Show MORMONS IN IDAHO the st louis louia ole democrat of september 2nd and has the following lively communication on murmon mormon I affairs in idaho under a number bomber of attractive headlines which we me do not care to copy idaho august 24 Spec lal correspondence of the we A united states senator an ex mormon a member of the constitutional convention a deputy united states marshal an ex member of the territorial legislature siad and a tenderfoot sat under thi th broad eaves of the railroad depot at pocatello they looked upon a landscape of brown and dusty sagebrush plains and of ba baerren arren 40 dopes PM of lofty MOUD mountains bains they waited for the train and talked of mormonism in idaho the constitution n framer started IL ile he i referred to the recently completed work of himself and his associates at boise city said he with a ehe cheerful erful self satisfied air well we settled this d d mormon business for all time to come so 80 fata idaho is concerned cepro we provided that no mormon shall ever yoto vote in tale state if we are admitted under this constitution we made it bat as strong as we knew how wehen ahen he concluded the kioa maker looked at the senator as taw if an opinion as to how this perpetual disfranchisement of mormons cormons would be received by congress when idaho presented herself for admission the senator only smiled and told the story of old gov leslie and his son who was elected to Con congress gregs young leslie was about to leave for washington and the oll oli gentleman undertook to give him a little advice this is what he said I 1 no son jont dont try to do too much the usual mistake in politics what you want is to make two or three good speeches in the course of your term and see that they are well circulated remember two or three are enough dont talk too much the young man said that was retty pretty good advice and held hed like to eave have his father suggest something about the topics that were safest well said the old governor you can pitch into the mormons cormons Mor mons its always safe to give the mor mons h 1 I 11 everybody except the tion maker laughed and the tenderfoot asked if the mormon issue was a serious one in idaho it is said the constitution maker with emphasis the very worst issue weve got there are now between and mormon voters in idaho they hold the balance of power what is more they are growing in strength last spring the mormon authorities at salt lake ordered 1000 families to move from utah to this territory come too they obey the orders of the church the trouble when an election comes on those fellows walk right to the polls with the ballot given them by the bishops and vote it cai 1 I served last winter with two or three mormon members said the ex member of the territorial legislature they never were in any jobs or steals and made pretty good legislators the only objection I 1 found to that when I 1 asked one of them where he stood on a bill he be would say he know but could tell better in a few days we understood pretty well that the mormon members always waited for instructions from salt lake before they knew how they were going to vote any orders about voting ever come out here from omaha asked the senator with a qui quizzical look you bet they do exclaimed the constitution framer and or voters right in this town have to follow those orders we had that thing here last fall As between orders from charles francis adams and orders from the head of the mormon church remarked the legislator with deliberation 1 I believe I 1 prefer the latter ive always found these mormons cormons pretty straight in all business matters their words are goody good unless it comes to some church matter I 1 dont know about the constitutionality of this franchising disfranchising dis business everybody knows you irea jack mormon said the constitution maker then seeing the questioning look on the tenderfoots tender foots face he added r A jack mormon in this country is a gentile who abo speaks well of the mormons cormons as a people although he be believe in their religion religions repeated the eamor mon with contempt in hb voice dont call it religion tow ive been through it from the bottom up to the endowment house my father had ff five ve wi wives ves I 1 tell you th there ere is ie no religion about it it its itis Is business all it is maybo they are sincere in thinking it is religion put in the senator you know there is some dispute as to what religion really is sydney smith said there were people le who Imag imagined imagine inea fi they hey were religious fillous when they were only billous bilious 11 then the mormons cormons Mor mons said the ex mormon in the same tone of bitter contempt imagine they are religious when they are only amorous when the levity had subsided the tenderfoot felt prompted to ask aek if the idaho mormons cormons practiced polygamy this brought into the conversation the deputy marshal who has had char charge of the prosecutions under the edmunds edmunds law the deputy said that altogether there had bad been ninety cases of prosecutions for polygamy in idaho he supposed that ot the heads of mormon families to in idaho there were perhaps who had plural wives he felt perfectly safe in saying that not a y 1 deev quarter of the mormons cormons in the territory practiced polygamy most moat of those who hwi bad been prosecuted set up the defense that chat they no longer practiced polygamy not all of the prosecutions bad resulted in convictions but it was seldom a case was lost this was due not so much to the evidence as to the jabors jurors were not drawn by lot they were selected by the marshal who of course did not summon any mormons cormons to sit on mormon cases unless a judge instructed the jury to acquit because of lack of evidence a conviction was certain Press pressed edby by questions the deputy went on to say that there were two iwo degrees of the offense lense of one was as adult adultery ery for which the mormon could coula be given three years in the united states penitentiary tent iary at sioux falls the other was unlawful cohabitation the punishment for which was six months in the territorial jail it was a great deal easier to prove unlawful cohabitation than it was adultery in the latter case there must be evidence as to the act itself unlawful cohabitation was sometimes proved by the statements of persons who had seen the defendant going ing in the direction of the house V of his plural wife then thesues the question sometimes arose lu in court how near to the house of a p plural u ral wife a mormons cormons Mor mons presence must be shown to make out a case of unlawful cohabitation at this point the senator stopped the deput ys interesting explanation of mormon prosecutions to tell another story 1 I defended a man once I 1 said gail the senator on a charge that he had killed a steer belonging toa to a neighbor named sanders nobody had seen the killing and about the strongest evidence was that of old man sanders who testified that he had seen ahe defendant going in the direction of the place where the blood was found 44 he had his killin kit on his shoulders the old man te testified stifled land and I 1 spi cloned then he WRO was going to kill one of my steers the rest of the senators story is a little too racy for reproduction in the deseret NEWS at this juncture the ex mormon asked the senator if he be had ever seen the test teat oath which every man main in idaho is required to take before he can vote the senator said he had alt and with the remark that he always carried a copy to show shew to his friends in the church the ex mor mon produced the elector oath the senator read the oath carefully smiled and handed banded it baek with the remark that it beeme seemed A to be pretty stiff but it jant stiff enough said the constitution maker the mor mons get around it last fall of them inthis in this county declared th they ey had left the church they took that oath and voted they cast all of their votes for the local democratic ticket and elected it the republicans contested the election on the ground that the mormons cormons had not acted in good faith that they had not really out cut loose from the church and that their votes should not be counted evidence was taken and the court has just ruled that the mormon votes shall be thrown out which will seat the contestants so you see the test oath is not always a test how do you tell then that a man has cut loose from ism if his oath go askea askea the tenderfoot we can size up an ex mormon almost every time the deputy marshal replied confidently if he is a genuine apostate you will hear bear him like our friend here nodding toward the ex ing the church of latter day saints every chance he gets the senator who had been studying the faraway far away mountain line felt his inspired i red at this point to say pl in n the early times when the new england preachers levied on their congregations congregation a somewhat as the Mor mormons mors collect tithes there was an old unitarian who used to get around to a massachusetts neighborhood about so often he had a kind of circuit he would appear at a place preach a few sermons gather in what contributions he could and then move on to the next As he preached a a doctrine of universal salvation he had a rather ungodly set to depend on his followers were the tavern keepers and that class on one of his visits the unitarian preacher had among his hearers a presbyterian who bad fallen from grace and who manifested considerable in interest in unitarianism by asking a good ti many questions rhe fhe unitarian preace preacher er went on to the next place enjoying the novelty of having made a convert when in the course of time the unitarian came the there reagain again to preach his half a dozen sermons and make his annual levy he bethought him of his convert and asked his bis tavern keeper 11 how is brother so and so coming on oh I 1 said the tavern keeper hes damning and cursing round like the rest of us unitarians it seems continued the senator to r to be about the same way here when an ex mormon cusses the church steadily and consistently you u gentiles extend to him the right cand hand of fellowship that is it it the answer was a rather self con laugh on the part of the group and a hearty roar from the jack mormon to speak seriously resumed the senator 1 I dont see how you ean can handle this mormon question any better than you are doing u unless you put into your constitution a further provision on the subject you might say ay that after idaho is admitted as a state gentiles shall hold bold all of the offices and mormons cormons shall pay all of the taxes you have however made a pretty fair start in that direction by the provisions forever dis franchising the mormons cormons Mor mons after a pause the tenderfoot wanted to know if the non poleg amous mormons cormons in idaho vv who ho were it seemed nine tenths of the whole number did not resent the trouble brought upon them by the polygamous minority no said the deputy M they all seem to hang there is no split between tho those single and those with puri w wi polygamy is not increasing 1 f the mormons cormons with ith single div bivil wi vil believe lu in the principle of rt I 1 if they dont practice it it is V vc seldom we get a mormon to evidence against a mormon in of these prosecutions if does the whole comme will cut him they doni don sort to whitecap white cap methods orte orlend lend lence but they make it ml J uncomfortable for one of their nu ber who helps on a prosecution polygamy they do nothing ful for they are law abiding pew in all other respects except io in W concerns their religion but ty W fusing to be neighborly and cu cuttic off all business pe relations lations they drive away from among them ad body who helps the government these cases i do you ever meet with reale resisted realeta tw yin trying to arrest these pol mormons cormons Mor mons asked the tender tenderfoot J no said the deputy othet they 4 never resist they will try to ill dds 1 but when they ahe are once caugh w are the best of prisoners when hen WS we took three of them to sioux ratte under sentence nou of sixteen manur each we left them for several bouls nouM unguarded in a depot while we were uptown up town and there was no attawa I 1 to get away we never has destS them their promises are they will swear falsely on HW 00 amr ness stand that they are not aw BUB unlawful wise you cau can believe what a matmon tells you yes go BO exclaimed tw the jack mormon ill take the word of the average mormon in ahm country quicker than I 1 win aba of A j the average gentile entile Gt every time ak 6 it how many men who belon belong pj other churches or to no church at sa all are practicing secretly what mormons cormons preach openly autney v ly y asked the senator nobody cast a stone in rep reply 9 the senator proceeded i y there is no doubt the dormott church is an institution but we have confiscated ite property we haye have sold worth of that property under jail hammer for we are ape leasing back to the mormons cormons aeme of that confiscated property it easy to say how far a gaye ment founded upon the idea af ci and religious liberty ought tp to go we have crushed the open and ic notorious practices of the cauro churo Ch uro now shall we proceed to follow this up hy by punishing not dot to aay y P ptole cuti agy ag men for comet some hi hang ng they away do down wu in their boots i R are sometimes carried too to when I 1 was at garfield beach the th dow day judge zane called my attention to a young woman of attract 10 bearance pe arance who passed us ang and said eada it any doubt she had been beerwa WA dually driven into a life of bad because this govern government lip made maa it impossible for her er j father to support here her the senator paused no ZVI anything to say after a few moments ints he proceeded iwonder I wonder how our puritan an would have dealt with this serious question they came to america for conscience sake and religious I 1 ous liberty perhaps they wound have done no better than we i are doing evarts you know says tb that when the pilgrims landed in rhode island first they fell on their lane s knees 98 and then they fell on the aborigines I 1 gentlemen I 1 tell you that if it for polygamy the work that was done at salt lake in the early years yen would stand as the brightest page in our pioneer history think frita what material the mormon church was recruited and think what it accomplished there in the wilderness and the desert not even brigham young left an Im immense mouise fortune it is true he be ruled his followers absolutely but there are some people abe wb need to be told to go to bed when to get up and how much work to do the average of wealth and comfort is better sustained in those mormon communities than anywhere else there are fewer mil lion aries and fewer paupers haupers than among us yet the church was from the most credulous and power stricken classes coming up through the cache valley the other y her day I 1 got off the cars at a depot and picking out an intelli gent looking man on the platform T I 1 entered into conversation with him I 1 found that the valley was divided up into small farms with an average of forty acres the people lived Ji vedon on these farms in summer and spedit the rest of the time in town where they had their schools and society and various modes of entertainment tain ment they combining combining all of the iid advantages vantages of town an and country life there was no cone concen en of wealth there was no pauper amper elms class all were moderately well todo to do the economic problems which are giving us so much trouble in otar tw country had no existence in duft ai valley here was the ideal community codi the people were moderately prosperous and seems angly nappy happy but they were mor just then the little locomotive drawing the |