Arizona republican., 1906-05-26
PHOENIX. ARIZONA. MAY 26, 1906
IMPROPER INFLUENCES.


 It does not seem to have occurred to many we'll meaning organizations tha- they have been guilty of impropriety In intruding themselves upon what we may call. for the sake of convenience the judicial deliberations of the sen ate.
 For many months Senator Shoot ot Utah has been on trial before the sen ate committee on privileges and cleo tions, charged with acts which, if proved, will exclude him from the sen ate. Two principal accusations have been made against him. He is charged with being a polygamist, or, if not with having sanctioned polygamy. He is charged with taking certain unlaw- ful oaths and of being, by reason of his membership and office in the Mormon church, in a hostile attitude to the gov ernment of which he was elected to be a part.
 It has been reported that the senate committee is inclined to the belief that these charges have been sustained and that it will so report to the senate; it is further surmised that the senate will adopt the report, but will inconsist- ently conclude that the exclusion of MT. Shoot is not warranted.
 The senate has been bombarded by telegrams. letters and petitions of in terminable length from churches and various other organizations demanding the expulsion of MT. Smoot. Some of these petitions were forwarded before the investigation had fairly begun. So if the senate had acted favorably up- on them, the Utah senator would have been expelled without a hearing-a most un-American proceeding.
 The senders of these messages and the signers of these petitions generally have no Knowledge whatever of the truth or falsity of the charges. They know nothing of the life of MT. Shoot; they never heard of him until after his election; they are only suro that he is a Mormon.
 The last of these demands for his political decapitation was made yes terday by the Presbyterian General as. sembly. composed of the ablest and most high-minded of men.
 But it does not seem to have ap peared to them that the senate is, too. composed of high minded smen and that the committee has been trying for months to get at the bottom of this matter; to avoid on one hand doing the 
 on the other to prevent an unworthy man from sitting in the senate.
 Evidence has been gathered from every possible source. The widest lati- tude has been given the enemies, as we'll as the friends. of the senator The committee has invited all who know anything bearing on these charges, to his discredit or his credit to bring It in. It may be presumed that with these opportunities the committee knows more about the only question. that of MT. Shoots guilt or innocence, than any person or organized body.
 Then why not leave the matter to the committee and the senate? Why not trust to their wisdom and sense of justice? It surely cannot be surmised that these letters and petitions can throw any additional light upon the problem. It is not pretended that they carry any light. They merely convey to the senate the wishes of the senders and signers, who do not even allege that they are possessed of the slightest information.
 We do not suppose that the petition CTS have ever in any way connected their course in this matter with that of Roman dictators who used 10 influ- ence the deliberations of the Roman senate by the presence of Praetorian bands.