Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1886-01-18
THE CONTINGENT FEE y

The Tribune of yesterday morning
undertook defense of Governor Muir
rays acceptance of $4,000 for messenger
for Executive office for the years 18S4-5.
1t says:
The facts are simply these-and we obtain
them entirely from banker of this city:
Two years ago when the Governors term
had expired, the $4,000 was rendered to him
on account of contingent fund for 1928,
which he refused to accept, holding that it
was sop thrown to him. The Legislature
then voted the same to the Governor for
18S+5. Governor Murray was re-appointed
and the money became his by action of law.
1t seems the Governor himself looked
upon this $4,000 as sop when it was
first rendered to him, and refused to
accept it. Very good. If that $4,000 was
sop when rendered to him on account
of contingent fund for 1925" did it
cease to be sop in 1SS4-5 when sugar
coated as ''Eli HI. Murray, Governor, for
services of messenger, ETC., for the Ex-
ecutive Office for the years 1SS4-5, s., ,000?"
We very much doubt if such things are
"done in every Territory and State in the
Union," as the Tribune AYERS, and if it is,
it is wrong. States may give their Gov
ernors what they please; not so with the
Territories. The services of Governor
Murray are paid for by the United
States, and they alone are entitled
to- them. Why, then, should the
Territory appropriate money for his use
and benefit? This $1,000 was ostensibly
for paying for the services of messen-
ger, yet no one has ever seen such an in
dividual. That $4,000 was sop thrown
to Governor Murray by the Legislature,
and it was given him in the hope and an
ticipation that he would thereby be pla-
Gated. Yet the Tribune says that such
appropriations ''are entirely proper"
They certainly must. be if the Tribune
says so and Governor Murray accepts
money SO appropriated, but we would
suggest that when the Tribune saws that
it is entirely proper" for the Utah Legis-
lature to appropriate $4,000 for the use of
the Governor, that it remember that Just
one week before it justified the Legisla-
ture in this matter it wrote of the Utah
Legislature as follows:
At present we expect they will meet and
organize, and that then, in all important
legislation, they will do as they shall be in
structed to do by the First Presidency of the
Mormon Church.
An appropriation of money is always
an important matter and is generally
thoroughly discussed even in the Utah
Legislature, yet the Tribune on the 18th
inst, wrote as follows, and wrote truth
fully, we believe:
There is not man-Mormon or GENTLE
who does not know that in Utah the State
is but the veriest slave of the Church; who
does not know that in all the years past nei-
ther the City Council of this city nor the
Legislature of the Territory has dared to
pass one important measure without the
approval first of the heads of the church.
Does the Tribune think that this s., 900
for Governor Murray messenger was ap-
propriated by the Utah Legislature with
out 'the approval first of the heads of the
church," The Tribune says that "in
Utah the State is but the veriest slave of
the church." Now will it explain why this
"veriest slave" appropriated $1,000 for
the benefit of Governor Murray and why
it approves such appropriation? 1t would
be well for the Tribnne to remember
what it says about the absolute influence
of the Mormon church in Utah and of its
lobby in Washington, and then reconcile
the methods of that church, according to
its own saying, with the appropriation of
$1,000 by the Utah Legislature, which is
Mormon, for "Eli HI. Murray, Governor,
for services OF messenger, ETC., for the
Executive Office for the years 1SS4-5.'