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Show TO SIRS. HAYES. What a Mormon Wife Wrote to the " First Lady iu the Land." Salt Lake Citt, June 6tb, '79. Editors Herald: The following letter addressed to lira. Hayes personally some months since, may not ba oat of place in appearing ap-pearing at th 2 present time openly. Salt Lake City, Nov. 30ib, 78. Mrs , Hayes : Dear Madam : Can I claim year promise, that when ''Mormon wifehood" wife-hood" Bhoald come publicly before your notice you would remember my words to you f Aud when I brgged that you would lend your influence to protect innocent women aud children from wrong, yeu said to me : "My sympathies have ever been enlisted in behalf of my own eei. " True woman, as you are, it could not be otherwise. Now, the time has come when we need your sympathy, your public aid. Our position is assailed, and by women, wo-men, women in our midst, who are not of our faith. Can it be that women would engage en-gage in any public effort whioh should, or could result in degradation to her siBter women. And yet such is the case in Su.lt Lake City to-day, either from ignorance of the subject or malice toward Mormon women. There are those engaged in a work, which, if Buocesaful, would bring desolation and despair to thousands of women here, now honorable wives, and respected mothers, whom theee ladies ot philanthrophy Btyle, "concubines 1" But notwithstanding this, they are not, in any sense, what this cruel epithet would imply, they are women whose religious enthusiasm baa carrier! ham to a solf sacrifice, hardly to be comprehended com-prehended by women of the world generally. They are mothers eo devoted de-voted that self is absorbed in their children; they aro fulfilling, as they view il, a "command of the Almighty," Al-mighty," that t3 them is Bpecir.liy committed the redemption of the human race, and in this, scientists will agree with them, if they demonstrate demon-strate to the world, that a superior race of children roeults from the practice prac-tice of polygamy. Upon this point I am not prepared to ive an opiniou at present. I can only Bay that there are thousands of intelligent children, who have been born here under the practice of polygamy, who would resent strongly any insult oflered their mothers. And what greater ineuit could be oflered women, pure as the purest, than that embodied in an address to you and the "women of the United States," published in one of our daily papers? With a gush of indignation they cry out "that an 'apostle, a poiygamiat with four acknowledged ac-knowledged wives, is permitted to sic in congress." One would think it were better that a man Bbould "Acknowledge" "Ac-knowledge" all theflwives he had better for them, better for his own conscience; but better still, some will say "if he has only one to acknowledge." acknowl-edge." Many good men are learning, learn-ing, by dear bought experience, that the Btruggle to support a large family moans burdens burdenB, assumed, by a "thus, aaith the Lord." If a man loses his faith in the divinity of this command, after having accepted it, his burden, ia a heavy one, for as love lightens labor, so does obedience to the "will of God" make one strong in fulfilling. fulfill-ing. Still, when this faith has assumed a form of fact, represented bv wivpa and children, the burden must con tinue to be borne by him, the husband hus-band and father, if he be an honorable honor-able man. The breaking up and scattering of his flock oan benefit neither church nor state, society nor community. An honorable man is a good man, and I would far rather be represented in congress by an honorable honor-able polygamist, than by a dishonorable dishonor-able monogamist a. man with ona "acknowledged" wifeaud several others not acknowledged. You will admit, my dear Mrs. Hayes, that the social question generally gen-erally needs purification aa it is one for reaching, and as a woman of thought you will see, that it need not reach away out to Utah for a starting point. In our isolation, twenty years ago, Utah had uo "house of ill fame," no licensed "grog shop." Polygamy was practised, it is true, but all wives being acknowledged, and their children fathered and honored. No mother was driven to infanticide, because all Mormon motherB were wives. If any man dare take a woman to wife, let him bo compelled com-pelled to acknowledge be;- as such, and father his own children. Would not this course soon lessen the inmates of foundling homes? Would not men loam the responsibility ol life by it, which now, to n great ex-lent, ex-lent, women bear alone? You will agree with me, dear Mrs. Hayes, iu saying lhat pure women, true to themselves, are, by instinct, true to their own Bex; aud "as a woman who feels that thB burden which crushes womanhood anywhere is a burden which falls upon every one of us," I know you will consider our cause. These words were written to me by dear Lucy Lircom. She took a deep interest in the Mormon question, as she docs in all questions where women are vitally concerned. In my last visit to Boston, I visited ber. She ia related to my mother and a friend- to mo of whom 1 am justly proud, as a woman who loves women I My mother joined the Mormon ohurch before I was born, in the City of BoBton, She came to Utah in 13-18, when Salt Lake City wbb only marked out by tents and wagons. She brought me, her youngest child with her. I have grown up here, as I told you, and think I can epcak, if any woman can, understanding of the eiluation here to-day. In the early years out in theso mountains our perils and privations stand un-equiled un-equiled in American history, and only parallel wilh those endured by the pilgrims at Plymouth liocit. Our fathers aud mothers left homes of comfort, many of oflJuonce, to dwell in tr-nts like Israel o( old and for freedom and religious liberty tbey have endured these hardships. Wilh your religiuus nature, you can understand, under-stand, dear Mrs. Hayes, as bo me otheis might not be able to do, how wcnu'n can gu to the stake lor religious relig-ious conviction; how women of the Catholic fi i I h can do pcnar.co and scarify the flesh by wearing a ebirt made of Lor.-chair; how Quaker women, ye:irs ago, and even in a comparatively enlightened age.Bnflertd lor conscience' pake, even un!o death. Good old Lur-rttia M;;tt 8 xid to me not long agi, "Be Iruo to your convictions, con-victions, child, and work inaide your church, as I did, for forty years, after I bad outgrown some of its peculiar doctrines." And this is just what 1 am doing, dear madam, and as thr doctrine Christ taught was to eaTe and not destroy, 1 would obey hie teaching and throw my mile on the side most likely to produce the great est good to the largest number, and instead of branding with vile epithet the best part of our community, its wives and mothers, I would herald to the world their virtues. Wives, self sacrificing beyond comparison, because be-cause of their religious conviction that God calls them to bow beneath the rod his hand is holding. What other motive could induce women to Bhare a husband's love, to divide equally his property with other wives? But I shall weary you, dear madam, and will close by saying, in regard to tho past, there can be but one rational soki ion, and thai lo be left to individual judgment. It will i he difficult lo adjust a polygamic family by legal means, it beine a moral question, entirely, in which the interests of many thousand pure women and innocent children are closely allied; then is it not safest to leave it to the parties concerned? That evil exists in the world, and wrong to woman of an alarming extent, ex-tent, thinking women realize, and that deeper wrongs there are to woman lhan a plurality of wives, we as a people believe. Marriage is made moral or immoral according to the lives of the parties entering into marriage. So it would seem that it ia the individual life after all. Happiness is the desire of the human heart, and to protect its own is animal instinct. Certainly, the breaking up and scattering of families cannot result in good to either church or state, but on the contrary, much evil would result therefrom. The future is before us an unexplored field; the p-st has gone, we cannot recall it. Forgive if I have dwelt too long upon this meme, auu Deneve mo, this come Irom the heart of a Mormon wife. Charlotte Ives Godbs. |