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Show METHODS OF'THE SMOOT MACHINE POLIT- T ICAL NOTES. In the Mormon church a layman who ventures in the slightest degree to question any act of his flle leader is "whispered" to be an apostate even before he is haled before his bishop anddlsfellow-shipped, anddlsfellow-shipped, and the Saintly leadership of the Republican Republi-can party in Utah is running things on the same . plan. The unfortunate member of the rank and flle who questions the acts of the bosses is branded brand-ed by the "whisperers" as an American party man or emissary of the devil in disguise, even though he may never have contemplated, much less expressed ex-pressed publicly, any intention to join the American Amer-ican party. Wh' u Judge W. M. McCarty of the Supreme court protested against the humiliation of Register F. D. Hobbs of the land office, the word went out that he was an American party man, and entitled to no party consideration. When Chief Justice George W. Bartch was reported re-ported to have gone to Washington to ventilate the character of Elder Hyrum 13. Booth, the machine's' ma-chine's' candidate for district attorney, it was "whispered" that he, too, had secretly joined the American party, and was merely a traitor in the Republican camp trying to work harm from within. When Benner X. Smith failed to get the district dis-trict attorneyship, the Smoot crowd, ovidently anxious that he and such as he should leave the Republican party, started the report that both he and Judge J. A. Miner, his father-in-law, would join the American party before the fall campaign came on. . Of these four men, there is little possibility than any of them will join the American party, though all of them, doubtless, would be welcomed there; but the fact that they have been branded as Americans simply demonstrates the Smoot purpose pur-pose to destroy the party standing, and influence of every man who will not take counsel blindly , from the priestly machine leaders. Ordinarily such a fatuous political course would mean ruin for the party whose leaders attempted at-tempted it. Here in Utah, however, the machine is willing that all men of independence should leave the party, because of a belief that, no matter mat-ter how much of the rank and file they take with them, the church will "move over" enough Democrats Demo-crats to supply the deficiency. The boast of Bill Spry to that effect in the last state campaign showed the workings of the minds of the machine leaders.. |
