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Show 1 DRAMATIC UTAH. I If some playwright is not watching the Smoot I investigation with an eye to business the chance I ct a generation is being missed, Utah teems with I interest for the stranger until it growB nauseat- mg and painful. The investigation reveals the B situation far enough removed to make its unparal-I unparal-I jeled sensations interesting witb. peculiarly dramatic dra-matic effect. The comedy entered the other day when a humble dignitary of the church testified meekly that he had neglected his plural wives, for which he had had occasion to be duiy repentant. The sixth one proved to be quite capable of consoling con-soling herself. She had entered politics and de-leated de-leated her husband in a race for the State Senate. Sen-ate. From the way this incident brought down the house in the committee-room audience it is worthy of a more pretentious hearing. The appearance of Moses Thatcher was pure pathos, if not tragedy. Only three score years old, Mr. Thatcher should not appear as a broken, tottering old man, as the reports show him to be. He was an apostle of the church and ventured to stand strongly against church interference in politics. He was disciplined as only alienation lrora the friends and co-workers of a lifetime, and who knows what beside of ecclesiastical punishment, pun-ishment, can discipline, and the life of success and ambition which had been in sight was snuffed out. For ten years his life has been, in many re-tpects, re-tpects, a living death. His fate is indeed tragic. The real pathos, however, of the conditions involved is not brought to Washington. Perhaps it -will not be discovered ,n Salt Lake City when the investigation begins there. This is discovered only on closer knowledge knowl-edge than the surface can reveal. One of the first "apostates" found himself oound to three wives. He provided materially for the plural wives, but, alas, he could not prevent the heartbreak in the case of all three. For even the first and legal wife had been so broken by the strain that the mind tottered years after it Iv as all over. The suicide of a son, with no provocation provo-cation only the abnormal undercurrent given him by his motjher's heroic struggle to bear bravely unbearable conditions, capped the climajx in a situation painful as it was irretrievable. But sadder than all else has been the burden i ot animalism borne by young men and -women otherwise brilliant and refined. I Poor Utah! Ambitious, progressive, capable may her people soon outgrow the curse which, ' with ali its amusing and grotesque features, is the most cruel source of suffering and degrada- tion from which a great people ever suffered. Denver News. ffr u i& First Theatrical Manager (poetically) Why did you drop that star from your theatrical firmament? firma-ment? Second Theatrical Manager She wanted the Garth. Smart Set. JS & "Bryan says that he isn't for Hearst; that he isn't for any particular candidate." "Well, Hearst isn't particular; any old way to got the nomination." Town Topics. |