Show AND DISHONEST on th the alth dinst the news protested against the absurd and offensive practice indulged in by politicians politician s and vear organs in this state of proclaiming that the people of utah are now free ee our characterization of the political speakers and scribblers scribble rs who indulge in this practice was not exactly alimentary and on saturday last democratic organ attempts to reit quotes a resolution adopted at general conference of the church in october 1891 in which the it ement la Is ma made that the members ac the ithe mormon CA church are and have VS pei perfectly factly free to unite with any or no political party par ty A declaration by the first presidency published in march 1892 containing an expression of similar significance Is also quoted and a bungling attempt is made to apply to the general conference and to the officers of the church the criticisms offered by the news on the individuals divi duals who are perpetually reiterating the assertion that voters in utah are now free the declarations made by the general conference and by the first presidency upon this subject referred to the past as well as the future and were dignified refutations reputations of slanderous statements made by political speakers and writers who had long persisted in asserting that the members of the mormon church were not free but were the vassals of their ecclesiastical leaders if the denials by the conference and first presidency of these assertions were to be quoted honestly and in a respectful manner and in the spirit in which they I 1 were made and with the application they were intended to have viz to the past as well as the future no valid objection could be made and certainly none would be attempted by Ws this paper to the use however frequent of the language of those denials but a dishonest use is made of the declarations promulgated by the general conference and first presidency quoted by the democratic organ when those declarations are referred to by it and by other political organs and by the political speakers whom the news criticised criticized the dishonesty em braces these two elements 1 the implication that the utterances quoted had reference to the future and not to the past that they were intended as a sort of proclamation of emancipation and that liberty was unknown among the mormons cormons until these utterances were made 2 the further implication that the mormon people cannot properly use their freedom nor display their independence except by refusing to listen to any advice or suggestions gest ions about public matters from any man who happens to hold a prominent ecclesiastical position by its express terms the resolution adopted by the conference which the democratic organ quotes covered the past as well as the future in repudiating control over voters and like expressions pres from the first presidency often repeated have also covered the past when therefore a declaration to the effect that the mormon people are free to vote as they choose is made in such a manner or in such a connection as to imply that this condition of freedom has been recent recently lk attained it is a slander a taunt and an insult the pretense of the politicians and their organs that it is necessary for the cormons mormons Mor mons in order to be free and independent to refuse to listen to their leading men in reference to public matters is merely another spider and fly stratagem strat strate egem gern it is a false pretense it is an attempt to persuade the people to follow false lights and to exchange old and long tried friends for new ones or of a most doubtful character it Is a dishonest method of making political capital and winning support at the polls the real spirit and mea ninor in which the democratic organ reiterates the assertion that the mormon are now 11 free are sufficiently shown by the che following paragraph from its article of saturday last there a person in utah but knows that beneath the smooth surface of our political and so social ial life there are some currents and that they run in fh the old channels nobody cares to disturb the smooth surface hoping that eventually the eur currents rents underneath der neath will cease to be and all become stilled and quiet but there is no use t to 0 tell people who live I 1 in n utah that our erstwhile troubled waters have reached absolute quietude for they have not this means that the mormons cormons are not entirely free yet that their freedom is more or less usand that erstwhile conditions of vassalage may possibly supervene at any time there a person in utah but knows that beneath the smooth surface of the oily assurances of pollyl political papers and speakers about freedom in utah there are more or less pointed insinuations that impeach the manhood of the men who founded this state and the veracity of their religious leaders and that are offensive and insulting in the highest degree i the news again protests against such references to freedom in utah as the politicians and their organs are in the habit of making let jet them speak of liberty among the mormons cormons is s it has been now is and always will he be ar or not at all the highest purest and best form of liberty that mert men haye have ever erver known insinuations that the foundations of our state were laid by slave labor that its first inhabitants Inhabitant ts came into it by compulsion were detained by force were ruled by tyranny and tf flirted by oppression that they were compelled to vote tor for lawmakers and to submit to laws that were obnoxious to them and that these dep deplorable loralle conditions continued until the politicians got in their work quite recent eyare so shamefully of truth and so offensive in the estimate they hey put upon the peaple to fo whom they refer as to be unendurable |