I 2 GOODWIN'S WEEKLY
H Goodwins Weekly
H 11711 LISIII3D 12 VERY SATURDAY.
H eleventh Year
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j Lake City, Utah, U. S. A., as socond-
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j Utah.
H The GoodwIn'M Weekly 1ii11Ik1i1iik
H Coiniinuy.
H BURL ARMSTRONG .... Editor
B breakfast. And when ho was far
M enough to make emergence safe, tho
m woodpecker limped to the door of his
H domicile, looked at the distant hawk
H from whose clutches fluttered hero
H and there a sanguinary tail feather,
H looked back corroctingly at tno
H amused and yet timid younger wood-
H peckers, folt sorry for the wounded
H place where tho claws of the hawk
H had bit a little too sincerely, and re-
H marked to no one in particular:
H "Lost my tall, but I saved my life,
H by jingo!"
H And if any of you critical people
H will closely examine a departing
H woodpecker, you will find that'he
H hasn't much tail to speak or, oven to
H this day.
BOTH VICIOUS AND NEEDLESS.
H ' r-r-i he difforonco botwoen wise men
H J and tho other kind Is that tho
D wise mon can lenrn. And wise
H; men have had an excollont oppor-
H1 tunity to learn tho few good and
many bad points of tho now devices
B called Initiative, Referendum nad Ro-
H ' call. For the matter of that, whoop
H It up for Roosevelt if you want to,
B but don't believe ho will pormit u
( good country to bo spoiled by those
vicious, expensive and needless de-
i vices.
H ! Ho may not be entirely a wise
H man; but he is not the other kind.
H It is a bad habit of self-governing
H people to bellove they have done all
H tlmt is required of thorn when they
H make a law. They declare certain
H acts are illegal, and certain methods
B are to be followed, and thon they sit
B down and think tho cold letter in the
H books will bo more active in securing
B ; right and preventing wrong than live
Hr men themselves could be.
SThat is orror. When the voters of
America attend to their duties in tho
. good old way of tho primary, they
jBf need nothing by way of improvo-
Bf ment. As a matter of fact, they do
F, not, and never did, attond to their
1'. political duties. They scorned tho
f activities of the politician, and yet
g would not render ineffective the very
H methods they condemned. They felt
IflP lemselves superior to the politician,
HI"' udd yet permitted him to rule thorn.
jjl For that man does rule who secures
Hit the nomination of tho candidates he
H t
knows will do as ho wants done; will
most certainly servo the forces that
elevated him.
And It is a needless sacrifice of the
best elements in the citizenship of
tho nation, because tho voters op
posed to tho rule of the boss could
defeat the boss any time they would
go to tho primaries, and vote down
his pet delegation, and vote in a pet
delegation of their own. There al
ways are moro good men than bad in
every community. The politician is
in a ridiculous minority. Tho sever
est commentary on the protesting
element in the population Is that they
permit themselves to be beaten when
they have tho means of winning sure
ly in. their own hands.
So, having observed that, year
after year, the politicians nominate
men of whom the better people are
suspicious, or against whom tho bet
tor people have sure and convincing
evidonco. The people forget that 'tho
means of correcting Hie evil was in
their own hands, and listen to tho
charmer who talks about new meth
ods of government. In the present
ti-re, tho charmer is talking of the
initiative, the referendum and the re
call. And because the disgusted vot
ers didn't take tho trouble to attend
to their own governmental affairs
under the old system, they curiously
enough run to tho conclusion that
they will be automatically taken care
of by tho new.
Nothing of the kind will happen.
Tho new method, tho "Oregon idea,"
is tho most costly method of govern
mental management that has been
devised. It is tho most cumbersome.
It is tho most lamentably void of
good results.
Tho old way was the better way
providing tho people give it their at
tention. And if they don't do that
with the new, it will cortainly got
them nothing they failed to find in
tho old.
There is initiative enough in the
old primaries, if the voters will go to
thorn and discharge tho duties they
have accepted by the possession ot
American citizenship. Tho referen
dum by discussion, honest criticism
and free speech, Is better than any
juggling with the. battledore and shut
tlecock of methods devised by mod
ern political jugglers. And that re
call is ample which can retiro a bad
official at the end of his term.
If there is an official elected in
your party who has proved recreant
to his trust, you have tho means
within your hands of making clear to
him the peril of continuance In that
course. If there Is a bad nomination
by your party, it is tho fault of tho
good people who did not make his
nomination impossible which they,
could have done by attending their
pi binaries and voting against him.
And If you don't believe this Is
true, ask the next twonty mon ot
your party, as you cnance to meet
thorn in the street, who is their dis
trict chairman; and eighteen of them
will tell you they dc "t know. They
never know when a primary is to be
hold. They never know where. They
4I Shall We Bunch 'Em? &
WELL, maybe congress will not make an appropriation for the
maintenance of the assay office in Salt Lake and for a num
ber of other assay offices in various parts of the country. That
might be, and yet the government at Washington still lives, and good
crops ripen.
The local assay office has been a good thing for interests in Utah
other than those of the people who have drawn salaries. For example,
there is the Mercur mine. Twelve hundred men have worked there
through the past year, have drawn fair wages, and have supported tf
families. The town, with its business, of course, has"been entirely de- '
pendent on the Mercur mine. Yet the company made less than nine V
dollars clear profit out of their immense investment"their boundless
activity, within that time.
And they made that solely because they didn't have to send their
product to the mint in Denver. If they had, the express charges would
have eaten up that nine dollars, and many more and the mine would
have been closed. That means the men would have been thrown out
of employment ; that the town would have been abandoned, and that
the whole Mercur district would have been practically obliterated
as a producing region unless some stroke of fortune not to be an
ticipated should uncover a quality and a quantity of ore that would
avert the calamity.
And what is true of Mercur is true in degree of all the rest of its
kind in Utah.
At the same time, wc all want to be reasonable, ancl it is just
possible the cost of the local assay office is too much for the nation
to pay, even granting and considering the case of Mercur. Maybe,
on the principle that the interests of the whole nation ought to out
weigh the argument of life or death to any particular interest, the
congress is right in causing the Salt Lake assay office to be aban
doned. We must all consider the general good. We must not be selfish.
We must not permit personal considerations, however press; , to
influence us to ask a profitless sacrifice of our neighbors.
So that, adopting this rule eminently a safe and sound one
the government at Washington, aforesaid, might go further and not
fare worse. Here are a number of other federal offices which, so far
as Utah is concerned, are devised and maintained for one of two pur
poses, and we have not yet determined which. Either they are for
the maintenance of a body of capable and clever gentlemen efficient
in the control of the people, or they are for the relief to the extent
of salary and expense of the pressure on the sides of the treasury
vaults at Washington heretofore mentioned.
In either case, the rule of the assay office might with profit to the
general public be employed. Please to understand that this is no
argument for a diminution of the service of the people. Far be it.
But since the chief duty of either of the federal officers could occupy
no more than eleven minutes of time on the first Tuesday following
the first Monday before payday; and as the duty then consists in
signing excellent nameb with more or less legibility to salary ac
counts, why not have Judge Powers or Judge King or Judge Moyle,
or some other judge high in the councils of the Democratic party,
indicate to the Democratic house from whom air blessings of this
sort flow to cut off the sustaining appropriation for the collector
of internal revenuej for example; and for either the receiver or the
register of the land office, and. for the surveyor general, and for the
United States marshal, and entrust all their duties to the postmaster
and whichever one of the two land-office experts might be selected
to remain on the job?
Maybe that is a long sentence, but it will be longer before most
of the gentlemen mentioned indorse the suggestion.
never know tho best way to assemble
tho voters of their kind who could
be relied on to crush tho scheming
and unholy politicians. And yet
they wonder why totally Impossible
people get into office.
But If tluv have been so indiffer
ent to their duties under the old sys
tern, what good reason is there for
believing thoy will do any better un
der the new? Becauso, It must bo
remembered that we of America have
responsibilities as well as privileges.
Wo won a war against a king, and
declared there never again should be
a king In Columbia. Wo would gov
ern ourselves, and give this republic
to our children the one land beneatn
tho sun where equal rights to all and
special privileges to none would for
ever bo tho watchword.
That implies an obligation that can
not be honorably Ignored. And the
men who didn't go to tho primaries
havo ignored It. If thoy will considor
the matter for a moment, thoy will
realize that they and not tho old sys
tem havo boen to blame.
UTAH SETS A GOOD EXAMPLE.
WE desire to commend to the at
tention of Governor Johnson and
state executives elsewhere the
procedure followed at Salt Lake City
Tuesday in regard to tho carrying out
of tho death sentence of a murdorei-.