The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1910-08-30
THE BEAUTY OF SALT LAKE.

cleanliness. and beauty, of Salt Lake
City, This encomium was nothing but
Justice, and when Mr., Hummel ut.
tered it his saying was not mere
idle praise, because he has travelled
extensively throughout the world, and
knows a beautiful city when he sees
| it.
1t is fortunate that Mr.. Hummel
(and any others who appreciate a
beautiful city, is able to see Salt
Lake now, when it is under Ameri-
can control, and therefore at it's best.
1t is no wonder that Salt Lake City
escaped such encomiums in the old
them because it did not deserve
them. If the church had been in con.
troll of this city until now we would
have had nothing here but an over.
grown country village. There would
have been no sewerage system, no paw
ing, no sidewalks, Even the streets
would not have been sprinkled, be-
cause as late as 1888 a committee of
the church council reported to that
body that it would be ga dangerous
precedent to allow the occupants
of buildings in the business district
on Second South to have that street
sprinkled, even at their own cost
The argument was that If Second
South street were sprinkled, then
other parts of the town would also de-
mand to have their streets sprlnkled,
and the fear was that there would not
be water enough to go around. When
sewers were first proposed the church
organ viciously opposed them, stating
graft, and that in this altitude. with
our pure atmosphere, there was no
danger of malaria, and the open gut
ters, with cesspools here and there,
were sufficient for all purposes. Street
paving was viciously opposed, and the
statement was openly made that the
people would rather walk in mud,
when there was mud. than to pay for
Under that old dominance, of course
there was very little praise for Salt
Lake City, because Salt Lake City
had taken no steps to earn praise, but
under the Liberal dominance the first
steps were taken for modern munici
pal Improvements. After the Liberal
party dissolved, everything went to
pot again. Nothing was done. I'M
were dropped, and the city
reverted, so far as it could, TO the
primeval country village conditions.
Water became intolerably scarce, and
people were deserting the city by the
Under the last church ad-
that we had. a citizen of
sense and wealth was obliged to come
forward and give his personal bond
against property damage in order to
get Brigham street graded and paved
in the splendid condition that it is
now. Of course no damage suits re-
suited, because property all along the
street was benefited by the improve
ments: but still, the reactionary and
mulish church dominance insisted that
there was danger, and it exacted the
personal bond against damages.
And so it has been all the time. Salt
Lake City has had to fight for its
existence as a metropolis against the
moss"backism of church
rule. The old conditions suited the
church leaders right well They did
not want here any live commercial
They wanted conditions
to remain in primitive order, so
that all would be under their own con
troll; and the thing which they
feared most of everything else was
that the city would grow and would
release itself from their avaricious,
robbing clutches.
But the city has released itself from
those clutches, and it will stay re-
leased. The long history of church
preceding the time when any
thing could be done IN the way of
improvements, ought to
have been enough to warn the city
not to allow itself to revert to church
control; but in the era of good will
and of protestation of good faith and
of lava abidingness which resulted in
Statehood, the old distrust of the
church rule passed away, and the peo.
pie allowed the former dominance to
fasten itself once more upon the city,
with the same old result. Paralysis
ensued, and although a
Council was elected, eleven
out of fifteen members being nomiu-
ally Republicans, four of those mem
bers united with the four Demo
cratic members, forming a solid eight
of Mormon Councilmen, who resisted
every effort toward Improvement, and
who paralyzed the Thompson admins
tration all the time it was in power
The impossibility of getting anything
enterprising or progress
sive from the church domination so
impressed itself upon the voters of
Salt Lake City that they gladly turned
to the prospect of change, and when
it was resolved to form third party
here bv reason Of President Smith IS