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Show RELIGION IN POLITICS. (Deseret Evening News.) The question of the- religious views and standing of Admiral Dewey's wife has been thrust into the political arena, to be quarreled over by advocates and opponents of the gallant sailor's candidacy candi-dacy for the office of president of th United States. We are glad to see thai he refuses to give any information on the subject, and regards it as a matter entirely personal to Mrs. Dewey and not one of national Interest. It is popularly eupposed that this i3 a free country, and particularly so in reference to religion. The constitution provides that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." If that is supreme law as to public; officers, how much more should it prevail as to their wives and families? Of course, no such test could be incorporated in-corporated in an official oath, or made as a formal objection to a public offi- cer. But it is evidently wrong as a fac- j tor in promoting public sentiment. It is no concern of the public what Mrs. Dewey's religious faith may be, and it ought not to affert the admiral's chances for public office whether he is himself a Catholic or a Trotestant. A great many people regret the entrance en-trance of the hero of Manila bay into the turbid pool of national politics. They would rather honor him as the destroyer of the Spanish oppressor's fleet, than as the chief magistrate of this free country. But th- question of his religion (and much less of his wife's, religion) should not figure in the matter mat-ter of his nomination or his election. Why should there be such a rumpus over the suspicion 'that a t andidate for the presidency is a Catholic? The rumor ru-mor about Dewey's wife is something similar to that which, doubtless, stood in the way of the election of the lamented la-mented statesman, Blaine. It is all wrong. Do the Catholics who form a vast body of voters in this country raise an outcry because a certain candidate can-didate is a Protestant? Why, then should there be so much noise over the possibility that a man named for president pres-ident is associated by marriage, or in any other way, with Catholicism? We presume that the report that a nominee for that high office was a "Mormon" would settle his aspirations in short order. And yet, according to the spirit and letter of the supreme law of the land, that ought to have no influence in-fluence in the purely political question. The perfect liberty of religious opinion which is one of the rights of every American citizen ought to be something some-thing more than a theory. It is a personal matter, sacred to the individual. And no one is justified in demanding tf a candidate an expression ex-pression of his religious views. That being so, how much more justifiable, even to the degree of absurdity, is an inquisition as to the reported religious opinions' of a candidate's wife, or daughter, or aunt, or mother-in-law? It is to be hoped that in the discussion discus-sion over the propriety and probability of the nomination and election of Admiral Ad-miral Dewey, the subject of his religion or non-religion will not be introduced, and that the impudence of inquiries into in-to the religious opinions of any member mem-ber of hie family will receive such a rebuke re-buke as it deserves, and will be viewed in its proper light by the vast majority of the American public. &. |