The Weiser signal. [volume] (Weiser, Idaho) 1890-1904, 1891-12-03
CAN THESE THINGS BE?

I
people Of ldaho-eyer ready to lend their
voice and vote to what they conceive to
be good government-are heartily sick
over it."-Goy. Wiley.
The young state of Idahol But a
few short months have elapsed since
she assumed the robes of statehood
yet her carrier is redundant with
events of more or less rottenness,
rankness and Righteousness. At the
the outset she causes her name and
fame to ring through valleys, plains,
forests and rocky defles of these
United States by her wholesale meth
DDS Of turning out United States SEN
ators. Her first legislature gets in
with a record which will linger long
in the memory of her citizens
Events more or less startling ac-
cording as they are viewed, have fol-
lowed each other in such rapid sue
cession to keep the people of the
state stirred to fever heat. Who
would not live live life Of state
hood and excitement? The pros and
cons of that brilliant body, the legis-
lature, is scarcely through being dis
cussed when the scandal of the
teachers employment bureau and
certain state officials is sprung and is
Just about hushed up when the peo
pie are informed that the state pen
itentiary of Boise is the paradise of
the bruiser and burglar, where war
dens and guards, printers and pug
lists, bet their wad on the battles of
the convicts. While this is keeping
the public in slow burning fever
heat of expectation waiting for the
reports of the prison commission to
come in one by one, the fell swoop
of the equalization board spreads con
sternation in several counties, and
everyone cries, "What next? What
next?" What next should they
wish? In not the senatorial contest
still bobbing up serenely now and
then, and though the legislature and
the bureau scandal has died out, yet
Pinkham's report has just come out
and the raise in the taxes are not as
yet all paid. AS far as the alleged
fights at the prison is concerned, the
SIGNAL, after carefully reading the
testimony published by two of the
prison commissioners, can see nothing
alarming or disgraceful in the eviden-
thy friendly sparring with harmless
gloves. But the investigation has
brought out certain phases that are
not satisfactory to the people in gen
eral Drunkenness and disorder has
been proven to be common among
the guards and employees at the pen.
Confidence in Warden Mack is very
feeble. He publishes card in the
Statesman confessing his sins and
promises reform in the prison man
but begins his reform by
discharging Alex Roberts, guard,
of whom Mack states an oath to the
as follows.
81 had heard that, Guard Roberts
had slept on duty, but watching him
closely always found him alert. ="
There is also a feeling against the !
warden because he has never refuted
the charges made in an affidavit pub ,
lished in several papers to the effect
that he had skipped out from Spo-
kane leaving creditors in the lurch to
the tune $500 and also deserving his
wife at the same place. People gen
orally suppose that il those charges
were false he would surely refutc
them, and if they are true he is not
a fit man to be in charge Of the Ida
no State prison. During the investi
CATION Gov. Wiley became convinced