Show The Threat Against the Mormons To the Editor TJieEvening PoEt C sir Your editorial of Saturday even onthe antiMormon bill that has just passed the Senate evipces the fact that you arcs not ready to countenance a law that looks to the confiscation of a religious re-ligious comm nI i property because some of its members are alleged criminals crim-inals roe proposition to put fourteen United States officials into a religions re-ligions rorporbt on against thir ten honest fanatics avowedly to optvote the representatives of the rightful owners of he property anti thereby to s e tl in the name of the United States government substance that belongs to the Mormon community ac justly as Trinity Church belongs to the rotestant Episcopal Church seems a cumbrous and expensive mode of robbery rob-bery ilt differs however not iii spirit only nits modus operandi from tlie proposition propo-sition of one of the leading lights in Massachusetts theology and ethic who proposed to set a watch for William Penn and his coreligionists that They might be captured before landing their substance taken and their persons enslaved en-slaved The early New England saint thought it sufficiently stimulating to the enterprise of his cosaints to point out the fact tnat the pestilent Quakers were rich especially their leader and that their substance should be laidhold of for the use and benefit of the orthodox ortho-dox lIe did not propose to limit the expedition to to a bare majority in order to accomplish the robbery nor did he propose to make the thieves salaried officers of the commonwealth but he did propose that the commonwealth should stand by and protect them by their great moral worth and godly influence in-fluence Political and ethical erolution have I wrought their refinements since the days of which I have spoken and Mr Edmunds a New England saint adjusted to the environment of modern hypocrisy proposes to rob a whole jommunity becaue some of its members mem-bers arc alleged to be guilty of lascivious las-civious cohabitation a thing that he knows is common throughout the United States yeain his own town his own State and In an apsrravntprt form in the great capital where strict enforcement of the law would place some of those who helped to make it behind the bars Should the House pass this bill and it become a law its rpaclive influence will be so great and rapid that in the near future the Mormons will have to be enumerated by millions instead of by hundreds of thousands as present Legislation so palpably unjust unconstitutional un-constitutional and tyrannous is sure to defeat the object aimed at and raise up friends and supporters of the persecuted perse-cuted To pass a law that would compel the public registration of all marriages in Utah and the other Territories so that the Mormon socalled celestial marriages could not be kept secret and thus facilitate the trial and conviction of those guilty of an indictable offence would be the work of eeBc ito i-to enact this infamous measure which j would turn loose upon an honest industrious in-dustrious religious community a band of legalized salaried robbers would be something that ought to cause the modem Turk to hang his head in guilty Shame PBESBYIEB I SEW YOEK January 12 II I I |