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Show .A DEGRADED PLANE. The church organ, has finally ot ardund to the point of placing some quotations from the Smoot testimony before its readers. As usual, however, it eliminates the real factor in the problem, prob-lem, and substitute:; the evasive, criminal crim-inal pica iu place of the straightforward candor that, one expects from honest men. On Wednesday evening it quoted the testimonj- ' of Messrs. Critchlow, Po'wors, aud others to the effect that there was no inclination on tho part of tho prosecuting officers to push matters against the old cohnhitation relations, as stated by Mr. Critchlow, or, as staled by Mr. Powers, that "the people have acquiesced iu the condition thnt exists" ex-ists" meaning, no doubt, the conditions that existed in the old cohabitation cases. Now, of course, every man is entitled to his own opinion; but we submit that the opinion of Messrs. Critchlow and Powers, or anybody else, is aside Irom the main question. The main point is, did tho Mormon leaders agree to conic within the law? If they did they should havo done so without any regard to the expectations of anybody on tho other side. Wc insist that the.y agreed to keep within the law; this by reason of their petition for amnesty, which expressly ex-pressly pledged the honor of tho leaders for tho good faith of tho people in this respect; second, the manifesto, as construed con-strued by President Woodruff, who issued is-sued it, by President Snow, who succeeded suc-ceeded President Woodruff, and by President Josoph F. Smith, now tho chief leader of the church, prohibited tho continuance of unlawful cohabitation cohabita-tion just as much as it did the entering enter-ing into new polygamous relations. This also was manifest in the proclamations for amnesty by President's Harrison und Cleveland, which were accepted by the Mormon leaders as a concession to their prayer for amnesty. Those amnesty am-nesty proclamations made the express condition that there should be no more breaking of the Jaw, but 'that all should live in obedience, to the law and not in any waj- contraveno it. This was the express condition of the amnesty which was prayed for and accepted. Indeed, an' other proposition or understanding would make a prayer for amnesty a ridiculous farce. It is inconceivable that auj- one should apply to a power capable of. granting amnesty with the proposition proposi-tion that he was to continue tho very disobedience to law for which he was seeking the amnesty that wns prayed for. The necessary obligation in a prayer for amnesty is that the cause for which the amnesty is granted shall bo abandoned. Think for one mo-meut mo-meut of amnesty being granted to thoso who were in rebellion against the Government Gov-ernment of the United. States, from 1SG1 to 1S65, and think how it. would seem to have those persons pra' for, be granted, and accept amnesty, and all the time continue their hostility Hgaiust the Government of the United States. The thing is absolutely inconceivable. incon-ceivable. In like manner, and precisely ou the same basis, it is inconceivable as a proposition for amnesty, that the Mormon leaders as honest men should have applied for it with the reservation, mental or otherwise, thai they did not intend to obey the law. Of course lliey intended to obey the law. They must have so intended, because that is the very life and vitality of a plea for amnesty, and the only possible grounds upon which amnesty could be accorded. Again on this line of thought must be considered the statuto of the State in 1S06 express- legitimizing children born up to a date slated therein. If j that were nor. meant to be a line of j demarcation between the old marital relations and the. new, the abandonment abandon-ment of the unlawful form of matrimonial matri-monial life, and the complete adoption iu good faith of the mouogamistic family fam-ily relation, then wo are utterly at. a loss to understand what that act meant, tf il was not a pledge to the country that polygamous living, known to the law as unlawful cohabitation, and the begetting of children therein, wero to cease from henceforth, then that law-was law-was not only a piece of ridiculous folly, but a studied effort to deceive, a gross act of imposture. There were a good many people who did not believe that the Mormons were acting in good faith-at tho time. There were a good many who did not expect to see them keep their pledges, no matter how strongly those pledges were put. And, as a matter of fact, those pledges were put about as strongly as men could put any pledge whatever. They were made on honor, on good faith, on revelation, on statute, on the executive action of tbe President, and in every way possible. They were reiterated, re-iterated, also, in the matter of the contest con-test for the church property in .Jackson .Jack-son county, Missouri, when the construction construc-tion of tho manifesto came up aud it was to the interest of the Mormons to disclaim polygamy. It was expreesly recited iu th'c resolution of Congress ' which restored the escheated property. Jn every possible way that; could be thought of the Mormon leaders expressed ex-pressed and protested their good faith in their pledge of coming within the law and transgressing it no longer. And now, at this Jate date, we have the plea made by tho Dcseret News that because certain geutJomeu here did not oxpect that good faith would be kept or were leniently disposed toward those old established es-tablished relations, therefore the Mormon Mor-mon '"people were iu 'no wise obliged io keep their faith or their pledge of honor. hon-or. Such a plea as that to any man of candor or honor is the most degrading degrad-ing thnt could bo concoived of, It was, in fact, a confession that those who distrusted the Mormon leaders most were right, and thnt the Mormon people peo-ple are now willing to admit that the ones who had the poorest opinion of them all along arc the ones who wero right in their judgment of the situation; those who persisted in their estimate of the bad faith in which tho Mormons were acting, were right. Aud to such a. degraded level has the Moi mon defense now come! It is precisely pre-cisely as if the leaders were, to say to thoso who distrusted them, "I lied, of course; you knew all the time I was lying; and now you have no business to pretend that you didn't." And thnt is the low, despicable, yet precise nature of the plea that tho News is now making mak-ing in behalf of the Saints. |