The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-09-19
HAS IT CoME TO sTAY2

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is is rather broad statement TO make;
it should at least get housed before
any boasts are made about it.
If non-p artisanism has really come
to say, that is, if those who are en-
gagged in the present movement intend
10 persist in it whether they fail or
succeed in the approaching city cleo
ton, then there will of necessity have
TO be some permanent committee. the
same as in other parties, for no party
will persist from year to year without
some kind of permanent organization.
How will this organization be perpet-
uated? VIII the present committee
having in charge the non-partisan
movement continue itself in Office as
the head of the no-party party? Or
viii it name others to take the places
Of those now constituting it? Or viii
those who identify themselves with the
present movement by voting for the
non-partisan ticket eventually be asked
to name a general committee? If the
committee perpetdates itself or names
its successor, wherein will that be any
different an oIigarchy? If those who
may vote for the non-partisan ticket
shall be asked to name committee
wherein viii that method be different
from that pursued by other parties?
If on-partisanism is to be a perma-
nent factor in our municipal politics it
will have to be a factor as a political
movement, and not as a sporadic at
tempt to control the city government
Anyone who has a grain of political
sense must know that that means po-
litical machinery, yet the News says
that the chief labor OF the non partisan
committee is to destroy party machin-
cry, so far as municipal elections are
concerned, while the News declares
that primaries and conventions are the
very means by which corruption is ac-
complished. From all this it must be in
ferred that the non-partisan committee
intends to perpetuate itself. How long
does anybody think that the people of
Salt Lake City viii submit to have
committee of twenty, no matter how
worthy the members of it may be in
dividually, name those who shall ad-
minister the citys affairs the only part
they shall take being that of mines
Who dance and shout as they are told?
a first ticket may receive some sup
port, a second would be received with
derision. Do the members of the COM
mittee of twenty think that the people
of this city are going to surrender the
right to name their officers to them?
And that is exactly what the naming
by a self-constituted committee of
those who shall control the city's af-
fairs means. The naming of the city's
officers is the thing of prime impor-
lance, their ratification being a mat
ter of secondary Importance, if it is to
follow as a matter of course.
The non-partisans expect that those
who are in sympathy with them will
give their ticket the same blind support
that they say partisans give their
tickets. They say they expect to win
Oh the merit of their ticket. That is
exactly the thing that partisans ex-
pect to do.
How long do the non-partisans think
their organization viii persist before
there will be struggle within it for
control of it? If they think there will
be no struggle for the control of it
they must be Utopians or Seven Day
Adventists. And if a man of promi-
nence and influence in either the DEM
ocratic, Republican or Populist party
should go to the non-partisan commit
tee and say he was disguised with his
own party and tell the committee he
was certain he could draw a couple of
hundred votes from his party, would
the committee encourage him to do it
or not? And if it encouraged him and
he did it, would the committee say to
him, should anyone suggest his name
for an appointive office, which he was
well qualified to fill, Virtue is it's own
reward" or would he be given a. re-
ward by way of recognition of his serv-
ices?
If -partisanship has come to stay,
a thing which remains to be seen, it
must have organization. which in turn
means that there will be machinery;
and that machinery would not always
be driven by the same engines We're
the present noparty party to achieve
success, those foaters who so from one
party to another because they want to
be where the carrion is, would very
soon all be found in the ranks Of the
no-party party and demanding a
change in party leadership; and they
would get it. Non partisanism is not
out of the woods in this city by any
means