The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-04-23
LET US HAVE PEACE.

functions of the state are usurped by
an illigimate power, then no merely
business or material interests should
stand in the way of a prompt and
vigorous resistance of the oppression
the invader of the rights of the citizen
should be ousted, and the illegitimate
power robbed of its usurped authority.
We say no business or material in
terests should stand in the way of
taking these steps whenever there is
any real cause for believing that the
liberty of the citizen or the rights of
the state are menaced. For these
rights of the citizen and of the state
are paramount to every material con-
sideration. Upon their preservat ton
depends the very existence of the
state and the happiness of the people
Hence to affirm the right to preserve
these things as guaranteed by Ameri-
can institutions, is but to assert the
right of the individual to pursue hap
piness and the right of the state to
perpetuate itself.
To perpetuate it's own existence and
protect it's citizens in the full
enjoyment of the rights and
liberties it guarantees, the state
should have at its command,
and does have at its command,
all the treasure of the state, and all
the blood of it's people; and there is no
sacrifice too great to make for the
maintenance of our guaranteed rights;
and no other consideration so import
ant as to be allowed to stand in the
way of their preservation.
But ought the good people of the
state to be frighted by shadows; by
false creations of the mind-air drawn
daggers, pointless to harm, and that
only are substance to minds ore
wrought or diseased? Ought they to so
act like skittish jades as to startle at
veritable windmillS?
Such is not the course of a brave
people aware of their rights and con-
scious of their power to maintain them.
Children or towards may magnify the
things that brighten them, but brave
men see things in their true proper
ton, and neither under nor over esti-
mate them; nor do they with undue
haste anticipate danger without the
best of reasons for believing in its ex-
iStence. Nor is 1T a characteristic of
brave men to be moved by trifies;
conscious of their own strength, thew
wait until there is no doubt as to the
intent to injure them or invade their
liberty, and usually they regard some
overt act Of an enemy as necessary to
summons them to resistance. They are
not found beating the air, or striking
at men of straw.
But while no material interests
should be allowed to stand in the wav
Of vigorous opposition to interference
with the guaranteed liberties of
the individual, and the liabil-
ity to retard the progress of business
in general, or interrupt enterprises of
great moment should never be pleaded
as bar to the preservation of the
functions of the state from improper
control by all illegitimate authority
yet is it worth while to jeopardize the
business of a state, destroy its repu-
tation, threaten stagnation to its in
dustrial development, and retard it's
enterprises merely for the satisfaction
of carrying on war of words in the
clouds, or giving vent to wrath which
the heart has nursed? Is it worth
while to talk Of the probability of turn
ing back to the conditions of ten or five
years ago, with all the bitterness, mis-
trust and jealousies which character
lied those times when there is really
nothing which demands it? Is there
anybody who wants those days to re-
turn? If not, then we suggest
that half covert threats cease;
that half frantic appeals to
young Utah to resist an enemy that
is nowhere in sight, and, as we be-
lieve, has no existence save in the few
erish imagination of fearful minds
cease.
1t win be time enough to
make these appeals, to raise
these battle cries when by some overt
act the rights of individuals are
struck down, the liberty of men in
fringed or the authority of the state
usurped; but until there is some such |
the belligerent tone of |
a number of our contemporaries is IN
called for. 1t is calculated to engender /
strife, beget contention, arouse bitter ,
ness and disturb newly formed friend |
ships, and divide the people into con-
tending factions.
We need have no fear but what the
great American principle of separa-
ton of church and state will be main
tanned in Utah as in other sections of J
the union. Unwise men may say fool
sh things; and ignorant men may be
guilty of foolish conduct. but state