Show THE REPORT On Sunday last the committee who carried the Declaration and Protest to Washington submitted their report The report iR substantially the same as the the interviews which were telegraphed over the country save about two paragraphs para-graphs the opening and closing ones Inclosing In-closing their report the committee say We have thus performed the duty required re-quired of us The question has been brought prominently before the country and has aroused much discussion through the public prints and the agitation has the matter caused many to reflect upon been indiffer I who would otherwise have II I ent Whatever the immediate result maybe may-be the Saints may feel that they have done their duty in bringing their grievances griev-ances directly before the President and the Nation For the rest they can only trust in Him who controls men and measures I mea-sures to advance His own purposes and I who doeth all things well There is atone a-tone of resignation about this if nothing else The great call of the Declaration is for a commission to come to Utah and investigate in-vestigate men and matters Supposing a commission shall be sent and they find things as represented in the Declaration and Protest what then Do those who drew up that document for one moment think that there can be found no juries which will be impartial and unpacked who will convict con-vict upon the same evidence that men horetofore have been convicted upon in trials for polygamy and unlawful cohabitation If judges have been biased and partisan is it thought that there can be no judges found who are without these grave faults who will reach much the same conclusions conclu-sions as these bigoted ones All the efforts of the Federal officials in this Territory Ter-ritory so far as those efforts arc specially directed against Mormons are directed against those Mormons who are breaking the antipolygamy laws and we are assured on the best of church authority author-ity that only two per cent of the male portion of the church is suspected of being in polygamy If this is the case then it ia i to the conduct of this two percent per-cent in continuing to break the laws that all the trouble and perseecution are owing ow-ing Let us make a further supposition to help along the solution of this vexed question It is not denied that this two per cent is guilty but it is claimed that a large proportion of that two per cent entered into their polygamic relations re-lations before there was any law against such a system of marriage Very well but what facts and arguments are offered in extenuation of those who cntued into polygamy since there was a law rainstit The Declaration Declar-ation laid mil upon the fact that the law of GL i unht polygamy was not I declared const Ii Jl tonal 1 until some seventeen years alter its passage But what becomes ot the rrlygamic marriages entered into siue the OJ Hy of January 1875 when thai law was jslared consti I tutional There h lye b n such cases for even now some 1 gulf imprisonment i imprison-ment for having brokt v ws of their country after those iuw i i < 1 been declared de-clared constitutional Artuev 1 cases to help weigh in tho scales when the commission com-mission if it shall como make a lull investigation and if they are on whose side are they to lt counted in coining to a true full and correct determination Deter-mination as to the causes for the institution institu-tion and continuance of this merciless crusade Everything is to be fully investigated in-vestigated for such is the prayer of the Protest and anything less than the most thorough and searching investigation no matter what its results would not satisfy the demands of the Declaration What if it is discovered that there have been many such marriages even since 1SS2 when the Congress of the United States did for the children of polygamic parents in Utah what the polygamic legislators of Utah never once attempted to do and all with a full knowledge on the part of the persons participating in them that they were breaking and defying the laws the constitutional laws of their country Can the gentlemen who carried the Declaration of Grievances and Protest to Washington to present it to he President and who solemnly assured as-sured the President that all they asked was that the law shall be impartially ad minist rod give any good and sufficient reasons why these parsons should not be I punished Or will the gentlemen undertake un-dertake to explain that such conduct is not a breaking of the laws Why did these men who have gone into polygamy since 18S2 do so since they were fully cognizant of the illegality of their act Was it not because those men have thought the Government which protected them was not to be treated with respect and deference because their church had said the marriage relation is a thing which is to be regulated by the laws of God and not by the laws of the Government Further was it not because be-cause those who had done so in the past hart done so with impunity so far as pun ighment i was concerned and had laughed at the spasmodic and abortive efforts that had been made to vindicate the law Another reason that may be assigned for their defiance of the laws is that the majority ma-jority of the people in Utah have thought that the State had no concern with man and woman when they united their destinies des-tinies husband and wife as and that so long as the individual was content the public had no interest in the matter They seem never to have recognized that the children of the family become the citizens of the State Another reason is that the Mormons have thought they were Gods chosen people and that for tl iy ut all their actions they were only accountable account-able to Him and that their doings were not the business of any one else Another An-other reason is that their leaders have urged them to take the step and they I could not resist the pressure brought upon them One very important fact to be constantly borne in mind is that the Mormons Mor-mons have never once offered to make any advances towards a reconciliation and have ever asked but never offered Most people after having and held so many mass meetings I sending a delegation to Washington I would have discussed both sides of the question Not so the people of Utah I They assume and proclaim that all the wrong is on one side and that side the side opposed to them It is true they have been wronged in many respects and outrageously maligned but with all this there still remains the fact that a considerable consid-erable proportion of them a proportion considerably larger than two per cent I too are practicing polygamy and that I their practice is unlawful and that it is I for this that the present merciless crusade cru-sade in Utah is being carried on If all who are in polygamy today and liable to prosecution were assured by the President of pardon and forgiveness for past offenses would they discontinue their practice and defiance of the law in future It is an important question in discussing any scheme for the settlement of the vexed question in Utah In considering this problem it is well to bear in mind that the public utterances and declarations of the leading men of the Mormon church do not carry the same weight as their private counsel and advice ad-vice An ounce of private advice in these cases is worth a pound of public utterance The course of the Government Govern-ment in this Territory in keeping up a continual prosecution against the practice prac-tice of polygamy and unlawful cohabitation is the course which will have most effect in bringing to a final settlement the Utah problem A course that shall order any cessation of the enforcement of any laws against polygamy and unlawful cohabitation will be the course of folly if these practices are to be done away with What course would the gentlemen of the committee recommend if an investigating investi-gating commission should come and find that the laws were being impartially administered ad-ministered and that Judge Zane and ProsecutingAttorney Dickson are merely doing their duties Things might turnout turn-out this way and it is well to be prepared to meet the changed condition And if a commission composed of gentlemen gen-tlemen approved by Mr Caine and his co committeemen should after a thorough investigation recommend a still more stringent enforcement of the laws what i then I |