The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1881-07-22
A MINERS COMMENTS.
A Silver Rsefer Expresses His
Ideas OF the Attempted As.
sasslnat1On, and of Quit
teau.
SILVER REEF. July JIG. 1881.

oliver REEF. July Is, 1881.
Editors Herald:
No event that has occurred since
the vile outrage that was perpe-
trated here last winter. has called
IOrth the general condemnation of
the people and press of Utah. as the
attempted assassination of the Pre-
sldent, and although the press has
not been as bitter in it's denuncia-
tlon of this act as on the first men
toned occasion, it may be accounted
for by the fact that in its notices of
that outrage it exhausted its vocabu-
larry of inYectiYe.
The first affair was considered a
shot at long distance at free govern
ment, but there is no mistaking the
second. The distance was as short
as might be, and the shot aimed di-
rectly at the heart, and the general
sentiment here is that the perpe-
traitor should be shackled and sent
back to Illinois or wherever he
came from.
We have anXiously waited to see
what the leading literary men of
the Coast had to say about it, and
are, If anything, surprised at the
mlldness of their censure, for not
wlthstanding we occasionally read
OF an assassination, killing Presi-
dents is not only unlimited States
it is smithsonian, un-Michigan
and inhuman.
The Tribune says it is the out
come of too many trying to live by
their wits, and it might have added
that it was the lack of wit which
made them try it,and that they often
employed what little they had to the
detriment of men who were willing
to produce their living; but this is
aside.
AS no one has hit upon the first
cause of this attempt at murder, it
deYolveS upon your correspondent
to enlighten the people, and, al
though the theory is not purely orr
ginal, it is the correct one, and
will be recognized as such.
The source of this crime is some an
cestors of the man Guitteau, prob
ably his grandmother, who was
lectures or an actress, perhaps, and
at some critical moment, when the
process of CESSATION was established,
has struck a happy pose and been
greeted by the plaudits of the crowd,
and in her bosom was awakened the
desire for admiration which.
through the intricate workings of
nature, has been by her transmitted
and has cropped out in her grand
son in a vitiated form into a thirst
for notoriety which has been the
mania of his life. His whole career
goes to prove this. He has been a
lecturer and preacher, and has
tried to buy newspaper, wherein
be might publish to the world the
kind of man he was, but failing to
obtain notice, has finally hit on the
novel idea of becoming somebody's
Brutus, and without question has
picked the most shining mark in the
world.
The wise men of the east are tax
ing their intellectual faculties re-
specting this mans sanity, when it
is plain 20 any average person that
to say be is sane is to make him out
a kind of Infamous hero, for no
sane man would expect to live ten
minutes after shooting the chief
magistrate of 5O,OOO,00O people
made so by their choice-in broad
daylight and in crowded depot.
This mans department since the
shooting has proven him the very
reverse of a hero, and nothing more
than a poor, little, cowardly, thin
Drained, effeminate person, who
should have been established in the
hosiery or millinery business: one
of those people who can
never, under any possible cir
cumstanceS do any good, but
not too contemplate to do harm
"a man by nature utterly untitled
for miner, and it is doubtful even
if he would pass successfully board
of eastern stockholders as a super
intendent. Now, if this man were
a foreigner, it would be as unfair
and unmanly to cast reprOach
through him on the country which
had the misfortune to give him
birth, as it is to claim that he is not
an American when he is one; as I'M
fair and unmanly as it is for any
party, or division of a party, to give
him the notoriety he seeks by at
taching any political significance to
his deed; for no country likes a mo-
nopOly of half wits, though there
are times when it does seem that the
chances for running against them IN
this are over average.
The first kilograms which were
received here relating TO this sad
dest of catastrophes, stated that at
the time of the shooting the Presi-
dent and Secretary Blaine were
walking arm in arm, and at the first
shot Secretary Blaine ran a few
steps and then returned. Now, sup
pose it had been one of the bottom
stratum Of society who was walk
ing with the Presidents miner
from Frisco, say-the chances are
that before Mr.. Guitteau had had
time to fire the second time he would
have been grappled and the wind
shaken out of him SO violently that
I, .-o,,l5 have haop oOTn n1otplV dis