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Show Published Every Saturday BY GOODWINS WEEKLY PUBLISHING CO., INC. A. W. RAYBOULD, Business Manager SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: Including postage In the United States, Canada and Mexleo, $2.50 per year, for six months. Subscriptions to all foreign countries, within ths Postal lion, $4.50 per year. Single copies, 10 cents. Payments should be made by Check, Money Order or Registered Letter, pay-sbl- e to The Citizen. Address all communications to The Citizen. Entered as second-clas- s matter, June 21, 1919, at the Postofflee at Salt Lake City, Utah, under the Act of March S, 1879. Phone Wasatch 6409 8 S' Ness Bldg. Salt Lake City, Utah. VI-12- -1 RIGHTEOUS OR UNLAWFUL The message addressed to the voters of Salt Lake county in the Ben tries case, by ninety-twsovereign plaintiffs, has that strong quality of ectness, which makes it a message to religionists, everywhere, to season ir repressive miasma with reason. Kiplings idea that every American has lost his soul, has evidently adopted by our Literati of the Cloth, who would save us from rselves, even if it plunges every religious denomination in the land, into the political game. o With activities of religious factions, everywhere, bent upon the phy-a- l and mental control of the people, our own little fiasco, which appar-;- y transgressed the fourth section of our state constitution, is but an cident in the propaganda of the times. The religious admonition, Peace on earth; good will toward men, never found practical application in this wrorld. It has seemed a mere jckery for ages. It was two thousand years ago that the Prince of Peace omulgated the golden rule. It has been preached but never followed. He religious teachings of the present are, for the most part, weak and Such religious teachings as we are nowr most familiar with, ike for suppression of individual liberty and domination of civic un-nvincin- g. tivities. Apparently the destiny of the world is not shaped according to stan-rd- s of goodness, but by greed; and the greed of the religious protagon-i- s evidenced in his almost savage desire to gain control of every function mankind. lot, Whether4 Ben Harries takes office as sheriff of Salt Lake county, or it will still remain a political truism, that he was elected by a religious olitical faction, which functioned according to dictation of its spiritual ntors. It lias long been the boast of blantant Americans that wTe have, here, church. government entirely divorced from the political influences of any has shouted this conviction from the very house tops and rent his lungs most in twTain in proclaiming the absolute freedom of the American voter Ie ) the world. But the obvious trend of events, the past few' years, have served to emove the blindfold from the average voters eyes. He has become alive, last, to the tremendous powTer now being wielded by religious factions politics and he has become alarmed lest his constitutional guarantees if and lie has good libertv, become mired in a miasma of eason to be alarmed! The preacher and the religious teachers arc apparently no longer intent to preach salvation. They have discovered that through agitation key stand a good chance to supplement messages from the pulpit, with Various legislative mandates. By such means they, evidently, hope to larass and demean man before the law, to such an extent, that lie will forced to seek new avenues of expression and to camouflage any lesire to live his own life according to the dictates of his own reasoning t thou-shalt-no- ts m ! acuities. And apparently the action taken by the ninety-twsovereign citizens Utah, in seeking redress from suppression of normal, moral and mental o f aspects of life, here in Salt Lake county, through the courts, is very timely. Fortunately, indeed, for those who still believe in the expressions of untrammeled American freedom, Utah has, incorporated in its constitution, a wise provision, which seems to completely cover the case at issue. This law the fourth section of Article One, reads: The rights of conscience shall never be infringed. The state shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting free exercise thereof; no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office of public trust or any vote at any election, nor shall any person be incompetent as a witness or juror on account of religious belief or the absence thereof. There shall be no union of church and state, nor shall any church dominate the state or interfere with its functions. No public money or property shall be appropriated for or applied to any religious worship, exercise or instruction, or for the support of any ecclesiastical establishment. The straight thing pays always in the end, in friendship, in business, in politics, in every conceivable avenue arid phase of life. We cant have an expansive stretch of healthy, harmonious life without an expansive sweep of the mind. Littleness of mind, jealousy, envy looking always for the faults of others rather than for the good traits, all have their adverse, stultifying, dwarfing influences. old-fashion- ed 01 Here in Salt Lake City and county, we are evidently standing on the brink of an upheaval of hate and revenge, because of the late concerted and correlated action of the religious factions of city and county, in thrusting themselves, bodily, into politics and contrary to the apparent letter and intent of our state constitution, as per section four, noted herein. Happiness and contentment are concomitments of righteousness,. but how arc we to have either happiness or contentment in our wonderful of the inhabitants are to dictate to city and county, if less than s how they shall conduct their private affairs? the How much of a religious dictum this late Harries mandate proved to be, is somewhat accounted for in the report that he received liberal support for office in Logan and quite a smattering of votes in Idaho. It is an unfailing indication of how far the religious miasma of the times has reallv gone how far it extends among those classes who are taught to believe that they are more Godly than their neighbors, because they hold membership in some religious organization! It seems it would be more honest and righteous to believe that we determine our own fate by our actions, and then set out in manly and womanly fashion to carry this belief into practice, than to rail against imaginary wrongs in other folks, or to attempt to regulate all worldly affairs by process of law. Apparently so many of us have dwelt for so long a time in the narrow, cramped, lower stories of being, that we are missing many of the better things that abide in the stories above. We are to prone to believe that we, alone, arc right and the other fellow all wrong. And The Citizen believes that this is a, good lime to make a test of the validity of section four of our state constitution. It means something or is sure to nothing; and it appears that it will take a court battle, such as one-thir- d twTo-third- |