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Show The Lying "Oregonian." THEY MAY have some conscientious reporters upon the Portland Oregonian, Ore-gonian, but the one they assigned to write up Utah and its political conditions con-ditions is not one of them. For a newspaper with so much pretensions as the Oregonian, aiming to achieve a national reputation, one would naturally nat-urally suppose that its information might be regarded as reliable. It may be in some features, but whenever it treats upon Catholic matters its comments com-ments have always exhibited the bile of the bigot. Writing from Salt Lake, this correspondent corre-spondent of the Oregonian starts off by saying that Utah politics are a queer jumble. No Intelligent observer ob-server of events in . Utah will dispute that assertion. Endeavoring Endeavor-ing to analyze this "queer jumble," jum-ble," he discovers a political alliance , between the Catholic church in Utah and the Mormon church. He reasons out such alliance because in a state where 70 per cent of the people are Mormons, Thomas Kearns, a practical Catholic, was elected United States senator. Thomas Kearns, also, according ac-cording to the correspondent, carries a large Catholic vote with him, and has things pretty much his way throughout the state. Another reason given to fortify his charge that . a Catholic-Mormon alliance exists, is the fact that the Catholics have not joined with the evangelical churches in urging urg-ing national legislation to ferret out and punish polygamists in the state. A more ingenious way to pervert j fact could scarcely be conceived by other than an evangelical preacher, and it is probably from this source the Oregonian's correspondent derived his information. What he writes about other matters, especially that concerning concern-ing the daily newspaper syndicate of Salt Lake, does not concern us. But we cannot allow such a falsehood about Catholics in Utah to go abroad without rebuke. 1. There never was nor never will be an alliance, political or otherwise, between be-tween the Catholic church and the Mormon church, or between the Catholic Cath-olic church and any other church, in Utah or elsewhere. 2. Because in times past and more recently, the head of the Catholic church in Utah has steadily refused to join in the hue and cry raised by evangelical evan-gelical preachers against the dominant church of Utah and indict the whdTe people for the crimes of the few, offers no reason or suggestion that Catholics have joined with Mormons as against all others. The Catholic church in Utah in no respect, differs from the Catholic church in any part of America. The Catholic church', as Father Lambert expressed it, fulfills her divine mission in her own way and works to lead victims of error and sinners to light, truth and repentance; repent-ance; and to lead immortal souls to eternal life. In this work of hers she includes Protestant and Mormon alike as objects of her solicitude and charity. char-ity. 3. Because a Catholic was elected to represent Utah in the senate of the J United States offers no more proof that religion or church influence had any more to do with such election than either had in the election of Walsh of Colorado or Carter of Montana. 4. That Senator Kearns has it all his own way in Utah is only natural. He is the one Republican senator, and the federal administration is Republican. Repub-lican. 5. But that whatever Senator Kearns may say or do can budge the convictions of any intelligent Catholic Democrat, along with the statement that the senator carries the Catholic vote of the state in his pocket, we brand as a falsehood and an insult to Catholic citizenship. Did such a tissue of falsehoods appear in an obscure ob-scure paper, we would pay no attention atten-tion to them. The Portland Oregonian, however, is a newspaper of wide circulation cir-culation and national reputation. Because Be-cause it is such, is the principal reason why such silly statements as the one-relating to a Mormon-Catholic I alliance should not. be allowed to circulate cir-culate as sober truth. In Utah they would be laughed out of court, even by non-Catholics. |