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Show H Apostle Smoot is not disturbed over any sus- picions that when he shall be elected Senator, he I may meet with a frost in Washington. He declares that he is an American citizen. Is H ho sure of that? "Which is most to him, President H Theodore Roosevelt or President Joseph F. Smith? H if Senator which would he look to as the higher aUthority on his conscience? H There are people who believe that he is a citi- zen of a temporal government other than that of the United States. They know of the oaths of allegiance al-legiance to that other government which he has taken; they know to what source he 'looks for instruction in-struction in all things temporal as well as spiritual. spirit-ual. Can a man be a citizen of two governments at the same time; two governments as widely different differ-ent in all things as are the governments of Turkey Tur-key and of Switzerland? Indeed vastly more different. dif-ferent. Turkey is a government which relies on force alone to execute its decrees. This government govern-ment in Utah has its hooks upon men's superstitious supersti-tious fears and depends upon that hold as much as upon its power to ruin any man of its organization organiza-tion who is lax in obedience. From earliest childhood Apostle Smoot has believed be-lieved that the president of his church is a seer who receives direct revelations from Omnipotence for the government of this kingdom. His creed further teaches him that this kingdom is the only legitimate government on earth. Moreover he has passed through all the promotions of the kingdom until he stands only a little removed from the Presidency himself. We know some of the obligations obli-gations he has assumed, some of the oaths he has taken. How can a man thus involved be an American Amer-ican citizen? There is no theory about it We are all familiar fami-liar with the ways of this kingdom. When it had full control in Utah it was a pure theocracy. The head of the church was an absolute despot and the Mormon who wavered in the slightest in his allegiance was cut off, his business destroyed and, when nothing worse was done, the full power of the despotism was invoked to make him feel that he was an outcast. There was not one appeal to the affection of such an one, the only appeals were to his fears. This is the rule which Reed Smoot, grew up under and approves of; that is his idea of justice for, as he would state it: "When a man disobeys God or his vice-regent on earth, what i)ut vengeance upon him should follow?" We can all see that when such a man declares that he an American citizen, he means merely that he was born on American soil. Suppose his neighbor born in the same year, had, during the war of the Rebellion become a subject of Great Britain and still claimed that allegiance, though living here, would Reed Smoot hold him to be an American citizen? And yet tho principles on which our government govern-ment was founded had their birth in England. At home an Englishman is as free as we are. There is no power under his government to curtail in the least his personal freedom, or to question either his political or religious belief. If taking an oath of allegiance to such a government causes a man to cease to be an American citizen, on what grounds does Reed Smoot claim that he is an American citizen? He has not only sworn allegiance alle-giance to another government which he could not revoke without being followed by all the persecu tions which that government could invent, but he has sworn to "avenge the blood of the prophets," and to obey any command of his superiors, no matter how sinister those commands might be. His allegiance to this imperium in imperio, that ,1s established here within the government of the 1 United States goes to his very soul, not only to I his life in this world but to his status beyond tho grave. How dare a man thus involved claim to be a citizen of the United States? |