| Show VIGILA VIGILANCE ae qa committees S at dale city ity so the teiei telegrams rams of yes inform us three men were ware hung by y a vigilance committee numbering one hundred men who came over from Ohe cheyenne yenne city for the purpose the two cities are not very distant from each other and probably possess many features in common in readi reading n g this account the mind naturally reverts to the circumstances under which this city and country were settled one cannot help drawing a contrast between the scenes witnessed elsewhere in the early settlement of towns and those which transpired i r ed here in early days I 1 when n this city was settled there was no organized society to the eastward of us nearer than fifteen hundred miles wo jve were beyond the reach of all law only such as we framed ourselves yet good order was preserved life and property properly were safe and that too without i having recourse to vigilance committees we have extended our settlements north and south they stretch upwards of five hundred miles from one extreme to the other in every ono one of those settlements law and order have been paramount there have been no violent outbursts no seer secretor secret etor or illegal combinations no appeal to lynch law men 2 and women bave have 1 slept siept I ept as peacefully y and securely in the their r wagons and tents until houses could be built as they could have done had lidd they been surrounded by impregnable walls in the settlement of neighboring states territories and cities the of a vigilance committee seem I 1 eato be almost the first thing tho thought tight about it is asserted that law and order could not be maintained without such organizations and not ly y desperadoes have joined them to better screen and carry out their own schemes of rascality the greet great gree t and prosperous city of san eelan francisco has been compelled more than once to call vigilance committees to her aid to td free herself from the dreadful tyranny under which she groaned they have become fashionable especially throughout this western country an and so familiar have men become with their existence that to excite any remark they are looked upon as a matter of course and ac acquiesced d in as a necessity of the age there r inay may be circumstances cu cum in stances under which it may be necessary forshark for sharp severe and thorough measures to be taken to check crime and execute justice but the people who are compelled to organize vigilance committees to accomplish these ends are in a pitiable condition inthe in the most moat of instances a vigilance committee is but enother name for a mob and of all the despotisms despotis ms which over ever existed i we think that of a mob the most frightful and odious cruel and bating subject to whims hims and ca prices the most extraordinary a mob knows no law but the prejudices and passions of its individual members we have suffered ered from their violence and well know how dreadful and heartless is their tyranny buty buts but it is worthy of re mark passant en pa sanf sant that since mobs were first organized against us and the people looked calmly on without condemn ling ing them for their fiendish cruelty the nation has been cursed with mobs and the disposition to organize them is spreading when all the circumstances are considered under which our settlements have been made in this territory exemption from these illegal combinations aud and the scenes of vi violence 1 ole oie ce which attend them is remarkable had they ever existed here and executed their victims in the tho arbitrary and summary style practiced practised elsewhere what a howl would nave have been raised about the proceedings of the people of utah there have been some persons who have vied with each other to see which could tell the most absurd and blackest falsehoods about us they have done this when we have had a degree of peace here the equal of which might be sought for in vain within the limits of our national domain and when life and property were most sacredly valued but what kind of a character would utah have had bad from them thein had vigilance committees ruled in every settlement and performed their fell work as they do elsewhere 2 |
