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Show THE INVESTIGATION AND ITS CAUSES. The arguments have been heard, the case is closed and at this writing the country is waiting wait-ing for the decision in the Smoot case. The case has been a tediotfs one, much of It has been humiliating humil-iating to a degree; the reputations of both Mormons Mor-mons and Gentiles in Utah have suffered because Of it There has been shameful perjury by both Mormon and Gentile witnesses, with the result that no matter what the decision may be, the feeling feel-ing toward Utah 'among the outside men and women wo-men of the Republic is a wish that there was no such state in the Union as ours. Still Utah is a great state, and the masses of her people will compare favorablS' with those of any other state. The trouble began within a year after Statehood State-hood came to us. Away back when the amnesty petition was under consideration by the quorum of Apostles, there 'was a desire on the part of some of those present to strike out some of its clauses and to Insert others, when one of those present settled the matter by remarking: "If we change this document we may defeat the pardon asked for and the Statehood we want; let us sign it, and when we get Statehood we will do as we please." Accordingly it was signed. Our authority for the above statement is Apostle Heber J. Grant, and the statement was made to Judge John Judd, at that time U. S. Attorney for Utah and now counsel coun-sel for the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. In that lay tub germ of the present trouble; it sprang into active life within a year after Statehood State-hood came. We had all seen the sorrows brought upon the Mormon people In the ten preceding "years, and so when the manifesto came and what within it was vague and devious was fully explained away by the then President of the Church" and by him who is now the President, the reasoning of Gentiles Gen-tiles was that men wbo, for their religion, had suffered so much, would surely keep their voluntary volun-tary pledges and so we all did what we could to obtain Statehood, and the rejoicing was very great among all classes in Utah and throughout the whole Republic. The escheated property was given back, the Federal public buildings were given to the State, the debts paid; the illegitimate children chil-dren were legitimatized the prodigal son was not better treated on his return than was Utah when the men who had ruled the majority of the people so long, under oath declared that henceforth her people should be politically free and that Utah in the full sense of the term should be an American State. Those covenants have been shamelessly broken and that is the cause of all the present unrest un-rest and heart-burning. When Reed Smoot, with the consent of the First Presidency, announced himself a candidate for the United States Senate, ho knew he was breaking the spirit of that agreement on which Statehood was gained, for he knew just as well on that day that if he lived he would be elected Senator, as he knew it the day he was elected, for he was aware that the bare announcement that an Apostle was a candidate, was sufficient to control con-trol a full majority of the votes in this State. That ' is, he knew that the Church, without lifting a hand, would dominate the State. He knew further fur-ther that his candidacy and election would be a notice served upon all Mormons in Utah, that if they had any ambition for preferment, their abilities abili-ties would count for nothing; that what would control would be their standing in the Church and their obedience to counsel. That is, it was emphasizing the fact that iri Reed Smoot's mind and the minds of all the chiefs of the Church, no matter what the Constitution and laws might command, no matter how much the spirit of our free institutions might be per verted, the purpose was to fasten a theocratic ruie upon Utah forever. Hence the protest, hence the Investigation. The decision is as yet withheld. How much the perjured testimony of Mormons and Gentiles may sway the minds of the members of the com mittee is not yet known, but the foregoing is a fair statement of what led up to the investigation |