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Show GREAT LANDMARKS The reactionaries of the Mormon church and their stupid, venal or cowardly cow-ardly allies in the political quorums of the church, will seek In vain to make of the strife In Utah a religious war or a sectarian contest, The resistless progress of American Ideas here has made It Impossible for the church organ and Its emissaries to confuse the issue before the Nation or to much longer blind the minds of the Mormon people to the facts. It Is not like the contest of twenty years ago for that was a necessary war of subjugation of the whole army of the Mormon people This Is a struggle strug-gle for the enfranchisement of the mass of that people and for the punishment pun-ishment only of those who have been wilfully guilty of law-breaking In the profaned name of God and the equally profaned name of Statehood. Rising out from the tumultuous waste of this internecine struggle are some majestic points as clearly outlined out-lined ae the peak of Tenerlffe, and these are guides to every thinking mind so that all men who wish for the honor of this State and Its future peace ajid prosperity may know the chart by Which the great movement is sailing superbly onward. First, we have the fact that the mass of the Mormon people do not participate partici-pate In nor connive in the renewed plural marriage offense against God and the Nation and tbe well being of this State. This separates the body of the people from the class of offenders. Next, we have the fact that by the pollthal manifesto of the Mormon church the twenty-six chiefs were bound In chains of their own forging to refrain from political actlity while all the people were set free. This marks a sharp distinction between the mass of the Mormon people and the sectaries at the top. Third, the commercialization of the church and the utilization of Its tithes in venal and selfish and unaccounted ways spread anger among the ranks of the Mormon people. They desire that their pretended religious leaders shall be eccleslasts, not business monopolists; monopo-lists; they desire that the poor of their own faith shall be kept In comfort and dignity and not In poorhouses under brutish management; they desire that the tithes shall be utilized for the purposes pur-poses named In the supposed law of God requiring the tithe payment. And It Is only the vicious class who coin money out of superstition, live off the toll, the fears, the Ignorance or the bigoted hopes of their followers, and blasphemously utilize "God's money" for the devil s work of Industrial enslavement. en-slavement. Finally, the mass of the Mormon people peo-ple desire to have their chiefs observe the covenants which were made to this Nation observe those covenants In spirit and In law. And the foregoing statements represent repre-sent those mighty signs that this fight organized by the American party of Utah, cannot be made a religious persecution per-secution nor a sectarian warfare, no matter how much the reactionaries of tho church and their few allies among the Gentiles shall seek to subvert the cause. There are responses enough already from the Mormon mass to Indicate that they will not bear the shame of their standing Idly by and seeing their liberties lib-erties won by the toll and sacrifice of others. Nearly two thousand of them Joined the American party at the ballot bal-lot box In .Salt Lake City last November. Novem-ber. Thousands more are ready to fall Into the ranks when tho recruiting and organization shall be established In the other counties of the State. Most momentous of all, In the judgment judg-ment of The Tribune, Is the fact that among the younger Mormons who are closely related hy ties of blood to the chiefs themselves, there Is a strong element ele-ment of sincerely devoted men and women wo-men who, wlill" they hope to be spared the necessity of making open rebellion against their relatives, are determined that they will suffer all If need be, In order to make atonement for the errors which the class have committed. One of these remarked in The Tribune office recently: "With no disrespect to my father, I must say that men like himself him-self have lived as far above the mass of the people as if they were unapproai liable li-able In their holiness; and tho body of the people have carried the great bur-j den of the most extensive ecclenlastlcal system in proportion to membership in the church -that the world has ver Been. Without arrogating to myself any nobility I may well claim to he one of those 'penitent nobles' of whom The Tribune spoke a few days ago It is for us of the class to help to right the wrongs of the mass." When the Mormon leaders made that line of cleavage between "That Twenty-six of the Hierarchy" and the w hole body of the Mormon people, they unconsciously un-consciously marked the line upon Which the American battle Is being waged The forces of the Nation will march forward along that broad path and the mass of the Mormon people will be set free. |