Show A perfidious MEASURE IT APPEARS that governor stevenson has signed the law passed by the idaho legislature disfranchise ing mormons cormons Mor mons it is presumed that this is the measure which provides that the latter day saints be deprived of citizenship of the united states and for the readmission to that status of those who sever their connection with the church for a series of years on their taking a religious test oath the governor tries to take the curse action in attaching his official signature to the abominable thing by stating in a message to the assembly that the opinion of many eminent lawyers regarding it to is to the effect that it is illegal and unconstitutional he might have added that such is and must be the view of every person who has an ounce of comprehension of the genius of american liberty and institutions in effect he stated that such was his own opinion but preferred that the matter should be carried through the courts that means that a people should be robbed of rights as dear as life pending the slow and tedious action of the courts when the wrong should be nipped in its incipiency suppose a law should be passed by a legislative body provi providing ling that ft a portion or claw class of the people should be despoiled of their goods by another claw class the disfranchisement law recently enacted by the idaho legislature is no less infamous would it be competent to hold that it would be preferable to lot let the matter take its course in the courts to preventing the consummation of the perfidy how much nobler a part ima it would have been for governor stevenson to have declined to endorse the villainous measure and returned it to the Assembly by a message embodying a quotation from the federal constitution forbidding the application of any religious test together with a quotation from the united states statutes respecting the naturalization of citizens instead of acting upon what appeared to be his own conviction in relation to the late legal monstrosity st enacted to rob an honest people of their dearest rights he has participated in perpetrating one of the m moat bar bare eced Awed legal outrages on the record of any civilized country on earth it will cast eternal die dia grace upon all who have taken any part in formulating or enacting it it is indeed to be regretted that a man so naturally honorable and good as governor stevenson should have considered it needful to ignore his own convictions by making an unwarrantable concession to a senseless and malicious popular clamor |