The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-12-08
A VAIN EFFORT.

Feeble attempts are still being made TO
defend the Liberal party leaders against
the charge of colonizing voters for the Feb
ruary municipal election. Necessarily the
defense is weak one; in truth. it is no de-
tense whatever, being simply an impudent
and brazen denial of patent and demon
strated fact 1t cannot be denied that Mr..
JOHN WITBEck, the chief Liberal at Nephi,
gave a man letter to the chairman of the
Liberal city committee, in which it was
clearly set out that the bearer wanted to
vote and that he was to be provided with
work. We say this cannot be successfully
denied, for the author of the letter
has, over his own signature, admitted
that he signed the paper and gave it to the
man who bore it to this city. There is an
other reason why the genuineness of the
letter cannot be denied, and that is the con-
vincing and incontrovertible proof supplied
by the letter itself, the document being in
existence and bearing all evidence of its
correctness. At first there was bold at
tempt to discredit the paper by charging
that it was a forgery, and afterwards that
certain important word in it had been
ClooCu anu eLo A1IO1C
tant word inserted. The chairman of the
local Liberal committee critically exam
ined the paper, and quick as he
would have been to discover anything ir-
regular in it upon which he could have
based crawl-eut for his party, he
was forced to admit--which he did over
his own name-that the signature was
genuine and Furthermore that there had
been nc erasures or substitutions.
The other excuse is the weakest and
thinnest imaginable. We are surprised
that men of intelligence should have pre-
scented it. 1t is that the man who brought
the note applied tc Mr.. WITBEcK at Nephi
for work, and Mr.. WTTBECK, out of pure
kindness of heart and having no thought
Of the municipal election, sent the poor
fellow to Chairman POWERS with the re-
quest that the latter would sslook after
Job for him." Mr.. Powers claims to be an
attorney-at-law; he maintains an Office
and goes into court whenever he
finds an excuse for it, and to the public
holds himself out as a lawyer, and is follow
ing the law for a livelihood. He has never
posed as the manager of an employment
bureau, and we don't imagine he would
take kindly to the business of Choking
after jobs'' for every Tom, DICK and HARRY
who might be sent to him by chance &C
quaintances in the cow counties. The pub
lie will be hard to convince that POWERS
would put himself out to find labor for
countrymen in whom he had no interest.
Nor is he the man to whom JOHN WITBECK
would be apt to send strangers in
need of work and wages. WITBECK
is very well acquainted in Salt
Lake, where he knows hundred men any
one of whom would be more likely to give
employment to a laborer than is POWERS,
and to any one of whom the Nephi Liberal
would apply before he would to the law
yer.
Again, why should Mr.. WITBEcK seek
work for Juab county citizens in this city?
The Liberal party here, in which Mr..
WITBEcK takes so deep an interest, is NOV
ing to the cam paign cry of Salt Lake
work for Salt Lake workmen." And why,
we may ask, should the Nephi Liberal
think he. could defy the cry and go directly
to the head of the city Liberals with de-
mand for city work for Juab workman?
We leave the apologists for POWERS and
WITBECK to explain this.
The note does not convey the impression
that it is the only one of the kind that has
been written. On the contrary it seems to
read as if the writer were in the habit of
dashing off just such communications.
''The bearer of this wants to vote, look
after Job for him" Now, we ask the
candid, impartial man, if that doesn't read
as if it were one of series? 1t strikes us
that the author is so familiar with the
matter that he can write these notes with
his eyes shut and one hand tied behind
him.
There are some kinds of inpudence which
are tolerable if not cemmendable; but the
impudence which denies that the WIT
BECK letter was not written in the in
terest of the Liberal colonization scheme
is not of that kind; it is simply
vulgar and Of the same piece as that
which says black is white. OF the same
class is that which persists in saying that
the story of MARTIN WARDELL in reference
to the assassination of WILLIAM GREEN is
true in spite of Mr.. GREEN'S affidavit that
he was not assassinated and is still in the
enjoyment of good health.
Decent people would have more respect
for the Liberal managers if they would
come out frankly and confess the truth, that
they have been and are engaged in the col
of voters, and that JOHN WIT
BECK, of Nephi, is their agent in Juab county
to send in men to vote the Liberal ticket.