The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-01-01
THE DEAD YEAR.

Here, in Utah, we believe the majority of
the people will take leave of the dead year
with more or less Of regret. A good many
things have occurred, it is true which the
many would have been better pleased if
they had not happened. Especially is this
true of Salt Lake city. When the year
was ushered in we were in the heat of an
extremely earnest campaign, which soon
terminated in the turning over of the corpo-
ration to as unconscionable a crowd as ever
gained control OF Furnishing municipality.
The gang, lacking in intelligence, wanting
in responsibility. and guided by mad
desire to spend money and ''make things
BOOM" plunged at once into career of
recklessness and extravaganza which has
seldom had its equal. Money has been
literally thrown away. The taxes were
multiplied by $50. The people have been
squeezed and oppressed until they have
become almost desperate. Vice has in
creased amazingly under an incompetent
and cowardly administration, which dared
not enforce the law through fear of offend
ing the element which placed it in power
The city has been transformed into
criminals generally, until decent people
have come to dread the going down of the
sun and the falling of night The tax-pay-
ers, almost without exception, have felt
that they were being mercilessly oppressed
by the city hall gang, while the Christian
people, without regard to politics or relig-
ion, have latterly lifted up their voices in
solemn protest against the order of things.
and in demand for reform in the admins
tration. The good name and fair fame OF
the city have been blackened and be-
! smirched somewhat, and perhaps Salt
Lake city corporation has suffered some in
her financial standing. But this is all
local, and cuts only small figure in the
great territory of Utah.
| We regard the year just closed as one of
the brightest, most prosperous and best
generally in the history of the territory.
There has been less sickness than usual.
! Old established industries have prospered
and new ones have succeeded beyond ex-
pectation. From all the various fields of
worthy human undertaking and effort come
satisfactory reports, and we hear of dis
tress nowhere. The mines have Welded
generously of their wealth Those en-
gagged in agriculture feel that they have
been specially favored, for while crops
have been bounteous there has existed a
ready market'for the products of the soil.
The merchants report splendid business
from one end of the territory to the other,
and say that within month ago when the
scarcity of money in the east alarmed local
| fnanciers, collections have been extra
ordinarily easy. That only one commercial
failure of note has occurred, and that a
natural and necessary one from the first,
tells a splendid story for trade and fur
nishes un6isputable evidence that 1890 was
kind to Utah. But perhaps the best evil
dence of the general prosperity is supplied
in the fact that while the labor supply has
been greater than ever before, it has not
exceeded the demand. There has been
work for all who desired employment, no
person able and willing to labor being denied
the privilege; wages have been high and
pay certain.
On the whole we have much for which to
remember the dead year in gratefulness,
and there is comparatively little which will
occasion regret at its recall.