the innocent people of my State and that obligation to the Senate and
the country require that I shall clearly define my attitude.


RELIGION NOT INVOLVED.

This is no quarrel with religion. This is no assault upon any man's
faith. This is rather the reverence toward the inherent right of all men
to believe as they please, which separates religious faith from
irreligious practice. The Mormon people have a system of their own,
somewhat complex, and gathered from the mysticisms of all the ages. It
does not appeal to most men; but in its purely theological domain it is
theirs, and I respect it as their religion and them as its believers.

The trouble arises now, as it has frequently arisen in the past, from
the fact that some of the accidental leaders of the movement since the
first zealot founder have sought to make of this religion not only a
system of morals, sometimes quite original in themselves, but also a
system of social relation, a system of finance, a system of commerce,
and a system of politics.


THE SOCIAL ASPECT.

I dismiss the religion with my profound respect; if it can comfort them,
I would not, if I could, disturb it. Coming to the social aspect of the
society, it is apparent that the great founder sought first to establish
equality among men, and then to draw from those equal ranks a special
class, who were permitted to practice polygamy and to whom special
privileges were accorded in their association with the consecrated