Goodwin's weekly : a thinking paper for thinking people. [volume], January 16, 1909, Image 1

About Goodwin's weekly : a thinking paper for thinking people. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1902-1919

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I I
I Goodwin's Weekly. I
! Vol. XIV SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, JANUARY 16, 1909. No. 1 1 I
' I i . ! . ,
The Reason
A GOOD, pious friend asks us why we oppose
the movement of the Mormon church chiefs
I ' for prohibition, and says he had always
thought that whatever good thero was in Mor-
i monism we were wf'ling, and even anxious, to
give credit for.
-j " And that is true. The trouble is, this move-
jf mn. is not intended for good. The motive be-
! hind it is altogether mercenary and insincere, and
jj vindictive; no real prohibition is intended. The
! Co-operative Mercantile Institution and Apostle
f v Reed Smoot make too much money through the
V sale of liquors to want to give it up; there is no
x intention that they shall,
j The movement in this city is simply because
I I the church has lost control of the city and its
' " portion of the tithing which in the old days,
through the city government, came to the
church. And that is the only secret. The move
ment is aimed especially at the American party
and those behind it do not care what damage it
t may bring upon the city, what losses to property
owners, what prostration to trade may follow,
The Mormon church has many desires, but the
one desire above all others is for political power,
j and it is afraid if Salt Lake City remains outside
J of its rule for a few years a spirit of liberty will
r' grow up in the hearts of the people of this state
" which will be a menace to its political power in
. u the state, and this movement is on the same line
that was the prosecution of Chief Sheets. The
church had nothing against Chief Sheets; the
prosecuting attorney knew there was nothing
against him, but no trieu, anu me snernr ineu,
and the Deseret News tried with-all the power in
them, and by the use of all the county money
they pleased to use to make a case against him,
the purposo being to throw discredit upon the
party to which he belonged. It is the same way
' with this movement for prohibition.
The Mormon church chiefs do not want prohi-
s bition, they do not intend to have it, because the
next thing to political power which they covet is
money, and they are making too much money
l) through the sale of liquor to wish to stop it. The
' president and a large stockholder of Zion's Co-
operative Mercantile Institution, is the president
I, of the church, and no one who is familiar with his
I life history can point to any place where he ever
. surrendered any possible chance to make money
for himself.
h It is the dishonesty of the move that wo are
" fighting in the first place; in the second place, if
,' it were honest, it would be bad policy, because
! f it would not produce prohibition and it would
f v bring lasting injury upon vast property rights,
- r and upon the business of the state; that is, Ave
jj, mean that law would bring these losses and then
the law would not be enforced. Laws are not en
forced against public opinion In Utah, and never
Vk ' have been, and the public opinion of this state is
f a opposed to prohibition.
' I A law of that kind passed now, besides all the
it
j trouble it would make and all the losses that
would ensue, would help to make sneaks of men.
' v Divine grace is not enough to "make men give up
' ! their weaknesses and become saints, and if our
I friend will show us one man formerly bad who
has been made good by statute, then we will give
j up the case.
i.
v
Respectfully Submitted
GENTLEMEN of the Legislature: In consid
ering legislation intended to cripplo and
handicap Salt Lake City, please do not for
get that whatever hurts Salt Lake will hurt all
Utah. We speak of this because certain meas
ures will be introduced for your consideration,
the real f object of which, no matter what the pre
tense may be, will bo principally Intended to crip
ple the onward progress of this city. When they
come up you will not forget that some of the out
side counties draw back from the state treasury
more money on account of their school fund than
they pay in altogether. When they cripple Salt
Lake they merely reduce the amount which they
can draw back from taxes paid by this city.
Again, Salt Lake is the market for the beef,
turkeys, chickens, pigs, eggs, vegetables, fruit and
grain of the county. Just now the producers In
the county are receiving better pay for their
products than any other farmers in the world are
receiving for like products.
If Salt Lake Is crippled the rebound of the blow
will be upon the producers of the state.
You can all estimate, at least approximately,
what difference It will be to the men in the coun
try in Utah, whether Salt Lake has 200,000 people
next year, or whether there Is a shrinkage In the
present population, and Instead of an increase of
$5,000,000 in the taxable property of the city, or
a shrinkage of $3,000,000.
In his inaugural address, Governor Spry asked
for a closer walk among the people of this state.
Will a body blow at the chief city of the state
tend to create good feeling?
Evil Premonitions
THE NEW YEAR opened filled with promise
for Salt Lake City. Reasoning from every
business standpoint, there was not a cloud
in the sky. The resources from which the city
draws Its natural strength were all in superb
form, and yielding revenues as never before; the
work under way, which in three years has trans
formed the city, was being supplemented dally
with new work and new enterprises; the rhythm
of the mighty chorus of industry was swelling
in volume every day, and every friend of the city
was exultant.
No cloud has yet come except the meeting of
tho legislature and the apprehension of what It
may do before It adjourns. We still have hope
that the natural business Instincts of the mem
bers of that body, and the restraint which their
oath of office should place upon them, will pre
vent any legislation which on Its face would
show that it was aimed specifically at Salt Lake
City, and was enacted for tho purpose of slaugh
tering its material Interests.
Wo say this because there are premonitions
usually of both the cyclone and the earthquake,
and so there are premonitions In the moral and
political world when some specific deviltry is in
tended, and somo of those premonitions are being
manifested already, not In the Legislature, but on
the outside, and wo greatly fear that they will
grow Into alarming proportions 'n the next sixty
days, and that the intention is that the storm,
when it comes, shill strike Salt Lake City.
1
Both Inspired H
GEORGE WASHINGTON and Richard Ark- 'H
wrlght were born in the same year. The H
world's thought of Washington Is of tne H
one who, when a new era of human rights and M
liberty was to come to men, was tho central ma-
jestlc figure of the mighty drama, and his name M
has been upon millions of lips every day since he l
lived; It will be echoed from millions of lips dally jfl
to the end of time. M
But not one man in a thousand can tell who M
Richard Arkwrlght was or what he did to dls- M
tinguish him from the millions of his generation M
whose names are already forgotten. M
But if Washington and his compeers gave a M
new idea of human liberty to mankind, Richard M
Arkwrlght made It possible for poor men to' be' M
decently and cheaply clothed, and that Is one of M
the mightiest factors' of civilization. As a learned M
writer recently said: "The loom on which Queen M
Elizabeth had her lobes woven was almost pre- M
clsely like that on which the robes of Queen M
Semiramis were woven three thousand years be- M
It was Richard Arkwrlght that changed that. M
He spent wellnigh a lifetime on the work; he was M
mobbed as one who would, for gain, take work fl
from the poor; his machines were destroyed, even H
the courts were hostile to him, but he persevered, H
because of his work tens and hundreds of thou- H
sands of poor people have ever since obtained M
profitable employment; because of it Great Brit- H
aln became the greatest manufacturing nation on H
earth, and has drawn to herself immeasurable H
wealth; and, because of his work, for a few dol- H
lars, the modern woman can robe herself in gar- H
ments that would have been the envy of both fl
Semiramis and of old Queen Bess. H
One of the greatest educators In enlighten- H
ment Is clothing. It distinguishes the civilized H
from the barbarous man; In tho old days the H
status of nations was gauged by the- splendor of H
their courts; in every town the way any proml- H
nent lady dresses is the concernment of a hun- H
dred other ladles, and men are measured more H
or less by their clothes. , H
This gives an idea of what Richard Arkwrlght
did for mankind. It was he who made cotton H
"king, and by doing that he would have undone, in H
our Republic, what Washington and the other H
fathers accomplished, had not God been watching H
and turned the danger aside. H
Indirectly his work has clothed and warmed
millions of the world's poor; Indirectly and dl- H
rectly, It has plsslbly done more for the comfort
and elevation of the poor than any other one
thipg. There wore no mistakes made when George H
Washington and Richard Arkwrlght were born in H
the same year. Contemplating his life and his
work, it seems a curious truth that with every H
great advance of the world, or in every great H
crisis of the world, the man is sent to perform
some especially needed work. Watt came with
the steam engine, just when tho freedom of man- H
kind hung more upon Great Britain than on all be-
sides, and when her people needed something be-
side the soil on which to live and to create
wealth. Then Arkwrlght came to give the steam H
engine profitable employment.
When steam began to draw tho nations nearer ,
together, thon it was time "to put a girdle round IH