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Show The American 'Party Petition. m A JShique document. V Re'Oenge Society Convenes and JVominates. j The 'Democratic Campaign Fund WorKing. ' t H The American party, after beating about the political highways for several weeks, finally de-v de-v oped a muster roll of over eight hundred for the placing of a s(ate ticket in the field. As the document finally appeared, it was one of the most remarkable instruments that was ever exploited, ex-ploited, and is so faulty In almost every particular particu-lar that it could easily be thrown out if politicians were not too generous to pick on so weird and helpless a cripple. All day yesterday the petition was the subject of jocular comment among politicians of all parties. par-ties. In dozens, of cases names are repeated in the list, and. out of a total of eight hundred names, there are scarcely a bare fifty which are at all familiar to people who have lived for any length of time In Salt Lake, which shows that the Revenge Re-venge Society must have secured almost its entire list of recruits from new residents in the city, who Were easily duped into the Kearns-Lippman strategy for the defeat of the Republican party. Even the certificate attached to the list does not comply with the regulation of the election Jaw, which specifies that the petitioners shall certify cer-tify under oath that they are residents of the city and that they will vote for the particular party in the interests of which the petition was signed. Scores of people whose names appear on the list confess that while they may have signed the petition, no certificate was made before a notary, and that they did not know and had never seen Mr. S. P. Armstrong, the notary public who certifies that every one of the eight hundred and more personally appeared before him and acknowledged that he or she was a signor of tho Instrument and a qualified voter in the municipal iity. It is absurd to imagine that that number of people personal y appeared before Mr. Armstrong and made affidavit as alleged in the petition, and while there appears to be np disposition In Repub. lican sources to defeat the object of the petition, it is considered likely that some pointed intorroga. lories to Mr. Armstrong regarding the number who wore sworn to before him would be exceedingly exceed-ingly embarrassing. If any one is mean enough to combat the petition, it is generally believed that Mr. Armstrong will be forced to admit that he saw Lut a very small proportion of the eight hundred people whose names are conspicuous on the petition. peti-tion. Repetitions of names are so numerous that it is quite apparent that different canvassers must have been abroad with separate petitions. Following Fol-lowing are the names of some of those whoso nomenclature was duplicated on the list: J W. Inks, F. M. Matthews, R. E L. Collier, Maurice Steifel and John M Hopfenbeck Another feature in the securing of names which ctoated considerable comment was the facFthat the day before the petition was filed, citizens not In sympathy with the Revenge Society were im-portunod im-portunod to place their signatures on the list, and the plea was made on the basis of personal friendship friend-ship when people were, through other party affiliations, affil-iations, adverse to signing the document. Many signatures were doubtless secured in this way, notwithstanding the fact that the eleotlon law provides pro-vides that a signer must profess allegiance to the party In the interests, of which the petition is propagated. pro-pagated. The whole affair was so palpably irregular that it was believed by many prominent politicians that the petition was launched in its faulty and crippled condition so that the Republicans might success fully combat Its validity and prevent thq exploita- JH tion of an American party state ticket. This would 'H of course be vastly beneficial to D. W. Powers, ijH whose strength would be far greater if, the name I JH of Ogden Hiles, another Gentile Democrat, did jH not appear on the official ballot as a nominee for I jH Congress. Besides this, it was claimed, the Tri- j H bune would make resounding thunder over the j jH matter if the ticket were thrown out through a ' ifl technicality, provided the issue were ralBed by i nH Republicans, whose defeat at the polls was the j 'H 'real and dominating object of the originators of ijH the American party. M It is more than likely, however, that Republi- , ,H dans will show enough chivalry to allow the peti- 1H tion to work out its ill-begotten destiny, since the jH new party is already showing lamentable signs oi H weakness and Republicans are content to fight out JH at the polls the issue of the attempted defeat of ' jH the Republican party by an organization formu- j jH lated and led by the vindictive senior Senator 'jH from Utah. j jH |