The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1910-09-24
ITS SHAMELESS HYPOCRISY,

on politics and on prohibition 1t doe
not consider that it has any busncs
with prohibition as n political issue
since prohibition is now considered b,
IL as simply moral question. and it re
news It's hypocrItical affirmation that i
is not In politics, Inasmuch as the pro
hlbltaon question twas reduced to
kind of party 'shibbolcth.' " the New.
declines to have anything further to dc
with 1T. 1t did not refuse, however t,
nave anything to do with it two year!
ago when it was Republican part,
shlbboleth, and the News was TO al
lntents and purposes Republican
party organ. 1t is only now when it i,
a Democratic shibboleth' that the
church organ drops it,
The position of the church organ OF
this question is simply another evidence
of its lack of intelligence, its lack OF
honest purpose, and its boundIess hypo
crlSy 1t finds that mn spite of prohib
atory laws crime persists much the same
as before. Murders are committed
| Lynchlngs are frequent. Prohibitory
laws against immortality are openly dc.
ned, 1t might be supposed, if the
news were an organ of any kind of de-
cency or morality, that this last refer.
ence would be TO the defiance of the
laws against polygamy and unlawful
bitatlon. Unhappily, however, the
News is the organ Of that form of i'm.
morality. and it simply denounces the
rival form which it does not approve.
IL approves sexual looseness among
men but not among women, and that is
inc diherence between the form of inl-
morality which it Processes and defends
as contrasted with the other form that
1T occasionally opposes.
In defense Of its desertion of the
cause of prohibition, which it was so
hot for short time ago, the church
organ now cites the case of the State
of Maine, saving that
III Is well known that il has for years
heen the battlefield between the two op-
posing forces In spite of prohibition IL
has had Its scandalous record for drunk :
cnness. Strangers have carried away the
story OF drunkenness and disregard for
Jaw and have warned their States against
adopting the dangerous policy. Invcsti-
eating committees have been sent there
by liquor dealers and others and have
wired back reports Of blind pigs kitchen
narSs ana pocket peddlers. and when tho
nattie was on against saloons in the
states OF the South. sheriff from Maine
went at the call OF the brewers TO hold
up as delusion and a snare the prohI-
bitioD law as warning for tho States
that we're struggling from freedom
1t proceeds to set forth the same old
whine that "the failure in Maine was
not due to the law itself but to the
failure to enforce it, Sapient onel
Tho difficulties of enforcing it having
been fully stated by the organ when
1t spoke of blind pigs, kitchen bars. and
pocket peddlers, it wobbles to the other
extreme endeavoriDg to keep on both
sides of the fence Mt the same time
The best it can do is to jump the fence
occasionally and appear for prohibition
a little while and then against on the
other side, II now shows that prohibi-
tion does not prohibit, whereas it was
but recently shouting the reverse.
The significance of all this is not in
the hypocritical and sneaking turncoat
ing of the News but in the fact that it
is never in earnest in any proposition
of this kind, but advocates one thing
or another precisely as the exigencies
of the church cause for its claim of su-
premacy rs temporal government may
dictate. Just now in this State the
Democratic party has adopted the pro-
hibition slogan. Statewide prohibition
is It's cry. This was the News's cry
two years ago, while the News was a
Republican organ. The only change
that the News has ever refused to make
is TO change from being Republican
organ TO the Democratic side. 1t will
never serve the cause of Democracy,
but always the cause of Republqcanism,
and since prohibition this year is De-
i'll Utah the News drops prohi-
bltion like hot poker, and yells that
laws cannot be enforced. |
There is nothing remarkable in all this,
of course, SINCE the News's elusive
changes of front are well known to
those who have followed it's crooked
and Shiny course. The only object
herein is simply to make record of |
the events of the time, and to show
Just where the church organ stands
now, as contrasted with where it stood
on this great "moral issue" Gas it now
phrases it) such short while ago. It |
now claims that the prohibition oues |
non is moral question, and not polit-
cal. which is self condemnatory of its
course, but still, what can you expect
from shifty humbug that has to
change its position and present its
~eathercock front to every wind that
blows.
NOT ENAMoRED OF SMOOT.