Oral History Program J. Bracken Lee Interviewed by David Williams 21 May 1971 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah J. Bracken Lee Interviewed by David Williams 21 May 1971 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Lee, J. Bracken, an oral history by David Williams, 21 May 1971, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with J. Bracken Lee. The interview was conducted on May 21, 1971 by David Williams, in the City and County Building in Salt Lake City, Utah. Former Governor Lee discusses his career and political views, as well as his friendships within the LDS Church. DW: How did you originally get into politics? JL: Oh, kind of accidentally I guess. Let me say that my father was very active in politics, and his philosophy was "always take an interest in government but don’t ever run for office." Of course I didn’t run for office until after he died. I don’t think he would have permitted it because I was in business with my father, had a partnership with him – insurance, real estate bonds, and abstracting. I did take an interest even before I was 21. I’d go to political meetings. He was a Republican, naturally, and I joined the party even before I could vote and even was active as secretary in the precinct, with no thought of ever running for office. DW: This was in Price? JL: In Price, Utah, and of course I was born there, too. Well, anyway, my nature is such, when I see something wrong, I want to do something about it. So as time went on, I started to complain about somebody in public office and they ought to be out. I made it my business to go out and campaign against somebody. Mostly I was against them, not for them. I’ve come to the conclusion that most of us are that way. We don’t vote for, we really vote against. We vote for what we consider to be the lesser of two evils. Well, in being against people and going out and trying to defeat them, I guess you attract 1 attention. I would assume that this is what happened. I know we had a mayor in Price we didn’t think was doing his job, and of course I was young then, and pretty outspoken, and would try to get somebody to run. If we couldn’t get somebody to run, then somebody would say, “Why don’t you run?” For the lack of a candidate, I ran, and I was defeated. Defeated by a pretty good margin. DW: That was for mayor? JL: For mayor, yes. And then the next year, I didn’t run. You see, there were two year terms. So the next time we went out and elected another man and, in the meantime, I took a dislike to him and thought he was doing a lot of things wrong. I starting talking at that, and pretty soon somebody said, “Why don’t you run?” And of course I did. I worked hard. I went from door to door the way I thought you had to campaign to be elected, and I won by two votes. Immediately this man, who was a lawyer, filed a lawsuit contesting the election, which brought on a recount. They brought a judge down from Salt Lake City to hear it and recount the votes. This is where I learned that there are not many mistakes in a recount. You take Carbon County and Price where you had all nationalities – any nationality you can think of you had in Price. A very cosmopolitan group of people. And you would say, “Here is a lot of people who immigrated from the old country" – Greeks and Italians and Armenians and people like that who didn’t understand the English language too well, and many of them had very little schooling. But it’s amazing how intelligent people vote. Well anyway, they got through with the recount, and it ended up exactly the same. I won by two votes. Why, of course I never thought about any higher office because I felt "who am I?" — A small individual in a small town. The limit of my education was high school. I went to college, didn’t have any 2 degrees, and I did believe in government and I believed in it sincerely. I didn’t believe that the average politician was honestly serving the people. DW: Do you still believe that? JL: I believe that more than ever. I don’t believe you have many people run for office who are sincerely interested in doing the job for the people, I’m sorry to say. I think that every one of us have a different motive, but I think some people do it because they’re naturally ambitious, they want positions of leadership. I think others do it for the honor they feel is involved in being elected to high office. I think others do it because they’re too weak and they become tools for other people. I think it’s sad, I really do. This is my own opinion, and I haven’t changed it. I believe in this theory of a division of powers. I don’t believe anybody should be permitted to have too much power. I don’t care who it is. I think that even if a man is deeply religious and as honest as can be, that doesn’t give him the right to always be right because he’s a human being. I think it would be dangerous for me to have too much power. I think I would abuse it. I think everybody else does. Well, anyway, as the mayor of Price, I always believed that the State Liquor Control Bureau was unfair and so stated because I noticed when they came into Price, they’d arrest people, and over in Helper they let them run wide open. I noticed that slot machines were permitted in Helper, Soldier Summit, and other places, but they weren’t permitted in Price. It was a state official who was doing this. Well, of course, I took exception to this. I said this law should be applied the same everywhere, and I made it worse, see, because I was made target. DW: Right. Do you think that they isolated that particular region? 3 JL: No, I think it was done for political reasons because I was outspoken. I was outspoken in how they were operating. In fact, I opposed the original liquor law on the theory that it was drawn up by politicians not for the purpose off controlling liquor, but for the purpose of controlling votes. The whole thing, in my opinion, was a political bill, and I charged them with that. Well, of course the Democrats were in power and had been in this state for 24 years. Now the way politics are played, if some pipsqueak mayor from a little town like Price starts fighting this great State of Utah, then this is an insult to them. And the natural reaction in politicians is, “We got to shut that fellow up.” I remember they sent different investigators down to Price, and they would go through our box, the tax commission trying to find where I was getting the pay-off, or something. They couldn’t conceive that I was doing the things I was and still be honest. But with all that, they never were able to get anything on me, and I was constantly getting something on them. And of course, if you go back through the old newspapers, you’ll find that I had a running battle, and I think I won almost every skirmish because what I used to do was that they would come down to Price and raid the Elks Club. And they would confiscate the equipment, and they would take the money out of the cash register, and in cases where they did have slot machines of some kind, they would confiscate this money. Then they’d give a receipt for this amount of money. Then I would wait until after they had the trial and the case was all closed. Then I’d go up and compare the amount of money with what they turned in with the receipts they’d given the management. I found in every instance that they’d cheat a little, maybe only $5 or $25. I would give it to the press. That is how dishonest they were. 4 DW: Well, was that you’re talking about – slot machines and other – let’s say, I hate to call it vice. Maybe in legal terms it was vice. Was that pretty rampant down there? JL: It was in some areas. I would say in Helper and Soldier Summit, particularly. There were a lot of them. Now, there was a time when the state permitted, I would say, all of the private clubs, like the Elks Club all over the state, they permitted them to have slot machines. They didn’t bother them. DW: Was this the same on liquor? JL: Yes, it was pretty much the same on liquor. Now, this I would object to because my theory was that you didn’t need a state enforcement because they play politics with it, and they did. So they would permit the Elks Club in Salt Lake to sell whiskey and have slot machines. They’d permit private places to run wide open in Helper and have slot machines, and Soldier Summit, that I know of. I’m sure there were other places. But Price, they closed it down tight. You weren’t permitted to have anything. So I kept saying to them and to the attorney general, “How come you don’t need a state enforcement that is the same all over?” I said, “Proof that you don’t need a state enforcement is that we have a police force. We have a sheriff’s office. And the mayor and all of us are charged under this law with the enforcement of liquor. All you have to do is tell us to enforce it, and I’ll enforce it, but I resent you letting them run wide open someplace else and then closing down Price. Now, what is your policy?” So one time they called me on the phone, the Liquor Commission did, wanted to meet with me. So they came down and I had this argument. I said, “All I want to know is what your policy is. What are you going to permit in Salt Lake or Ogden or Provo? Then I want it permitted here. I want the same treatment, and if you tell me you want this town dry, I’ll 5 dry it up for you. But I want it dry everywhere.” So they say, “Well, what you’re permitted, private clubs like the country club and the Elks Club and the Moose and the Veterans will be permitted to have a locker system. But they will have to have the name on the bottle. The bottles have to be kept in lockers, and this will be permitted.” I said, “All right, we’ll go around to each of these clubs, and you tell them that.” So we did, and we had the chief law enforcement. DW: What period of time was that? Was that the 1930s? JL: This was in the 1930s, yes. So they agreed and told these people, and this is what happened. Immediately they started to operate, and here came the enforcement division, arrested every one of them, confiscated their property, sold it at a public sale, caused the country club to reorganize under another name after losing everything, but they are the ones who told them how to operate. Well, I raised the roof about this, and the unfair treatment, and this all made news, you see. DW: Would you be in favor of, let’s say a county option on this type of thing – on liquor or anything else? JL: Well, personally, I think that this law is so full of abuses that benefit those in public office, and which I can demonstrate to you. As an illustration, when I campaigned for governor, I would go into a beer parlor or pool halls, or places where they were under the jurisdiction of the Liquor Commission. There were big signs of my opponent in the window. We’d go in and ask them, “Can I put a sign in the window?” They would say “We would just love to have it put in, but the Liquor Commission has told us that if we put your sign in here, they’d close us down.” Now this was always the state. This was one of the abuses. 6 DW: This was in 1952? JL: No, this was in 1944 and 1948 both. DW: You ran before you actually made it? JL: Yes. Well, of course this thing was a running battle, and I was finally able after this chief enforcement officer had double-crossed these people in Price, then I discovered in Helper not only private clubs were open, but anybody could walk into a bar and buy a drink of liquor. And so I started to check into this, and I went over to Helper and talked to some of these fellows and said, “How do you get away with this?” And they couldn’t tell me. But all of a sudden because it had been called to the attention of the public that Helper was wide open and Price was closed down tight, even the private clubs. Then, I guess, pressure was brought to bear and the Liquor Commission went down and raided these places in Helper. But then after they were raided and arrested, then I had two of them call me on the phone and say, “If you want some information where the pay-off is, we’ll tell you.” So I went up there, and they told me who they had been paying off. Then I reported it to the attorney general, and in the end we got a grand jury. DW: They were paying off the state officials? JL: Oh yes. And of course there were several indicted, and their chief law enforcement officer went to prison. DW: Do you think the whole political scene at that time was similar to that? JL: I think that the state government was very corrupt at that time, and while I didn’t have the proof to convict people, I was firmly convinced that a majority of people were making money on the side. I was convinced of that. 7 DW: Did that stimulate you at all? JL: Oh sure. Well, you see even that. I didn’t feel I had any chance of ever being elected to high office, but because of this publicity that I received in fighting this thing, I think the Democrats made me politically more than anybody. My Democratic enemies did it because they kept harassing me, and, in turn, I’d keep fighting back. In almost every instance, I’d get the best of them. I think this built me up to a point publicly, I think with certain individuals. DW: Well, how about in your party at that time. JL: Well, I have never, and can honestly say, that I don’t think I’ve ever been too popular with my own party because my theory in politics was that a party itself owed an obligation to the public. If they, the party itself, didn’t stand on a platform of giving the people a better deal from government, then that party ought to be thrown out of office – that a bad Republican was just as bad as a bad Democrat. Of course this is not popular in politics because, I’m sorry to say, that politicians who really want something, they don’t go out and elect you because they love you. They go out and elect you because they either want a job, or they want a favor, and this is the political system. Well, anyway, to show you, the first time I ran for office, they had what was known as the open primary, and anybody could file. You’d file your name, and maybe you’d have 20 candidates. And then the two highest in each party would square off in the finals. I did run for Congress and was almost elected. Then two years later, I became a candidate, and I lost that by 200 and some odd votes, while the other Republican was losing by 30,000 votes. 8 DW: A few years back I ran across your name somewhere. I’m not sure if it was you or not, though. Were you ever nominated and put on a party ticket somewhere other than Utah for president? JL: Yes, New Jersey. DW: What year was that? JL: 1956, I believe. DW: How did they get to know you back there? JL: Oh, I traveled all over the country talking. DW: On lecture tours? JL: Yes, I traveled two years solid. Every state in the union except Alaska and Hawaii, but they weren’t states then. DW: Well, what was your appeal, as maybe a conservative? JL: No, I of course got off on this income tax, which I honestly believe to be the thing that’s destroyed our country. The longer I live, the more I’m convinced of it. But I did want to point out, you asked me about party politics. Of course I never had much trouble getting a good vote when I went before the people, but when they changed and went to the party system, then I used to have trouble. One man received about 700 votes, and here was about 200 votes divided by the other six. I got 50, my recollection is 52 votes, and came in second. But when I went out before the people, I bested him three to one, the fellow who had the 700 votes. Records will show that I used to receive about as many Democrat as I did Republican, and that’s still true as mayor of Salt Lake. 9 DW: Did you, when you later ran for governor - I know you ran for governor as a Republican, didn’t you? But for the mayor, this was non-partisan, wasn’t it? JL: Yes. DW: Are you still affiliated with the Republican Party? JL: No, I broke with them and ran independent, if you remember, when was it – in 1960? I believe it was 1960. DW: For governor? JL: For senate under an independent ticket. DW: How did you do on that one? JL: Oh, I did pretty well for being all alone. But I found out that you can’t, you know, when you figure the other two parties are organized. Not only that, but they all have candidates in every county running, and I’m all alone, but I did get 29 percent of the votes. I did pretty good. DW: Better than Wallace. You’re non-LDS, aren’t you? JL: Yes. DW: During your political career, do you think that being non-LDS hurt you? JL: No, I think I was fortunate because I had some very good friends, and still do, that are in the church leadership. They were most helpful to me because they were offset. I have great respect for the power of the Mormon Church in politics, and while we don’t think that churches should be in politics, we mustn’t forget that people are people whether they belong to a church or not. When it comes to politics, you get into Boston, you find 10 the Catholics pretty well control you. Get down to Texas, and you find the Baptists have a lot of influence. So when you say that the church doesn’t have influence, they do have a terrific influence. I think I was very fortunate in the church leadership, the good friends of mine, and it was most helpful to me all over the state. DW: Did you ever receive any opposition, let’s say, formal opposition, rather than just individual? JL: I had opposition when I ran for a third term for governor. I ran independent then, too, for a third term because the Republicans kicked me out, and I think I made a mistake in doing it. But this is the opposition I received. The Sunday before the election, I began to get word from people that the bishops in the churches were saying this: “It is rumored that the church is supporting Bracken Lee. This is not true. And what can you do about it?” I thought it was very clever, and it was effective, there’s no question about it. DW: First we were talking about the outlaws that you knew. Can we go into that a little? JL: Sure. DW: How old were they when you knew them? JL: There was Matt Warner. He was a good friend of mine. When I noticed you were recording this, if I’d have had a recorder and have been thoughtful enough to think that his information would have been valuable someday, I’d have been more inclined to have questioned the man on things that he did because I knew him that well. But you don’t think of that thing, you see. You talk about history, and I wish I’d have made notes and questioned him more, but you don’t think about it. In my opinion, during the time I knew him, he was a fine citizen. Everybody liked the man. He was most likeable, 11 congenial fellow. He was a good shot with a pistol, of course, I remember that. Of course I used to kid him because one night we had a burglar that was caught trying to get in a store in the alley. He fired three shots at him and missed him, and I used to kid him about it. I think the truth of the matter is, he didn’t want to hit him. I think he was trying to scare him into stopping. But my father used to say that Matt Warner was convicted for the only crime that he should have been turned loose for. DW: What was that? JL: I think this occurred near Vernal. I think he and another fellow ended up killing four men. Actually Matt and this other fellow were hired to guard a mine, this is my recollection. These four killers were hired to kill Matt and this fellow deliberately, and it ended up that Matt and this fellow killed the four of them. They were arrested and charged with murder and convicted, and I think he served a couple of years in the penitentiary for it. DW: Like today? JL: Yes. He had his first wife, who of course died, and he had a daughter by her. She lived in Price. Her name was Mrs. Kaisher and she had two sons. They’re still alive, and I think they both live in Moab, and grandsons. Then he remarried. Matt remarried a younger and fine-looking woman, and I think his daughter – well, one of his daughters from this marriage – was the librarian at Price. But he knew. He knew Cassidy very well, and of course I can remember when, I think it was Redbook Magazine, started to publish a story in a serial form by Matt Warner. And of course I went and bought the book, the first issue that came out. I remember talking to him about it, and he said, “Oh, they’re going to ruin me.” And I said, “What do you mean they’re going to ruin you?” He said, “They’re trying to make a lover out of me, and I never was a lover in this story.” 12 Then later he kept getting telegrams from these people, from the book company saying, “Are you sure these people are all dead?” And of course Matt said, “They are dead,” but I don’t think there was any evidence that Cassidy was dead. But Matt always contended that he was. My recollection was that Redbook quit publishing his stories because they were afraid of being sued because there was no evidence that Cassidy was dead. Now later, he brought that out in book form, and it’s now back on the market. I think it’s called The Robber’s Roost. DW: He was your night policeman? JL: Yes, he was on the night police force. DW: How long did he do that? JL: My recollection, he was only on about two years. I would guess his age, I would probably say that he was in his sixties when he was working for me. That’s my guess. DW: Was he pretty spry for late sixties? JL: Yes, and healthy looking, a very likable fellow. I never knew anybody that disliked Matt, a most congenial fellow. If you read his book and his history, you’ll find that I think he always felt that he was forced into this because he was under the impression that he killed a man at a dance in Mt. Pleasant. I think he got in this fight, and he was under the impression he killed this fellow, but he didn’t. So he skipped, see, and he never knew until years later that he didn’t kill him. DW: Make a good movie plot, wouldn’t it? 13 JL: Excellent. I think there are a lot of accidents attached to politics where we say a man is – how many times he’s been elected. I think there’s some luck attached to it. Maybe the times, and maybe the candidates opposed to you. DW: You know the tradition that was started with John Kennedy of the young man with the charisma. Do you think that’s going to replace most of the new politicians coming up? Are they going to go after that mode of style, or the style where you’re defending the common man and not so flamboyant, let’s say? Or do you consider yourself in that range? JL: Well, of course, when you talk about liberal and conservative, I think it’s a misuse of words because I considered myself a true liberal. And I don’t consider these people liberals who are tearing down this country. I think they don’t know what they’re doing, but it they’re doing it in the name of liberalism. I don’t see anything liberal about turning your country over to an all-central government. I think you’re destroying freedom, which is contrary. So I think there is a lot of misuse of words. As an illustration, I think I’m a better friend to the laboring man than the labor leaders, and that’s my opinion, see. I think that the laboring man is missing something when he turns down a fellow who believes, as I do, and buys the idea that he’s getting dues to some labor leader who actually don’t give a damn about him. All he cares about is numbers, and what he’s getting out of it. It’s my honest opinion that the average man who ties himself into a labor union ends up being more of a slave than if he didn’t have the union because at least a man outside of the union can come and tell the mayor to go to the devil any time he wants to. Or he can tell his boss to go to the devil, and maybe get fired, but he can go someplace else and get a job. But you tell a labor leader to go to the devil and see 14 where you ever get a job. I think there was a time when labor unions became necessary, but I think that the labor leader who used to really fight for the rights of people has been replaced in many instances with leaders who don’t have the individual interest at heart. DW: You’re speaking on a national level? JL: Yes. DW: Our union is composed of just policemen. The officers are policemen. JL: I don’t see anything wrong with a local organization of any kind. But worries me is national unions. I’ve felt that the government ought to treat national labor unions the same as they treat corporations who get a monopoly because I think when government gets too strong, that something ought to be done to break it down. Because I think it becomes detrimental to the general welfare of people. DW: Now earlier you were talking about taxation, income tax. What is the alternative for revenue that you would propose? JL: Well, of course when you have somebody who believes, as I do, in government, knowing the power of government, I say that a citizen who is on the outside is foolish to wonder about where government is going to get its money. I think the citizen ought to worry about how he’s going to keep his government from taking everything. This is my belief because I know the power of government, and government today has the power to take everything you’ve got. It has the power to make a complete slave out of you. DW: Do you think they’ve taken over too many duties? 15 JL: Yes, I honestly feel that the best government for the people – I know a lot of people disagree with me – certainly you have socialists who believe in an all-powerful leadership like you have in Russia. And it’s nothing but a dictatorship. You had a dictatorship under the Germans, under Hitler, and you had it under Mussolini, and it’s my contention that what’s the difference between fascism and communism? They are all dictatorships. They’ve got different names now. And if you give Nixon the complete power of dictatorship, you could still call it a democracy, but it isn’t. You confuse names, and I think you accomplish more with a little freedom of initiative than you do by controlling everybody as we are trying to do now. Now we complain about our young people taking dope, and we say this is only a temporary relief of getting rid of our troubles, and that’s all that dope is. People develop a habit, but what the dickens, they’re all in these subsidies. There isn’t a one of them that cures a thing. All they do is postpone the problem, and the problem gets worse not better. The more government pours into this thing the worse it gets. I don’t think there’s any use kidding ourselves. People, all of us, and I include myself, there is a certain amount of selfishness in every single one of us, and I guess we wouldn’t exist if we didn’t have it. Because if you don’t look out for number one, nobody else does, as a rule. It’s the instinct of survival that you wouldn’t survive if you didn’t have it, so I don’t say you can eliminate it. But if you are going to live in a society of any kind, it’s a very mortal cinch that you’ve got to have some basic rules that people live by. And the most basic rule that people live by is you should not try and force your will upon anybody else in anything that you wouldn’t want him to force upon you. It gets right down to the basic rule of all religion, which is the Golden Rule. Every religion I know preaches it, but we don’t live up to it. I think this is 16 where we get into our trouble. But I would say our government, our form originally, was based on this, and had we stayed with it and endeavored to try and improve the philosophy of the freedom of man without too much interference, where you wouldn’t harm anybody else, then we wouldn’t be in the trouble we’re in. But we’ve got the selfishness of the individual who comes to the conclusion that he knows what’s best for everybody else, then he tries to force everybody to live to his rules, and I think this is where you get into trouble. Not only that, but we band together, and we say, we call it justifiable advantage. I might convince myself that I am entitled to a special privilege from government because I belong to a particular group. But in the judgment of this person sitting over here, do you think he’s going to argue with me unless he’s a member of my group? I might argue with you about it. You might decide that you are entitled to a justifiable advantage. Now are you going to end up with this thing? Somebody is going to be on the bottom. I think a terrible mistake is being made by saying to the Negro, “You’ve been mistreated over the years, and to make it up to you, we’re going to give you an advantage.” I don’t think the Negro respects you for it. The Negro is every one of us understands being treated fairly, but we know something is wrong when somebody comes to you and tries to pay you off. Then you say, “Well, that isn’t enough.” Are you solving this problem by saying to the Negro? What you should say is that he’s entitled to the same fair treatment that everybody else is by government, and I try to prove my point with government by saying, “Would you like to go to a football game, or a baseball game, or a boxing match, or anything else, and like to see the referee get on your side to the disadvantage of the other? You wouldn’t even like that. You wouldn’t even like that. You might want to win, but down in your heart, you would lose respect for the 17 whole game, even if they were cheating for you. This is human nature. I’ve seen, and you probably remember, Fulmer. We all loved the fellow. We all wanted him to win, but I saw him get booed by Utah people because he butted with his head in a fight. We don’t like this thing. While we might ask for an advantage for our self, we don’t like to see the advantage go to someone else. My idea is that government should not be interfering with anything except refereeing the game of life. And when they begin to get in it then you got injustice, and the more you get into it, the more injustice you get. This is what we’re doing is compounding our trouble. When you talk about what’s worried me for years is this idea of, we’ve got to change; this is old fashioned. Well now, actually is it old fashioned? It’s true that our form of government is 200 years old, but is there any proof that our form of government is still not the most modern form of government in the whole history of the world? And when you stop and think about society, and how long it’s been operating, let’s see about 2,000 years of recorded history... In 2,000 years it’s been passed on to the people that there are certain basic rules in the running of the church, or the running of a lodge, or the operation of a corporation, or the operation of a partnership, and these rules go back almost 2,000 years that we have discovered are basic. Until you find a rule that is more basic, than the one you’re discarding, you’re a fool to do it. And we’re doing this. We’re adopting rules that were made 1,000 years ago, and replacing it with something that is modern and up-to-date, and we’re doing it in the name that change is necessary. So I say if you belong to a church, I just assume you do, let’s suppose that your church membership starts to fall off and the interest lags. Do you and your congregation get together and say, “We’ve got to change the rules. We’ll throw the Bible out the window, and we’ll change the rules.” No, never. You say, 18 “Let’s get a new person to run this.” Do stockholders in the company say, “Let’s change the rules” when they start to lose money? No. They say, “Let’s get a new board of directors and a new president.” Our lodge, never once do they tamper with the basic rules, but in government the very same people who are a member of a church and know that these basic rules shouldn’t be changed unless you can improve on them, they say, “Let’s change the preacher,” or, “Let’s change the bishop. Let’s change the president.” When it comes to government, they jump right in with these monkeys, and say, “We’ve got to change the government.” My contention is that if you have five people running Salt Lake City, that are good and conscientious people, they are interested in this community and want to make it improved for everybody, that they can operate it under a commission form of government, good. They can operate it under any merit council, good. They can operate it under any system. But if they’re no good, you can change the system all you want to, and you haven’t improved a thing. The rules will not improve. I think we’ve been misled with this idea that only the federal government can do something. DW: You’re talking about the federal government. Do you think that the local government has gotten too powerful? JL: Well, I think there has been a trend of all governments to get bigger and bigger than they were originally intended. And of course our forefathers knew, and this gets back to the tax question, our forefathers knew that with money went power. And so some of the constitutional restrictions that you have were based deliberately on the limitation of the power to tax because with money went power. And the more money they could take from you, the more power they had. And so they limited the amount of tax it could take 19 from the people. Federal government had a limit, your cities still have a limit, school boards still have a limit, and some other local units of government are limited in their power to tax. But we let some of the leaders in this country lie to us and tell us that if we give them the unlimited power to tax that it would never be abused. And we swallowed it. Now look what you’ve got. 20