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Show "PONDER A LITTLE." Under this title the News of last night says that it is because the. people of the -United States do not ponder over the actual trouble inUtah that they, are worked into burning hostility against the Mormon creed. If the people of the United States would ponder over the question more they would be .. better informed in-formed and would have a better understanding under-standing of things here. It would also be well for the people of Utah to . ponder a little over the situation in Utah, for then they too would have a better understanding un-derstanding of . things . here. If the people of the United States were to take all their facts from, the News they would be woefully misinformed, mis-informed, and they would, no doubt, come to the conclusion that polygamy did not exist to any extent in Utah 'and that it was not preached here. This is scarcely the case. The" general opinion of the Mormon people which the world , entertains enter-tains is largely erroneous, so far as we can judge. The great majority of the Mormon people1 are industrious and frugal, fru-gal, and while polygamy in the eyes of the law is adultery, the "Mormon people are and always have been advocates of chastity, and have ever discouraged sexual sex-ual crime. We believe we have been fair in this estimate of the virtues of the Mormon people, and now let us see wherein they are open to just censure. The Mormon . people have persistently violated the law against polygamy and have claimed a right to do so. For this they are justly censured with, being a lawless people. When the law which they have so extensively and so persistently persist-ently violated was declared valid by the Supreme Court of the United States, they ignored the decision of that court and continued to violate the laws as before. The News, will scarcely have the hardihood hardi-hood to say that if the people of the : United States were to ponder a little more they would come to the conclusion that the laws against polygamy and the decision of . the Supreme Court of the United States have not been ignored by the people of Utah. That polygamy exists in Utah and is held to be a cardinal doctrine of the Mormon church is true, and no amount of pondering can change this fact. Neither can any amount of pondering ever alter the fact that polygamy, polyg-amy, is unlawful and that the United States have jurisdiction of the Territories,' Ter-ritories,' and that a "law of" Congress Con-gress applicable to the Territories is supreme over the laws of any Territory. This latter fact it would be well for .the people of Utah to ponder a little. ' The people of this Territory do not ponder enough the fact that Utah belongs to the United States and that the Territory is not independent . of the ..Government. This is a most important fact, and a careful care-ful consideration of it by the people of Utah would save them much .trouble. The greater part of the trouble in. Utah has arisen from the fact that the people have acted on the theory that this Territory Terri-tory does not belong to the United States. It does belong to the United States, and the sooner the people fully realize and acknowledge this fact the better it will be for them. Another thing it would be well for the neonle of Utah to nonder not a little but very much, is the fact that they exercise the powers of government in this Territory because they are citizens of the United States of America, and not because they are members of the Mormon church. These are important matters and if the News would but teach its readers to ponder pon-der them a little, it would be doing a very good w-ork. So far as the creed of the Mormon church is concerned, that is a matter which will interest only those who are interested in creeds. But when the professors of one creed array therri-Belves therri-Belves against another creed because they do not like the doctrines of the creed, against which they array themselves,-their themselves,-their opposition is tinctured with the suspicion of doctrinal ' hate. In these matters we have no interest, and our. opposition op-position to the practice of polygamy is because such practice is an usurpation of a soverign power of the State, and therefore there-fore inconsistent with the control of the family, which is the basis of the State," by the State. The evils resulting from the practice of polygamy are far greater than any good it could possibly do. The Mormons have as much right to claim a divine origin for any of their doctrines as any religious body has, and vice versa. It would be well for people everywhere to , ponder this fact. |