OCR Text |
Show ..w. f i oMllltJ 2iti.,wi.wwlJ. Here is an extract from the Deseret News: If two hundred Philadelp Lia minister! appeal as th servants of God-"' to the voters of the State in behalf cra certain ticket, or partv, they are not bringing "church lnuence ' to bear upon politics. They are only exercising their Tights as citizens. But if a "ilormon" elder, hold-in? hold-in? an oice in the church, should advise the members of u8-1rard' or Btaie- or other church organization, to vote for their friends, owing to the anti-Mormon" agitation, tbey are committing the crime of using "church influence," al-tAouh al-tAouh they may have friends on all the tickets in the field. - If the Philadelphia minister claim to be the only mouthpieces on earth of the infinite God in - : heaven, then they are just "about as depraved as A. Jlilton Musser. If, as good citizens, they merely remarked or gave as- their individual, "opinions that . a certain honest man ought to be supported for office, of-fice, they were strictly within the lines of 5 their. duty. - A Mormon bishop does not give advice on poli-i poli-i tics, except as he is instructed to, and those instruc-, instruc-, tions come from a source which lie does not consider Jiuman, but divine.; The difference is as wide as (the, distance between heaven and earth. . The same paper, speakfng about the schools, J says:'"'- . ' '' ''' . . '4The aim of the -American party is to anti-IJXormonize anti-IJXormonize them." - - .. .' In one sense that is true. - The idea is to anti-iMormonize anti-iMormonize the management -of. them., for the rea-json rea-json that Joseph F. . Smith is not & first-class "public i school manager; for another reason ,that for forty yearsrthe Mormons had full control of the schools and they were a disgrace to the Territory; .for an-, pother, that the whole tendency of the Mormon man-. man-. Jagement is to cause the schools to deteriorate. But . 'the News volunteers the information, that "If the scheme should succeed, following the (precedent set in the city government, . the American school board would discharge every teacher who happened to be a Mormon.". . " That is altogether gratuitous, and is as false. as it is gratuitous. ' There has never been a teacher difri turbed by any Gentile school board in this city who was competent to teach. There never will be, although al-though it is a notorious fact that until the Gentiles gained control of the schools , there never was one Gentile teacher in thenv except in two or three, where something was required that no Mormon could teach. - .. . ; . The News thinks the' public schools, should be kept just what they are strictly non-partisan. The schools are not non-partisan. They are practically under Mormon control and' that : is bad for the 'schools. It further says: "To have them of any political party or re-t re-t ligious persuasion would be to ' put a curse upon .. them." ; ' The Americanparfy does not want, control of the schools in any partisan sense. It wants Gentile control of the schools, and it offers good and sufficient suffi-cient reasons for the desire. If all the trustees should be Republicans or Democrats, but still Gentiles, they would suit. Indeed, if James H.-Moyle can be sub-. sub-. stituted for Oscar that will do. The News further offers the .opinion that the ' schools "cannot be bettered by putting them under the control of those who are actuated by religious or political hatred." '. ' There is no political or religious hatred here, except ex-cept when such men as Joseph F. Smith refer to the Gentiles of Utah as "our enemies." . ' For the sake of both Gentile and Mormon pupils, pu-pils, the schools should be under the control of those who believe in them thoroughly, and of those who would not be influenced by the ipse dixit of a bigoted priest, who. does not limit his influence to his de-- de-- sires,but who puts. his opinion out as absolute as authorized by God himself. . |