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Show FOR VOTERS TO-CONSIDER. The tickets are in the field; how should the people vote? There are many things to consider. The one of first importnnce is Salt Lake City and its interest!. Waiving all other questions for the moment, which candidates offer most to the-people? the-people? Which candidates, if elected, can serve all the interests of the city best. If reforms are to be worked out by votes, which ticket, if elected, will be most liable to materially increase the vote before another election comes around? Those are the questions which most concern the voters who have real interests in the. city. There is one other. Does the charge that corrupt means were used to secure the nominations involve, in-volve, save by indirection, any of the candidates? There is still another question. Because there was no contest in the Democratic convention, does that supply any proof that the best men of that party were nominated? Is it not true that some who were nominated would not have been had the managers in advance believed they had a show to carry their ticket? It is true now as ever that "when the Devil was sick the Devil a Saint would be," but "when the Devil got well, devil a Saint was he." It is true that if the Democratic ticket is elected the whole state, county and city government will be in Mormon hands. We use the word without prejudice, merely as any citizen citi-zen must in weighing the right and wrong of the question. So using it all all honest men must agree that such an adjustment would not be fair because the Mormons do not pay one-half of the taxes of the city or state, and long experience has established that there is no progress in a government govern-ment controlled by the saints; no progress along the usual American lines. It is a fact that after they had been in undisturbed control of this city for forty years; there was not one foot of paved streets; not one foot of sewage pipe laid; not one decent school house for the public -schools; not one accomplished teacher in any public school; not one effort made to supply water to any of the inhabitants save those in the very heart of the olty; many people had no water for domestic use save from the open ditches; no effort made to supply an effective fire depart- ment or to sprinkle any but two or three blocks long on Main street, while the natural water supply was so handled that the natural force of the streams entering the city could never be one-half utilized in a dangerouu emergency. The taxes were collected and spent and of where tfley went there was no sign, oxcept in the support sup-port of the city officers and a small and most ineffective in-effective police force. This was due simply to the conviction that what had been all right with the fathers was sure to be all right for the sons; the thought of progress prog-ress was never entertained and the total indifference indif-ference to all sanitary regulations was something appalling. It will not be forgotten that in the first year of the Liberal administration of the city's affairs the death-rate fell GO per cent. Then, too, franchises were "given away to friends, which, had perfectly just conditions be'en included in the franchises, they would now have been paying the current expenses of the city, i We say it is perfectly fair to protest against a full return of that power just when the city is opening its gates to receive three important railroads rail-roads and when every promisees of unprecedented growth in the immediate future, if the efforts of citizens can be supplemented by the city. It may be said: "Things have changed, there never could be a return to those old methods." How do we know? There is one man in the city council who, to gratify his vindictive hate of the then city engineer, permitted a? most important interest in-terest of tho city to lapse three years ago, but he was renominated and elected' two years ago and he has again been nominated this year. It is not malicious or unfair to statethat he owes his standing and his repeated triumphs at the polls, not ao any sagacity or ability ever displayed by him; not to any ambition to see the city advance, but to the fact that he can Jie counted upon to stand like a stone wall in the path of any measure looking to the progress of the city. Mr. Morris is a good and honest man, a competent com-petent accountant and pleasajit gentleman. But the. very nature of his occupation for the past dozen years has made him negative man. He lacks all the aggressive eleirients needed in a live Mayor. His opponent has stated some things that the city needs, one of which is an equal collection col-lection of taxes. That is something that has never been known here, and no man ever saw Frank Knox driven from the carrying out of a fixed purpose. pur-pose. Wo anticipate that there are people who will assume that the above is but an exhibition of old-time old-time prejudice, but not one, we think, will deny the statement of facts as given above. Further, it Is not unfair to state that to turn this city over to a negative Mormon Mayor and an aggressive Mormon Council would be to Gentiles "taxation without representation," something that has caused, revolutions in a dozen countries. Wo challenge chal-lenge any man to say the foregoing is unfair, either in spirit or truth, hence we hold it to be the duty of every voter to do what he can to prevent pre-vent something that would result in holding this city in village leading strings for two years more. The News has said that people have a right to combine to elect the best men. We all know who in the estimation of the News the best men are. We say It is right for voters to combine to prevent a manifest injustice. |