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Show A GENTILE DEFENDS THE "MORMONS." The following letter is a reply to the Boston Sunday Herald, which published an article, very damaging to the "Mormons," on July 10th, and was sent to that paper so as to be published July 31st: Editor Boston Sunday Herald: Dear Sir:-I saw an article in the Sunday Herald of July 10th, that interested me somewhat, the title of which was "The Miserable Mormons." and I wish to make reply to it. Now I want you to understand this reply is from a Massachusetts Gentile. It is about four months since I came to this territory, and I was in this city when the news of the assassination of Garfield arrived. In your edition of July 10th you said that there was general rejoicing all over Utah, over the event. Now I wish to refute the charge, for I made special inquiries, and I must say that I heard nothing but expressions of deep regret and sympathy for the President and his family. They gave up all their fourth of July celebrations all over the Territory, and flags were flying at half mast in all of their towns, and on the third day of July, Sunday, prayers were said in a great many of the "Mormon" churches for the recovery of the President, and all the celebration that took place in the territory was a celebration at Salt Lake city, that was held under the management of the Federal authorities that are stationed there. Nowhere in all the country, according to dispatches that I read in the Sunday Herald of July third, was the sympathy expressed with any more feeling than in the territory of Utah, and whoever furnished you and the other eastern papers with the dispatch that you published, furnished a statement that was a falsehood, and I am prepared to furnish proof to that effect. The editorials of all the Mormon papers expressed deep regret, and also all of the church officers that I could learn anything about. The city of Logan is one of the stalwart towers of Mormonism, the proportion of Gentiles being only one to about one hundred and ten Mormons, and here if anywhere one would be apt to get the true sentiment of the feelings of the mass of the people in this territory. I made trips to several of the neighboring towns to find out their sentiments, and in every case it turned out just as I have written you in this letter, and I think that it is no more than justice to the Mormons that you should print this statement that I have made, in the next edition of the Sunday Herald, because it comes from one that does not sanction their belief in some respects. I can say, however, that in no part of this country that I have traveled in have I met a people that are so hospitable to strangers and to people of another belief. And my sincere belief from my point of view as I have met them since I have been in their Territory, is, that they have been misrepresented in a most shameful manner, this last instance furnishing a very good example. The federal officials that are sent out here, are, as a class, men who would not be recognized, or tolerated by respectable society in the east, and are men in whom you could place but little confidence. This is my experience in conversation, and in seeing some of their actions, and hearing some of their sayings; of course there are a few exceptions, but a very few. Hoping that I have not taken too much of your valuable space, I remain your obedient servant. G. Willis Morse, Worcester, Mass. Logan, Utah, July 22d, 1881. |