Goodwin's weekly : a thinking paper for thinking people. [volume], August 28, 1909, Image 1

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

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Goodwin's Weekly, I
Vol. XV SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, AUGUST 28, 1909. No.9 H
Moses Thatcher
I T IS moat difficult to give a clear idea of what
J Moses Thatcher was in lite, in arfew lines
in a newspaper. He was a most winsome
man personally, a natural orator, a subtle thinker,
1 a natural leader of men. He failed in his am
bition whdn it was not right that he should fail,
and our belief is that his natural sense of honor
and the sincerity of his religious convictions
were what closed his life when he was falsely as
sailed; when personal hate set the tongues to
wagging, that he was exceeding his privileges un
der his religious obligation; that whatever the
reasons given for pursuing him may have been,
j, the real reason was the hate of one who knew
how easy it would be for Mr. Thatcher to de
nounce him and give the reasons, but who trusted
to Mr. Thatcher's loyalty to his church, to prevent
his speaking. However this may be, In the su
preme moment Mr. Thatcher failed and without
plaint took up his burden and died with his lips
still sealed.
Manj times, thinking of him, there has come
to mind the image seen by Nebuchadnezzar in
his dream, the head of gold, the breast and arms
of silver, the belly and thighs of brass, the legs
of iron, but the feet part of iron and part of clay.
There was nothing wrong until the clay in the
feet crumbled and the whole image was shat
tered. The raci of Logan will always hold his mem
ory in deop reverence. He was a sterling man,
he had the head of gold, the breast and arms of
silver, but his feet had with the iron a mixture of
common clay and because of this his life's just
ambitions weie shattered. He was anatural
American; he had an American's just ambition;
we believe that above all else he desired to see
this church and people in full accord, with the
Great Republic, and that he carried to his grave
a vast regret that thin cannot be. He was one
of the foremost men who ever joined the Mor
mon church We believe he was sincere in that
and that the 1 egret of his life was that the in
stitution would not come into perfect accord with
the nation.
We also believe that when he became a can-
i didate for senator his honest belief was that the
promise of the church chiefs that they would no
lpnger interfere in the politics of Utqh, would
be kept, and that the charge made against him
that he was a candidate without permission, was
trumped up to cover the personal hate of an en-
f emy, high in the priesthood for religion does
"" not kill the natural fierce passions of men, even
J when they become high priests who was deter-
mined that the high honor should never be Mr.
j Thatcher's; that the same influence deposed him
from the Apostleship. ,
That he never denounced these enemies and
made clear the real facts, was because of the
vows he had taken, which vows bound him even
, when he saw the insincerity and wickedness of
some who had taken the same obligations. He
lias at last found peace and he goes to his grave
the foremost man of his creed in this generation
Took a Risk
THE Argonaut half facetiously tells the peo
ple of Seattle that they took a big risk in
erecting a colossal statue to J. J. Hill; that
the only safe way is wait until a man is good and
dead before taking any risk, in permanently hon
oring him. In a most serious sense this is true,
thore is no telling. It not only goes to the eroc-
Hon of monuments, but to the naming of children.
For fnstancO, we suspect there were 100 per cent
more children named Theodore in 1903 than there
were in 1908. There is danger, even after death,
for it is a habit with many people to reverse the
sentiments of their own countrymen every two or
threp generations. Indeed it is the way of the
world, one generation burns a herltic at the stake, ;
the descendents of those same executioners a lit
tle later build shrines and hail as a saint the
martyr.
Then the wicked even come in for their In
nings' if we only wait long enough. There is a
society in Boston that every year meets and has a
sort of memorial service for Charles of England,
whom Old matter-of-fact Cromwell thought behead
ing was good medicine for. The Borgias have
their defenders, and one ingenius writer makes
out a good case for Judus Iscariot, by showing
first that he was the most trusted of the desciples,
for it was given him to carry the sack. That is,
ho received the contributions and paid the bills,
so when offered the thirty pieces of silver he took
them, believing firmly that the Master could by
a word paralyze the force that came to arrest Him,
and they would be the thirty pieces of silver ahead.
So it is not impossible, at least not quite im
"possible, to imagine a day in the future, when the
Federal Bunch in Utah of today, will be singled
out by some lunatic of a historian and pictured
as strong mon and true, who, at great personal
sacrifice, held watch and ward over the politics
of Utah and to keep 'bad men out of office, held
the offices themselves.
We do not think the men of Seattle made
any mistake in honoring a master spirit of indus
try, who linked their city in bands of steel to the
gieat east, and by his ships made of their city a
signal station, to lure the ships and trade of the
orient and the islands of the sea to their port. But
we agree with the Argonaut they took a risk.
A Leaf ol History
IN a current magazine, Mr. Forrester writes on
.. the theme: "If You Were to Resign, Would
You Be Elected?" In the course of the ar
ticle he cites the caso of Roscoe Conkllng, the
substance of the article being that Mr. Conkling,
having quarreled with President Garfield about a
matter of appointments, resigned the senatorship
in a passion of resentment and appealed to his
constituents in New York for vindication through
a re-election; the legislature of New York owing
almost everything to him; that his name was sub
mitted and after much balloting he was defeated
by a comparatively obscure man and died of a
bioken heart. The facts are these: Mr. Conk
ling tried to carry the Chicago convention and
have General Grant nominated, but failed. John
Sherman was the most prominent candidate and
Mr. Garfield went to Chicago as his friend, placed
him in nomination in a speech of great brilliancy,
but when the balloting began, theie was one vote
for James G. Garfield. The second and third bal
lots were the same. Then the vote for Garfield
begun to grow, when the vote became so large
as to be significant, Garfield made a speech, say
ing he could not accept tho, nomination if it were
given him. A little loter he received the needed
votes and did accept. Tho Grant stalwarts were
beaton, so was Sherman. Then the campaign be
gan, and up to October everything presaged a
Democ atic victory At that time Maine voted in
October. Mr. Blaine and other prominent speak-
ers went there and did their best, only to be M
beaten, and returned baffled and discouraged. M
Then Grant went to Conkling and said: "Come, M
we must try to save this election." They started M
west together and spoke in all the great central H
northern states. That Is, Grant attended all the ' IH
meetings and Conkling did the speaking. It was
the most triumphant campaig' ever made by any JA
two men in any country. In a week the whole face , M
of the campaign was changed. Mr. Garfield owed H
his election directly to Roscoe Conkling. After H
the Inauguration, when spoken to about app'olnt- I H
ments for New York, Conkling made but one re- H
quest, which was that a certain man should not H
be given the cojlectorship of New York. H
One Sunday night tho President sent for Conk- H
ling. Conkling went and had in his pocket a score H
of applications for office sent him by his New ' H
York friends. ' H
The meeting lasted until midnight. When t jH
Conkling! was leaving the President said to him, ! H
"When it comes to making New York nominations, H
I shall make none without consulting you." When H
the senate mot on Tuesday noon, a list of New H
York appointments were sent in by the President, H
and heading them was the name of the man for ' H
collector of cuctoms in New York which Conk- H
ling had especially asked should not be nominated. H
Then Conkling said that to hold his place in
the senate would bring down upon him the scorn .
of the men of New York who had placed their I H
interests and hopes in his hands. He sent his H
resignation to the Governor of New York and gave, I
as his reason that ho had been outraged and his, 4JB
friends betrayed. Cll
To go a little back, when Mr. Greeley was nom- fll
inated by tho Democrats in 1872, the New York vl
Tribune, the Chicago Tiibune, the Springfield Re-
publican, all strong Republican papers, went over
and tried to elect him. In 1881, when Conkling !-
resigned, George Wm. Curtis, the editor of Har. r
per's Weekly, joined with these and others to de- J M
feat Conkling. It has always been understood 1
that it was Whitelaw Reld, working in his own k
and Mi. Blaine's interest, that caused the Presl- H
dent to betray Mr. Conkllng. The lies told by Hl
their journals opposing Conkllng wero never nl
equaled; Conkllng was defeated. He was of course t j
chagrined, but not broken hearted. His friend, U
Judge Falger, was a candidate for governor and
was beaten because the friends of the goodie fjl
goodies (tho Tribune, Harper's Weekly et al) re- fiH
mained away from the polls and gave Mr. Cleve- 'M
land the unparalleled majority which made him H
the logical candidate for president in 1881. In H
that vear the friends of Conkllng remained away 'jH
from the port's which gave tho electoral vote of H
New "York to Cloveland. When Conkllng was a H
candidate for re-election, he was called a spoils- H
man nnd boss. When tho change In the control IH
of tho custom-house came it was found that there IH
were just two men thore who had obtained places IH
through Mr. Conkling's influence one was a crip- IH
pled old soldlei, the other a man who, in saving H
a young woman's life, was so crippled that he IgH
could not do any hard work. At the same time IH
thirty-three healthy citizens were found there who IH
had obtained their places through the influence of H
George William Curtis; never was a great states- H
man so shamefully used as was Roscoe Conkllng; IH
never did a state so disgrace itself as did New H
York when It refused to make his quarrel Its own. H
He practiced his profession for several years and 9
on the lSlh of April, 1883, died from the effects H
of the great blizzard of a few days pievlous, and H
died without one stain on his high name M
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