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Show SI BY Published Every Saturday GOODWINS WEEKLY PUBLISHING CO INC. A. W. RAYBOULD, Business Manager PRICE: Including postage In the United States, Canada and Mexico, $2J0 per year, I1J0 for six months. Subscriptions to all foreign countries, within ths Postal SUBSCRIPTION Union, $4J0 per year. Single ooples, 10 oonts. Payments should bo made by Cheek, Money Order or Registered Letter, payable to The Cltlsen. Addrsse all communications to The Citizen. Entered as second-clas- s matter, June 21, 1910, at ths Postoffice at Salt Lake Act-oMarch S, 1879. under ths City, Utah, 81 Ness Bldg. Phone Wasatch 8409 Salt Lake City, Utah. f THE PLUNGE INTO THE BLUE manneF in which Judge William M. situation in which he and the whole system of jurisprudence were plunged by the preemptory action of sixty-eigsovereign plaintiffs in the Harries case twenty-fou- r petition signers declining to act at the final moment in which said plaintiffs challenged the right of the blue law sheriff to assume Really clever was the McCrea solved the difficult ht election in contravention of section four of our state constitution. Judge McCreas judicial acumen brought realism out of apparent chaos. Harries qualified because the court ..failed to issue the temporary restraining order sought by the plaintiffs. But the issue of religious interference individually, collectively and en masse is still before the court and must be adjudicated on its merits. Here endeth the first lesson ! And with the blue regime now ushered in, as per mandate of the Ministerial Association and the Mormon Elders, it remains to be seen if it will gain appreciable headway, following its flying start, or whether the fact that the whole matter of an admixture of religious fanaticism and politics, yet to be aired in open court, will serve office, alleging an as a restraining influence. Thus are we confronted with an indefinite season of law enforcets ment punctuated with preacher ideas and galore! thou-shalt-no- For it is well understood that the Harries sponsors are to take more in the conduct of the sheriffs office, than a silent partnership-par- t should it fail to function as per schedule previously arranged. And what may be in store for many of us who entertained the foolish citizens of the commonwealth, and notion that we were could do about as we pleased, so long as we pleased to do what was standards of right, must remain right, according to a closed book for the present at least. And at that Judge McCreas handling of this abstract legal queslaw-abidi- ng well-establish- ed tion, involving a i. state constitutional provision and the heads of cer-tai- n church organizations, appears spiced with rather more than the usual judicial foresight. Judge McCrea refused to be rushed off his judicial feet, so to speak, and arrived at the happy compromise of giving both sides a winning judgment. Harries gets his day in office has been granted the grand opportunity to change bootleg-ger- s into angels and cigaret fiends into seraphims ; while at the same time, and by reason of the same decision, the state constitution gets its day in open court. It is to be hoped that this ministerial invasion of civic affairs will be tempered with reason pending final adjudication of the status of Sheriff Harries. But the better element telegram of Rev. Frank V. Bross, in connection with the Dr. Critchlow case, and the more recent pronouncement of Rev. Russell M. Brougher, that deadly moonshine whiskey is more humane than that formerly dispensed, because it kills the habitual booze-fightquicker, envision what is like to be held in escrow', while this momentous legal tangle is beer ing straightened out. How the ministers and the church elders are, to side-ste- p this plain provision of our state constitution presents a conundrum, quite equal to, if not surpassing, the German reparations tangle, to the lay mind. But to religionists who once preached Divine revelation and more recently absolute control of all mental and physical aspects of life, through Divine inspiration it perhaps appeals as a its usefulness. mere verbose statement of a hope that has out-livAnd yet, it appeals, that this mandate of our constitution plainly constitutes a compact between the people and the government to protect them in their religious liberties and beliefs. It is proper to assume that it was placed there to be observed. However, it is up to the courts to definie its force and effect, if it has any. And in this respect we of the rank and file, who hold to enforcement of constitutional provisions of this character, which guarantee the future against the prevalent dismal tidings of an impending relapse to the fanatical religious domination of the dark ages, must bide our time. law fight in Utah is endowed with In many ways this anti-blu- e national consequences. For this reason the issue will be patiently awaited by other sections of the country, where religious political activities threaten to upset the established order of things, and to usher in a combination of church and state in civic administration. s, the right to No one denies to the preachers, or the vote and to function in a political sense as do ordinary individuals. .But when they start in to lead entire church organizations into the political field, to command their political thoughts and activities, so they may command all other people, it is about tim'e to clip their wings. The fact that they have assumed holy orders does not necessarily imply that they have, also, taken on all the knowledge there is, all righteousness, all grace, or all political virtue! Through approximately a century and a half the United States has achieved greatness minus the dictation of any church organization ; but from the closer political ties now being formed Dy varying religious denominations, the nation now stands tottering on the brink of a cataclysmic retrogression from the ideals of the fathers brave, stalwart men, who believed in religious freedom, per see; and not in any form of religious devotion inclusive of all political and secular prerogatives of citizenship. The pioneer fathers of the nation rightly held that religious worship was a thing apart from the daily, humdrum grind of temporal affairs. They held that it was inextricably bound up with mans spiritual welfare his guide and mentor in things eternak They further realized that there was a line of demarcation between things temporal, as distinguished from spiritual admonitions, which could not be safely crossed without endangering a repetition of that portion of the worlds history when all men and women were held in religious bondage. Today we are witnessing a recrudescence of this religious miasma of the past, which now seeks expression through political control. And what becomes of all our pratting about religious free- i ed super-religiou- |
