The Idaho scimitar. [volume] (Boise, Idaho) 1907-1908, 1908-02-01

refused to testify submit their books to the scru-
tiny of the court, the banking establishment being
another link IN the chain of protection that the church
forges for the safety of its brethren.
Had the case been brought to trial, it would have
been submitted to jury largely or wholly Mormon
jury not at all likely to convict Mormon defend
ant
The state is therefore given the spectacle of an
other miscarriage of justice followed by the disms-
sal of charges against who would be brought to
account under the free operation of laws made for the
protection of society.
The Scimitar cites these disclosures and the final
termination of the Onieda cases as new example
OF the travesty government to which the American
citizenship of Idaho is wherever the punish
ment of Mormon criminals is submitted to the Nor
majority in counties densey infested by the rep
resentatives of anarchistic church that openly
boasts that the will of the hierarchy superior to the
will of the state
There is no law in Onieda County but the law of
the church and the church does not apply its regu
laons to such distinguished offenders President
Parkinson and Bishop Hart 1t has taken no steps
that promise the unfrockng of the highest ecclesiast
within the Oneida stake. Though he was caught red
handed and forced to dsgorge the plumber he had ap
propriated to himself, the church continues him as
its religious leader in considerable division of its
territory and there the rising generation of Mormons
is commanded to look to him as an example and to
emulate his methods.
The brood of f1edglings has promising future be-
fore it if develops along the lines of morality laid
down by one who exhibits regard for the honor
and honesty that is common among without pro-
feSsed faith.
The church and its votaries disposed to resent
the reflections of their Gentle critics in efforts made
to establish law and order and good government in
a land that belongs to them by birth and inheritance
But when such fragrant examples of msgovernment
the herein referred to fauned in the face
of good citizenship the church ought to bow its head
in shame and admit in penitence that the opposing
sentiment is right and that its methods are wrong
The Parkinson affair too much for the
scared conscience of the political machine that rules
from the throne of the state house. Though the del
inquient favored and honored member of the
Gooding dynasty, he cast out and compelled to
renounce his honorS when the magnitude of his
crime became known
The machine was acuated, perhaps, more by fear
Of the political future than by any ethical sense of
wrong doing. But in its apprehension of conse-
luences there is of public safeguard than in
he brazen defiance of religious organization that
says to the law "You cannot deal with my male
actors Call off your minions and leave to the
hurch the disposition of its criminals
In other atmosphere than the one tainted by the
presence of Mormonism could justice be thus defied
nd in no other place could government be usurped
" sect that bases its right to rule mythical
razen plates the revelations of unchastty and on
he fundamental principle of dshonored woman
ood