The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-11-16
SURFACES AND JNDERCUR-
RENTS IN UTAH POLITICS.
The Deseret News of last night said

| that the people OF Utah are now
free Our characterization of the po-
Gtical speakers and scribblerS who in
dulge in this practice was not exactly
complimentary, and on Saturday last
the Democratic organ attempts to re-
ply. 1t quotes resolution adopted at
the general conference of the church
held in October, 1891, in which the
statement is made that the members
of the Mormon church are and have
been perfectly free to unite with any or
no political party" A declaration by
| the first presidency published in March,
1892, containing an expression of SIM
liar significance, is also quoted and a
bungling attempt is made to apply to
the officers of the church the criticisms
offered by the News on the individuals
who are perpetually reiterating the
assertion that voters in Utah are now
free.
The News then says that if the denial
by the conference and the first presi-
dency of these assertions We're to be
quoted honestly and in a respectful
manner, and in the spirit in which they
were made, and with the application
they were intended to have-to the
past as we'll as to the future-no valid
objection could be made. The Herald
in its article of Sunday quoted them as
follows:
At the general conference held in
October, 1891, a set of resolutions was
| adopted. The first resolution contained
| the following:
Whatever appearance there may
have been in past times of a union of
church and state, because men holding
ecclesiastical authority We're elected to
civil office by popular vote, there is now
no foundation or excuse for the state
ment that church and state are united
in Utah or that the leaders of the
church dictate the members in political
matters; that no coercion or influence
whatever of an ecclesiastical nature
| has been exercised over us by our
church leaders in reference to which
/ political party we shall join, and that
we have been and are perfectly FREE
| to unite with any or no political party
we shall join as we may individually
elect; that the Peoples party has been
entirely dissolved and that our fealty
J henceforth viii be to such political
party as seems best suited to the pur-
poses of republican government"
This was done in general conference
( and not by men with low, retreating
foreheads'' who had just escaped from
saloons and mounted the stump.
Woodruff and Joseph f. Smith issued
a declaration, and which was published
! IL the News, in which this language
was used:
I'VE have no disposition to direct in
these matters, but proclaim that, so far
| as we are concerned, the members of
| this church are entirely and perfectly
FREE in all POLITICAL AFFAIRS -
| VIII the News say that these gentle
| Iaa 6e''
and that they had just emerged from
! beer saloons when they declared that
the members of this church are en-
tirely and perfectly FREE in all PO-
LITICAL AFFAIRS?"
If that resolution and the quotation
from the declaration made by Presi-
dents Woodruff and Smith were not
quoted in a respectful manner, then it
is impossible to quote them in a re-
! spectful manner. The words low, re-
j treating fOreheads" were taken from
the News editorial, having been applied
by il TO those who used the word free
as regards the voters of Utah. There
was no garbling or attempt at it in
making the quotations from the confer
ence resolution. and the first presi-
dency's declaration. If there has been
any garbling of these quotations it was
] by the News in its article of last even
] ing.
The News closes its article as follows:
The real spirit and meaning in which
the Democratic organ reiterates the
! assertion that the Mormons are now
| free, are sufficiently shown by the fol-
! lowing paragraph from its article of
Saturday last:
There isn't a person in Utah but
knows that beneath the smooth sur
face of our political and social life
there are some currents, and that they
run in the old channels. Nobody cares
to disturb the smooth surface, hop
ing that eventually the currents I'M
1 derneath viii cease to be and all be-
come stilled and quiet. But there is no
use to tell people who live in Utah that
cur erstwhile troubled waters have
reached absolute 1uietude, for they
have not"
This means that the Mormons are
not entirely free yet their their free
dom is more or less precarious, and that
"erstwhile" conditions of vassalage
may possibly supervene at any time.
There isn't a person in Utah but
! knows that beneath the smooth sur
face Of the oily assurances of politi-
I cal papers ana speakers about Tree
dom in Utah, there are more or less
pointed insinuations that impeach the
manhood of the men who founded this
state. and the veracity of their re-
ligious leaders, and that are offensive
and insulting in the highest degree.
The News again protests against
such references to freedom in Utah as
the politicians and their organs are in
the habit of making. Let them speak
of liberty among the Mormons as ii
has been, now is and always will be,
or not at all, the highest, purest and
best form of liberty that men have ever
known. Insinuations that the founda-
tons of our state were laid by slave
labor, that its first inhabitants came
into it by compulsion, were detained
by force, were ruled by tyranny and af-
flicted by oppression; that they were
compelled to vote for lawmakers and
to submit to laws that were obnoxious
to them, and that these deplorable
conditions continued until the poll
ticians got in their work quite re-
Gently, are so shamefully violative OF
truth and so offensive in the estimate
they put upon the people to whom they
refer. as to be uncomfortable.
The News should not be quite sc
cock-sure that the meaning it gives tc
the quotation it makes from The Her
aid is the correct one. That it may
have the right meaning of the para
graph it quotes, it is here furnished. II