The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-07-13
THE SCHOOL SITUATION.
1.-The Pure, Unselfish Motive" of the Leaders
of the Liberal Gang.

To the Editors of THE HERALD:
l am not a partisan in any sense and
therefore read your remarks on the GER
tainty that if the anti-Mormon politicians
should succeed in the school elections next
Monday politicians of that party would
take positions in the schools, with
some disgust, not at what you wrote, but
because in city where / have heard so
much wind as to the pure, unselflsh, patri-
otism of the gentle element, it should be
necessary to say what you did. believe
you are right in your Judgment. [ see evil
dences of the truth of your charges. At
the opera house fire | saw that
your city's safety was in the hands of a
chief of the fire department who was as
competent as child. ! saw that structure
Quilted from end to end when the entire
front, including all three tiers of rooms,
should have been saved. Men spent an hour
and half washing the windows in the
third story front from the street, keeping
two nozzles on half dozen windows with
out force enough to break a pane until the
fire burned through into the front roc m
from the rear and broke the glass with It's
heat
| see, in another direction, that there is
much evidence that the police system is
run to boost ambitious officers. see the
'black Maria' brought into requisition to
carry in poor unfortunate fellows
whose appetites are stuffed by bar
tenders until drunkenness ensues The
saloon men never seem to be-
punished for making men drunk, as they
should be. But the police system gets
credit for being efficient, and the police
magistrate is making money for the city
and paving the way for an appeal to the
party for another Office. Itlooks almost as
ii there were collision between the systom
and the saloons.
| see in every direction favoritism to
the anti Mormons in the matter of giving
away the streets for railroads In short, |
see, what you declare to be true, that
where this party gets power it uses it TO
benefit men who have worked for 1t, with
out regard to to their fitness or to the ques-
ton OF right and justice, and hence it is but
reasonable to look upon this school cam
paign as purely political movement Pos
sibly they are looking forward to q division
of the money arising from the escheated
Mormon property, and hope to add spoils
20 their pockets from that source also.
| find, however, on looking over the cen
sus of 1850, that education in Utah stood
exceedingly well at that time in compari-
son with the states and territories, and that
there were 374 schools in which there were
nearly $50 Mormon teachers. find in the
the report of the commissioner of schools
for Utah, a government officer, that in
1880 there were 400 public schools with 64l
teachers, only 40 of which were non-Mor-
mons. The report stated that all of these
schools were non-sectarian There were
in the territory Mormon schools and IS
Catholic, Episcopal and protestant schools.
With these facts before me can only see
in this political campaign for the control of
the schools a movement to increase the
dover, not of the public, but of the de-
nominational schools, for the Liberal poll
ticians are unquestionably combine with
the anti Mormon minister's. GILBERT.