Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1906-09-20
SUBSCRIPTION RATES
MORMoNISM AS A BUSINESS.

The Interstate Commerce COM
mission will go to Salt Lake to in
vcstigatc the rebates which the rail
roads have been giving the great
mercantile establishment owned
and operated by the Mormon
church. President Smith, the
absolute monarch OF the church,
spiritually, commercially and po-
litically, is also a director of the
Union Pacific railroad, and through
this pull secured the freight rebates
that enabled him to put 9 handicap
on all rivals, that few can carry
with any hope of dazzling success.
This is the method adopted by the
Standard Oil company, the Beef and
other trusts, that has enabled them
to put competitors out of business.
One day last week the governor
of Utah, who is owned by the
church, made a vicious verbal
assault on the mining industry Of
the state, which leads all others,
claiming that it is largely wild
cat proposition, when every one
familiar with the subject knows
that Utah mines pay millions
monthly in dividends, and that on
mining rests largely the prosperity
of the state. Mormons are not
miners; they are agriculturists
largely. Even the high function
aries of the church, among the
wealthiest men in the west, whose
fortunes have been accumulated by
the investment of capital derived
from the tithing system, have not
gone into mining they run a sure
thing game. They invest their
money in public utilities, factories,
and of late in smclters, those en-
terprises which enable them to ex-
ploir the public, cinches.
But they overlook no bet to garn-
er the dollars. If they are not
dealers in mining stocks, wild cat
or otherwise, they do not neglect
the opportunity to take advantage OF
i''S' GIL StNouiiiS speculative
tendency. They print and sell
sugar stocks, some good, others
wild cats, like unto the Gentiles'
mining shares. Now, it develops
that the governor of Utah is inter
ested in brokerage firm, of which
his son is the nominal head and
in which the church is largely in
terestcd also, that deals exclusively
in sugar stocks. Some of it's ex-
ploitations are alleged to be rank
frauds, of such character that. were
similar trick turned in a mining
deal, the postoffice department
would smash the enterprise with a
widely advertised fraud order.
During recent months mining
shares have held the center of the
speculative stage, to the exclusion
of sugsrs and the consequent
financial loss of the governor OF
Utah and the Mormon church
hence this voluntary, impertinent
ukase from the former.
But the tithing system is the rea
foundation stone of the great wealth
of the high officials of the Mormon
church; as is polygamy the lure
used by its army of missionaries
5000 strong, all over the world, I,
invcigle ignorant converts. N,
Legitimate industry, with the pos
sible exception of mining alone
agriculture least of ali, can stand
tax of ten per cent, in addition t,
that levied by the state. The finan
cial records of the world substan
tiate this statement. Hence it i,
that the rank and file of Mormon
are ever hustling for something 4
eat and wear, while their master
are reveling in wealth and the lux
ury of power.
In the intermountain region tn
Mormon church authorities ar
strong, are feeling their oats
and are becoming intolerantly dom
ineering and inoslent; in which
inevitably and indelibly written tn
ultimate downfall of their reigr
The successful assault will com
from both without and within
Gentiles, white folks, have alread
begun the attack. Sooner or late
the rebellion will be inaugurated b
some bold spirit among the vassall
the horde of cheap labor which ii
missionaries have gathered froi
the four quarters of the earth.
History teaches that relig iol
superstition wares and weaker
as the commercial instinct deve
ops. When the dollar appetite b
comes acute, religious dogma hi