The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1910-05-06

of their leases December 81, 1909. at
| $.075 per acre for "A period of five
years, and it was ordered that the re-
quest be complied with and that new
| leases be issued at the expiration of
| the old
'Whereupon the board ordered that
| the lands included in the Johnson.Sev.
erson leases be included in the above
order.
The Record Is Plain.
There is the law and there is the
record One / obtained from a printed
copy of the law handed me by the
acting register today. The other
copied literally from the minute book
of the board at pagc 800.
The Fremont Grazing association en-
braces the "Big Four large sheep
concerns Of Fremont county. The prin-
cipal officers of this association have
been "set aside biennially TO repre-
sent Fremont county in the state legis-
lature for several years past.
They have been "set aside'' by the
authorities of the church.
The Johnson -Severson Sheep company
is partnership of which Peter J.
Johnson of B]ackfoot is the principal
head-a Mormon living al Blackfoot-
He has been 'set aside'' to represent
Bingham county IN the legislature a
time or two.
This power Of these high Mormons,
bishops and counselors of their respec-
tive wards is the crux of this situation.
1t was the agency which inspired the
board of state land commissioners to
emasculate this plain provision of the
law governing their acts.
This is what could be properly styled
"snap Judgment; "sharp practice" =;
"paying politics with the sacred as
sets of Idaho
am not disposed to criticise the
leasing of these lands in large bodies
to large sheep companies 1t may be
that in certain instances the board could
have procured better sales of lease
to smaller tracts Of land, at the eI-
pense. mayhap, Of leasing the entire
body at so large figure.
Perversion of Justice.
But no sort of justification can be
made of an overt act such as leasing
this land, by order spread on the rec
ords of the state, six and half months
prior to the time the law. permits
release of the acreage. This is a per
version of Justice and it was done for
a purpose, and / am inclined to at
tribute no motive other than peanut
politics of the most diminutive order,
TO the state board of land commission
ers in this departure from the clear
provision of the law intended to govern
them in the performance of official duty.
This is humiliating TO a fund so
sacred as the school fund of the state
of Idaho. 1T is humiliating to a sober,
high minded citizenship who must look
with pity on this evident design TO
curry favor with high churchmen, pre-
sumed through ecclesiastical preferment
10 be all-poweTful in the control of the
suffrages Of an obedient, devoted church
membership.
This appears as the greatest sin which
Mormon leaders can commit against
many of their followers who deplore
the existence of church control over
political affairs.
This again opens the same species OF
| politics resorted to by the odoriferous
George c; Parkinson. 1t is the sin
of the cult-the abominaton of the
| hierarchy. The intermingling of church
and state by the men high in the coun.
ellis of the Mormon church, whereby
| they obtain extraordinary favors in
return for the votes Of the poor people
of the church because Of the supposed
or actual influence they exert over them
as voters.
Only through willing, ambitious mem,
bers of board could such condition
| find existence.
This is the same. brand of ambition
which inspired the same attorney gen,
eral to go from the capital TO Malad
to defend Parkinson and Hart against
the sacred rights of the school lands
of Idaho which his official oath badc
him to protect. 1t is the bane of Idaho
today, and the honest men and women
unwarped by the itchings of political
| ambition, are deeply sensible to the
| dangers attending the situation.