Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-04-24
SQUILLS.

A certain morning contemporary, and
which, for the sake of clearness and
defniteness, and that it may not be con-
founded with another morning contem-
porary, we shall designate as Secundus,
has a long and touching tale to tell this
morning of how "by the persistent de-
mands for Justice by devoted men IN
Utah, the Poland law and the Edmunds
law were finally wrung from Congress. "
Now this Tale of Tub does not say to
what the devoted men have been deVot-
ing themselves, and our Utah climate
does not agree with favorable conjectures
in their behalf Ii it is necessary to re.
sort to conjecture to find out what the
deUoted men have been chiefly engaged in,
conjecture alone shall be responsible for
the answer. Conjecture says: First
From the simple fact these men have
wrung the Poland law and the Edmunds
law from Congress it is shown that
they belong to a ring, and that they
ring the changes on Utah and polygamy
as much for scare as for cure.
Conjecture says that when SecunduS
admits the following: at seems clear
that polygamy will never increase any
more here, and that under the present
order of things it will gradually be
beaten down As it falls to pieces,
the whole structure, which rests on
church rule, muSt-its cement gone
slowly disintegrate," and at the same
time calls for commission, that Secun-
duS cares more for power than for prin-
ciple, and seeks revenge and not reform.
And further, conjecture intimates be-
lief that some, not all, of the devoted
men who have wrung, wish to see if they
cannot do a little of the ringing to which
they say the people of Utah are con-
tinually subjected, (Which is in great
measure true,) on their own account,
and that while a wise and bene-
ficent city council did vote $40, 900 to
church, yet the devoted men would vote
it to themselves. And when conjecture
had said this, it drew little closer, and
with knowing, doubling air, said it was
convinced that the devoted men of Utah
were full brothers to the devoted men OF
reconstruction times in the South, and
that if they could only be transformed
into a commission as they desire, they
would give us just such free and glori-
Gus government as was given to the
South, and that they would free us from
the burdens of taxation and plunder by
reputation. But in this we are satisfied
that conjecture is wrong, for these de-
voted men of the Salvation Army are
made of no common clay, and are above
all parties, all prejudices, all principles
and are true americans, Tor SecuRduS is
their leader The thoroughly devoted
men of Utah are not numerous, but they
are all powerful-in their own opinion.
They are a kind of Thermopyl3 crowd
with SecuRduS AmericdnuS playing the
part of Leonidas These heroes do not
believe in soothing syrups for political
disorders, but are deUOted to squills, calo-
mel, and those medicines which are most
drastic in their action. Belonging to the
old school,, they rely more on then
method than their medicine; and when
told that the old practice has been modi'
fed and that now the doses are regulated
according to the condition of the patient
and that the patient must not be made tC
conform to the doses, they reply that the
rules must be adhered to whether the pa
tient lives or dies.
There remains much to be done in
Utah even now; but what we most
need is political education for the people
and not commissions for a band of self
STYLED "devoted men," and men who
are not so vastly superior to the average
citizen either. Both political parties in
Utah have been entirely too devoted to
cursing each other, and never once
thinking of anything beyond their devo-
ton. But the devoted men will have to
keep on Gevoting themselves in. the
future as in the past.
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