Show NOTED WOMAN ON TH MORMON PROBLEM av EVERYBODY familiar with comans womans work lor for womans comans adva advancement has abigail scott dunaway who has labored much in literary and other ways ou on the pacific coast for the cause she advocates A short time ao ago she wrote a letter from boise idaho lor for the portland oregonians oregonian Ore goman gonian in which she said several good things but spoiled them by connecting them with a lot of nonsense euse told to her by active anti mormons cormons in the north it 1 la 11 1 a pity that such writers as mrs dunnway suffer themselves to he be deceived by persons who are too tob part izan to give a fair narration of fats fasts people who travel in it a hurry and write up what they see ami hear bear by the way are too apt to use their ears rather than their eyes and to gier the public what they have been told instead of what they have observed it if was this way with sirs mrs duniway Dan iway for example here is A what she says concerning cases of the idaho courts the following form of questions with answers was shown me by it a gentile friend and is given here to illustrate the with which the dupes of polygamy learn the lessons assigned them by their teachers in zion mr jones being under oath I 1 is asked do you vou live in polygamy 1 I dont know have you TUU more thin than one wife what have you more one cue know I 1 where were you first marrieul married cant say Is your first or lawful wife ll living alving dont know Is your our second wife row LOW living in idaho idaho dont know how many children has bour dont know when and where did you marry her cant remember has she any children dont know now hours of tedious cross questioning including deluding every possible turn and twist 0 of f th the e language will usually f fail all to elicit the truth now I 1 if f this lady had used her common sense instead of trail trusting ting implicitly in this gentile friend who stuffed her with falsehood without compunction she would not jiahe be frayed her ignorance of law Is w sad and court procedure as she has done in the foregoing recital persons accuse accused dof of infraction of the law are not put on the stand to testify against themselves theras elv es neither is anybody required to answer such questions as those said to have to the mythical mr jones the whole string of questions and answers given to mrs were a 0 pleasant string of fictions on the p part of her r gentile friend but after a great deal of such nonsense as the foregoing catechism the lady expresses some sentiments which watch are more like herself and indeed what she says from her own heart and and observation is entirely different if to the straff poured into her ears by gentile attorneys at boise and which abigail scott duniway thought was paying a long deep and earnest attention to the mormon problem 11 it I 1 is a common but very deceptive aud and unfair manner of studying the tion the views and ravings of its opponents are an no proper guide to the comprehension of any subject here are some ol of the ladys labys own reflections 1 tam I am persuaded that it will be no more possible to cure care polygamy by the present system ot of prohibition than it will be possible poa aible to cure drunkenness by the same dame illogical method give the people alberty power po and knowledge ed e stid and they will gradually overcome effi evil these are the only cure alls for humalo vice p human ahli A with liberty to retrace the downward steps step i s that led them to polygamy and the dearly bought knowledge of its woes boes whick they have acquired in the bitter school of experience the women who suffer by it 11 may be led to tree free themselves from it as they would from any other form of pestilence but they never can be forced to give it up through means that savor va persi pers cution distasteful as aa it is to them and gladly as they would abandon it it if they could do so voluntarily 0 and aside from the legal phrases of such unions wherein are they worse than chah the ostensible monogamous marriage of the first lady in the laud land wherein are they less moral than the unions or may and ana december we so often encounter where the match and cupid wounded with poisoned arrows dies with a pretense of approach to the oe hymeneal altar let monogamous women be not too severe upon the deluded victims of polygamy so long as there are ae those among us at 31 the highest grade of cut culture cultore and respectability who do not t shrink from mercenary matrimony which is but a hideous mockery of the matches marches that are made in heaven beaven e 4 A estem f of prohibition that evi teil ders perjury in the vain hope to expel polygamy or drunkenness is t fault within itself it does not meet the nature of aize disease and it it stamps it out in one locality will only enly cause it to reappear in a more malignant form in another some day when the world ij ii wise enough to give liberty power and knowledge free play they will work out the destiny ot of the race upon a hinder higher plane than that which now evolves the vices the moralist deplores or the abe politician raves against in 10 vile valo la in the meantime humanity will go blundering onward and in spite of itself 11 upward profiting often by its own mistakes and oftener yet by the ibe mistakes of its neighbor |