The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1913-03-29
THEIR DISASTROUS LEADERSHIP

THEIR DISASTROUS LEADERSHIP
It was probably inevitable that the
Smoot organ should fall back upon a
personal plea for Smoot Especially
and Sutherland, and undertake to hold
them up as martyrs to an unjust as
sault from The Tribune, We have not,
however, made a personal matter of
this. but matter of principle and of
party history and party wreckage. The
question is verys broad one, and we
have considered it on broad lines
throughout. II makes no difference to
US that it happened to be Smoot and
Sutherland who were so largely instru-
mental in wrecking the Republican
party; and any others who had done
the same would inevitably have re
ceived the same criticism and would
have deserved it. The same censure
| is being visited upon the unfaithful
Republican Senators throughout the
country; many of them are replaced by
Democrats, and others by Republicans
who are not standpatters. It is ques-
tion Of principle and Of party salvation
with The Tribune, and SO we have con-
Quoted this discussion. At no time
have we allowed it to get into mere
personal wrangle, though insistently in"
vited by the Smoot organ TO do so; and
have used the names simply because
the use of those names was inevitable
in considering the general questions
involved. And so, while it is true that
the Senators from Utah have proved
themselves unfaithful leaders and
should be retired from party leader.
ship and from public life, we do not
say this because Of the men themselves,
but because OF the record they have
made. They have done more than their
share in wrecking the Republican party
in the Nation, and in making the Re-
publican party in this State a minority
party, successful only because the op-
position was divided.
The organ suggests that If there
could be a united support Of the Re-
publican Senators from Utah they
would be likely to have greater influ-
euce in the discussion of the tariff bill
than if opposition to them is mani
tested in this State. To this we reply
|csndidly that we do not think so, The
Utah Senators have so identified them.
selves with the standpat regime in the
Senate, they were so closely connected
with the framing of the bogus tariff
revision of 1909 that it seems newt
able that whatever they might propose
would be handicapped from the mo.
ment they proposed it, because the then
minority opposition, which is now in
the majority (thanks largely 10 the
Utah Seuators), would naturally as
sumo from the record Of those Senators
that there was something sinister in
what they proposed, and that propo-
sition would be frowned upon from the
| first merely because of the source from
which it came,
AS to the further suggestion that
there should be united support of the
| Utah Senators from this State, il is
enough TO say that united support un-
der the circumstances is quite impossi-
| BILE, for such support would imply an
endorsement of the record of those
Senators, which the people OF Utah
cannot possibly make. Aud in this
connection we may saw, further. that
so far as the melting of opposition to
these Senators and TO the Republican
party in this State is concerned, these
Senators and the Federal bunch at
their back have been the chief instru.
mentslities in breaking up the solidar.
ity Of the Republican party in this
State and making harmony even within
the party impossible Smoot, as the
chief boss. has carried things with too
high a hand; the INSCRIPTIONS, arbi-
trary methods of the Federal bunch in
gusted the people TO such an extent
that very large fraction OF the party
sloughed off at the recent election and
refused 10 affiliate with the party or
support the party nominees, either 10.
cal or National. The Tribune was not
responsible for that detection from the
party. because il strenuously opposed
the candidates supported by that por.
tion of the party which refused TO be
bound further by the bosses. We op-
posed that segregation, and opposed the
candidate who was Nationally at the
head of II. And so The Tribune can
IN no wise be blamed for the split Of
the Republican party, as it did split in
this State last year. II was the course
OF tho bosses Of the Republican ma
chine in this State. run under Smoot's :
direction, that made the split, and that
has soTlouded the future of the Re.
publican party in Utah. OF this there