The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-10-20
THEIR REAL CHARACTER.

1t is not very long since prominent Lib
eral, so-called, gave it as his opinion as a
lawyer that the first thing to be done in
the matter of selecting iuries in the courts
of record in the territory should be the con
elusive thing-that it was only necessary
to ascertain the jurors social status to de-
termine his qualifications at once-thus, the
first question to be asked should be, are
you Mormon! An affirmative answer being
returned, that should settle it at once, and
the candidate for jury duty should there
upon be required to step down and out
This may seem to some at a distance
somewhat like fancy sketch, tale hay
ing no other basis or foundation than mere
Pigments of the Imagination, and yet it is
not only true, butts not all there is of truth
of the same kind in existence. Those who
want to exercise supreme sway here and
dominate all the affairs of mankind, tenn
poral and spiritual, herea bout, go much
further than that in their aims, but of
course they have of late years been cur
tailed somewhat in their disposition by IN
controllable circumstances.
1t has been the especial boast of this
class of people, mainly through their or
gan, that no warfare was being waged
upon religion or religious institutions; that
it did not matter whether the people of Utah
worshiped men or demons, phantoms or
fiends, placed their reliance upon the Bible
the Koran, the Sanscrit or what not, so
long as they came within the pale of the
laws as enacted, in appearance at least
All that was needed was an acknowledge
ment in public manner that the national
statutes were supreme, that there was no
opposition to them, that there should be no
sympathy, aid or comfort for rebellion or
those engaged in it, and that thereupon we
would be enabled to understand each other
and get along finely together. 1t was a
consummation devoutly to be wished.
Well, the people no sooner began to show
a disposition to comply with all that was
demanded of them than there was exhi
bited corresponding disposition Oh the
other side to not accept of it, but to keep
up the programme Of the part by demand
ing more of the same kind. Thus it is that
those who are religiously known as the
Mormons, having attempted to square
their conduct in temporal affairs with the
demands made upon them by the general
government or it's agents, guided by the
aforesaid patriots" with the understand
ing that that was all that would be re-
quired of them in a general way, and that
thereafter they could worship supreme
COP or a brazen Moloch in accordance with
their conscientious dictates, now find that
!, h., \, f,;+
that the soothsayers have paltered with
them in more than a.double sense, that they
have kept the word of promise to the ear
and broken it to the hope, and that what
they have so far foregone is not enough.
Judging Of the future by the past, which
of course is the only way the unlnspired
have of judging of anything to come, the
average citizen has in the existing state of
affairs here in Utah, and more particularly
in Salt Lake city, much food for thought
and abundance of light for his feet to be
guided by. In the first place, it was only
necessary that Objectionable features Of
the faith he followed be discarded in order
that he might stand upon a level
with other citizens of the nation !;
having complied with such requirements, or
gone as far in that direction as the self
constituted despots would permit him to,
the cheering information is given him that
he has not sacrificed enough, that so long
as he retains the name of Mormon and
processes any sort of allegiance to a su-
preme power through the forms and meth
DDS of such a system of religion, that is
reason enough why he should not sit on
iuries, why he should not vote, why he
should not exercise any of the rights and
privileges of ordinary citizens of the re-
public.
This kind of thing, viewed in one way, is
perhaps all for the best, in that it teaches
the religionists and sincere politicians of
Utah that there is nothing made by trad
ing. The moment that those who have a
well grounded belief in any organized sys-
tenn of worship or human conduct show a
disposition to barter it away for the des
perate chance of something better which is
promised, that moment they are placing
themselves in the way of decay and disso-
lutien. 1t may be taken for granted that
an INSCRIPTIONS foe who gains one point is
only thereby nerved and encouraged to
further effort in the same direction,
whereas, to fight him to finish on every