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Show SWTORSEECMILLER ISSUES 'statement ON PROHIBITION In the Kane County News published ,tKansb Friday, April 2, appears a itateroent ginned by State Senator Wil-liira Wil-liira Seegmiller purporting to reveal hitherto unpublished facta" in connection connec-tion wi'h tf,e vet0 ot tne Wootton state-jjjt state-jjjt prohibition bill by Got. Spry bud-lequent bud-lequent to the adjournment of the last ussionof the state legislature. The lane County News stateB that the Sefimiller statement was offered t that paper for publication by its author, fne statement as publiihed follows: The day following the Hotel Utah indent, in-dent, in which Gov. Spry berated the "indignity" which had been perpetrated -and did it in a perfectly undignified isiner the governor sent for the three stake presidents in the senate, jos ph Eckersley, Don Colton and my- f, to visit him in his office, at which 'si he went over the early "Mormon" irsecutions of the Liberal and America Ameri-ca party days, and showed what dam-i;e dam-i;e those persecutions had done the lute, the Church and especially Joseph F. Smith. He stated that he loved President Smith better than any other man on eir'.h, and held the Church dearer than i .tiiii'X elxe. He said that President Joseph F. Snith and Bishop Charles W. Nibley could see very plainly that if the prohibition pro-hibition bill were passed, this same r.:i-"Mormon" persecution would be reseated, and that it had gone so far i.rcady that it could only be stopped by fei orTering himself as a sacrifice to the Chjreh by vetoing the prohibition bill. He said that he knew what that would mean to him and his family, and what humiliation they would have to k?.?t, but that he was willing to stand c the gap for the gospel's stake. He then continued: "Now, brethren, I come to you as yrur brother in the priestnood, and not ! is governor of the state; and I bring a Eessage from the president of the L'hurcn to you as stake presidents, and the message is that President Smith de-i de-i res you to sustain my veto on the flxir of the senate and defend me in my action when you go home to your feoDle." I tola the governor that neither he nor President Smith nor anybody else had any right to attempt to make a polliwog of me. My people knew what to cipect of me when 1 was elected, and I refused to become a traitor to them and to make a hypocrite of my-itlf. my-itlf. I told him emphatically that I would ote to pasa the bill over his head and that I would repudiate him before my People when I arrived home. I alio told him that I considered his ctions in the Hotel Utah very undigni-led undigni-led and very much uncalled for, which be admitted to be the case. When I had finished telling him these ftirgs and that I refused absolutely to ky the order, he said, "Well, I have formed my duty and have delivered Jou the message." He also said that Bishop David A. Smith wis appointed to verify the infractions in-fractions he (the governor) had brought f'WB President Smith, and terminated fte interview by saying that he had no Ktention of shirking his responsibility bJ Ming his constitutional time before rting up0n the bill, but that he would return it in plenty of time, before the xnate adjourned, to permit the senate to Ice any action the members saw fit Some twe or three days after this indent in-dent I talked to Bishop David A. Smith and he told me that what the tovemor had Baid was not true and that President Smith was very, very mih in favor of the prohibition bill. WILLIAM W. SEEGMILLER |