The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1907-05-11
PARTIES GRUMBLE, BUT AGREE.

There arc some signs that the church
fusion planned to obliterate the s'Re~
publican and the Democratic par,
ty at the coming municipal election
may be resisted We do not count one
of these signs the pretended opposition
of the Herald; for that concern can be
whipped (or kicked) into line AT any
time the hierarchic bosses see fit to do
so. But there are many of the genu-
inc Republicans and Democrats who are
obJecting in no uncertain tones TO the
incipicnt church plan for fusion. They
recognize the fact that there is no oc-
casion whatever for the proposed fu
sion and abandonment of party lines,
save only the ecclesiastical appetite for
Office and hunger for civil power. And
then, as they justly say, what is the
guarantee that The church s political
bosses will re,cstablish the party limos
ut all, once they break down?
The church.controlcd vote, they AZ,
que, will be swung 10 one party or the
other as the priesthood directs. at the
coming election, as has been done be.
fore. What, then, do tho hierarchs cX-
pect TO gain by the fusion7 Their own
controlled vote is at their command, as
ever, in any event; and the vote that
they do not control they cannot cast
for fusion ticket. 1t g as broad as
it is long; the church controls all it
can control, as matters stand; and ii
cannot control any more by a subter-
fuge. If its idea is that Republicans
and Democrats who are not under the
church sway won't know what the
church is doing to them, but will with
ingenious and innocent stupidity play
the church game without knowing what
they arc doing, then the church polit'
ical bosses are foolmg themselves,
worse than they can possibly hope to
whose assumed ignorance and credulity
they seem to expect to play upon.
That the church leaders have a very
large controlled vote at their disposal,
to cast as their interests require. we
have abundantly demonstrated. When
a party is so triumphant at one cleo
tion that its chief opponent casts only
about one-fourth the total vote cast,
and the very next year that triumph
ant party is practically wiped out and
put lower in the voting scale than the
badly defeated party of the year be-
fore, while that formerly defeated par
ty is correspondingly exalted through
church favor, there is but one explana~
ton. The reason lies quite on the sur
face. There is no such thing as argu~
ing away the facts.
1t is simply, with the priesthood, a
question whether 1t would probably |
gain more than it would lose, in fu- !
sion movement, In order for it TO come !
10 conclusion on the point. There is |
not the least doubt of the power of !
the priesthood over both parties TO en-.
force the fusion if "the big fellow" ,
wants it. And as he is notorously mar
row, bigoted, fatuous, and a slave to !
impulse, nobody knows what he is 60
ing to dc till he does it. For ourselves.
we frankly say that we hope for fu-
sion; since that would completely prove /
the Americans case, and would irrev. |
ocably and undeniably establish the |
fact, that there is no real politics in
Utah, no actual division on party lines;
but that the pretense of these things ,
is mere mockery, the real master
being the hierarchy, and the so-called !
political parties being merely the
church agencies or political activities,
each to be used in its turn for the |
church advantage and interest, with
out the least interest in, knowledge of,
or care for, political principles OF po.