OCR Text |
Show A BACKWARD GLANCE. It will doubtlsss be remembered by moBt readers of Utah newspapers that about two months since we had an election in Utah, and statehood, while not an actual issue, was nevertheless it good deal talked, of. Then the republicans repub-licans did not dare to plead guilty to the charge of hostility to statehood. In fact so hif,h arose popular feeling in favor of the. early . admission of the territory that many of the republican papery and all of their speakers were compelled to swallow the bitter pill and: go "teeth and toe nail" for the measure. . Such papers as the Ogden Standard, the Logan Nation, the En quireriof this city, and many others prayed, croaned and turned up their eyes In the fervency of their desires for immpriifttA admission. Tim rnllort nn The election came, hypocrisy prevailed pre-vailed hnd a republican majority was elected to the territorial Legislature. Last Monday a rather severe test of their ardor for statehood was quietly applied in the legislature. A resolution favor ing early admission was offered and it was t incontinently, voted down in far less time iudoed. taaa it takes us to record re-cord tha .fact. Another fact was observable, ob-servable, the .voting down was done by the republican majority, the friends of the resolution were democrats. This result should not, and probably doe not surprise anybody in Utah or perhaps in the United States. , Since the pood year 1SG1 the republican party has been in power in this government Times almost without number since then the good people of. Utah have knocked at the doors to beacLmitted. A deaf ear was always turned, to their prayer. "Not yet." "You are not yet prepared." "You have not yet adandoned-. polygamy." After that was done solemnly by the ciiuicu aim uy uie territorial legisia ture after these solemn abjurgations the cry was, "Yes, you have done so ostensibly, but wait until we deter mine if your acts were candid." "We fear yourjare possoming." "You don't mean it." "Let us wait and see." All attentive readers of the papers know these facts, and know also that theBe various objections were made by liberals and republicans and these same readers know that all acts favoring admission were performed by democrats. The voting down of the statehood resolution the other- day is and was -only the carrying out of the same republican instincts of opp si-tion si-tion to Utah -statehood. It was only this that the beast is true to his instincts in-stincts of opposition. He can do nothing noth-ing else because it. is .his. -instinct, his nature. And yet two Ehort months since he was howling because the democrats dem-ocrats would not accept his cries for statehood as voicing his real desires. After this if anyMormon ... or pro-statehood pro-statehood gentile is deceived on the question of lioeral or republican devotion de-votion to the statehood idea, it will be his own fault. Tbe thing cropped out too plainly in the legislature. They can deny their hatred of statehood no longer and if November's election were to be done over, after last Monday, the result would be reversed by an enor-mouB enor-mouB majority. The republican party of tbe United States is but 'an enormous enor-mous aggregation of hypocrisy, and is only exceeded bv the republican party in Utah. Let no citizen cf Utah longer deceive himself. The republican republi-can party both, of Utah and the nation na-tion are forever opposed, to ptatehood and above we have given the absolute proof of the assertion. - |