| Show f MORMONSASC11IZENS I Judge Anderson Decides that Alien Mormons MAY NOT BECOME CITIZENS or the United StatesHe Discusses the Manifesto Mani-festo The Position of the Church is Unchanged BEAVER Utah Dec 3iSpecial telegram tele-gram to Tnr HBKALDJ This is the substance sub-stance of Judge Andersons decision decsion Each of the seven applicants is a man of good moral character except that he is a Mormon Last winter after a full Investigation Investi-gation the Third district court of Utah decided that a member of the Mormon church no matter how good his moral I I character was otherwise was not fit to become be-come a citizen Until the issuance of what is known as the manifesto the courts of this territory have followed that decision Since then the First and Third district courts have not made the fact of membership member-ship in that church a test in the naturalia ton of aliens I am sorry that I cannot agree with these decisions The manifesto is very carefully worded Wilford Woodruff Wood-ruff the president of the church says My alvice to the Saints is that you should hereafter contract no marriage that is contrary to the law of the land At the conference immediately after the reading of the manifesto George Q Cannon the real leader of of the church extolled the virtues of those polygamists who had theretofore refused to obey the law over those who promised such obedience This manifesto does not pretend pre-tend to discard polygamy as one of the cardinal car-dinal doctrines of the church it only suspends the practice as long as it is contrary con-trary t the laws of the land Before the antipolygamy act of 1S62 there was no law in this territory against polygamy I the acts of Congress against polygamy wero repealed or if Utah should become a state there would then bo no law against polyg amy and the presumption is that the people peo-ple of this territory would make no law against it and the chiefs of the Mormon church would then be at liberty to renew I their mandates to their members to enter into polygamy and i would then thrive in full bloom There would not be a syllable in this manifesto against it The Mormon church has courts of its own that in many instances override the decrees of the courts of the United States Their members on taking their endowments take an oath to avenge the blood of their prophet Joseph and Hyrum Smith against this government Wilford Woodruff Wood-ruff the present head of the church in his dedicatory prayer at the St George temple prayed the Lord might destroy this nation with a besom ofjiestruction Polygamists when convicted have always been honored by all the members of the Mormon church and on going to and returning from the penitentiary were given ovations The I I church created a defense fund employed attorneys t defend polygamists and who are still employed for that purpose They have for many years given great trouble to this government The position of the church in those matters is unchanged An alien who comes to this country and joins such an organization should never ask to become a citizen ctzen Mr Barlow Ferguson appeared on behalf of the applicants and pleaded hard for them but the judge was immovable The judge expressed a desire however that if it were possible an appeal should be taken to the supreme court of Utah |
