The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-03-27
INTOLERANCE NOT DEAD

The great mass of mankind, in Protestant
countries at least, remarks contemporary,
have been slowly, silently, but irresistibly
breaking away from the anchorage of
dogma. AS the years have gone by there
has been wider and deeper tendency to
regard as unimportant what a man pro
fesses to believe compared with what he
does and is. Let theologians protest as
they may. the world is fast coming to the
point of ranking conduct above creed.
The time is coming, we believe, when
it will be considered an intolerable outrage
for any man to complain of the creed of his
neighbor, or to say that mans supposed be-
lief units him for the society of his fellows
or the protection of the laws. Most of the
churches of to-day have gone out of the
martyr business; but if anyone thinks the
spirit of bigotry and persecution has died
out he is entirely mistaken.
a paper published in this city paraGes
fanatical appeals to Congress from time to
time to the effect that no one who believes
in the doctrines of the Mormon church
should be permitted to vote, serve on juries,
obtain title to lands or be protected by the
ordinary safeguards of citizenship.
The legislature of Idaho has Just disfran-
chised the most law abiding people in that
state, to the number OF perhaps one-third
Of the entire population, solely because
these people are members of the only
church in Idaho that appears to have vital
ity enough to restrain its members from
any fragrant acts of wrong-doing. The
people thus DISTINGUISHED know more of the
fundamental principles of a republican
government than the constituents of the
men who disfranchised them. They are also
better citizens, and have given the courts
there less trouble, polygamy included. than
any other people there of like numbers.
Since the abandonment of polygamy, which
had been formerly practiced by few among
them land these few had been punished
with remorseless severity, these people
were absolutely void of offense toward the
state or the nation.
But this made no difference to the weak
and ignorant fanatics of the Idaho ''legisla-
ture; they struck down like dogs, the best
citizens in that state, and one even de.
clared that while he could forgive some
crimes, yet he never could forgive the
''crime" of once having been Mormon.
This view prevailed, and the disfrau-
chisement was made to apply to former
as well present members of the Mormon
church.
Yet the men who are thus ever ready to
strike down the Mormons on account of
their religious belief, care little for reli-
gion, and many of them belong to no church
whatever. If they have any religious
ideas, which may well be doubted, they
seem to be of the type of the French school
of free thinkers. And, in general, the ma
iority of the American people are so little
attached to any kind of religion, that upon
fair test they would scarcely be consid-
cred orthodox towards any particular
creed. For that very reason we can tel
them they are not yet out of the woods OF
religious persecution themselves. They
are sowing the wind, only to reap The
whirlwind. The precedents they are es
tablishing ir prosecuting the Mormons viii
before long be used against themselves
When the Pope of Rome shall dominate
American politics, woe 20 the dissenters
The marvellous growth of Catho licism il
this country will bear political fruit by ant
by, or history will have forgotten to repea
itself under like circumstances.
The wanton warfare upon the Mormon
by men who seek to gain little pop ularit
by prosecuting an unpopular and defen sc
less people, will be visited upon the head
of the prosecutors themselves some day
The outrages upon the rights of Mormon
will bear bitter fruits.