The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1907-07-01
A GRANTED LIBERTY.


calling for peace in Utah, This means
two things: First, that they are get
ting the worst of the fight; and, sec
ond, that they want other people to
quit 30 that they can begin. IT is not
q matter of any very long remember
ance since wa had peace, nominally, IN
Utah. That is to say, nobody was
fighting church domination; nobody was
obiectipg TO the lead and control in
politics, IN civic affairs, and in monop-
olistic commercialism by the priest
hood of the Mormon church; nobody
was defending the Christian ministers
when the Deseret News viciously, in
decently, and constantly assailed them.
There was peace all along the line, ex-
cept at the church headquarters of the
Mormon church. There everything was
activity, and war campaigns were
planned on an extensive scale. IL any
| thing was proposed in public way,
! polygamists were brought to the front
! to take charge of it, and be conspicuous
in it. II there was any public occa-
sion. the Mormon church and Mormon
| leaders were the ones that wero glori-
! fed and everybody else sighted or
snubbed. Everything had to give way
before the insistent dominance of priest
craft. If any man had the temerity to
say that the civil power, and not the
church, should he supreme over the
civil affairs Of the State, that man was
marked as dangerous, and his aspira
tions were nipPed. The election Of
Brigham H. Roberts, a polygamist, TO
Congress was one of the immediate
fruits of that undisputed, priestly and
polygamous domination and intrusion.
1t was also a sop to the so-called Demo
cratic party because it had made such
roar In 1895 at the church interfer-
ence with It's programme.
At the same time that this demand
for peace is voiced by the church or
gans, there is the mendacious claim by
them that the Mormon people are abso-
lutely free in their political life aud az.
fairs. This claim is insisted upon and
urged continually, even IN the face of
the notorious fact that the controlled
vote of the Mormon church is sufficient
to give the victory here to one party or
the other at the will of the church head
quarters. And the vicious the depravcd,
the scandalous. the insulferable and hui
initiating fact is that the political
plotters here on both sides bend their
best efforts towards placating the
church leaders and getting the promise
from them that this controlled vote
shall be thrown in their favor In the
campaign then about TO begin.
This claim Of free vote and free
political activities among the masses
Of the Mormon people is, of course,
The baldest, most transparent fraud.
The election returns every year prove
that it is n fraud And whenever the
independence and freedom Of the Nor
mon voters is challenged, what do we
seel Do We see any appeal to the fun
damental principles of Americanism as
reason for this freedom7 Do we see
that every voter in the Mormon church
claims this freedom as his inherent
right, Of which no power on earth has
any claim to dispossess him! Not at
all. We see that this claim of liberty
and independence among the Mormon
people is always based upon some ut
terance of some conference, or some
leading authority Of the Mormon
church, or Of some letter. manifesto,
or declaration by tho church under
the influence Of its leaders, or by the
L. L., 4
such independence and freedom Of po-
litical action as is claimed for the Nor.
mon people, is claimed as resulting from
concession by the church and by the
leaders Of the church. This indepen.
dence and freedom come not of right
to the individuals nor is the individual
entitled of right TO claim ii personally
1t must be n grant from the theocrats,
and only as such is the average Mormon
authorized to make his claim of free
dom. 1t is always, invariably, traced to
that source. Habitually and inevitably
the Mormon organs, spokesman and
writers refer TO some grant Of free.
dom in some form from the church to
the voter as the warrant for his claim
to that personal freedom and TO the ex-
ercise Of it,
But, freedom and independence so
granted can be recalled at the will of
the granfor. And that is precisely what
everybody understands, what the Nor
mon people themselves know to be the
fact and recognize in their daily lives
They know that any grant of liberty
of this kind (thc only kind they have),
is the liberty that tie cat gives TO the
mouse which is under it's paw; merely
the liberty TO frisk around little, but
never out of reach Of the cruel claws
which hold the little life at their mercy.
And the liberty which the church lead
ers grant to their Mormon adherents is
precisely that kind. 1t is a liberty that
never allows them to get beyond reach.