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Show CONFESSES THEY ARE CRIMINALS. Iu its zeal to find opprobrious planks to suggest for tho American platform, the Deseret News is making some very pointed and damaging admissions. Tn a box on its lirst page it is running a Herald extract which is partly report of and partly comment upon Senator Cannon's Can-non's speech at tho American State convention iu this city on Monday night last September 2Sth. Iu that speech Senator Cauuou laid down the proposition that law-breakers should be put; iu jail, and that no matter whether thc3' belonged to the "baud of twenty-six" twenty-six" or not, if thC3' were breakers of the law they were criminals, and the law bhould'deal with them as such, putting them in jail on tho proof of' their crime. Now, thai is good doctrine. What is tho matter with it? Why should noL criminals be 'put in .iful when they aro found guilty of crime? And why should their membership in an" ecclesiastical bodj' protect them if they are criminals? Why should thoro bo a baud or cult of criminals in Utah exempt ex-empt from the punishment which the law decrees for their crimes, merely because be-cause they stand high in certain -religious circles and claim to be pious men? Tho News itself gloats over the exposures of "Christian" church leaders lead-ers and Sunday school leaders that are caught in the commission of various crimes from time to time. There is no suggestion on the part of the News that theso men, by virtuo of their church membership or church leadership, leader-ship, should be exempt from the operation opera-tion of the law. Tt is only when these leaders are high priests in tho Mormon church that tho proposed exemption is pleaded in their favor. But nolo how tho News commeuts upon Senator Cannon's proposition that the law-breakers should be put iu jail, no matter whether they beloug to the "band of twenty-six" or not. Hero is what tho News says: "A vote for the ticket supported by The Tribune is a voto for a programme that includes the imprisonment and exile of every prominent prom-inent church leader. 'Crucify! Crucify! Cruc-ify! ' is tho key noto of The Tribune campaign." Now, if that is not a plain, straightforward confessiou that every "prominent church leader" is a criminal, crim-inal, and that the duo enforcement of the law would land him in jail, it has no point whatever. It must mean that or it is nothing. Tho pretense that thero can bo "'extermination" of church loaders or putting them in jail when they are not guiltj' of any crime is tho merest balderdash, and everybody every-body knows it to be so. Tho News's comment on tho Cannon speech, therefore, there-fore, is plaiuly and necessarilj' a confession con-fession that every "prominent church leader" is a criminal, aud that if tho laws were duly enforced in Utah he would bo put in jail. Thero is no possible escape from this propositiou. It is out of the question to suppose that Senator Cannon or an3' one else would propose to put au3-body in jail who had not been guilty of some crime. It is only on tho theor3' thai they arc guilty of a crime that an3' possible pos-sible suggestion of their being put in jail could be made. But tho Deseret News wails that this would "include the imprisonment and exilo of every prominent church leader." Could confessiou con-fessiou po&sibb be more startling and abject than this? Audlsuch ignoble, debased confessiou the cburch organ makes in behalf of the leaders of a great church! No charge made at au3' time against the Mormon leaders has ever equaled in its sweeping comprehensiveness and inclusion in-clusion of universal lawlessness among the church leaders, the confession that is thus made by the Deseret News, which is tho organ of tho church of which these confessed criminals are the leaders. |
