Show THE MORMONS WILL VOTE It was a racy challenge which Hon J 0 Rich issuea to Mr E S Whittier chairman of the Bingham County Idaho AntiMormon central committee com-mittee and which appeared in Fridays HERALD Mr Rich proposes to hire a hall and convince the public that Mr Whittier is antiAmerican and his platform plat-form antirepublican and that his Ws principles onght to be ignored by all decent people We imagine the Hon Joe will have little difficulty in doing what he proposes provided he can Induce Mr Whittler and the public to listen to his arguments presented in his own peculiar and convincing language lan-guage and manner It is not a difficult undertaking to convince beings of ordinary or-dinary intelligence that it is unAmeri oan and unrepublican to deny the franchise fran-chise to a man on account of his religious relig-ious belief But the significant thing in Mr Richs printed challenge is the postscript in big capitals The Mormons will vote Naturally and necessarily that refers to tne Mormons in Idaho who have not voted on account of the religious re-ligious test oath which requires the ojti zen to swear that he is not a member of an order sect or association which teaches advises counsels or encourages encour-ages its members devotees or any ether persons to commit bigamy or polygamy po-lygamy or which practices bigamy big-amy or polygamy or plural or celestial marriage as a doctrinal rite In Utah Mormons who are not polygamists vote belief not having been made an offense under the law membership of a church not being regarded as legal ground for disfranchisement We dont know for whom Mr Rich speaks when he says the Mormons nor whether he speaks for anybody but we hope he says truly when he asssrts that the Mormons will exercise their right as citizens of the Republic and of the Territory and will cast their ballots for men of their choice for the various elective elec-tive offices There are several thousand thou-sand Mormons ia Southern Idaho indeed the Mormons constitute the majority of the population of that section sec-tion Furthermore they are the best citizens considered from any standpoint i stand-point which may be selected and it is unjust unrighteous and outrageous that they should be dented the rights and prvileges of Qllzsnship being guilty of no offense save that of belonging to a church which was not liked by the majority of a radical and unreasonable legislature We hope the Mormons will insist upon voting and that they will Tote for good men |