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Show WHOSE OAY IS IT7 , "I don't cnxo what anybody say?, this Is tho Mormons' day; and wo havo shown you othor icIIowh trio best and hlggcst celebration Utah ever had." That was the remark made, with a good-natured laugh, to The Tribune yesterday by ono of tho Great Elect the Self-SatlsfleJ Ones. It was tho speaker's Idea that, In somo fashion or other Indefinite In character and yet certain of results an extraordinary effort to make this holiday the exclusl o possession of Mormons would have a tendency to establish es-tablish some righteous principle. Let us compare the situation with another sufllclcntly analogous to make tho illustration a fair one: In Its modern mod-ern history America was discovered by Catholics. It was a Cathollo cardinal who stood by Columbus In the dark hours of his ilnal struggle for royal I hearing, and who eventually brought him to audience with the King of Spain. During his weary watch of years at court it was a Catholic monastery which gave to him shelter and support, It wng the Jewels of a Catholic queen that erjulpped the expedition of Colum-bii". Colum-bii". The motive wns that of religious zeal, being no less than tho conversion of tho pagan rulers of Asia to tho Only Truo Faith. It was the blessing of a Catholic potentate that sent the little caravels forth, endued with a confidence confi-dence that the Almighty would guard them from wave and lightning stroke and bring them around the world to safe harbor. It was tho supplication to the Virgin that animated and sanctified the work of the great captains on land and sea, to weather storm and enduro torture to establish their reljglon nnd their civilization.- And It was the confessor con-fessor who accompanied every troop and administered the last unction that enabled the sailor or tho warrior to die In peace as he had lived in war. Suppose the Catholics were to claim tlje twelfth day of October for their own In America, reviving on that day all the old claims of temporal power which have passed away with the lapse ica uiivi Hie blUWlJI UL CUVHlZJl-tlOn. CUVHlZJl-tlOn. Supposo that on. that day tho chief figure In the Catholic church In America were to become the chief figure fig-ure in a civic celebration. Suppose that all Catholics were to assume that the rest of the population existed within this land of America as enemies and by sufferance, and that tho occasion wns a Catholic religious festival rather than a time of general glory. Suppose that this assumption were clearly a denial de-nial of the glowing truth that the world had widened, that Christian beneficence had spread Itself, and that the greatest race the earth had ever known had established es-tablished Itself In a new hemisphere, where man could grow to r higher grandeur than In the old world, ruled by Popes and Princes. What would the rest of the world think of the obsolete vainglory of Catholics? Cath-olics? In the first place, thero Is no dancer of such an ebullition of folly. But if it were attempted It would awaken awak-en not only the Jeers of the rest of mankind, but the vast majority of Catholics themselves would refuse to take part In any celebration, festival, declaration or proceeding whoso purpose pur-pose was to assert a possession of tho twelfth of October for the great mother church, to the exclusion of the rest of Americans, How can the Mormon people expect to Inspire a. feeling of amity among their fellow citizens if they permit their leaders to maintain the idea that the twenty-fourth of July Is a religious holidaya hol-idaya saints' day, as it were and how can they expect to be received upon up-on equal terms of enjoyment In National Na-tional holidays when they put forth their supreme effort to celebrate a religious re-ligious holiday as the chief event in the calendar year? |