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Show SMOKE FROM THE WEEKLY PIPE H With liabilities totaling $3,294,968.23 and as- H sets of less than a million, the holdings of the M Utah Independent Telephone company will be H sold at public auction here at 10 o'clock on the H morning of June 5th, "at the west door of the H city and county building." H This, of course, but means the formal taking H over of the title to the company's physical and H paper possessions by the eatern individuals who H hold the bonds, and the turning over of the M physical possessions to the Rocky Mountain Bell m Telephone company through the medium of a for- H mal sale. Back of it all, according to the best of 1 knowledge and belief, is the American Telephone BB & Telegraph company, the organiaztion controll- ing all of the Bell telephone systems in this B country. m Within ten months, and possibly before the M expiration of six, the physical plant of the Utah M independent will be dismantled and the Rocky Mountain Bell Telephone concern will control the m local fleld and tributary territory to the exclu- m sion of practically all competition. Aside from M the cables, there is but little of the Independent M company's present installed equipment the Bell m' people will be able to use, and it is probable M thot no attempt will bo made to effect a consoll- B dation of the equipment now in use on the Bell M and Independent systems. The question of the B advantage or disadvantage of a single telephone H organization controlling the service in a field ex- H cluslvely, is one that pretty nearly baffles pro- ductive discussion. Its phases are so multiple H and governing conditions so changeable that the B possible result of the Bell company's exclusive operation here cannot be forecasted; except that I in view of radical departures adopted by such public service concerns as the American Telephone Tele-phone & Telegraph company, from the policies they pursued eight and ten years ago, the present Hj time vould seem to be as propitious for another Hj trial of the "one system" idea in telephone ser- Hj vice as any other period since Salt Lake's last H experience along that line. H There is little question but that the telephone H rate will be raised to $90.00 a year, the old. rate; H but even, at this, it would seem that it will be H advantageous to the general' public, for it will H mean the elimination of one of the two tele- H phones which most business men are now oblig- H ed to have, and will mean more convenience and H a saving of time l'or them; this, of course, provid- Hj ing that the service maintained by the Bell will HH be up to the standard made necessary by the 129, presence of a competing line. H The real history of the Utah Independent Hf company's struggle for a profitable existence H since its inception would make, in all probability, H as interesting a bit of reading as has been chron- Hi icled in fiduciary circles here in some years. A H number of Salt Lakers are not exactly poverty H' stricken as the result of their connection with H the concern in the earlier stages of its develop- H ment, and looking back over its years, the con- H elusion is irresistibly driven, home that the Utah H Independent has been a fleck of the spawn in the B game of telephone operations the greatest pub- H lie service game in the world today. There has M never been an hour since the day the Utah Inde- H pendent secured its franchise, that a single rift M shone in the clouds that o'ershadowed its life; H there has never been a moment when a practical B telephone man, after an investigation of the local Hj situation and the conditions under which the M plant must be operated, could go before a gov- m erning board and state that in his opinion there K was even a chance for an ultimate success. H Mr. Van Cott, the managing director of the H' present board of directors, is quoted as saying H that in its earlier days had the affair" of the B company been directed by a man of tho; ugh and H practical experience in the management of mod- orn telephone companies, the result might have been different. We doubt this, though admitting that there was incompetency at the start, and just why the Independent company has b'een permitted to live as long as it has, is one of the chapters of the real story of its life that has not yet been told. Public hostility to corpoiate public service monopoly mo-nopoly may have been responsible. There has been little doubt in the mind of the average Salt Laker the past two or three years of with whom rested the real ownership and control of the Utah Independent. Tho public at large is concerned principally as to its telephones in getting the best possible service for the rates charged, and there Is no reason to believe that the Bell company com-pany here, when, it dominates the field, will not' make every effort to meet its obligations in this respect. Among those who are being mentioned for candidates for city commissioners when the change in the municipal government takes place-next place-next fall are H. G. McMillan, J. W. McKinney, J. W. Houston, Benner X. Smith, Carl A. Badger, George T. Odell, J. D. Murdoch, Lawrence Greene, W. R. Wallace, F. B. Stephens, R. P. Morris and P. S'. Fernstrom. The above are the candidates recently mentioned men-tioned by the Tribune. In a number of instances the only mention of these candidacies has been by the gentlemen themselves, though the list includes in-cludes a number of sterling men who would ably serve the city. It will be noted that the name of J. W. McKinney Mc-Kinney appears in the above list in. company with strong Americans. It is really surprising to believe be-lieve that following the asinine gallery play of this bombastic political joke, his candidacy would be sprung. Certainly no one ever thought for a moment that he was looking for a job as commissioner; com-missioner; but now that it is known that he wants the place, the federal hunch, whom he so ably represents in the city council, will probably come to his aid and see that he is nominated. But he has no business In the American party, neither he nor the dozen disgruntled, scheming, petty politicians affiliated with him, who are doing do-ing their utmost to disorganize the party before the coming election, and who, if they succeed, will in all probability be rewarded by the federal bunch, whose interests they are serving so well. If McKinney is to be nominated for commissioner, why not nominate assistant city attorney Dalton for mayor, in which place he would be in a better position to harangue the mob with his anarchistic, anarchis-tic, socialistic diatribes with less reflection on himself than while occupying the position of a public prosecutor. Of the other names mentioned so far, the strongest are H. G. McMillan, J. W. Houston, Benner X. Smith, George T. Odell, J. D. Murdoch and R. P. Morris. There would bo no excuse for nominating a fanatic of the Carl Badger stamp or a weak sister like Lawrence Greene; and W. R. Wallace and F. B. Stephens, while in many ways very capable, are not broad enough for the job, unless Salt Lake goes dry. As there is no probability proba-bility of anything like that happening, their names need not be considered. With the opening of headquarters in the Boston Bos-ton building by the business interests, irrespective irrespec-tive of the liquor Interests to fight prohibition at the coming election in the city and state, tho campaign will start in earnest within a few days, and on tho dry side, the Mutual Improvement Associations, As-sociations, the W. C. T. U., with the assistance of a cluster of leading bigots of the Mormon church, will make preparations to do what they can to materially assist in making business conditions con-ditions worse than ever without clearing in the least the moral atmosphere. In order to assist them in their misguided campaign, Lulu L. Shepard will return from Texas week after noxt, and it is expected that Lulu will lead the prohibition forces. Coming from a prohibition state like Texas, where she haa aided materially in quenching the thirsts of the rangers, Lulu ought to be in fine form, and when she takes up the hatchet of reform and 'goes to it on May 15th, her chief side partner in her crusade will be Nephi L. MorriB, and the active lieutenants under them are B. F. Grant and Joseph J. Cannon. There is little question that the requisite number num-ber of names will be secured in the county petitions pe-titions to hold the election in those counties in which Salt Lake and Ogden and a number of other smaller cities are situated, and the business bus-iness interests have every reason to believe that these elections will result in these districts being wet. Both sides are" lined up for an active campaign, cam-paign, but public sentiment both here and in Ogden Og-den and many other cities of the state is so pronounced pro-nounced in favor of the wets that the work of the opposition is not being considered very seriously seri-ously in the more enlightened cities. Salt Lake's county commissioners added another an-other subtle touch, to the interesting background of their activities of the past few years last week when they awarded a Chicago Arm the contract for the plumbing of the county hospital infirmary in the face of a bid $2,500 lower by Crane & Company of Salt Lake. "We have received evidence which clearly disproves dis-proves the charges against the men and shows that they are entirely innocent," said Samuel Gompers, President" of the American Federation of Labor, at Indianapolis Monday, relative to the arrest of J. J. McNamara, his brother, and Ortie McManigal, now in jail in Los Angeles charged with having blown up the plant of the Los Angeles An-geles Times and to have participated in a series of like crimes across the continent for two years past. If in nil the history of organized labor and its fight by fair and fowl means for recognition, recogni-tion, anything rawer or smacking more virulently of smug and insolent contempt for the preponderating preponder-ating mass of ovidence of the expenditure of a vast sum of money the last two years in destroying destroy-ing by dynamite hundreds of construction pro jects on which non-union men were employed, has emanated from these delectables who, by trickery usually head national organizations of labor, we do not know of it. , Samuel Gompers, since the initial hour of his term of office as a labor leader, has been the first to recognize in every charge of crime against a member or members of a union a "plot" or "conspiracy" "con-spiracy" against unionism and organized labor. Posing on that wobbling pedestal of union-cried "iairness," Gompers has ever been in the front rank of those intolerant rulers of labor who, the moment a charge of wrongdoing is imputed against a union man, jumps to his defense, declares de-clares him innocent, stamps up and down in front of him screeching "plots" and "counterplots" and hurling bombastic denials of his guilt broadcast before the accused has been given a moment's opportunity for proving his Innocence before a jury of unbiased men,, or face the evidence of his accusers. No one on earth blames the friends of the accused ac-cused for standing by him, or union men, generally, gener-ally, for refusing to believe the guilt beforo proven of one of their leaders charged with such an offense as arq the McNamaras and McManigal, Mc-Manigal, but for a man of Gompers' prominence to make the unequivocal statement that he has "received evidence which clearly disproves the charges agalst the men and shows that they are entirely innocent" is imposing rather too heavy a tax on the supposition of the sincerity of righteous purposes, honesty and fair-mindedness of the President of the American Federation of Labor. , Whether or not the McNamaras and McMan-igal McMan-igal are ever convicted for the crime and crimes with which they are charged, the indisputable fact remains that for two and a half years past a chain of dynamite outrages have been perpetrated perpe-trated from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast and back again, at an enormous cost; these explosions a total of horrors involving a loss of millions of dollars and scores of lives have occurred only on structural steel jobs where non-union workmen work-men were employed. Unquestionably a systemized campaign and vast sums of money have been back of these outrages. Under the circumstances leading up to the arrest of the two McNamaras they are confronted by the gravest evidence of having participated in these dynamite outrages and particularly in the destruction of the plant of the Los Angeles Times, and the murder of twenty-one of its employes. em-ployes. McManlgal has confessed, stating that he was the executant of most of the explosions, though not concerned in the wrecking of the Times. And the evidence against the McNamaras McNamar-as and that they are responsible for tho terrible destruction of life and property resulting from the dynamiting of non-union jobs the past two and a half years with the knowledge and consent of some organization capable of advancing them a very large amount of money, is too strong and conclusive to be Ignored, despite the fact that the'r arrest was occasioned and the evidence against them collected by a private detective agency at whose head is a man who has religiously religious-ly and consistently played to the grandstand throughout most of his years of crime investigations. investiga-tions. There is little doubt but that this detective and his men have been in the employ of organizations organi-zations bent on destroying labor. But, despite this, it does not justify the uproar of union men and labor leaders and their absurd and frenzied fren-zied declarations of a gigantic plot to destroy organized or-ganized labor and break the backbone of unionism. union-ism. All San Francisco is awaiting the return of C. C. Moore, newly elected Director General of the Panama-Pacific Exposition, as upon his arrival ar-rival either Golden Gate Park or Harbor View will be selected as the site of the Exposition for 1915. Choice has narrowed down to these two localities lo-calities and the San Francisco public is anxious for the decision on one or the other. |
