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Show WHAT HURTS SALT LAKE. For over ten years which the writer dare count, there has been on sale at various places in this city libelous pictures and souvenirs of Ltah, gross exaggerations ex-aggerations .of Mormon life and customs of early times. Some of the places where their presence should be. excluded are the very ones selected for exhibition and sale; for instance, the better class -of hotels and news depots, patronized by the traveler whose visit to Utah extends not over a day or two. Unable to verify or disprove by observation observa-tion all that he has heard. about Utah in the east to the discredit of its people, the transient buys these pictures and lugs them along in his baggage. He is gone; and the next we hear is a luridstory told of Utah's degredation, exploited in some newspaper news-paper or cheap. rn.aga.zine. Tho pictures substantiate substanti-ate the story. Why not ? they were bought in Salt -Lake and at one of its principal hotels. Since the turning down of Salt Lake on the vote for permanent headquarters of the mining congress, con-gress, aggravated by the insults heaped upon its delegates" and the people they represented, at Portland Port-land last week, a few of our citizens have put their heads together. Introspection is more essential than retrospection! Those libelous pictures! Had they not a great deal to do with creating a hostile feeling towards Utah? Strange we never thought of it before. And yet, every trip a Utah man made east, at . every place he stopped he was an object of curiosity. curi-osity. Mormon or non-Mormon, it made no difference. differ-ence. No less than a dozen wives! And was his head flat on top; and where did he leave his whiskers? whis-kers? The writer was actually asked such questions ques-tions by sincere believers at a social gathering in Chicago during the World's fair. We are glad to see the Tribune initiating a vigorous vig-orous campaign again? the exhibition and sale of the libelous pictures, because, years ago. many of them were undoubtedly drawn from imagination, inspired by. its editorial writing!. From no other paper in Utah could tho same effect proceed. This is what the Tribune aid the other day on libelous souvenirs and how they hurt Salt Lake: To what extent Salt Lake's chances of acquiring the permanent home of the American Mining congress were injured and how far the advertising of our attractions at-tractions is offset by the souvenir protographs sold to tourists can only be surmised, but there is no doubt that incalculable harm has been wrought by theso pictorial misrepresentations. "When a tourist buys a souvenir postal card or photo at Denver the subject is usually one of the prides of the state in point of beauty or interest. When the same tourist comes to Salt Lake and buys a pouvenlr the one generally taken Is of the grossest description. Thousands of these photos purporting to represent Salt Lake ate annually sent out from this city and there can be no question that they play as important part in keeping alive the false idea of the state. The other day at the news stand of a leading hotel ho-tel a Tribune reporter saw thirty-six pictures and postals sold.. They were as follows: "Mormon Family. Farmington," eleven: "The Empty Pillow,"'. six; "This Shop to Let," nine; "Tho First among the Women;" ten. These pictures were ..first published about thirty years ago and have been ready sellers ever since. True, there are many colored postals of the Salt Palace, Pal-ace, Beehive and Amelia houses and a very bad likeness of Brlgham Young, but the libelous ones arc the best sellers. The house of the Mormon family was taken in 186S, and probably it was at Farmington for it pictures pic-tures poverty, the homespun, wretched hovel and badly dressed people. It has been through so many photographic processes that it makes the women look like savages and the real legend is obliterated. But this photo goes broadcast throughout the world as a representative Mormon home and family. "The Empty Pillow" is from a cartoon in 1877 by J. Keppler. the famed cartoonist, and was published at the time of the leader's death in one of the eastern east-ern magazines. The others are also vulgar cartoons. They are for sale at almost every news stand in the city and at many of the leading book stores. Thousands of them go out with each year and they certainly do their share towards keeping alive the acceptt'3 idea of Salt Lake, to the detriment of this city and state. Local people understand the cards, but the foreigners for-eigners do not. The pioneer shanty of Farmington is taken as a sample of the average house of the day, and no thought is given to the fact that on Capitol hill in this city is a mansion built by a Mormon which is' the peer of any house between Omaha and San Francisco. - Thus, while Denver is flooding the world with colored col-ored pictures of the columbine, the mines, the royal gorges and canyons, Denver's leading buildings, Pike's peak and the rest. Utsh sends out as its representative rep-resentative scenes pictures like these. Xo consideration considera-tion is given to the Moab natural bridge, the sego lily, the famed Uintah range. Old Xebo which is as grand a mountain as Pike's peak the mines of a dozen camps arid so on. Nothing but the Mormon pictures, -which the postal authorities could in a moment mo-ment prevent from being sent through the mails, and a few of the well worn scenes about the city. And yet the very men whose business-it is to help build up Utah are daily selling the pictures which damn their own home. |