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Show AN APPEAL. Young men and women of Utah of the dominant domi-nant church, are you keeping watch of things nowadays? Are you noting the fact that every indication promises the election of Republican candidates for the Legislature even in the Democratic Dem-ocratic strongholds of Cache and Utah counties? You understand what that means, do you not? An apostle is a candidate for election to the United States Senate and all the laity must bow down to ratify that ambition of his. Have you not had about enough of this? Can you not see that by the jugglery of the system which you are attached to, the offices, the honors, the emoluments emolu-ments are to be reserved for a few families for all time to come, and you are to be told that it is God's sovereign will? Is that a square deal? "What hopes have you for yourselves or the children that may be given you after awhile? Is there any reason why your children that are to be should be branded by the red-hot iron of inferiority in their cradles? At the late conference you heard tho rantings of a Rich, a Taylor and a Woodruff, one an apostle, the others in the line of promotion. promo-tion. Would either of them have been recipients of high church honors- on their merits? Were not their places given them because they were of the royal line and for no other reason? Look around you and note where from the first, tho offices, the honors and the emoluments have gravitated. Suppose the original design had been to establish estab-lish a church aristocracy and make all other ministers min-isters to this select few, could there have been a shrewder device than the one fixed upon? Have you not manhood and womanhood enough to resent this imputation upon your right and competency com-petency to aspire to have a voice in your country's government? You surely have the right, for Statehood was given to Utah on the solemn promise prom-ise of those highest in church offices that thenceforth thence-forth there should be no church interference with tho political views or votes of the people. The man who is president of the church today was more pronounced in that declaration than any other one man in the church. He will not deny the promise that he made, henco you are by his wrd absolved from any duty to "obey counsel" to casting your vote. There are other reasons why you should arouse yourselves and not permit this proposed programme pro-gramme to be carried out. It is a duty which you wo the Government which holds its protecting aeis before and above you and opens all tho op portunities of this free land to every one of you. If you are coerced to vote a certain ticket you not only degrade yourselves, but you dishonor the flag above you, and the free ballot placed in your hands. There is still another reason. Look in any country of the Old World, where the priesthood has a controlling vote in the government and you will see that the common people are degraded, ignorant, and in the depths of poverty. Look a little further and you will see all the coasts of Asia strewn with the wrecks of nations which were founded on the assumption that there was an undefinable divinity that hedged Kings and priests around. Do you desire to help anew an experiment which so far has never failed to debase de-base men and women and to swiftly bring about national decay? Why did our own country from almost nothing, in a single century, leap to the forefront of nations? na-tions? It was because of the personal, religious and political liberty vouchsafed to every citizen, thereby kindling the delicious hope in each heart, no matter how humble, that all the country's honors hon-ors were within his grasp if he had but the genius gen-ius to hope and the courage to try. Have you not manhood and womanhood enough to assert yourselves and to perform your political duties without dictation? Have you not the strength to say to Apostle Reed Smoot, through your ballots: "If you are worthy to be an apostle of a holy religion, then your work in the past has unfitted you to undertake under-take the duties of a United States Senator; if you are not worthy as an apostle, then you are on the same plane that we all are and wo will make our own selection for Senator." |