Logan Leader | 1882-01-27 | Page 1 | What Are We to Do with the "Mormons"

WHAT ARE WE TO DO WITH THE "MORMONS." Before Congress commits itself to any particular anti-"Mormon" policy it may be hoped that somebody will take the pains to forecast the end from the beginning of such a policy. It would be a pity to throw the country into a ferment of horror at polygamy merely for the emotion of the thing, but it would be a greater pity still to launch the country upon any line of action against polygamy which could not be safely and successfully carried out. The masses of masonry and the huge piles of stones heaped upon the "Mormons" in 1857 at Hanging Rock over the defile through which they then permitted the expedition of Albert Sidney Johnston to pass, still lower we believe above the line of the railway which now runs through their dominions. These mute witnesses to the somewhat ignominious results of the anti "Mormon" crusade of a quarter of a century ago should be consulted before we rashly engage in another adventure of the same kind. It is the opinion of a perfectly competent observer, Dr. Meyer, of Vienna, who has recently made a thorough tour in Utah, that in case of a serious conflict with the United States, which would mean to them simply a struggle for existence, the "Mormons" could put into the field a force powerful enough to occupy an army of at least a hundred and fifty thousand men, and to inaugurate a war likely to last for several years. They have skillful engineers among them now, and they can dispose of no inconsiderable capital. Troops sent to operate against them from either coast must be supplied from great distances while they would be operating upon a base entirely within their own control and would be abundantly equipped. Without dwelling on a good many incidental inconveniences likely to result from throwing the central portion of this continent into a state of strife and uproar, such as the cutting of railway and telegraphic communications between the Atlantic and Pacific, the flooding of now productive mines, the checking of westward emigration and the letting loose of the Indian tribes in a large and promiscuous way upon our frontier settlements, a deliberate and systematic military conquest of Utah would in all probability cost this country at least as much as the conquest of the Caucasus cost Russia. When the conquest was consummated, we should find that we had desolated and thrown back out of cultivation a vast area of our own territory which has been reclaimed with infinite toil and pains from the desert by this singular tribe of believers and converted into a granary which now feeds the bands of industrious and adventurous settlers. Perhaps it may be desirable or even necessary for the United States to incur all this expense and to affront all this waste and ruin, in order to manifest the national abhorrence of a "twin relic." But surely this desirableness and this necessity ought to be demonstrated fully before they are taken for granted by our own men and legislators. We have no national law of marriage and no national law of divorce. These things are matters within the jaw of each State, and it has been found by experience that the undeniable disadvantages arising from this localization of our matrimonial jurisprudence do not counterbalance the equally undeniable advantages resulting from the restriction within reasonable neighborhood limits of legislation upon matter so delicate and so important to the individual citizen. If it were clear that by making a national matter of the attempt to crush out polygamy we should succeed in crushing it out, it would still be the part of wise men well to weigh the cost against the profit of such an undertaking before entering upon it. Has this been done? Certainly it has not been done in any public, deliberate and authoritative way. And when this has been done it will still remain to be ascertained whether by driving the "Mormons" out of Utah we shall put an end to the polygamy of the "Mormons," which, as all recent travellers testify has for some years fast been dying off of itself, or give the institution a new lease of life in some other region and under another flag.-N. Y. World.