Show ott gsg JUDGE HOWELLS ADDRESS judge howells How ellB address in the fourth ward meeting house sunday evening was waz a remarkable statement bearing on local affairs in that the judge who presided at the trial of the ogden councilmen has added his judgment to that of others in an exoneration ot of tho the men charged with at accepting illegal fees prior to the trial of the cases the salt lake papers carried carrie 1 on a cam laign of vilification of the city administration openly charging graft and branding the councilmen as gr grotters grafters grat when the accused were declared guilty gu it of taking illegal fees those papers exulted in what they proclaimed was a confirmation of their libelous bolous ll articles now the judge of that court in a public speech says among the clouds which dim our political horizon none non Is fraught with more danger than the prevalence of corruption in office I 1 thank god that locally wo we have no such curse and I 1 speak advisedly mindful of the acou nations sat ious which have been made against come some of our public officers and of the trials which I 1 have conducted upon those accusations but after hearing all the facts in relation to them aelter abed time ume and again and viewing them as I 1 would any other cases unbiased by pred prejudice udice I 1 am still able ablo to say with all assurance that not only is there no reason to believe that these men were guilty of grafting in any sense that the term Is used but that on the contrary there 11 la every reason to believe belleve they were not guilty of that offense it IB Is true that they rec received elved more salary than the courts my own among them have said they were entitled to receive but that simply means that they did not correctly interpret the statutes or rather that they interpreted them differently from what the courts bave since interpreted them but we must remember that hindsight Is easier than foresight and simply because these men made a mistake they are not on that account criminals especially pec ally tally when there Is not only no evidence that they were actuated by dishonest motives but all the testimony shows that they acted conscientiously judge howell in the foregoing says there was nothing more than a technical offense committed that the councilmen were not guilty of an intentional tent ional wrong that Is to exactly what this paper has said and having that conviction tills this paper defended the good name of tha the cun councilmen cilmon but the law Is a most peculiar thing sometimes though these men of honor and standing in this community did no wrong of which they were con 9 a court ousts busts them from office and the they y are forever classed among the grafters drafters gr an odium most unbearable the law perhaps Is mandatory in binl prescribing punishment for an offense of that kind it it Is then the law is in conflict with common sense and common justice judge howell in openly declaring his conviction that the councilmen were not culpable docs does much to lift from the convicted the stain of wrongdoing and his hifa words at some future time may prove to be a complete defense for the children of any one of those men when some one hurls the accusation that their father was a grafter |