Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1908-09-08
PROGRESS AND PROGRESS.

The anti-"Mormon' organ IS ravins
furiously because the News" insists
that It's anti-Amerlcan policy is detri'
ment to the State. Well, it is, and
some ofgits own supporters know thar
we have but spoken the truth stran-
gers know it, too, and speak Of 1t.
81 Only the other day. a gentleman from
Boston, who has been looking over
some of the mining camps in Utah and
who has made II few investments,
speaking TO a little circle of friends
expressed himself to tho effect that
this strife In Utah is felt, by strangers,
IL In the very atmosphere, In no other
state he said, rs there any question
as to my belief. OF synpathies with one
part of the citizens or another; but
here you arc confronted with division
and knocking, and 1t is very unpleas-
ant, to say the least. IT is detrimental
to the state" This is true. The same
continent can be heard in trains leav-
& ing Salt Lake. Tourists, at the dining
\ tables, frequently speak Of the strife In
Utah and the detriment 1t Is to the
Tribune speaks is an economic
loss to the State. 1t makes
strangers hesitate to invest here In
AN mining and other property. That means
the retardation of the growth OF Utah.
cities. ii means that business is not
what it, under different conditions,
would be.
But our unscrupulous antagonist.
claims that Salt Lake city has never
progressed as during the last few years
under Il so-called Amerioan--meaning
anti Decentralization. This
h 3is a falsehood, pure and simple.
The last few years have been excep-
tlonally prosperous all over the Unit
led states, aud Utah has shared in this
general prosperity. Il Such ares the
natural advantages of the State that
even a local maladminlstration were
1t ever SO notorious for extravaganza
graft, and failure to report as re-
q,iired by law, cannot stop entirely this
growth OF utah's Capital. But tho
City has not developed rs it would
have done, had there been such unity
and harmony among the people as
common business sense would demand.
Boomers have for years claimed nn
enormous increase In the number Of
Inhabitants for Salt Lake, only to find
5disappointment in the official censure
figures, and we fear the present boom
figures will be puncturcd iny the same
way. Salt Lake has not, under Amer
Y lean" administration, developed as 1t
ought to have done. Any other city,
with millions of dollars to spend on
public improvements; with railroad sta
lions projected and in course Of con-
struction: with the magnificent private
building enterprises and improvements
planned by such citizens as Mr. New
house; with mountain scenery and un-
excelled bathing resorts--any other city
would have grown. during these years
of general prosperity, to immense pro-
portions. This City has not. And the
failure IS, in our candid opinion. due
to no other cause than the mistaken,
suicidal policy of which the anti
Mormon" organ is the exponent
1t is not true that the City has pro-
crossed as rapidly as It ought to have
done; nor is II true that It's progress
has been more rapid these years than
during any period of It's existence. The
fact is that the first twenty-five years
was a period of marvellous develop
ment unparalleled in history Hon.
Mccullough, Secretary of the Treasury,
wrote to the New York Tribune in
1877:
8 There are, among the Mormons.
many clever people, scientific, archi-
tects, slsilful artisans, and tasteful
landscape gardeners. This is Indicated
by their public buildings, their work
shops and factories, their private dwell
ings and their grounds. The
people of the United States are under
obligation to the Mormons. ~. They
have opened and improved a region
which. but for them, would have been
neglected They have brought to the
country many thousands Of industrious,
peaceable, and skilfuI people, and add
ed largely to its wealth"
Bayard Taylor, a traveller and lectur-
Ell, wrote:
S 1.-THE Territory does not owe dollar,
the people have established tnanufac-
tories. built roads and bridges, irrigated
wastes OF sagebrush GoloniZed the
oasis of the interior desert for an ex-
tent or 500 miles, and made a nucleus
) of permanent civilization in the most
forbiddng part Of the continent"
II That was before the days Of anti
,'Mornonism. Then progress which
attracted the attention Of the world
was made without borrowed money,
because the citizens We're united. Now
water ditch cannot be constructed
without adding to the Indebtedness OF
the City. That is the difference.
Chief Justice White, in charging the
grand jury. in this City, in 1876, said:
"The land they 1.-THE .MormonsI have
redeemed from sterllity, and occupied
its once barren solitudes, with cities.
villages, cultivated fields and farm
houses, and made it the habitation of
a numerous people. whore Il beggar is
never seen and aims houses are neither
needed or known. These are facts and
accomplishments which any candid OBJ
server recognizes and every fair mind
admits"
The people of Utah, before anti-"Mor-
monism became a power and a curse
to the State built about two hundred
towns and cities. and constructed pub
lie buildings that are admired today
No, dad and tiad 400 Hos Of tfle