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Show ) NOT FIT FOR THE PLACE. 1 When Apostle Moses Thatcher was nominated 1 in the Democratic State convention for United States Senator the Republican press and speakers speak-ers insisted that it was unseemly for one holding g that office in the church to become a candidate for t Senator because the prestige of his office gave him an unfair advantage among fanatical voters; sec-i sec-i ond, the training of his office would unfit a fair-5 fair-5 minded man for the duties of Senator; and, third, because it was a degredation of his sacred office r and a reproach to the religion he professed. It was pointed out that were a high official in any ' other church to aspire to the same office and per-t per-t sist in the ambition, he would be unfrocked, for ' the church authorities would submit to no such cheapening of their religion. Finally, it was urged that it was consciously or unconsciously a crossing cross-ing of the line which in the United States separates sepa-rates church and State, and which persisted in would in a little while leave people unable to determine de-termine at what point the church left off and the State began. The arguments are as sound today as they were when the State had but just started in its career. Indeed, they are more potential now than then, for since that time we have seen the steady encroachment of the church into the polit-. ical field until it culminated in the purchase for money from the head of a church of a commission for a Senator. It is time for the church to declare that while a man is a member of the church and holds next to the highest station in the church, he must resign re-sign his sacred office if he has determined to become be-come a candidate for a political office. Were any high priest of any other creed to cherish an ambition am-bition for a high political office, how men would be shocked. Imagine Bishop Scanlan a candidate, then imagine him chasing over the State calling thurch meetings of prominent Catholic officials, and then seeing those officials going out among the laj members and urging them to support only such men for the Legislature as would, if elected, vote for the Bishop for Senator. Such a proceeding proceed-ing would of course be an impossibility. It ought to be just as impossible in the Mormon as in the Catholic church. That it is not confirms the belief be-lief in many minds that there is quite as much commerce and politics as religion in the Mormon 'Creed, and this will continue until the church, through its high officials, ceases to dabble in politics poli-tics The rule of old was that "ye cannot serve two masters." It should be as clearly true now as when the expression was first coined. It is so manifestly wrong that the government should interfere to stop it, for it is a subversion of one of the first essentials of free government the absolute equality of all voters. An apostle in the Mormon church is so near the head that he is liable, before the campaign is over, to be called to the presidency of the church. The teachings of the faith are that the President is a prophet, one so exalted that he can talk to God, as it were, face to face. When such a man goes out among voters who are sincere believers, and thousands of whom have no clear conception of the government govern-ment of the United States, such a man is sure in advance of thousands of votes, not because of any fitness that he may possess for the office, not because be-cause his life has made it clear that he is an earnest patriot who loves his country and who has ability to serve it faithfully and intelligently, but because he is a high official in a church and one before whom even the bishop of the ward takes a back seat. Now all such work as that is a direct reproach to our free institutions and should not be tolerated toler-ated for one holy minute. It is not only trifling with American institutions, but it is a prostitution of the ballot, and the Mormon authorities owe it to themselves not to subject their church to the estimation which the world will have of it when its high officials turn into pot-house politicians and engage in any unseemly scrable for office. |