Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-05-19
IS SMITH INNOCENT?

- al Oiu say MS IlSHly e
spected on account of the wealth of
meaning which it contains when prop
erly applied. to the effect thai chickens
come home to roost.'
This is a homely yet concise way of
indicating that retribution may over
take a man.
1t would seem that some excellent
specimens of this particular breed of
poultry are trying to find lodgings in the
hen house of Governor Smith at the
present time, and it is not so sure that
some of them have not already found a
roost upon the very pole with which his
excellency has been accustomed to
knock down his political persimmons.
Some months ago the governor, in his
anxiety to serve his political guardians,
attached his official signature-a sigma
ture which belongs to the people, when
officially used, and not to the purposes
of the cheap politician-to a memorial.
in which the regulations of a number of
public men were blackened with direct
and positive accusations of crime.
Whatever may LAY been the moral
status of some of the men listed in that
official document, certain it is that
some of the names referred to were not
even mentioned in the investigation
which followed, no evidence whatever
having been adduced to attach them in
any way, remotely or otherwise, to the
charges which his excellency preferred
against them.
Yet these men still suffer under the
im%putations of the governor, officially
made, that they are bribe-takers and I'M
worthy the confidence of their fellow
men.
To some these accusations have
brought business injury that would JUS
tify proceedings against the executive
in the matter of damages, We're he not
able to fall back on the ''privileged''
prerogatives of the position he so grossly
abused.
But it is somehow written in the book
of fate that chickens come home to
roost."
Through i~nadvertence, or otherwise,
the governor has unfortunately placed
himself in a position to be suspected of
the very offense he has SO glibly and en-
Enthusiastically imputed to others.
pan1;o;,r tIo --,a tit =,
motives may be imputed to public men,
whether they be members of a legisla-
tive body or filling executive stations in
life, the Inter Mountain has inclined to
the belief that while Governor Smiths
trip to California was not justified by
the obligations he owes to the state, i,
was an honest business undertaking or
the part of all concerned.
Had Mr.. Smith accepted the "ineyita.
ble,' as indicated by his Nevada inter.
view, and recognized the unquestioned
right of the lieutenant governor to Off.
ciate in his absence, the public gener.
ally would have accredited his excel.
lcIl1S viii IOIeSly OI purpose IN loay-
ing the state at a critical time, despite
the effect upon the political interests O.
the wing of the democracy to which hi
belongs.
But when the governor charges fraud
and collision against his business asso
eiates in the mining deal which took hin
out of the state, and makes criminal al
legations against the man who was tn,
governor in fact under the law durin,
his absence from the state. in order t,
square himself" before the people, h
opens wide the door for popular .suspi
cion concerning himself.
The fact that these allegations wer
made Immediately upon his arriva
home, and before an opportunity coul
possibly AVE presented itself for tn
requirement of data bearing on tn
charges made, indicates to the publ
that they rave been made at random
with a view Of backing them up wit