Show > > i THE MORMONS AND > THE EDMUNDS BILL e D The Worlds special correspondent in Utah sends a despatch which is published this morning showing far more authentically and accurately accur-ately than it has been shown before the temper in which the leaders of the Mormon theocracy intend to meet the issue raised by the Ed munds bill The < conference at which the bill was naturally the chief subject of discussion is the chief council of the Mormon state It was not to be expected that upon an occasion so momentous to their community the leaders of the Moron Mor-on Church would indulge themselves them-selves in bluster and defiance Whatever What-ever else the strange growth of Mormonism in our time and in our country may be thought to indicate it can scarcely be doubted that it shows that the Mormon leaders have been sagacious and farsighted men Our correspondents comparison compari-son of them with the Boers of the i Transvaal is full of significance to I those who rememberas who does not remember the heroic and successful suc-cessful stand made by the Boers of the Transvaal against the imperial power of England The Mormon leaders meet us in the same spirit They do not intend to provoke a conflict with the United States They do not intend to flee from the power of the United States They do intend to remain where they are and to live their religion that is to say to practice polygamy the Ed munds bill to the contrary notwith tsanding and they intend being a great majority of the people of Utah to manage Utah in their own way Of course there is some fanaticism fanati-cism in all this Nobody who looks at the matter dispassionately can doubt that Mormonism is doomed and that as Utah becomes really apart a-part of the United States in other respects it will become a part of the United States in societyand in religion A polygamist community in the midst of a monogamous nation na-tion is as impossible as a community commu-nity which practises cannibalism or human sacrifices or torture of witnesses or any other custom which civilization has outgrown but which survives in remote regions re-gions But granting the fanaticism all history shows that a religious fanatic fa-natic who is in other respects a coolheaded and clearheaded man is the most dangerous of all men to meddle with It is very possible that the growth of Utah has been retarded by the fact of its having been for so long virtually a Mormon reservation and the Gentile residents and property holders of Utah may be pardoned some irritation in view of this fact But it is none the less true that nothing can actually make Utah apart a-part of the United States except the gradual population of the territory by people of the same kind as those who inhabit the rest of the country The Mormons have the advantage of prior possession and they can only be dislodged by this gradual growth of the Gentile population until it comes to preponderate or else by war We should not enter upon sueh a war without counting the cost After we have counted it we shall probably find that a Mormon Mor-mon war is the slowest the costliest costli-est and the most ineffectual method we could adopt to foster the development devel-opment of Utah or even to extirpate extir-pate polygamy Of course nobody imagines that this ostensible motive of the Edmunds bill was the real motive Senator Edmunds is not at all the sort of person to lie awake at nights with grief because some man two thousand miles from him has taken to himself seven or eight wives The extirpation of polygamy is only the pretext upon which a Mormon war is to be waged The real object of the bill as the World has heretofore pointed out is to bring Utah into the Union before its time with two senators and a representative to be chosen from a small minority of the population popula-tion by a small knot of republican politicians in Utah For this purpose pur-pose the great majority of the people peo-ple of Utah are to be disfranchised without trial by the arbitrary action ac-tion of inspectors of election In other words the effect of the bill will be to permit federal officeholders officehold-ers to select the voters who are to choose the representatives of Utah at Washington This is an outrage upon free government and civil liberty immeasurably worse than the continuance of polygamy in utah for the next twenty years could be In fighting against it if it comes to fighting the Mormons of Utah will be be fighting for the birthright of every American citizen citi-zen which every American citizen is equally interested with them in maintaining The political sharpers at Wash ington and at Salt Lake who without with-out the excuse of being fanatics are trying to bring on a Mormon war are likely to find that they have underestimated the power of the Mormons and overestimated the patience of the country 2few York World 11th e |