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Show TEMPTING OUR PUBLIC OFFICIALS. Persona active and prominent in state affairs were heard the other day discussing the exposures of thefta of public funds which have occurred in recent months. The jist of their remarks was that Utah pays niggardly nig-gardly salaries to its public oficials holding offices of great trust, and tacitly seems to understand that these email salaries wDl no doubt be boosted by thefts and chicanery of various sorts. The salary of the state treasurer is three thousand dollars per year. The salary of Governor' Dern is five hundred dollars per month. When it is figured that living conditions are different in Salt Lake than in the rural towns and that expenses are necessarily higher, together with the fact that there is a . certain social position to be maintained which entails considerable con-siderable financing, it is to be wondered that any but a rich, or well-to-do, man will seek public office in Utah. When Utah provides its officials with decent salaries salar-ies which will not leave them harrassed by financial difficulties, dif-ficulties, and also provides frequent and irregular checks and audits, only then will Utah's skirts be entirely clean. When that millenium is reached, so will temptations tempta-tions to easy grafting be removed and immediate and proper justice can be dealt out to those who violate a public pub-lic trust. We thoroughly believe in this argument so advanced,, admitting at the same time that it is a viewpoint which few of the public, including ourselves, have taken. |