The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1910-09-18
THE ISSUE IN UTAH.
the air

| IN civil 3ualrS, including inc ucuance
of the law under church sanction, its
commercial moDopolies, and social eX'
clusiveness and ostracism, Until this
great question is settled, all other
questions may really be considered sub
ordinate in Utah public life and poll
ties. In fact, all other questions are
comparatively unimportant. The main
thing is TO Innugurate here q civil gov
ernment in which every individual will
be free 10 express his own opinions and
take his own action ID politics, business.
and in social and civil affairs, and
to establish the responsibility of all
to the law. 1t will be time enough
after the supremacy of civil institutions
over a theocratic despotism is estab
lished in Utah, to take up the ques-
tions Of prohibition, railroad commits
sions, and the various other projects.
helpful or the reverse, that are urged
from time to time.
The American party is the party that
stands for the redemption of Utah from
ecclesiastical thralldom. 1T is idle for
any other Issue 10 be pressed to the
front. It is useless to be insistent
upon details, when the main question
is still unsolved.
Of what value is it to urge prohlbl-
ton, local option, or anything else
when we all know that there is here
an overlordshlp of ecclesiasticlsm that
will take It's own course, will obey or
disobey the law as it chooses, consult
ing nothing but its own ecclesiastical
and combination interests? If we had
prohibition today, does anyone imagine
for one moment that prohibition would
stop the sale of liquor by the 4. c.
M, l., reputed to do the greatest liquor
business of any concern in the State9
1t will be recolIccted that Joseph +,
Smith in a sermon in the tabernacle
expressly sustained the action of the
4. C. NJ. ]. drug store IN selling liquor,
and rebukcd those who found fault
with it. His ground. plainly stated,
was that people wanted to buy liquor,
and if the z. C, NJ. l. drug store did
not sell 1t, customers would go else
where to buy, and the church concern
would lose trade.
But coming to the essence of the
whole matter, what advantage would
it be to the people if the church should
decree that we should have prohibi.
tion. railroad commissions, or any other
of the many things that may be de
manded7 The great point in it all is
that it is useless to pass such laws un
less the people themselves want them.
To have them imposed upon the public
by q priestly junta would be neither
true sentiment nor the free action of
the people. But under the present
conditions, If we get these things at
all, or if we get anything of impor
tance or have anything stopped that
VIC either want or do not want, we
have to look to the church authority
to take the action In either case.
1t must be confessed by all that this
is an abnormal situation to exist in
the midst of a republic, and yet that
this is the situation in Utah is abso-
lutely clear.
We say, therefore, that until we can
get to the proper basis of popular gov
ernment here in Utah, setting aside
the thcocratic usurpntion which uses the
forms of a republic TO enforce its ar
bitrary and dcspotic decrees, the effort
in any direction other than to abatc
this theocratic despotism is vain. If
we have to apply to that despotism to
get what we want, we recognize it, and
having recognized it we are in a poor
condition to fight its dominance right
where we have invoked it, But 1T must
be fought, and the fight must necessarily
continue until the whole State is re.
deemed and regenerated-until it has a
new birth Of freedom which will bring
it TO the light of real popular govern
ment.
The great fight is on. 1t is the main
fight. 1t obscures every other issue, no
matter how vital or important any one
may suppose that other issue to be.
No progress can be made in that other
issue or III any subsidiary issue except
by applying to the church TO either
allow or push the proposition along.
This, however. yields the main point,
and continues the same old despotism;
for dcspotism is Just as much a des.
potism if it exercises its power for
good as if 1T exercises its power for
evil. and the uniform history of man.
kind has been that despotism is never
to be depended upon TO do more good
than evil. Uniformly its course is ar
bltrary, dIctatorial, necessarily So 1t
proceeds from selfish, one-idea stand
point, and therefore is unfit to meet
the requirements and demands of large
bodies Of people whose real ideas and
interests it neither knows nor cares
to know. since it acts alone for it's own
sectarian interests and from the per.
sonal viewpoint of those exercising the
dominating power
A,,I At