Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-10-01
AFTER THE
 HORIZONS Party Lines Ignored
 in Utah.
Senator kearns Making Hot Fight Against Smoot
 M0rmonism the Issue
 Roosevelt Backing Smoot.

Chicago. Oct 1--NIormonism Is the issue in both Utah and Idaho during the present campaign and it is an amusing illustration of the eccentrici- ties of American politics to find the res publicans fighting the church in one of those states and the democrats in the other. In Utah, Reed Smoot, whose eligibility to q seat in the United States senate is disputed by the Gen tiles of Utah and by the various Pro- testant missionary societies throughout the country. controls the republican or ganizatiOn and was the director of the recent state convention. He selected the candidates and wrote the platforms and while neither is objectionable to the party at large Mir Shoot is person ally offensive to large minority of the republicans
 Thomas Kearns, an active and able young Irishman, who picked up sever al millions of dollars in few years out there in the mines and was elect ed to the United States senate in 1902, is the leader of the gentle wing and is making very hot fight. He controls the Salt Lake Tribune and the Even ing Telegram, the republican organs of
 Utah, and is making an open fight on Shoot and his followers. He and his newspapers refuse to support the re- publican state ticket, and appeal to the gentle population, regardless of politics, to defeat it at the polls
 Kearns has great deal of influence
 and more money, and proposes to use
 both to the extent of his ability to
 drive Smoot and the Mormon elders out of the republican party. Tn order to emphasize his action he has pub- lSaT1y r1
 candidate for reelection to the senate, and people consider his course as die tated by purely impersonal and patri- otic motives
 On the other hand. Senator Shoot claims to have the support of Presi-
 dent Roosevelt and the republican na- tional committee, and refuses to deny a charge freely made by the demo- crats that the administration has en- tered into a compact with him under which Nhe,ts> to give the electoral vote
 of Utah to theN president, while the
 president is to prevent St Stnoot,s expul- sion from the senate. Of course stfch proposition is preposterous. Presi1 dent Roosevelt could no more control ! the action of the senate in theaSmoot case than he could change the wind or the weather and if it could be prov en that he had made such bargain with the senator from Utah he would be promptly retired to private life by
 the votes of the Christian people upon whom he depends for reelection But for his own reasons MT Smoot permits
 the impression to prevail among the MOrmons that the charge is true. It | is said that he has even passed the word around that there is an under standing between the president and | himself, and that the Latter Day l Saints will have no reason to criticise ! the attitude of the next administration if Roosevelt is elected. Tn corrobora-
 ton he points to the republican plat
 form, which is unusually mild in it's denunciation of Mormonism. M
 1t is too early to make predictions | as to the consequences of this row.
 Kearns and his friends will demand
 formal and public assurance from the i president that he has no understanding
 with Shoot before they will support the republican national candidates. | They threaten to vote for Parker if
 Roosevelt does not repudiate the Nor
 mon church and all dts members and l interests, and, naturally, if he does so, l MT Shoot can scarcely elect either the state or eectoral ticket.