Show 1 IS IT WISE Y tit i Seldom if ever before in this generation = + genera-tion has there been seen such an exhibition exhi-bition as was witnessed in the Third t i District Court on Saturday Three well i known citizens were arraigned for sentence i sen-tence on a judgment found against them I l 4 for violating section 3 of the Edmunds ° i act which declares it a crime for a man t t to cohabit with more than one woman f they had been convicted after going through a form of trial and stood before i s be-fore the court to have him pronounce 1 sentence of fine and imprisonment I k imprison-ment against them and ready r to have that sentence put into execution These men knew fully what they must suffer that they must 1 1 i for half a year live among thieves cutthroats I 11 cut-throats and scoundrels of high and low i 1 J degree that their food will be coarse j and uninviting that they must sleep in i r q an overcrowded room badly ventilated and which it is said emits such afoul I foul and overpowering odor in the morning that the guards who open the I door dodge aside to escape the deadly f r blast that they wil be cooped in a mud corral and limited to a few rods I space in which to exercise and breathe in fact that they must suffer much j physical inconvenience and torturer I torture-r And yet knowing all this they were j neither downhearted nor depressed inspirit j in-spirit on the contrary they were 1 really cheerful and so far at least as i one might udgef outxcajdsigns II I and expressions were the only < I j happy ones in the vast crowd making i 1 up the court and filling the hall The physical power of the government compelled i 4 i com-pelled those men to assume the attitude 14 j i atti-tude of criminals but that power however how-ever harshly it might be exercised 4 j could not make the defendants feel that a i they were convicts the Penitentiary i I k i with all its horrors will not be able to convince these men i i j that they are wicked that they have e 1 ft done wrong or are guilty of anything I 4 t which they regret nothing will dispel the conviction in their minds that they are the victims of cruel persecution at i I the hands of the government and its < officers and representatives The mal ma-l S jorityof those in the court room witnessing I r I wit-nessing the procceedings were filled with sympathy and were more sore at heart than Cannon Musser and Watson t k There is a vast community extending j from Idaho on the north into Arizona on the south and from Nevada into Colorado and New Mexico which is condoling with the prisoners on account ac-count of their physical sufferings but 1 this community is at the same time encouraging i i en-couraging the unfortunate sufferers to continue firm in their faith and waver not in their religious belief Judge Zane and Attorney Dickson si t may flatter themselves that they are crushing out religior belief by herding men in the Penil tiary but if l t so in the light of Saturday spectacle they should no longer deceive themselves t i them-selves and should look the situation 1 squarely and intelligently in the face 1 The faith of those prisoners in the rightfulness of their conduct is firmer a 1 today than it has ever before been tnd the men themselves hold a wanner j place in the respect and affections of the community Then their conviction i and commitment to prison have had r the contrary effect to that hoped for by the court and its officers not only on the prisoners themselves but on the community at large Arjd so it will continue The laws can be enforced in such a manner and with such rigor that the plural wife system will be j practically stopped but belief in its rightfnlness will not thereby be destroyed and when we consider what f the rigorous enforcement of the act necessary to absolutely prevent the practice means the propriety of going to that length may well I be called in question and the govern would not be t ment can wisely ask if it I better to attempt a cure by milder and 1 more effective means than the imprisonment i im-prisonment of four or five thousand 1 men and the depriving 01 that number of families of their protectors and 2 breadwinners There are times when I the question of right or wrong may be C laid aside for that of expediencywhen wisdom suggests a different course to that didated by a strict construSlion of I a statutes Has not such a time come in the treatment of the Mormon problem I J t is farcical to go ahead in the line now a i being followed > 1 |