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Show A FALSE DEFENSE OF SMOOT. AVe find tho following bit of criminal falsehood, written from Salt Lake, in the Now Yorlt Evening Tost of April Mth: SMOOT AND TJIi-J COPYRIGHT LAW. To the Editor of the Evening Poet: Sir: I note In your Issue of March .10 the following paragraph: "Mr. Smoot, tho Mormon apostle against whose pernicious activity in tho Senate all tho moral organizations of tho country wcro protesting four years ago. Is directing his machinations Just now lo tho details of tho copyright law." Senator Smoot was opposed because ho is a Mormon not bouauso of any pernicious perni-cious activity In the Senate, or clsc-whoro clsc-whoro And the Sunato r'Jectol the charges agaln6t him because being a Mormon Mor-mon Isn't roason enough for disfranchisement. disfranchise-ment. Mr. Smoot Is chairman of the com-mitten com-mitten on patents, and thia copyright matter engages the labors of his committee, com-mittee, lie will not hurt tho copyright law nor any other. LE ROY" ARMSTRONG. Salt Lake City, April 5. It is idiotic folly for one who knows tho facts in tho Smoot contest to say that ho was opposed because he was a Mormon, and malignant perversity in ono who does know them. ; Brigham. FI. Roberts would have just as good reason to claim that he was Tojected by tho Houso because he is a Mormon as Smoot has to claim that he was opposed In the Sonate because ho is a Mormon. The fact is, that Mormons have been sent to both houses before (Frank J. Cannon Can-non to the Sonata and King and Howell to the House), without one word being said about Monnonism; and neither was the opposition to Smoot or Roberts in any at ay based1' on their religion; it was Smoot and his friends, and Roberts and his friends (but more especial' Smoot and his friends), who drngged in tho question of religion, and. they did .this as a defense for Smoot. In no sense or way was the religious question raised by the opponents of Smoot. The religious issue was a defense- for him, not a part of the prosecution. Neither did tho Senate decide the Smoot case on the basis that being a Mormon was" not reason enough for "disfranchisement." The Senate decided de-cided for Smoot because ho ranged himself with the Republicans, and tho Republican members of the United States Senate stood by him for party reasons and at the dictation of President Roosevelt, and in order to keep their places at the pio counter. Tho case as mado by the protectants was not considered at all by the Senators who supported Smoot. On the contrary, they ignored tho' protest and the evidence against him altogether, even going so far in their speeches as to allege things in Smoot 's favor that, not only had absolutely ab-solutely no support in tho testimony, but that are well known, to have no basis whatever iu fact. All these things have been repeatedly established, and are absolutely unassailable. unassail-able. They are perfectly understood to be the real facts in the case, are well known in L'tah, and no one but a Smoot j bondman woujd say to the contrary, and when he says it, it is absolutely and knowingly false. |