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Show GRATITUDc? In December, 1S91, the presidency and apostles of the Mormon curch appealed ap-pealed to the President of the United SUntes, In the following piteous language: lan-guage: Our people are scattered; homes aro mado desolato; many aro still In prison; others aro uanl3hcd or In hiding. Our hearts plead for these. In the past they followed our counsels, and whllo they are thus afflicted our souls aro In sack cloth .and auhes. As shepherds of a patient and suffering people, we ask amnesty for them, ana pledge our faith and honor for their future. fu-ture. That was the cry of woe, that was tho cry for mercy, which went up from Utah to the seat of the most powerful of earthly rulers. These chastened men, leaders of a chastened host, did not exaggerate nor yet portray since human language was powerless to do so much the awful gloom in which the Mormon people of that time were Immersed. In addition to all the proscriptions and prosecutions which they were enduring because of adherence to a special tenet of their faith, they were -almost without tho rights of citizenship. They had no voice In the general government, and the political power of the Territory which they had founded was almost entirely en-tirely exercised by Gentiles. Probably there had never been In the history of the United States any element ele-ment of its white population so devoid of the privileges of pitizenshlp, and so seemingly consecrate to subjugation by another body of citizens holding superior supe-rior rights under the laws of the Republic, Re-public, The preceding years had been filled with calamity; the future was as forbidding as the portals of a tomb. Out of their anguished hearts, the leaders spoke; In their solemn conference confer-ence with their God, they pledged. The answer which came to them was worthy of the glorious man who stood at the head of the most glorious government gov-ernment of this world, Benjamin Harrison. Har-rison. President of the United States. He proclaimed to them a wide and generous gen-erous amnesty; Its acceptance was sanctified by their own tears and ennobled en-nobled by the gratitude which even their late opponents felt. Utah, by pledge and by mercy, had come to her redemption. Statehood followed, and the helots of the post became the rulers of a splendid splen-did commonwealth. Gratitude! Look for it. |