The Evening dispatch. [volume] (Provo, City, Utah) 1891-1895, 1895-04-15
PROVO CITY.
THE PUBLIC CREDIT.

1t would be a great misfortune II the
convention left the constitution open
to the raids of the selfish and the dis.
honest, upon the slender treasury OF
the new state OF Utah. Vet that is
Just what will be done. The policy
can only result in disaster. In few
years with our sugar mills, railways
and prospective Saltairs, Garlields. and
the like, we will have an interest debt
hanging over Utah of two, three or
four millions annually. Then the old
fashioned democratic inhibition against
loaning the state credit for any pur-
pose, will seem very lovely, all the
more so because it will then be too late
II such policy should pIevail, that in
five or ten years a substantial tax re-
duction could safely be made, they
would rise up and bless the "Old TO-
gies" who went against loaning the
state credit for any and all purposes.
The best way to maintain either public
orindiYidual credit is not to strain it,
But let Utah endorse fifteen or twenty
millions of bonds to build railroad,
after two Or three years experience
with the tax levy she would be glad to
cut loose from the proposition forever
and would prefer that there were not
q single line nearer than the Missouri
river rather than to see her people bow
ing their backs to such burden as this.
The public domain of Texas, at the
close of the war, was practically intact.
1t was indeed a glorious domain. Soon
the railroad sharks came along. In
stead of asking for the public credit
these men were satisfied with the
lands. So greedy were the people for
the roads that we could hardly restrain
the legislature from giving every
acre of the public domain to the
one or two first lines which
entered the state. Even the
school lands were considered unsafe,
so great was the greed for land sub
sidy. Lands that were given to the
roads at a valuation of 30 cent per
acre were in few years worth ten to
twenty dollars an acre. Then and not
until then did the people awaken to the
worth of their lands or the nature OF
fault they had committed. 1t was too
late. The roads had the lands, and
they have never and will never give
them back. AS it was with the lands,
so will it pe with the credit of Utah,
and still, like Texas with her lands,
Utah will haye little or no credit to
bless herself with, and less than none
to lend. 1t would be far letter to 90
slow. Let us see if the next few years
will not develop way to get on with
out leaving it to any future legislature
to plunge the state in debt to serve the
purposes of any magnate Of them all,
much less some president of the
Salt Greek Cut Off which never was
intended to pay, and was only pro-
jected and built, if at all, as a condi-
tion precedent to getting a big batch
of Utah's endorsed bonds to trade in
and grow rich upon.
We are now making our constitution.
Now is the time to render this sort of
public spoliation impossible by PFC
hibiting 1t in the fundamental
laws which We are now writing. Oh,
blt,say cur republican friends, we will
always have our legislature between us
and this or these evils. True, but did
these good, but simple patriots never
hear OF a railway lobby? What an
amazing facility they have for making
the worse appear the better part. Let
the roads or any manufacturing enter
prise once get taste of state subsidy
and the jig is up. These meyer turn
loose. They become life fixtures. Let
us have none of them. When any one
wants to build road across Utah, or
a mill or any other or similar enter
prise, let us guarantee them a fair
show, ample protection, but for Gods |
sake let us do no more. Don t let us |
warrant them five or fifteen cents on |
the Investment. A clear open field |
and no fayors, is the best we can
promise.