| Show CURTIS ABLE KEPLY SOME NUTS FOR auy KS TO CRACK the iriri position of he mormon community defined tho following masterly reply to senator dawes article in the january bonim appeared in the washington JW on the alt senator dawes of massachusetts who will leavo to vote on the admission of utah and therefore might have copt himself in a judicial frame of mind until the memoria lists had been heard has seen fit in advance of a hearing by any committee 0 either house of congress to enter the public arena as a champion of the opposition to their prayer and to seek a personal controversy with mo it would not become me to decline his challenge although nothing that I 1 have said or written on this subject was designed to draw from him or any other member of the senate or house any expression of his views opinions or purposes I 1 shall now however in as condensed a form as possible reply to his article in the january number of the bonim which he intended as an answer to my article in the december number of that magazine if I 1 repel his personal attack on myself it shall bo done without heat and in the same coolness I 1 shall repel his attacks on that interesting and worthy people tho cormons mormons of utah fer whom I 1 entertain great respect and whom I 1 have tried to serve from motives that I 1 dare say mr dawes would not appreciate perhaps would abt understand my sole object has been and is to promote the welfare and happiness of the cormons mormons Mor mons and of the gentiles of the territory as well and to aid in relieving the people and government of the united states from a troublesome matter by a method which deserves calm impartial and enlightened examination first mr dawes begins his assault on ma by asserting although he credits me with eminent talents and personal worth an encomium which I 1 have not sought that my article in the is in fact a pies for the cormons mormons Mor mons presented by me who has long acted as the attorney for that people in their straggle with the authority of the united states and who so far as the public are informed still speaks for them in that capacity what is it to him or to the public in what capacity apa city I 1 speak or arito for the Moi the importance and strength of my eions are the only things that can concern him or the public but is he abaro of the nature of the charge that he has made against me it is a charge that I 1 have long acted as the attorney of a people who have been engaged in resisting the authority of the united states and this is quite to a charge of fomenting or assisting a rebellion he further says that so far as the public are informed I 1 am still acting m that same capacity of promoter ofa struggle against the authority of the united states I 1 ought perhaps to apologize for noticing such stuff the cormons mormons of utah have never been engaged in any struggles with the federal authority since I 1 have known them or been in any way concerned for them nor could such a charge bo justly made against them at any nenod in their history founded on any correct view of their conduct As to my in their behalf if mr dawes had taken the least trouble to inform himself ho might have easily learned the following facts at the term of the court of the united states which began in october 1885 there were three cases of lorenzo snow called m the mormon church apostle snow on the docket they were of error to the territorial court to obtain a reversal of three judgments and sentences whereby he had been sent to the penitentiary and heavily fined for unlawful cohabitation under the third section of the edmunds act an offense which is quite distinct from polygamy the territorial court had given a most forced and arbitrary construction to tho statute which had created this new offense find had also sentenced and punished mr snow by on illegal accumulation of three consecutive terms of imprisonment for what was but one off enso if it was any offense at all I 1 was employed to assist mr snowa counsel in his three cases and in my pluck at the nr I 1 argued his cases to the best of my ability if this was aiding the cormons mormons to resist the authority of the united states mr dawes or any one else s welcome to so regard it nothing prevented a reversal of the judgments against mr snow excepting a doubt which arose among the judges after tho argument whether they had appellate jurisdiction luris diction m theng cohabitation cases after full consideration they decided that they had not and snows writs of error were dismissed for that reason this left him and till other cormons mormons who had married plural wives at any time and however long ago at the mercy of the territorial courts without any possibility of a legal correction of their errors by tho highest tribunal in the land all that mr snow had done after the passage of the edmunds act andhor some time before was to live exclusively with one of his wives and her children and to continue to bieak of his other wives as women bo had according to leiis and their religion andio support 1 and provide and their children in sickness jacl m health there between hun and anhof his wms buttke one iff whose iha lahy man might apt bauw fi friends but this kind of association is what the territorial courts treat as the unlawful cohabitation of the edmunds act and from time to this convictions after convictions fines and imprisonments have taken place in cases where the facts wore the same as in mr snows upon the same monstrous and absurd construe iiron of a single word this state of things revealed to me what I 1 characterized in my article in the forum as a disgrace to the criminal jurisprudence of the united states and 1 so consider it now I 1 did not draw my information as mr dawes asserts from mormon sources I 1 drew it from the records of courts from the written opinions of the territorial judges and from the administration of the law at every criminal term about which I 1 was constantly and correctly informed the state of things which I 1 said was a disgrace might have been instantly remedied but I 1 could not get it remedied my urgent application to the judiciary committee of the senate immediately after snows cases had been dismissed to have a short act passed giving the supreme court appellate jurisdiction in this class of cases was refused when in the last session of the last congress the bill to despoil the mormon church of its property was sent down from the senate to the hoube a short section was introduced as an amendment to give the supreme court appellate jurisdiction in cheso cohabitation cases on this and other amendments there was a disagreement between the two houses a committee of conference was ordered the confor rees on the part of the house succumbed to the demand made by the conferrers confer rees on the part of the senate and this only humane and merciful provision in the bill was stricken out of it the mormon hus bands were again left to the mercy of the territorial judges choso whoso construction st of the statute would oblige them to turn adrift upon the world women of advanced years in many of whose cases the marriages occurred when there was no law that prohibited plural marriages if there are any who think that the last congress did not neglect a public dutwin this matter I 1 cannot agree with them aside from this all my efforts have been exerted to dimpel public prejudice and enlighten public ignorance and to counsel the cormons mormons to patience in the hope that the people and government of the united states will see in their new attitude and in the state constitution which they present a safe ground for their admission into the union I 1 had no hand in drawing their proposed constitution but I 1 cordially ampro vedo J saw it neither collectively nor ever receive from me any aid as an attorney or in any j other capacity in struggles with the authority of the united states I 1 would rather when my days are ended in some good degree deserve to have it said of me to the strengthening of the republic to the steadying of its forces and to the sobering of the people all his teaching tended than to leave it recorded on my tombstone I 1 biad enjoyed all the honors and held all the offices that the world could bestow second mr dawes has very falsely said mr curtis asserts the administration of the law for the suppression of polygamy in utah is a disgrace to the jurisprudence of the united stales this is just what J did not say what I 1 did say I 1 made clear enough and F have now only reiterated that the disgrace consists in a judicial not of the statutes to suppress polygamy but of the one statute which made the new and distinct offense of w habitation with more than one woman but all through his paper mr dawes confounds the suppression of polygamy with the suppression of religious and moral duties to innocent and dependent women whose husbands the common sentiments of mankind would regard as less than men if they did not suffer any extremity rather than renounce reno unco those duties polygamy further plural marriages the cormons mormons can give up they offer to make it an offense against the state and to punish it with fine and imprisonment third of th offer mr cawes has curiously contrived to evade the force by the following untenable I 1 might say absurd assumption to polygamists themselves it it is proposed to commit the duty of suppressing polygamy if this crime is seeking shelter and immunity the proposed scheme cannot tail to commend itself to the now anxious and troubled apostles of this revelation as more effective for that purpose than any plan hitherto devised A burglar might as well ask to bo tried by a struck jury of burglars as a band jot polygamists to be permitted by the means here proposed to erect themselves the tribunals in which and orthe instrumentalities by which the crime of polygamy is to be punished if punished at all As a kind of ad captan dum ment which I 1 suppose this was intended to be it is very well but mr dawes might havo remembered that he was writing for intelligent people and as a senator he ought not to have been ignorant of the following facts if utah becomes a state it is not to a band gf laws for suppressing polygamy ill be committed the constitution ution presented by the cormons mormons is not the work of the polygamists or of men who ever had more than one wife it is the work of the monogamous cormons mormons Mor mons of the men of forty and under who have never had but ona living wife they are now the majority of the adult mormon male population of the population of the territory about are cormons mormons in religious aith and are gentiles the monogamous cormons mormons ancl the gentiles are to marriage these two classes are of one mind and one purpose tle when thal becomes ja state will havo us gogal n chance with jhb for fillings fillin gj anhof the state offices from the highest to the lowest the mor amoris p 4 v 1 l ca y J the bugbear of struck juries and conniving sheriffs only in mr dawes imagination and found ilion in fauts yel ho does nob ecru plo to say considerations like these which he had previously urged arising solely out of the defiant persistency sis tency of a large majority of the people in degrading and vicious so cial relations wholly unfitting them to appreciate and maintain tho higher and purer life in which statehood cin exist alone delay the admission of utah into the union on an equal footing with all the other states ahat part of the gentiles did he include in this charge of defiant persistency sis tency in degrading and vicious social relations they do not practice polygamy and never did yet according to mr dawes they must bear some part of the responsibility for the cause that alone prevents the admission of utah if we turn to the monogamous majority of the aholo male part of the mormon population ula tion does mr to say that inasmuch as they have never married but one wife they persist in degrading and vicious social relations or if we turn to the 2000 mormon husbands this is rather more than their whole number who now have more than one living wife but who have discontinued sexual relations with them are they guilty of degrading and vicious social relations because beci use ahey will nob cast those women upon the world disown them as their wives and brand them as former concubines and harlots mr dabos biad better look at figures and at facts before he again assails a large majority of any people by such a chargo as ho has made against the people of utah without any discrimination between gentiles and cormons mormons Mor mons polygamists and mists fourth mr dawes prefaces his quotation of the anti polygamy clause in the proposed constitution for utah with this sentence the condemnation of polygamy which the mor mons without a of change in religious belief or in purpose in respect to it hava put in their proposed constitution is in these words their purpose is of course to be judged by alio provision itself and by their ability to execute it which will be entirely in the hands of the monogamous cormons mormons and gentiles but it is the religious belief of the mor mons aye their belief that must be changed beford a civil privilege can be accorded to them here is what the senator maani as the sting they must renounce their religious belief that plural marriage is or can be m the sight of gol innocent and holy this is the very danger to which the congress of tho united states is ex hobed the danger of requiring the renunciation or a religious belief as the price of a civil privilege is a plausible and specious requirement but it cannot be made without entering the domain and involving the rights of conscience are we never to leam anything from the lessons of history the civil disabilities under which the atoman catholics were so long held in england might be a warning to us for at least to centuries they were as good subjects as the crown of england ever had in vain were thay good subjects in vain did thov fight in the army and the navy and carry the honor of the british nag into every part of the world an obnoxious and hated religion and therefore they were not allowed to sit ni parliament or to hold any civil office and whoever made a proselyte to the church of bome from the church of england or any protestant sect was guilty of high treason it was not until the catholic claims were extorted from a tory minister and a reluctant sovereign that the catholic disabilities were removed and this was done in the present century here in the united stated an ingenious man might easily make an argument to show that people who accept every article of the faith cannot be good citizens there are who think so but I 1 fancy that it it were proposed to baso legislation or public action of any kind on that assumption we should hear thunder all around tho political horizon that might perhaps be loud enough to deter the perpetration of such folly but the despised and a handful oi people can be denied a civil privilege it is supposed because their religious belief about marriage is to be treated as proof that they will never give up the practice of polygamy mr dawes has imputed to me that I 1 said it was of DO consequence whether they were sincere or insincere in ahe anti my clause into their proposed constitution I 1 said nothing of the kind I 1 said that is of no consequence whether in offering to make polygamy an against itself they are consistent or inconsistent with their religious belief what they offer to do is a civil act and nothing else whether in doing that act as citizens they are consistent or not as religionists is amatt pr for their individual consciences it does not concert tha of the united and if that govern withholds from them a civil privilege because they do not bring a that lies between thorn and their god it will do a great unnecessary and irreparable wrong but nw canies conies what is perhaps the most |
