OCR Text |
Show CALL A HALT. The mines of Utah are all right. They are at present showing richer, all in all, than in any other state of the Union With their proceeds invested in lands, water? manufactures, needed business houses and residences in the cities of the state, in a few years Utah would be a gem. There is but one cloud in the sky. That is the determination of the high officers of the Mormon church to dominate, not only the business, but the brains of the people. If that is persisted in there will be perpetual friction, perpetual clash-ings, clash-ings, until two things will happen. The first will be the disfranchisement of the whole Mormon people. It will have to be so as any good Mormon will have to admit when he reasons the matter out in his own mind. The population of Utah compared with the population of the whole Union is about as one to one hundred and ninety. Now suppose the Gentile population of Utah was as one Gentile to one hundred and ninety Mormons; suppose the Gentiles were a compact mass obeying obey-ing the will of some leader implicitly, surrendering surrender-ing their judgment to the will of this leader and always in contempt of and defiance to the Mormon church, what would the church do? Would it not see to it that all power would be taken away from the few? Well, as things are going, there will come a time in the very near future when the United States government will decide that It will no longer be vexed by the persistence of a few men in Utah to neutralize the spirit of American Amer-ican institutions and will disfranchise all mem-bors mem-bors of the Mormon church on the ground that it is an organization utterly alien to the spirit and genius of free institutions. So soon as the people of this country fully realize that there is an im-perlum im-perlum in imperio in Utah, a government within the government of the United States, whose chief-est chief-est desire and intention is to upraise, on the ruins of this Republic, a something which is not in any i respect different from an ancient Asiatic despot- I ! ism; there will be some swift and direct work ; performed, and Mormons will be shut out from ' any participation in the government of this na- ft tlon. Another thing will happen. Some Mormon ' evangel will rise up to proclaim to the people the truth in a way that will be convincing, and will demand from the church that freedom be given to the people, freedom in the American sense, and that will result in the disintegration j, of the church. The germs of that uprising are rf already beginning to stir with awakening life. The position of the Swedish Americans in Utah is a significant indication of that fact. In such a situation have not the leaders of the church the acumen to see that ooth for the sake of Utah and ( j the church the present arbitrary methods should ' be dispensed with? Can they not see that no more senatorshlps i ought to be sold for money; that it is not good ' to single out a man solely because he Is a high church man and drive the Mormon herds to vote j; for a legislature that will elect him? That the church has enough to do without trying to bind A to its will legislatures, governors, city counr mayors the whole political machinery of the j state? The rulers of Great Britain tried this same ft course once and believed they were secure. But 1 there came a day when some stern old Barons j circled round a churlish king and gave him an "j ultimatum, and he surrendered. The men or , Utah, one of these days, despite their fanataclsm and fear, will make a demand and a new Magna Charta will have to be given them. |