OCR Text |
Show PERJURY. In all countries, in all ages, and from all points of view, the perjurer has ever been regarded as a criminal of peculiar and especial wickedness, and the act that makes him such looked upon with intense abhorrence and detestation, by men who have ever considerable its moral nature and bearings. For a person to call upon God to witness that he will tell the truth, or to invoke any object or thing which he holds most sacred should he be an unbeliever in Christianity, in testimony that he will not speak falsely and then, after such an invocation, to be guilty of false swearing, is a crime of a most detestable nature. It is one which is calculated to undermine all law, jurisprudence and confidence among mankind, and if widely prevalent would be worse in its effects upon society than many crimes more severely punishable under the statutes. Probably no habit of which a man can be guilty, and which is not in itself flagrantly criminal, will sooner prepare him for the crime of perjury, than intemperance. Indeed the experience of courts in all modern civilized countries, where a certain class of laws are attempted to be enforced, proves that intemperate men in the vast majority of cases, will perjure themselves rather than tell the truth in cases brought under those laws. We refer to statutes looking to the restraint of intemperance. The experience of our local courts is no exception to this rule. For illustration of this fact one need search no further than the records of the Logan police court, and the question of how to meet the evil is becoming a serious one. There are men in this city who are engaged in the illicit sale of liquor, and who, if detected, are liable to punishment under our prohibitory ordinance. They cannot be punished until convicted, and to convict, requires evidence. And yet when men who are in possession of all the facts necessary to convict a defendant, are placed on the witness stand, they will perjure themselves rather than tell the truth. The liquor traffic is detested by the great mass of the people in this city. They are a people who believe in temperance, and in removing temptation from the paths of our youth. Petitions bearing thousands of signatures, have been sent to our city council asking that the traffic be prohibited, and that body is under the strongest and most sacred obligations to attempt, at least the carrying out of the wishes of its constituents. To try to restrain or abolish the liquor traffic in our midst, is to work in the interests of morality and religion. Would it then be wrong or improper to bring to bear the influence of religion in support of a movement against the liquor traffic? We think not. We will state more clearly what we mean. If men who profess to be Latter-day Saints, commit the crime of perjury in order to baffle the city government in its efforts to restrain and suppress that which is calculated to destroy the souls and bodies of our youth, let them be dealt with under the rules of that religion which they claim, and if they will not repent, let them be held liable to its penalties, and to the odium and detestation of the community whose principles they profess only to betray. There can be no harm in an alliance of civil and religious influences looking to the abolishment of a common evil, universally recognized as such. On the contrary the efficacy of a civil government must depend entirely upon the support it receives from the moral and religious sentiments of the governed, and if the moral and religious sentiment of Logan city does not sustain, not only passively but actively, the efforts of our city council in the suppression of this evil, the council will not be able to accomplish much in that direction. Then let false swearer be dealt with. Let the youth be taught to comprehend the enormity of their sin, and let men who hang around or frequent places where liquor is sold, be given to understand that they are able at any time to be placed where one or two hard alternatives will be presented-to tell the truth or be dealt with for perjury. If this policy is once adopted it will have a marvelous effect in detering men from frequenting or patronizing the places referred to, and will prove a most wholesome and efficacious check on the liquor traffic. |