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Show o AN IDAHO SLANDER. As many as half a dozen people, perhaps a few more, have seen a weekly publication recently established estab-lished at Boise, Idaho, and called the Scimitar. A greater number have heard or read of it, because its prototypes proto-types in this city have made mention of it and once or twice have copied from its columns. The field which the Idaho hcminaiy seeks to cover was so thoroughly filled previously by one or two similar things issued in that state, supplemented by" the Salt Lake Tribune, that there was really re-ally not much wind on tap with which to spread the sails of the new venture; and it is a shrewd guess thai it will find mighty poor picking in the line of patronage for similar reasons. The editor, or) nominal editor, ol the Scimitar is Fred T. Dubois, a man whom some people have mistakenly referred to as the Tom Kearns of. Idaho. There .is not much similar-.ity similar-.ity between the-.men,, except in the- matter of unrestrained personal habits hab-its with malevolence toward and general misreprjescntation of those who will not pilay the minion to them, helping them to get and keep places which they are in no sense qualified tp fill, but that is all. The . Utah man is rich, the Idahoan is poor; one is short and fat, the other tall and lathlike; and so on. They are a sorry pair, ,all right. In a late number of the Idaho paper pap-er especial reference is made to a rjacent address of Apostle O. F. Whitney, in which he took occasion to voice his regard for the flag of his country. If he had said something derogatory, that would have brought forth a more prolonged snarl, but it - took the disposition of a Dubois to produce the snarl pnyway and accompany ac-company it with lowlived innuendo backed with down-right falsehood. After imagining some Ku Klux oafhs ' which it brhzenly asserts Whitney has taken, without knowing in the smallest degree anything about the matter, the Tribune echo of Boise proceeds to say: "Vcngemcc and loyalty have never traveled hand in hand. Either the oath means nothing or the apostrophe apostro-phe to the flag was drivel. Apostle Whitney on the rostrum and Apostle j Whitney in the endowment house teprcsent a contradiction not unfamiliar unfamil-iar in the pretentions of the masters of polygamy. Deception is one of'thcir stepping stones to power, one of the bulwarks behind which they are fortified. for-tified. "Mornionism has never given any defenders to flic flag, though twice the stars and stripes have been assailed as-sailed since Morjmonism wrote Hts first page in the book of history. Getting behind the guns is proof of sincerity. The public will be inclined to believe that Apostle Whitney's tribute tri-bute to the flag was a trifle stained when it considers the record of the past." The first paragraph may pass unnoticed un-noticed for the reason that it is altogether al-together too familiail a type to call for special comment; but the second, going a little beyond the range of even the Tribune's immense field of lying utterance, is given a brief mention. men-tion. Truth is in no sense a cham- . pion of or apologist for the Mor- m mon church, but says for it and demands de-mands for it what it would say and demand for any other chuflch under similar circumstances. A square, fair deal, a thing that papers of the class spoken of arc strangers to, is all that is asked; and this being the case, let the question be put to all who shall sec these presents Is it not an awful thing that such wicked, wilful, wil-ful, malicious, premeditated and dastardly das-tardly falsehoods as are contained in the quoted lines should be sent out to the public and the author of them escape 'consignment to endless desecration dese-cration at tliq hands of all who know him .and of. him? Is it not shameful beyond, measure that .the good work as well as the. good words of a peo- pic ar maligned and falsified and themselves slandered in so unprovoked unprovok-ed and cowardly a manner? The Mormons have gone to the defense of the Stars and Stripes whenever called on, meaning several occasions, p and have got behind the guns to a number and in a manner which elicited elici-ted widespread commendation along with the heartiest praise of thcr commanders com-manders and comrades, and well enough Dubois knows it if indeed his repeated attacks of "ptomaine poisoning" poi-soning" have not so deteriorated his brain tissues that ho no longer knows anything worth knowing. |