The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1906-05-09
STATE THE INFLUENCES.

Commenting upon the purpose of the
Mormon end of the sugar trust to sue
the State of Idaho to recover $l25 900,
under the bounty act OF 1903. the Lew
iston Qdaho) Tribune says:
II the Mormon hierarchy is as wise as il
Ia credited with being II will not mako
any such demand on tho State of Idaho
as is attributed TO IL 1T Is not true that
the bounty was earned In conformity with
tho State law, because the fundamental
law prohibits the Government from in
curing any such Indebtedness, and none
knows this better than the hierarchy. For
this reason the bounty has never been
claimed and hence payment has never
been refused. unless it has been done sur
reptitiously and OF very recent dato. 1T
IL claimed now that the trust business I'm
Idaho has been unproftahle. but TINS also
is claim of very recent origin. On the
contrary, so satisfactory has this busi-
ness been declared in the past tnat the
trust has entered upon large engagements
for new branches both at Nampa and at
Payettc and II this is done In the face OF
losses and discouragements an instltu-
tIon so incompetent as that ought to be
put out OF business before II involves com
munities and enterprises dependent upon
IL in common ruin But we do not believe
a word Of that,
The controversy might also lead TO an
investigation Of the influences by which
IL WAS planned to vote the pubic money
into the hands OF this trust-which Is
chapter II might be best for all concerned
to leave closed and which the state at
large prefers To leave closed
What were the influences which COM
manded this attempted robbery OF the
State Of Idaho9 Robbery 1t was, and 1T
should never have been called bounty
Long before our neighbor State was
asked to grant this legislative appro-
priatlon, the beet sugar business mad
been proved an immensely prohta-
bic enterprise in the lnternountaln
country Before a factory was estab-
liehed In Utah, and in order to intro
duce the culture of beets and the oper-
alton Of a sugar making plant the Leg
islature of this then Territory passed a
bounty law under which the sum Of
100000 was appropriated and subse-
auently drawn by the Utah Sugar COM
pany. The grant was defended at the
time upon the perfectly open ground
that the men engaging I'm the enterprise
were encountering great risks, and that
the amount OF the bounty would be
practically distributed In extra price
for beets to the farmers who were to
engage In the making of new kind OF
crop. Immediately following this ex-
perience however. the Utah company's
plant at Lehi began to pay large divi-
dends, and other factories were located
in Utah without any bounty.
There was no more call for the
granting of this extra inducement by
the Idaho Legislature than there would
have been for the payment of a pre-
MUM upon the establishment of Ma
tional banks. The bounty is. in Its best
aspect (and 1t admittedly has others
not so good). a temporary sustenance
by the public of some enterprise which
private capital cannot be induced to
establish without such aid. The Idaho
agricultural and commercial conditions
were so nearly akin to those of Utah
that the effort to obtain a bounty
there after the proved success in this
State was piece of brigandage. Why
did not these same sugar autocrats ask
for bounty for the factory at Gar
land, In Utah? The hierarchs control
e'i'" N'h'Sr NhtJ bohihdlt us I<cGlSla-
ture; they own It's Governor: and here
one would think it would have been
easy They did not try 1t In Utah be-
cause the people here were too we'll in
formed; the large taxpayers would
have made resistance. But 10 invade
Idaho and fitch $685. out of her treas
ury. was serving God both ways IT
ton shows a Gentle preponderance,
and 1t was cnriching company where