OCR Text |
Show YEAR THE FIRST OF AMERICANISM. A few years ago, if any tentative prophet had predicted that this year a Gentile administration would be in control of the City of the Saints, derision de-rision would have echoed back to him from all the hills of Israel. Yet this haa been brought about by a quick evolution, and Gentiles, in the heart of the country where they are anathematized as "enemies' have assumed complete control of the municipal machinery. It has all come about with such suddenness that the spectacle is almost astounding. as-tounding. The causes leading up to Gentile supremacy in the city are quite easy to recognize. Everything was going along more or less peaceably, people .1 were fighting political battles upon more or less well defined party lines, when upon the landscape hove a lofty and unlovely person, who, being mighty in the church, proclaimed himself political king, and assumed to dominate all the political affairs of all the people. Following out this sinister sin-ister intent, he placed unknown and nondescript citizens in control in the city and the state, and it looked as if within a few years citizens of this state would be bereft of the small fragment of political liberty which has remained here since statehood. Then came the revolt. It was sudden, but it was vibrant with vital force. The result is that Reed Smoot, ex-boss and soon to be ex-senator, stands discredited among his own people, amid the shattered remnants of a political machine which made Gentile votes a farce and Mormon ballots a disgrace. All that happened but a few months ago, and while the united protest of independent and intelligent in-telligent citizens had not yet died away, the splendid splen-did spectacle was witnessed of an American Gentile Gen-tile party re-enthroned in power in the Mecca of the Mormons. The Gentile officials recently elected to control tie destinies of the city fought too hard for what they achieved to be deceived into former blunders, blund-ers, or to listen to the conciliatory cries of defeated de-feated bosses who are now making a belated plea for harmony. It was purely a Gentile victory and the new administration decided to make of this a modern and pretentious municipality through Gentile agencies. This thought predominated the deliberations of the Gentile officials when the recent appointments appoint-ments to the various departments were decided upon and were submitted to the council by the mayor, and the roster of the newly selected aides to the city's executive shows that in the main no (mistakes were made. Quite to the surprise of everyone, former obstructionists of the Fern-strom Fern-strom type, made no effort to barricade the mayor's way in the selection of his official staff, and the present regime has assumed control with the prospect of the city's future greatness looking better than at any time during the past several decades. The appointments to the offices which chiefly concern the welfare of the city were in every particular satisfactory. George Sheets, the choice of the Gentiles for chief of police, is an experienced official for whom it is quite safe to predict an admirable record. That wing of the city government has been more or less in chaos for a number of years, chiefly due to internal dissentions, and the fact that efforts to dislodge the head of the department depart-ment have been repeatedly ineffective, so that in the case of Mr. Lynch, it became necessary to disengage him "for the good of the department," a humiliating last resort which Mr. Lynch should have himself avoided by respecting the ethics of the situation and resigning when he entered his disastrous race for the mayoralty. Mr. Sheets will have a difficult task in bringing, under such ad-verse ad-verse conditions, the department into a state tf efficiency, but there is confidence that Mr. Sheets is the very best man for the undertaking. All forms of criminalogy have been with Mr. Sheets the subject of profound study, and he knows more of crooks, and the cussedness and customs of them, than anyone who has as yet served the city in his present position. It is also gratifying that his services have been secured at a time when the city is alarmingly infested with thugs and footpads. foot-pads. L. C. Kelsey, the appointee for city engineer, has heretofore served the city efficiently in that capacity. It was a misfortune to the city when, for political reasons, he was supplanted as engineer en-gineer by Mr. Riter, the recent encumbent, who proved himself glaringly inadequate for the place. Mr. Kelsey enters the engineer's office at a time when the city's great projected water improvements improve-ments are but newly under way, and the cooperation co-operation of so competent an engineer should be of great aid in the fruition of the water plans, of which he was in part the originator1. The new city physician, Dr. M. B. Stewart, is a man of great attainments in his profession, and in that position will have the confidence of all citizens. Much could be said in commendation of the lesser appointees, all of whom are men of standing in the community and generally of experience ex-perience in the positions for which they have been chosen. The mayor and council have acted wisely and with deliberation, and if the new official staff is given the proper encouragement and support, there can be little doubt that the present administration administra-tion will be the most efficient and' progressive since the city of Salt Lake became a municipal corporation. Great amiability is not apparent between President A. J. Davis and Councilman T. R. Black. When Mr. Black became rather obstreperous at the last session, the president called on the ser-geant-at-arms to escort the irate member to his seat, an incident which is without a precedent in the past two or three administrations. It is quite apparent that Mr. Davis intends to thoroughly squelch his big colleague from the Fifth before the present session is over. Councilman Preece raised a puny voice of pro-tot pro-tot at the last session, when the names of the mayor's apointees were submitted. He is a pretty well-spanked young man, and it is up to him to be good for a while, as was intimated to him by Councilman Mulvey. The beardless lad from the Second is in bigger company just at present than he is accustomed to. Councilman Fernstrom could not resist a parting part-ing fling at his old enemy George Sheets, when he stated that Mr. Lynch's removal was not for the good of the service. These are not very palatable palat-able days for the whiskered viking. |