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Show A Study In Utah Statecraft I "For cms of government let fools contest', Whatever is best administered is best. "Pofie H MkHB matter of hitting upon a satisfactory title for oifr weekly page of comment on Tthe legislature is sorely perplexing. The title used last week: "The Legislators and the ' Log-Rollers," suited us exactly. It seemed to cover every angle of the situation. But it comes, first-hand, that certain legislators strenuously objected to having their official title hooked up with that of the lobbyists in print this, notwithstanding notwith-standing their flagrant activities and intercourse during the session. Things do look different in I print. Then, too, some of the lobbyists -were said to resent the use of the term: "log-roller." Why so, we cannot even conjecture. It might be that they are ashamed of the company they keep; tout even so, this ought to work in both directions. Perhaps the title wasn't sufficiently dignified to appeal to their delicate taste, and to their highly developed sense of the propriety of things. If so, then hereafter we promise to dignify them by naming them outright when we have occasion to refer to them. At. any rate, we have now chosen a title that ought to dignify all concerned. Unfortunately, it doesn't. Whoever would use the term "statecraft," "state-craft," in the sense of soberly defining the work of the legislature to date, owes the public an apology. And so standing convicted, as we do, in our own. sight the explanation is that we simply use this term to tickle the vanities of the lawmakers, with the hope that it will trick some of them into reading this page from top to bottom. THE prohibition measure still continues to hold the center of the stage. After detaining the pet measure, the Young bill, in committee for several days, on the pretense of giving it the careful consideration it deserved, it was reported hack to the House on Friday a week ago and made special order for the following Monday. Then on the following day, Saturday, the crew in charge of the (bill decided to hurry up matters mat-ters a bit; so they suspended the rules and had the bill read immediately. Having previously had its third reading, the measure came 'before the House at 3 o'clock Monday afternoon for final consideration and passage. Twenty-four hours later it passed that body by a vote of .45 to 1. Aside from a few minor changes, the bill was not materially amended. It carried with it to the Senate all of its drastic features, including ithe commissionership and the "one-half of one per cent" definition of an intoxicant. A determined deter-mined effort was made by a number of the conservative con-servative members to strike both of these features feat-ures from the bill, but the gag rule was invoked and the radical majority rode over them roughshod. rough-shod. This, too, in face of the governor's warning warn-ing that he would not sign the measure if it created the .office of commissioner of prohibition, prohibi-tion, "not only for economic reasons, but for others." THE Republican legislatures of the old days were fairly adept at the art of railroading measures through, but fancy them rushing a prohibition pro-hibition bill through the House in twenty-four hours. The record established by the Democrats must have caused the hearts of such old-line Republican Re-publican prohibitionists as Carl Badger, "Uncle Billy" Wilson, Joe Gannon, Conway Ashton, John Henrie, Orvil L. Thompson, and others of that old school of moral reformers, to turn, green, with envy. And still, notwithstanding their radical tendencies and the fact that this powerful aggregation aggre-gation could have put a prohibition bill through both houses in a two-hour session, if they chose to do so, they were infinitely more considerate of the rights of the minority than their Democratic Demo-cratic successors. They never .cracked the whip until the other side had been afforded a fair hearing; they never feared to thrash out the merits of the question on the floor of the house, and for this very reason they were ibetter lawmakers law-makers as time will prove. "PHE debate over the to ill in the House, if such it may be called, developed some Interesting bits of oratory. Representative Young of Salt Lake, who has seemed to think from the very outset that the whole burden of the undertaking rests upon his shoulders, intrepidly declared that "we must have a commissioner of prohibition to put the fear of God into the hearts of the officers that they will not wink at the law." On the other hand, our old friend, 'McKinney, wanted to know: "Who ever heard of a commissioner of murder? It's the same proposition as a commissioner com-missioner on prohibition. You insult every officer offi-cer elected in the state. You have a governor to enforce the law." For once we agree with McKinney, although he might have added in reply re-ply to-Young that somebody had already put the "fear of God" into the hearts of a majority of the legislators. THE restriction of the use of intoxicants for sacramental purposes brought forth a flood of high-sounding assentations. Again Mr. Young took occasion to admonish the House that "the use (of sacramental wines) has come from antiquity. an-tiquity. It is inconsistent that the godly should use the ungodly!" Great! but why sacrifice a good theologian to make a poor lawmaker? Bevan of Tooele took a more practical view of the ' question when he inquired: "Why should churches be privileged to use wine when we take the right away from a man to have a flask on the desert? Let's make all equal." That is good logic, and the gentleman from Tooele, who happens hap-pens to 'be a Socialist, is sailing true to his colors. But it remained for the lady from Salt Lake, Mrs. Grace Stratton-Airey, to solve the riddle, and she did so by putting the pointed question: "Why cannot these churches that want wine for sacramental purposes do as other churches have done use grape juice, the national na-tional drink?" It was a master stroke in advertising, adver-tising, and the lady is not only entitled to a congratulatory con-gratulatory message from Mr. Bryan, but a substantial sub-stantial chock from Welch, the grape juice manufacturer. man-ufacturer. THE discussion became so spirited at times that some of the members grew careless in their remarks. We suspect that the constituents of Cazier of Juab are preparing to lynch him when he returns home. This for the reason that in his defense of the commissionership provision of the bill, this gentleman ventured the assertion asser-tion that "Justices of the peace in my section, if applied to for a permit for alcohol, would ask you to bring hack a 'bucketful for them. We call them 'Jackass" of the peace out there." That finishes Brother Cazier, unless we miss our guess. By the way, we wonder if the gentleman from Juab doesn't know that the term "Jackass" might be sometimes applied to good effect to a certain type of lawmaker, whose stupidity can only be matched toy his disposition to charge other public officers with dereliction of duty? Also, when it comes to "braying" and an exhibition exhibi-tion of asinine ideas, we predict that the present members of the lower house could show a better batting average than the average run of justices of the peace. 1 il IT WAS singular, wasn't it, that notwithstand- f ing that a considerable number of the mem- -1 bcrs honestly opposed certain features of the bill, lal only one of them had the backbone to vote il against tho measure. When Jake Raleigh was IfH elected to the legislature, some people thought il it was a mistake; that in such high position PH Jake would find himself altogether out of place. llH They were partly right, for when you como to !' size them up in point of moral fibre and tho f.H courage of one's convictions, the gentleman from H Salt Lake is in lonesome company. He may not ',H be a master of the art of tho spoken word, and H it is quite possible that ho can handle a pick and rH shovel more gracefully than he can a law book; ' H hut even so, a man with his measure of stamina 'H and common sense not only serves a useful pur- t pose, 'but essentially decorates the high position H by virtue of certain rare qualities of character , not to be found in the makeup of tho average H legislator. This is saying a great deal but it Is jH based upon the certainty that here is one man H that will never stand convicted of moral cow- H ardice. H H IN our opinion, Speaker Tolton was plainly in H error the other day in sustaining a majority H vote on "the previous question." He Bhould not H have permitted himself to he guided iby the H ""printed rules," which contained an admitted er- H ror, when, he had the minute record of the House H and Robert's Rules of Order to substantiate him H in making tho proper ruling. He should have H held that a two-thirds vote was required to carry H tho motion for the previous question, citing the H authority already mentioned; and then allowed H the majority to appeal from the decision of tho, H chair. That would have placed the question H strictly upon its parliamentary merits, and would H have likewise enabled the chair to avoid any H semblance of a biased ruling. H As it was, the chair unwittingly became a jH party to a deliberate move to throttle the mi- H norlty, and the move was successful. It seems H strange that this particular rule was not cor-, rected at the time the copies were printed. Of M course, after the damage was done, the rule was 'H amended to correspond to its original outlines. M But "the point is, why wasn't this done imme- H diately upon the discovery of the 'printer's er- H ror?" In our opinion, this matter bore ugly ear- H marks, and was just another instance of some- H body's "fine Italian touch." M IT took the House just twenty minutes to pass M the McKinney resolution memorializing Con- gress to provide for the direct election of tho M president. That was going some, in view of the M fact that the question involved a drastic change H in tho basic structure of tho federal government. HI On a matter of such tremendous importance, tho H big brains in Congress would probably take a M number of days, if not weeks, in thrashing tho H question to fine chaff. But not so with our Utah H lawmakers. It just requires a few sweet words H and a sweep of the hand, and bing: tho bear is M shot. iFriend McKinney made a pretty little parlor H talk about tho rights of the people, but his chief H concern seemed to be the narrow shave Presl- H dent Wilson had of re-election, notwithstanding H his safe margin on the popular vote. The reso- H mtion might have passed in half the time had ., H not Representative Heckor desired to "change t'H (Continued on Page 8.) fi'H 1 A STUDY IN UTAH STATECRAFT (Continued from Page 3.) a comma to a, semi-colon;" or it might have been the other way about. We're not altogether certain. cer-tain. Then Brother Page had to get his oar in, and by the time he got through explaining how the founders of the republic sold out to the aris-tocracyA aris-tocracyA and( chained the plain people to the wheels of an autocratic government, there wasn't any doubt in the minds of those who heard him that our forefathers were a bunch of boneheads. And so, b unanimous action, the august body '' proceeded to improve upon the work of Washington Wash-ington and Hamilton and Jefferson, and all the other back numbers of their day. The scene was inspiring. If these twi gentlemen are really in earnest about genuine representative rule, they can use their time to better advantage by confining their efforts to matters closer home. Suppose, just for a starter, that they cut out all these postmortems post-mortems over the recent election and the founding found-ing of the republic, and boost an honest legisla- v J tive reapportionment bill; such as would give the people of the state their fair share of representa-tlon representa-tlon in the legislature. Then, if they Intend to I practice what they preach, suppose they have ' a rule limiting members to one speech on a measui e, and the speech to one minute in length. Somehow or other, it would seem that these two gentlemen are getting the so-called 'representa-" tive rule" of the people confused with the "rhe- , torical rule" of the legislators. j |
