex-convi- cts, EXCUSES FOR TAXES. 1 N. L. Wilson is trying to give an alibi for the present heavy taxes in this state and in lengthy news articles published in the Tribune gives facts and figures that cannot be contradicted. All well and good. If a city, county and state wishes to put in a system that is expensive, some one has to pay for it. It is not economy to trim down departments and cripple the working forces. However, how many departments have we got that are not necessary in a state like ours where the population is few in number? Two years ago, the governor of Idaho cut the state tax in half, and the officials were notified to arrange their budgets accordingly. Idaho, through high taxation, was on the verge of bankruptcy because of high taxes which could not be paid. Hundreds of people left their farms and went to the cities to work. The state is now The cost of government in our larger cities and the state alk r a high. There is not a fair division of the tax money. The it is taken for school purposes. There ought to be a sane divj line and duplication work should be eliminated. Our govern gradually drifting into a system which requires an unlimited pense account, and everybody knows that no business could exist under such conditions. Take the city for instance. There are many straw bossti nc gangs who do certain work. When there is no work, yl ll p find a half dozen men working on a job which should be perfoil by one man and there is always a boss on the job. The boss is laid off, but occasionally the men are. Under such system n,J v ied rapidly disappears on payrolls, but for political purposes the syj eg is kept intact. Politicians hold their jobs regardless of the amount of work " formed. MAKE PRISONERS WORK. The Utah Manufacturers Association is protesting the ini tion of a manufacturing plant at the Utah state prison and is ing a permanent court writ against the board of correction. The upkeep of the prisoners is charged directly to the taxpdiig 1 and it is the general opinion and has been for many years, thr V prisoners ought to work to pay their own way. Why should any citizen pay the rent and board bill ol criminal? Most of us have a hard time providing tor ouri lies. The people are behind Governor Mabey, chairman of the rection Board, in his desire to make the prisoners work and paj thi their keep. The Citizen does not pretend to say what that emj ment should be, but we do say that we are tired of high tax: and are heartily in accord with anything which will tend to rei w our burdens. Let us open the doors and invite competition in order to more business, instead of trying to stifle 'business. We are for smoke stacks and less smoke commissioners. We do not war: build a wall around Utah and keep industry out. Help the Real Estate Association in their drive to boost I Let us take more home products, even if some of them are in the state prison, and keep more money at home. We air have too many industries here which take all the money out o: state. If you preach patronize home industry, then dont home industry. Anyhow, what does the Manufacturers Association recoin: that the state do with its prisoners? Work may reform so& the prisoners, but idleness never will. If a vote was taken in Utah for work vs. idleness in prisons, work would carry nearly unanimously. The worker n a good citizen, the person brought up in idleness invariably.! into crime. The crime wave may be popular, but somebckj1" better put a stop to it, or the people might return to the day Constantine when a person with a piece of money in hand was safe, day or night. oners and what little they can manufacture will do good fa concerned. No community should tolerate a bullpen full of loafers. There ought to be an infallible rule governing socic no work, no eat. recovering. h Utah taxes were boosted during the war upon a pretext that they were necessary. We only followed what other states had done. Why not now return to normal? The war has been over for nearly six years. If Utah was sold to a business corporation, what do you think the first move of the president of the corporation, by order of the board of directors, would be ? Why, of course, to install business principles in order that the corporation could make money! The state is a business corporation and the people are the stockholders and they have a right to say what their annual dues to the company shall be. sky-hig- i v ; ice WHY POLYGAMY PUBLICITY? The Salt Lake Tribune has been devoting column: of commenting upon polygamous relations and the articles app be written for the purpose of covering up an apparent si lould fire which might break at any time. If there are any new pohf cases, little or no attention have been paid to them, but since publicity given on polygamy by The Tribune, with quoted inters from church officials and absolving them from all blan-- fr marriages which may have been contracted, has created a great: |