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Show o IN DEFENCE OF SENATOR KNOX. The Public Ledger, Philadelphia, of February 28th, has the following: To the Editor of Public Ledger: I notice that Dr. W. M. Padcn, ol Salt Lake City, is here in the East trying to create a sentiment against Senator Knox for defending the constitutional con-stitutional right of Senator Smoot of Utah, to retain his scat in the Senate. At a meeting of the Presbyterian ministers in the Withcrspoon Building, Build-ing, Monday, Doctor Paden said: " Wc acknowledge the constitutional right of Smoot in the Senate." Then he called Senator Knox a pettifogger because he would not break his oath as a Senator to uphold the Constitution Constitu-tion by voting to deprive Senator Smoot of his constitutional rights. It was Doctor Padcn and the Rev. John L. Leilich who started the '$ Smoot investigation. To create a sentiment against Senator Smoot and to get names of petitioners to unseat him, Doctor Padcn, in November, Novem-ber, 1903, stated in the Philadelphia and other large .Eastern papers that Senator Smoot wwas an enemy to the Government; that he had taken an oath to avenge the blood of Joseph and Hyrum Smith on 'he Gentiles of this nation, and had taught his child- 4., , renvai .similar oath. '' Doctor Padcn was offered $5000 guaranteed reward by a Gentile citi- zcn of Salt Lake City if lie could make good the above statements. Doctor 1'aden also stated in Washington, Wash-ington, D. C, February 17, 1907, Published Pub-lished in the Wpshingtou Tost," That polygamy had been practiced more by Mormons in the last live years than in the twenty-five previous years." If Doctor I'adcn or the Rev. Dr. John I,. Leilich bnci gone on the stand and sworn to the above statements, state-ments, Senator Knox's vote might have been different and Senator Smoot might have been scut back to Utah long ago. And let it be remembered that not one of the anti-Smoot agitators who v went through the country telling the " misleading stories fy did to get signatures on their pci-'lioncrs to unseat un-seat Senator Smoot went on the stand to sustain one of the clnrgcs they had made. I would suggest to the people ol Philadelphia that before they allow any one from Utah to slander Senator Knox for making one of the most statesmanlike speech- to uphold the Constitution ever delivered in the United States Senate iliey had better ask the agitators why they did not put their statements before the Smoot investigation committee V. S PEET. Philadelphia, February 26, 1007. o |