| Show blundering AGAIN A NUMBER NUMB of eastern journals are commenting upon the statistical report read at the general conference of course they make terrible blunders whoever knew an eastern editor to write anything exactly straight on the mormon question among the items telegraphed on this subject was a total of new members 11 this affords a foundation on which to build a mass of speculation as to the wonderful in the four corners of the earth and the small increase of the church notwithstanding the activity of its missionaries well the figures read at the conference related only to the organized stakes of zion in this mountain region the number of new members represented the increase by baptism here during the preceding half year the missions in the united states north and south and in foreign lands were not represented in that report each mission keeps account of its own statistics the item telegraphed from this city had no reference to the increase to the church effected by missionary labor abroad this explanation may help some of our contemporaries to see what a mistake they have made and if they would only refer to their own files they would be able to rectify their own error the same papers which n nw now w talk about this as the result of recent missionary labors in the south and in europe not long ago gave large figures of mormon conversions in scandinavia and also in the southern states we will not apply to them the adage about a certain class of persons who should have good memories because we understand that these newspaper writers about f mormonism do not charge their minds with what they publish on the subject and perhaps do not intentionally misrepresent if they would only take a little pains to be anything like accurate they might remember a little of what they say on mormon affairs but they just gabble on copying from each other and repeating absurdities and contradictions as though they were undisputed facts without apparently taking a second thought or caring whether they are right or wrong there is more error published about utah and mormonism in the papers of the united states than on any other subject religious social or political |
