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Show I HE RETURNS TO UTAH. n . Some one had started the rumor that Frank J. Cannon, formerly of Ogden, had passed away; that he had moved to Denver where there was no hierarch or other familiar objects of his dovotion and he had died of ennui. But the report, evidently is without foundation founda-tion as the Salt Lake papers announce that Frank, with his shock of hair and debonair ways, is again in Zion, having traveled back to his old haunts with the heavily-weighted mission of reforming Utah. To our best recollection, this is the third appearnce on the stage of Frank J. in the role of a slayer of the Hierarch, and a savior of the Mormon people, and each time heretofore the former gladiator has had a tremndous struggle to save himself. We are told that "Everybody's" Magazine is about to publish a series of articles by Frank Cannon, "exposing the miserable conditions con-ditions of the people of Utah," and that Mr. Cannon is accompanied to Utah by J. O'Hara Cosgrave, the editor, and Harvey J. O'Higgins, a special writer, who are here to confirm that which the Utah man charges. Mr. Cosgrave is quoted as saying: "I have come to Salt Lake to consult with certain prominent citizens of Utah upon the matters contained in a series of articles that have been written by ex-Senator Frank J. Cannon and accepted for publication in 'Everybody's' Magazine. "These articles are of an autobiographical nature. . They nar-rate nar-rate the events leading up to the procuring of Utah's statehood and explain the part taken by ex-Senator Cannon and others in these events. They recount the pledges given by the Mormon hierarchy to the nation in order to obtain statehood, and expose, step by step, the subsequent violation of those pledges. They constitute a direct accusation of treachery and bad faith against many of the present leaders of the Mormon church. "While I was in Denver a year ago, investigating charges made by the public utility corporations against Judge Ben. B. Lindsey, prior to the publication of 'The Beast and the Jungle,' ex-Senator Cannon was introduced to me by Judge Lindsey. I spent several evenings with Mr. Cannon and heard his story of the betrayal of Utah. I was deeply impressed by what he told me. Bad as were the Colorado conditions which we were about to expose, the situation in Utah appeared to be much worse. Mr. Cannon described a people peo-ple misled and tyrannized over by a political and financial priestcraft, and the plight of these people seemed to me without a parallel in any American community and only equaled by the state of affairs in Russia. "The most glaring offense against the civilization of the country and the most shameless violations of the statehood pledges was the apparently authorized resumption of the practice of polygamy, which I, in common with most American's, believed had been abandoned aban-doned by the Mormon church. Moreover, a connection was shown between the Mormon church companies and the great financial interests inter-ests of the East, whose exploitation of the country has been fought by 'Everybody's' in the series of exposures with which our magazine maga-zine is identified. "This seemed a public cause in which the magazine might do an honest service. The work has been undertaken by us in that spirit. The articles will run for about ten months." With a public announcement that Salt Lake is overrun with the lowest of dangerous criminals, and with magazines in the East portraying por-traying the villainy of the entire population of Utah, certain it .9 we arc about to receive the most undesirable notoriety ever inflicted on the people of a commonwealth. Our only regret is that Salt Lake, the hotbed from which emanates these foul odors, is not in a state segregated from the rest of Utah, where its bitter fights could harm only the authors of the defamations. The one great mistake invariably made by these sensationalists is that they drag into their articles the people of all Utah, without distinction, and convey to the outside world the impression that there is no manhood with honor and integrity and no womanhood with virtue and refinement in this state. There is some small effort, in the way of apology, at drawing a line between the good and the bad, and yet this qualifying is in itself intended to convey the idea of fairness on the part of the defamers and to open the way to the confidence of those who might prove skeptical were they presented with bitter tirades unrelieved by an occasional condescension. Utah, no doubt, has its problems to solve and abuses which need correcting, but Utah will never be purified by these indiscriminate attacks on the people as a whole. |