The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-12-28
An Investigation Extraordinary.

Hartford Times.
 Reed Smoot is a senator of the Uni ted States from the state of Utah, just as Orville H. Platt is a senator of the United States from the state of Con necticut Whether as senator Of as American citizen he has all the rights Mir Platt has. They stand before the supreme law of the land on an exactly | equal footing.
 When the Legislature of Utah cleo ted Reed Shoot to the Senate. he had had been not merely nina years but all the years of his life citizen of the United States, and he was an inhabi- tant of, the state for which he was requirements. and he met them. His fitness to sit in the Senate was pub iicly challenged on the ground that he was a polygamist and therefore a and reporting as to the truth of this grave accusation fell to the Senate's | committee on privileges and elections. The inquiry was begun last session. It l to Washington this month, and 1t Is to be continued after the holidays. For tunately, the prosecutors having res sight. For the prosecutors have utter ly failed to produce scrap of evil dence, or of anything resembling evil dence, that Reed Shoot is now or that charge--the only one with which 1 the Senat5's committee had any call or | right to concern itself--he stands com pletely .exonerated by the prosecution's s own witnesses as q clean-living. law obeying man. The opinions of his mind l or the belief of his heart about polyga- my are no more the committees or the Senate's business than are our Senator Platts views on the authorship of the | Pentateuch or the theology of the 1 Westminster Confession.
 Only a minute portion of the time al- ready used up in this tedious inquiry has been devoted to the case of Reed Shoot Very early in the proceedings, 1t became evident that what the pro- motors really intended was an inves- them utilize the Senate's committee as a crowbar for prying open the doors of the temple in Salt Lake City and l getting at the ritual secrets and other committee unresistingly lend itself to l that use. An interesting secret-not a | Mormon one-Was brought out at Tues days session. c. M. Owen, a witness about certain researches of his in Utah having as much to do with Reed Shoots household as with the respec- ted readers. He was asked who em- ''Dr. Padden--he Is one of them" said Witness owen. Who are the persons behind Dr. Paden?" was the next question. T have not inquired but understood that the womens Inter denomina ational Council was putting up the money" said Witness owen.
 When Utah was a territory, Congress had the power to make all needful rules and regulations respecting her That was the time for exercising the power in any necessary direction and to any necessary extent. Utah Is how state--the coeQual, in the Union. of Connecticut and Virginia and Ohio If her admission at the time and In the manner of 1t was 2 mistake. 1t Is now past correcting If Utah chooses to send constitutionaIly qualified and law biding apostles" to the Senate of the United States, that Is her affair. An ugly precedent is being made, we | say again. in this investigation of an ism" under the pretext of investiga- ] ting a senator