The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1893-11-21
AS TO AGENCIES.
campaign

A legal agent IS luG OilS WIZ Has
! the right and whose duty it is to do the
work of another"
That is the definition given by the
Salt Lake Tribune, as though it was
something new and startling. instead
of being what that paper would call
"a schoolboy definition" if it appeared
in any other columns but its own. 1t
is given to prove that the President
of the United States is the agent of
Utah Territory in appointing probate
judges, and also to show how much
more the Tribune knows about 1.-The
question of agencies than the Herald
does.
The Tribune has a funny way. very
often. of stating a proposition and then
in arguing it proving its reverse. 1t
has done so in this instance. BY way
of illustration it says:
eff the directors of a company own
ing patent for a. new baking powder,
We're to designate a. certain man to
select in the different cities of this
country, merchants to sell that baking
powder what would that mans title
be2 Would he not be the agent ?"
Very good. But in this case the
President of the United States repre-
sents the agent to appoint the mer-
chants, and the Congress of the United
States represent the directors. Presi-
dent Cleveland, then, is the agent of
the United States and not of the Terri
tory of Utah. The baking powder man
is the agent of those directors, not of
the people who are expected to buy his
wares
Concerning the probate judges it
says further:
Formerly the people elected them,
but law of Congress established an
other agency to create them. That
agency is the President of the United
States
Precisely, and cannot the Tribune,
illogical as it is, perceive that in that
sentence it. has given away its whole
argument? The Congress of the United
States made the President its agent
to execute the law that it passed, TAX
ing away from the Territory of Utah
the right to elect the probate judges.
Whose agent is the President, then?
Why the agent of the United States,
or the Congress of the United States,
according to the Tribune's own deffni-
ton of the word agent. The Territory
of Utah never authorized the President
to appoint them; the people of Utah
desired themselves to elect them. If
the President is an agent in the matter
at all, he is the agent of the power
that authorized him to make the ap-
pointments. And that makes the ap-
pointees officers holding appointment
under the United States.
The reference which the Tribune
makes to the colonizing of "yahoos''
for voting purposes by an agent, is a
little too rough on the Liberal party,
of which it was recently the organ,
so, as we desire that the dead past shall
not be dug out of its grave we will
let that go, with the remark that look
on that attempted smile as it will,
it is but another proof offered by itself
Of The error of its own position. An
agent to do any work for another is
the agent only of the person or body
that authorized and empowered him
as an agent.
We repeat, the statement that the
President of the United States in ap-
pointing Probate Judges for Utah is
the agent of the territory instead of
being the agent Of the United States,
carries its REPUTATION on its face as
It is manifestly and supremacy ridicu-
ous. 1t is our neighbor that has
stumbled on the simple question of
agencies.