The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1910-06-13
THE SHARP SCHEMERS.

This is TO describe in brief couple
commercialists ''in the name of the
Lord namely Joseph F. Smith and
| Reed Smoot, president and apostle, re-
| spectively, of the Mormon church.
| 1t will be RENE embered that about nine
years ago approximately two dollars a
price Of sugar made by the Lehi fac
| tory, controlled and operated by the
Mormon prophets About that time
Joseph +. Smith attended the dedica-
| tion of new amusement hall at Provo.
While there he got into conversation
with a rather free minded Mormon, and
the talk drifted naturally into CONNER
cial subjects, the elder bringing up es-
peclally tie advance in the price of
sugar. He wanted to know; and Jo-
seph f. said to him that the people
should buy home products, even il the
price of the same was In advance of
similar articles imported here. in order
to foster home Industries. The elder
SAID he was perfectly willing to do that,
provided the increase were rendered
necessary through advance in the cost
of production, or if it were the inten.
tion of the managers to give better pay
to the actual producers-in this particu-
lar case the beet raisers and the work
ers at the Lehi factory Being asked
if either of these conditions had been
present as necessary to the advance in
the price of Lehi sugar, Mr. Smith re
piled that they had not. He was obliged
finally to confess that the raise had been
made simply because no outside sugar
had been shipped into Utah for some
time and none could be purchased hero.
The elder protested against such advan-
tage being taken of consumers, but 10.
seph F. derisivey snecred that it was
simply a matter of business and that a
man would be a fool who would not take
advantage of the situation, "Wcll, -
retorted the elder, cit may be bust
ness, Brother Smith. but it IS mighty
n-Christianlike. But Joseph F. mere.
ly laughed and gloatingly went along
collecting his unrighteous profits
When the father of Reed Smoot was
running the Provo wooden mills he i'm.
ported from England a number of men
who had Joined the church and who
were skilled in the manufacture of cloth
Under their care and guidance the mills
turned out rather superior line of
fabrics. Eventually the mills went into
the control of Reed and he at once set
about devislng ways and means TO in
crease the profits He went East and
brought back a lot of shoddy, which
he requested the English experts to
mix in with the wool used at the fac
tory. The honest Englishmen rcbelled
against the scheme; but Reed assured
them that inasmuch as the mills had
now acquired n reputation for turning
out allwool fabrics the deception could
be practlccd and patrons be none the
wiser. But the converts from the old
country would not hear of it. Reed
could not do without them, so he thought
of scheme to get rid of them N time
without ieopardizing the business of the
mills He told them that they were
getting along in years and that he
thought it would be proper for them to
teach certain young men of his selec-
non how TO run their several depart.
ments, assuring them that the young
men should do the work and that all
they need TO do was simply to oversee
them. The scheme carried, and ms soon
is the younger fellows could carry on
he work the old and faithful overseers
we're bounced, incidentally the plan o,
mixing .shoadv with the wool was pul