Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-01-13
UPON ITS MERITS.

The people of Montana will insist that
the fight between the Clark and anti
Clark men proceed upon its merits. Be
fore it was injected into the legislative
assembly it was a matter of private
rather thar of public concern. 1t is now
public property and the people are COM
petent to deal with it, not from the stand
point of the respective contestants, but
from the loftier plane of equal and exact
Justice to all concerned. In no other way
can a righteous Judgment be reached.
1t will not do 60 i,npute all the virtue
and purity to one side and all the debase-
ment and crime to the other, in a case of
such magnitude that it will form an i'm
portant chapter in the history of the
state, until a complete knowledge of the
facts ~justifes that conclusion. On the sur
face of the situation there is a great deal
of human nature in evidence, and feeling
runs so high that a verdict is clamored
for on the showing made by the respective
newspaper organs of the c~ontending fac
tons. This unreasonable heat-this
diurnal duty of tearing a passion into
of calmness and GOODNESS ON the part of
the public that no injustice may be done
by public sentiment in any direction.
Nolens volens the Montana public sits
as a jury over the controversy now being
waged in the legislative assembly of this
state. There is no escape from this duty,
as matters have shaped themselves, and
it should be undertaken with an honest
purpose to intelligently and impartially
weigh the facts. Either a great wrong
has been done or a great wrong is being
done. To determine which is a RESPONSE
bility that rests ~squarely upon the
shoulders of an honest and discriminating
public.
It is unfortunate that the press inter
ested in a partisan way cannot afford to
accredit the public with honest motives
in the consideration of a question of such
magnitude. 1t is to be regretted thai the
esteemed Anaconda Standard this morn,
ing bitterly assailed the citizens of Hell
ly wholly coincide with its own. 1t says
It is curious to some that the large,
part of the Helena population which il
expressing itself at all, seems to consider
that the crime which has been committee
is not the wholesale purchase of votes
but the unmasking of the briber. In tn,
opinion of many here, if they gave thei
real opinion, the criminals are not tn
bribers, but themen who found the briber
out. The fact that Clark is a millionaire
Obscures the fact that he is a criminal ant
deserves a sentence in the penitentiary
The effort is being made here while no
denying Clark's guilt, to denounce tn
man who exposed him. That is an oil,
game.
While the citizens of Helena nave thei
faults-some of them losing everything
else in the late panic-it is certainly un
fair to say that they condone a crime be
lieved to have been committed becaus
the alleged criminal is a millionaire. TIL
right way to put it is, tha knowing MI
Whitesides quite intimately many of ther
do not believe that his confession was a
that it purported to be. Quite naturally
then, they do not care to condemn the &C
cused parties in advance of a hearing.
But leaving Mr.. Whitesides' personal
ity entirely out of the proposition til
Montana public generally is inclined t
suspend judgment on the merits of tn
charges preferred until a thorough in
~vestigation shall have been made. Whe
the legislature itself did not feel ~justife
in affirming the charges submitted, BIT
referred the question of their truth c
falsity to a grand jury for investigation
the sovereign people of his state ma