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Show B Hi1 v The American Party and Ticket B W ' "AN Monday last the American convention H Hjj ' J named the state, judicial, county and pre- H Hij j cinct tickets. It does not expect to elect in . any state ticket. It does hope, however, to elect iyi ' , o full county ticket, that this city and county 11 j may work in concord for the betterment of Utah. jJH ' Of course, all the opposition possible will be JH ' hurled at the party and the ticket by both the old H i parties, trained and in the leash of the church. j But that has been expected all the time. And if Bjf it was asked what object there was in naming the Hj !j!! state ticket when there was no hope of success, H I'M i the answer is that Utah is still in a formation BB iWl B ' til : ' state. B i Ujj , There are young men and young women in B -! ! the meshes of the Mormon creed, young men and B Rjjj , . young women of good stock who still have been B III ! taught from their mother's knees that the great B HI Creator in these last days selected a vice-gerent B iraj on earth to whom all men should bow; that he B lil j selected one with whom to communicate, and B HI ! ' gave to his office that vitality which enables it to B h name its successors to enthrall men's souls in- B m definitely. B J r Some of these young men and women will ask B j 3.; , why there Is opposition and on what ground the B j u opposition Is based, and will learn, directly or B ! ' indirectly, that this church is a government by B (; I itself, and that it is opposed to the free govern- B jj; ment of men and women, as much as was any B s ; 1 ' barbarous nation of the old world, which ran its R j'm ' course and perished at last because it was not H 1 1 ; fit to live. B i , Joseph Smith, in his lifetime, aspired to that B itm plane, but he himself said that the constitution Br of the United States was inspired, by which he Y r loft j meant that he knew what he was talking about; M mm ! that it was directed by the same Infinite God B IB that he claimed to have a mission from; but in B MR his dim, worldly mind he could not see the incon- B jig , sistency in saying that God tills year framed a B j! I , government for the earth and the next year B l& I framed a new one for the purpose of overthrowing B jdjr j that government, and with it all the old civil gov- B j jn ' ernments of the earth. B j(i Since its creation, our republic has expanded B ' ' until it has taken in all the continent between the B 'iL 1 seas, its flag has become the very glory of the B j! j. earth, and in majesty and power it has attained B ' ( 1 1 more In one hundred brief years than any other H ' jil' Y nation over did in a thousand. It is not going to B jjj v be overthrown, and that this bogus power is per- B ! ; mitted to thrive here In the midst of this republic, K ! I j to hold its degrading hand over women, to try to Bri !!iH ) relegate her back to where her sister women It were in the old days of mental slavery, is because j it is so weak that it does not as yet disturb the 1 1 colossus that rules this land, but it will some time 1 1 have to come within the government of the United j1 States. f In the beginning, the fathers planned that no ji religion should be interfered with, but with just t as Arm a will they decided that no religion h J1! should, under the name of religion or through Br-1' B "unwmiii a miiMniMMiiMMMiiiiiiiffiiifiri iiitTiiiMmTMfliTrTnf wmk any other excuse, usurp the functions which be-long be-long to the state. The struggle of this institution, institu-tion, founded by Joseph Smith, for sixty years has been to break that edict of destiny, and as one of the apostles once stated in theTabernacle, to make it appear that vox Dei Is vox pop'uli,and not that vox populi is vox Dei. It is an absolute, reversal of our theory of government, and we see its insidious, withering hand everywhere. And so the American party, asking nothing from any church except obedience to the law, has been organized; it has put a ticket in the field, and it calls to all men to support it on the sole ground that it is more worthy of support than either other party which looks to this same arbitrary arbi-trary and merciless power for success. The ticket is all that it should be; its enemies, looking It over, admit to themselves that, under the management man-agement of the men nominated on Monday, the county and state will prosper, and hence it claims the suffrage of free men and free women all over Utah. It does not expect to win this year, but it does expect to win eventually. One form of slavery was broken down forty-three years ajgo; it went out In blood and smoke and wreck, and amid such losses and such sorrow as no nation in modern time has been called upon to meet; but those who were most bitterly disappointed then admit now that it was right; that God was watching and did not permit any mistake. We tell the men of Utah that God is still watching; that the government gov-ernment which he helped the fathers to frame is the government that he approves, and that when any man assumes that he has a right to tell an American citizen how he shall vote, whom he shall support, and whom throw down, that man is an enemy to his country and to his people. The most bigoted Mormon must see that this state has been actually under the rule of Reed Smoot for four years, because he was delegated and set apart to run the politics of Utah. No man can imagine for a moment that he has the intellectual or the moral or any other quality to direct and control the policies of a great state, much less the right to dictate to men his superiors su-periors in evesy way how and for whom they shall vote. It is a protest against his methods, against his church and its methods, that the American party was born and that it is progressing progress-ing and looks for ultimate victory. Under American rule, Salt Lake City sprung like a phoenix from the ashes of that burned-up Salt Lake that shouldered here under the fires of contention for forty years and made no progress. pro-gress. That Is an earnest of what the American party will do when It gets the county, and later when it gets the state. It will take the bands off the brains of men and open all the opportunities opportu-nities of the state alike to all of her children, and it is for this that the members of that party call upon the men and women of Utah, not to support them, but to-be true to themselves, to be Americans as they were born, to be free citizens as per their inheritance. |
