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Show IT IS A QUESTION OF CITIZENSHIP. Speaking of the Smoot case, the Deseret News in a recent editorial, says: "The whole proceeding against him are an I anti-Mormon raid, started with religious bigotry and hatred of imaginary 'churoh influence that has not been exercised in this case, and would I not have been a disqualification under any law or rule of Congress if it had been used as pre- tended.' " In that the News gives away its own innate and Inherent lawlessness. The ballot is I the only defense this republic has, short of the i sword, but the declaration of the News is that if, under the domination and fear of a something called a creed, interested priests can compel the vote of a State to declare their will, there is no law and no rule of Congress that can rightly be interposed. But the statement of the News makes more clear the real reason why Apostle Smoot should not be in Congress. He was not brought up a citizen of the United States. He never knew, never wanted to know the principles on which this Government was founded until he was more than twenty-one years of age. His government was not a republic, but a kingdom. That is, his real government still, and the proof is manifest. Should a quorum of the apostles, of which he is a member, demand his resignation tomorrow from either the position as Senator or an apostle, there is not the slightest question or aoubt of which he would accept. His church is the real thing with him and the Government of the United States is a mere side issue, something to be worked for what is in it. If he is a good saint his highest thought is "The building up of the kingdom." That means, besides its spiritual sense, the building up of a temporal power and temporal Government utterly ut-terly incompatible with free Government; an Asian Government In which one man is everything every-thing and the people nothing. Has he ever denied de-nied this? Could he be made to deny it? Not much ; and that is why he should not be given the position to help make laws for a free people. |
