The Evening dispatch. [volume] (Provo, City, Utah) 1891-1895, 1895-08-22
PROVO CITY.
AN ISSUE TENDERED.

hand and tenders an issue in the fol
lowing language: "The Standard
would be pleased to have the demo-
Gratis make the fight on the Mormon
question during the coming cam
psign."
Now we believe that 1t is true-the
Standard would like US to do it, but we
say to you Mr.. Glassman that we do
not accept any such an Issue, for
great many reasons.
The Standard publishes list OF
names of members IN good standing
in the Mormon church, whom it says
are republicans, Ii does not matter
90 much as the ashes of straw who
are republicans, or who are democrats
except 30 far as their individual votes
are concerned, and we are not going to
be drawn into discussion, but we will
say that the words of some of the gen.
tlemen whose names he mentions, and
whom this writer has known from
twenty to fifty years to be both truth
full men and good democrats, will weigh
far more with him and the Mormons
generally than the writings of a man
with such reputation in his own
party as the editor of the Standard
has.
We say to the Standard: Hands of
the Mormon church, 1T is too pure to be
handled by your dirty fingers. Il is as
disgraceful for you to write about the
politics of ministers of the gospel, as
it would be to question the chastity OF
pure women and to offer as political
issue the question of whether their
noble lives are patterns of virtue.
The Mormon church is out of poll
tics, and it will stay out, and all the
Bill Glasmanns in and out of Utah
cannot successfully drag it in, but if
they do not stop their efforts to do SO,
they will stamp the seal of infamy
upon their own political career.
We are in cool earnest in this mat
ter. The Mormons have been lied
about in the public press for nearly
half century, but now the eyes of the
American people have been opened
and their true character is beginning to
be known ''The refuse of lies" has been
swept away and we have the same righS
as other American citizens aoO, and
we do not propose to have our temples
desecrsted, our holy places defled and
our ministers names besmeared by the
acts, tongues, or pens of lying dema-
gogues.
The Mormon people are in earnest.
They have surrendered, ,as they believe,
at the command of God, SO much of
their religion as was necessary for
their full reinfranchisement. They
have bowed to the law even in its
minutest details, and the state has
nothing to do with their religion now,
and their religion has nothing to do
with the state.
No, thousand times no, Mr.. Stand
ard, the democrats. will not accept your
profered issue; but we will .spurn it,
and denounce it as a most contempt
ible effort to drag the names of men
who stand so high above you that you
cannot even appreciate their greatness,
down into the degraded depths in
which you wallow.
If the excuse the Standard offers for
its vile production that "Eph Nye"-
whoever he may be-is saying what the
Standard reports, we have no excuse
for him and shall not initiate him, If
be pretends to be a democrat We
pronounce him to be disgrace to his
party. If he pretends to be Mormon
we have no church fellowship for him;
we suspect he is myth" but if he is
republican, whether in disguise or
otherwise, the republicans are well
come to him, for there is no room
either in the democratic party or the |
Mormon church for any man or wo.
man who seeks to gain votes through |
church influence.
On the whole we think this is part
CT a sneaking plot concocted by some
who are opposed to statehood, and |
who desire to review the bitter memoir
les Of the past, but it WON'T work. We
are going to have statehood, and we
are not going to have any more flight
on the Mormon question" except it may
be short, sharp decisive trampling
out of sight forever, anybody who will
offer SO disgraceful an iss he.