The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1909-03-27
pARTiEs AND MACHINES.


domination, the Smoot machine has
taken to extolling party organizations
and setting forth in general terms the
necessity for their existence in poll
tics. Incidentally it has much TO say
Of the record of the grand old party
implying that much of its glory and
the larger part of its achievements are
due to the machine.
Exactly that same line Of argument
is used by the machine in Pennsylva-
mia, which has beeen unspeakably cor
rUpt; by the old Wood
whose odious record needs no elucida-
ton; by Tammany. by the Hopkins
Lorimer gang in Illinois. and by every
corrupt machine that plays on a noble
sentiment for its own peTpetuatiOn in
power.
The necessity for party organizations
is not in question at all; they are the
sole means of expressing in concrete
form the convictions of the people. Tt
IS a calamity for any state to have
its politics so demolarized by factions
that party lines are obliterated and the
rule Of a small coterie of vicious poll
ticians substituted Utah affords d
perfect illustration of the fact that the
absence of well-dcfined, cohesive par
ties. actuated by principle and guided
by men of principle, is a misfortune.
There is no real Republican party in
years. The organization which holds
the party name consists of less than q
score of office holders, who have seized
The party machinery and have used it
as means of Tewarding themselves
and their friends and of Furnishing
their enemies. Many Of the most loyal
Republicans of the state have been
driy zen from the party; and of those
remaining none are permitted voice
in its affairs, save the few who mo-
nopolize office and distribute the loot.
In the legislative session just closed.
the very large majority of the Repub
Hcans of the state were refused a fair
hearing by the machine, and when
they organized a protest they were
assaiIsd as if It were a political crime
TO express an honest conviction in a
convention they themselves had
called.
The Republican party OF Lincoln
was organized by men who believed
in the right of petition, the right TO be
heard on any public question; it found
its greatest victories in battles against
old, corrupt and wornout machines;
and it drove from public life the poll
ficians who traded their party power
for political reward. To place the
party of SmoOt and Callister, OF SpTy
and Booth and Bill Glasmann and
Chambers IT. the same category with
the organization Lincoln founded is TO
parody political history. The Repub-
Hcan party of Utah today is n close
combination of men seeking personal
profit with a group of LIQUOR dealers
seeking protection for the saloons; it
has outraged the rank and file of its
own followers 50 they no longer hesi-
tate to express their contempt for 1t;
it has given the state the most shame
less exhibition of brazen contempt for
public opinion it has ever seen; it has
made the legislature a byword, and it
is discredited most among those who
know its workings best
No honeyed praise of the party as
political necessity is going to make
Utah forget the need of new and
real party organization for real state
needs; not so long as the record Of the
last legislature is open TO inspection
and its governors opinion of that
record lies open in his vetoes.