The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-09-18
THE COMMISSION Is RESPONSIBLE.

THE COMMISSION IL RESPONSIBLE.
1t was hot shot and lots of it which Chief
Justice ZANE fred into the Liberal camp on
Wednesday. While the direct aim was at
two conspicuous workers in the party, the
shot was so wide in its sweep that the en-
tire organization was reached, from the
Utah commission, which is the real ht ad of
the Liberal party, down to the tlim-fiam-
mer and ballot-box suffer who do dirty
work for cash down or the promise of sub
stantial reward. 1t is hardly necessary to
remark that the Liberals did not look for
such an arraignment of themselves and
their methods from that source, hence the
assault is douhly forceful and Sc
we're. All day yesterday there was
CONSERVATION in. camp. Nor was it
confined 20 the two prominent
examples of peculiar political work whose
cases were turned over to the tender
mercies OF the grand jury, but the alarm
was shared by ali the enthusiastic gentle
men who bad been active in late campaigns
and at elections. They were suddenly i'm
pressed with the idea that Judge ZANE was
not in sympathy with fraud, and that he
would not be apt to sustain and confirm
election results achieved by crookedness
and criminality, even though those results
were in favor of his own party. In fact his
arrangement was pretty plain notice that
election sharps and ballot box manipulators
must go slower or 90 to some other court
than his for protection from the legitimate
consequences of their scoundrelly actions.
But what will it all amount tos
VIII anything come from il: VIII
the wrongs and evils of which honest
men have been so long complaining be
checked or cured. These are questions in
the answers to which the public are deeply
interested. The Utah commission IS NOR
ally if not legally responsible for much of
the wrong doing which has characterized
the administration of the election law. So
long as that commission shall remain as at
present constituted, shall be governed in
all its actions by rank partisanshp and i'll
concealed hate, we fear that the better
condition of things which Judge ZANE
would like to see established will not
come. The commission is legally re-
sponsible to no power, and It's
L
ideIt, who cannot or will not know of the
course they pursue and the policy they fol-
low. This being the status Of the commits
sion it endeavors to employ as its agents
for applying the law only those who are
equally irresponsible and those who are ac-
tuated by the same fanatic or worse preiu-
dices and hates which control the commits
sioners themselves. So long as the
commission persists in placing such fellows
as this man MCCALLUM-to the investiga-
ton of whose conduct the chief Justice has
found it necessary to specially charge the
grand iury-in control of elections,
what can we expect more or better
than has been given! When bartenders
and fellows who have sailed under so MANY
aliases that they can remember none of
them, are made presiding judges of election
because they are supposed to be adapts at
the art of manipulating ballots, what right
has anybody to expect that elections will be
conducted honestly2 When men are
selected for registration officers first be-
cause of their pronounced partisanship and
second on account of their financial ire
sponsioility which forbids legal proceed
lngs against them by individuals for depri
walton of rights, who can hope that the
elections will represent the majority voice
of the people when wrongs are pointed ont
to the commission and those of its
appointees who commit these wrongs are
named, and the commission saws il
is powerless to undo the wrong-everbody
knowing that tits unwilling to undo tive
fearthat the occasional arraignment of one
Of the commissions tools will not give Ms
honest elections. If the commission were
so minded the charge of fraud at elections
would never be heard. There are hundreds
OF men IN the community who are so square
and erect in their conduct, who stand so
well before the community in matters of
fairness, probity and honesty, that if thew
We're TO act as registrars and Judges every.
body would have absolute confidence in
their work, and when the ballots had been
counted nobooy would question the
result as showing the true expression of
the voters will. Why dosen't the commission
make up the list of registrars and Judges
from these men! Is it because the com
mission wants to see elections won for its
party by such methods as Judge ZANE
found had been practiced in the Fourth
precinct of this city last Julys
Two or three miserable fellows ins;r-
nlf1cant in every way, came in for the force
Of the shot fired by the chief Justice. but
the intelligent and discriminating public
will blame the unfair and partisan conduct
OF the Utah commission almost as much as
1t does the commissions appointees who
are now being pursued by the law.