Show I CHURCH AND STATE A writer in last nights News who signed himself One who fears God and yet loves his Country undertakes to prove that there is no such thing as a union of Church and State in Utah With the inajory of the people of Utah there is a belief that there is no union of Church and State here because the Mormons predominate and they vote their tickets in accordance with their religious re-ligious convictions and because the nominees nom-inees are chosen principally on account of their religious standing and their I qualification for civil office is a secondary consideration They have but one object ob-ject the advancement of their church and to that end they bend their politics and are unable to see that this thing is the very union which they disclaim exists The argument most generally used by them is this We are almost the only electors in many towns and counties and in all we are very largely in the majority Our government rests upon the will of the people and we in this Territory this people We also bear the burden of taxation This is a government of the people we are that people therefore we t have a right to rule We have t j right to rule and we choose to rule as I we do and if we are content to be guided by the priesthood that is all right for the power to govern comes from us S and we can use it as wo please We grant most of the above argument to be correct and yet with all this there still exist the union which they deny And why does that union exist Because the ecclesiastical power of the people guides and controls the civil power If the doings of the civil olHcers are not in harmony har-mony with the will of the church as an organization the civil officers are censured cen-sured by the church and they conform themselves to its wishes Recently there were large mass meetings held throughout through-out the entire Territory to take into consideration con-sideration the grievances of the people The call for these meetings was made at the annual conference of the church and mail on the motion of an apostle of the I church What were the grievances to be considered and protested against Political Po-litical and civil grievances To show this it is but necessary to make a short i extract from the Declaration and Protest The authorities at Washington have disregarded dis-regarded our rights in the matter of local selfgovernment A Territorial government gov-ernment is not a republican institution hIt has been the undeviating policy to send strangers into our midst as governors judges prosecuting attorneys and marshals men who with honorable exceptions had no interest in the common welfare The Commissioners appointed under the Edmunds law have grossly abused the authority conferred upon them These are some of our grievances Now hear our protest We protest against unfair treatment on the part of tho general government Wo protest against a continuance of Territorial bondage subversive of tho rights of freeman and contrary to tho spirit of I American institutions This plainly shows what was the nature I of the grievances complained of Now to i whom was the call for mass meetings directed To the Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints in the Several Stakes of Zion This call was signed by the Hon John T Caine as chairman and Bishop John Q Cannon as secretary In the call these gentlemen designated the places where the people were to meet They were called to assemble in the Several Stakes of Zion at such places as the Presidents thereof may designate on Saturday May 2d 18S5 at 1 oclock p m Why were the Presidents of the Stakes selected to appoint the place of meeting when there arc comity organizations of the Peoples party in each stake We insist that the Declaration and Protest was political and civil in every particular particu-lar for did not the gentlemen of the committee com-mittee who carried it down to Washington Washing-ton assure the President in the very outset out-set of their remarks that The First Presidency of the Church had nothing whatever to do with the preparation or ratification of this declaration of the peoples peo-ples grievances and their protest against I the wrongs inflicted upon them When the committee came hack and reported the result of their labors where and to whom did they make their report At the regular Sunday afternoon religious services held in the Big Tabernacle May 31st 18S3 A rather strange place in i which to report the result of a political mission was it not The report was doubtless made there because there exists ex-ists no union of Church and State in Utah And perhaps it is for this sam reason that the expounding of the Constitution Con-stitution and the protestations of love for it by the leaders of the Peoples party are always made in the religious pulpit in places of worship on Sundays and never on the political platform as in other communities Perhaps it is for the reason that there is no union of Church and State in Utah that when the present Delegate to Congress from this Territory I was first nominated in a convention of the Peoples party the convention could not agree upon a man until one or two delegations had waited upon President Taylor several times to know whom they should nominate that President Taylor said the Hon John T Caine was to be the man The same reason may be assigned for the remark tho writer heard one of the Seven Presidents of Seventies of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints make in reference refer-ence to this same nomination The President of Seventies said in reply to an observation of the writers HOl course John T could not have been elected without the consent of Brother Taylor andlCwas just right too If I had my way no one else would be either This niay servo to illustrate the supremacy of i I I the civil power over political affairs in i Utah Territory I the The News correspondent says that I miles from thousand Mormons came one their religion Tis civilization to enjoy I true but what then Did not the the for Puritans come to New England I same purpose And are the descendants I descend-ants of the Puritans to be allowed to govern the political affairs of tho New England of today as their ancestors controlled con-trolled tho affairs of Plymouth Colony Up to tho time of the advent of the I Mormons here the mountaineers were under no laws but upon the establishment they ment of a Territorial government came under the laws of that Territory and with the Mormons And so it was the United States The arguments that things were fco and so is no the must ever continue so reason why they and because in early days there were only Mormons in Utah and they came on account ac-count of their church is not a reason why their church should be permitted to set up its ecclesiastical standard of thiJ1 sin s-in the State and compel the State to conform con-form tolhat standard When the writer who fears his God and loves his country brags so about the solvent condition Qf our Territory Ter-ritory our counties and cities today to-day he entirely forgets the case of the Salt Lake City Canal when the city owing to the nonunion of Church and State aid his church 40000 for an old canal and compelled the new canal to drop some fortyfour feet to meet it Likewise he forgets that the Territory Terri-tory is suing the excollector of taxes for this county for something like fifty thousand dollars Ho also forgets that the excounty clerk for this county is under un-der indictment for embezzlement of public i funds Nor does he remember the case of I the excollector of Beaver county And these men did not belong to the set of hungry cormorants strangers enemies bitter foes political tricksters without I with-out principle without honor Far I from it they are among the I worthy ones of the Peoples party and those men who performed these faithful services for the State without with-out compensation were however devoted religionists and many of them were practical polygamists But still there is no union of Church and State in Utah and it could easily be shown that there is not but time and space do not permit us to do so today |