The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-09-08
REPUBLICAN TEST oArHs.

Whenever The HERALD progs the Tribune
into remote history it produces on the part
Of our neighbor the most virulent cholera
symptoms, including gripings and copious
rice water editorials. But as Sir EDWIN
ARNOLD says that cholera is phantom
that frightens people, there being "really
NO danger If people are healthy" no great
epidemic is anticipated.
The subiect-matter of debate is test
oaths, some relics Of which remain where
the power of the state is appealed to in or
der to circumvent the rule of the majority.
Such is the object, true intent and meaning
of this device drawn from the tyranny of
northern Europe. and revised and i'm
proved by the Republican party of the
United States. The Tribune says that. as
applied TO ACKNOWLEDGMENT in Idaho, the
courts have declared its victims mot fit to
become citizens Of the United States" The
courts have done nothing Of the kind, and
it is our neighbours proverbial laxity of
counts for its constant iteration of that re-
mark. What the courts have done in the
premises has been to affirm that the state
may by its sovereign power exclude from
suffrage persons convicted of crime, and
may even exclude persons by their own
testimony. The power to define the quail.
fcation Of voters by prospective and gen.
eral laws is conceded. But no competent
court In this country has declared that q
man otherwise qualified may be disfran-
cbised by a retroactive or &c post facto law,
or law relating TO his social, moral, polit-
ical or religious belief. No competent
tribunal has decided man to be an alien
who was born in the United States or nat
uralized in its courts. the Salt Lake 1rib-
nne to the contrary Notwithstanding. The
Tribune de-nationalizes large number OF
American citizens nearly every day. but it
and those who echo its denunciations pos
sess full monopoly Of the business.
TIE HERALD has asserted that the polit-
ical test oath is Republican de-
vice, and az such opposed by Democrats.
How can it be said with truth or
decency thatany citizen is disqualified in
his character for exercising the liberty of
suffrage, when no violation of law in all
his life can be laid to his charge! Our
neighbor says THE HERALD writers sym
pathized with all that was Iawless in the
south and all that was fierce and cruel,n
by simply quoting from abolition disunion-
lists. We now PROFOUND to it the question
whether it viii assert that among the
masses Of the southern people there was
less of personal integrity and honor, less
of truth, less of parental or coniugal af-
lection, less of Christian piety or moral
principle than among any equal number of
our population anywheres If it will take
the responsibility of such on assertion, we
desire to know on what evidence it will
maintain it. If not, we will ask why it de-
tends principle of government which If
applied today would cut off many millions
of people from the right to maintain free
government. disQualify them from teach
ing their children the rudiments of knowl-
edge or, as in the case of Missouri, to enter
into any church organization or to proclaim
the gospel What would become of the
country If the principle now upheld in
Idaho and Utah is acknowledged to be le-
CLIMATE and constitutionals