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Show B THE FILM ON THE PICTURE. fl A gentleman the other day asked the writer I it would not be better for Utah to permit mat- fl ters to drift, to permit the Church Chiefs tb main-" I tain their alliance with certain political bosses fl and combines and to control the votes of the peo- fl pie until the people themselves would become B weary of the vassalage and cast it off fl The trouble with that is deeper than careless H thinkers comprehend. It is the thought and work fl of a people that make history. Semmes on the B Alabama was as great a seaman and fighter as fl was Winslow, and he had as good a ship as the fl Kearsarge. The men behind the guns decided the battle. Winslow's men were Americans; It H was for native land that they were fighting. The fl crew of the Alabama were mercenaries. It was the same at Trafalgar and Lepanto. At B Actium seven hundred years of victory were be- hind the Roman seamen and marines, each one felt that in a measure at least the honor of old B Rome was In his hands and they could not fail. B It x was not Brigham Young, but the silent B workersTvhom lie controlled who made here in B the desert the nucleus of a state. I The unrecorded thoughts of a people are what fl when developed in the darkened chamber of the B years, make a people's history. If their minds fl are in thralldom, there will be a film on the pic- fl ture which can never be eradicated. The picture fl of Utah up to the coming of the overland railroad B and for some years thereafter, is darkened by that fl The superstition, the intolerance, the fanati- I cism, the narrowness, and the lawlessness of the fl people so far as fealty to native land was con- I corned, all help to make that film until the plc- fl ture of their patience, their devotion, their self- I abnegation, their unrequited toil their hardships, B their privations, their sacrifices and sufferings is B half obscured. B The Fathers who framed our Government were I profound students of medieval history; they un- H derstood perfectly what sorrows the people had B suffered through the assumptions of priests and I Kings of a right to rule them, and the one purpose B in their minds more pronounced than any other fl Was the determination that on the free soil of H the New World those sorrows should never be fl repeated. They were a God-fearing company; there was not a thought in their minds of curtailing curtail-ing any religious privilege 'of any man, rather they were determined to draw every protection around the religious beliefs of men, but they were just as firmly determined that there should never be any priestly interference vvith the Government of the new land, believing that absolute freedom and the blessings that would follow would awaken such gratitude and a patriotism so intense would fill the souls of the people, that they would be given the wisdom to do right. To secure statehood for Utah the Mormon Chiefs all promised that .their religion should be adjusted to the basis marked out by the Fathers. That voluntary covenant on their part gave a brief promise of a new dawn for Utah. That the covenant has been shamefully broken does not change the duty of any man. The rule inaugurated here of old and which is still clung to is in direct contravention to the spirit of our free institutions. It is a return to the same Asiatic form which has held that country in thralldom for centuries, and which has strewn the shores of it with the wrecks of nations. It places an iron band of superstition and fear on the brows of childhood and those who grow up under the merciless despotism are mentally deformed, even as physically are the feet of the women of China that in childhood are placed in a compress. So it is idle to talk of waiting until these mental cripples emancipate themselves. As well tell the Chinese woman to leap and walk. Until the band is finally broken Utah in one sense will be an alien state, and no matter what mouthings of loyalty and devotion and patriotism may be nade, Utah will still be alien for the allegiance of the people to the government of the United States will be but a secondary, subordinated allegiance at best, and the picture which she will make In the galaxy of the Union will be obscured by the film which comes when patriotism and loyalty have but a subordinate place In the souls of the people. And no matter what the men may claim who hold that divided fealty, they are not true Americans in the holy sense of that word, and when their pictures are developed in the darkened chamber of the years, and they are displayed under un-der the glass of history, the film that will cover the picture will reveal them just as they are. |