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Show B WHAT MUST BE CONSIDERED. B In his remarks last Sabbath in the Tabernacle. B Pres Angus Cannon is reported to have said that B "the Mormons will yet rule the world." Asked to B explain, he would doubtless reply, in substance, B that "he knows that the religion of the Latter-day B Saints is the only heaven-inspired religion, that B God is behind it and it must win its way until the B nations of the earth accept it." B Now, that is the most essential matter which B the commission which is to investigate Apostle B Smoot's right to hold a seat in the senate of the" B United States, can possibly consider. On that very B point hinges his claim to a seat. Compared with it B polygamy is but an incident, a something which B is not much above a police court investigation, a B something which is of special concernment only B because as held by Mormons It is one of the chief B cements which hold the organization together. B But the other matter as it is revealed today Is B something which aims directly at the integrity of B Republican institutions. The question, the main B question for the committee to decide is whether B or not it is admissible for a state that is ruled by B a gsvernment which is the very opposite of a B freQ Government, to send one of the high officers B of this foreign Government to sit in the Senate B of the "United States and help to make laws for B all the people of the United States. It will not do B to claim that this phase of the question is merely B a religious phase with which the civil government B has nothing to do, that it is impossible to place B the consciences of men on trial, that our Govern- B ment was framed on the theory that every man's B leligion is sacred to himself, and he must not B he disturbed in the exercise of his right to wor- B ship as he may please. B That is the theory with the limitation that B in the exercise of his belief he must not trench B upon the laws of the Republic or upon any 'right oL B his fellow men. This, of course, is necessary, else B a11 manner of crimes might be committed in the B name f religion and the perpetrators, escape ap B Prehension. B Neither will it do to say that Apostle Smoot B was elected by the votes of both Mormons and B Gentiles, for partisan prejudices are very strong in B the United States, and the rule of partisans is to B vote thelr ticket, no matter who the candidates may be. It is not denied that for several years after the coming of the Saints to this valley, the government they organized and carried on was a pure theocracy .If in those days senators had been ele" ames would have been given Out from ti yV the Bowery and the people would have yu J& hem. How much different, except in form, "& 'ch different in fact was that from the way " tie Smoot was elected in the Legislature? In' Bowery the people would have voted because it a the will of their cheifs tb so vote. Was not that same thought the compelling com-pelling one in the minds of every Mormon in the Legislature who voted for him? The Mormon system, as explained from the first, is a dual system. First, "A Celestial kingdom;" king-dom;" second, "a kingdom of God on Earth." The first relates to a life after death, the second lc a purely temporal government, which, as a thousand times expounded by every man who has ever been a President or Apostle of the Church in Utah goes directly to the daily business and politics of tho Saints, and which absolutely controls their lives. It Is necessarily so, for the whole structure of Mormonism rests on the claim that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, that God delegated him to rule the earth, and to convey God's will to man, and that by regular succession every President Presi-dent of the Church since his death has been endowed en-dowed with the same attributes. Hence sincere Mormons cau do nothing else except to obey. The average congressman is not a Saint, but there is not one of them who would dare to disobey the command or mere wish of another man if he believed be-lieved that the other man was absolutely the vicegerent vice-gerent on earth of the Infinite God. Hence the real point is, can this Government, within the free Government of the United States, and diametrically opposed to it in every claim and assumption, continue to send its most trusted officers to Washington, to sit by authority among the lawmakers of the Republic? If twenty-two more states were in the same way, our country would at once cease to be a Republic. It would become a kingdom, and its sovereign would reside at the corner of South Temple and State streets in this city. |