| Show OPINIONS lon lox ion ag OF THE TXIE PRESS OX ON hiet irlie 1 cullon CULLOM byll BILL mr colloms Cul cui lomb bill abhi with some modifications cat ions has passed the elouse house and is now before the senate for final action the clause authorizing the regular army to enforce the law and empowering the president to call out ten thousand volunteers un if necessary was rejected and the bill ia is left entirely to the management of the civil authorities but the measure as it stands is sufficiently stringent to bring matters to a focus in utah and to settle the question whether or not the mormons cormons are willing to abandon the institution of polygamy under compulsion the man rash convicted of having more than one wife or of living with introducing or tre treating atino more than one woman as his wife is 9 liable to be punished by a fine cofone of one thousand dollars and imprisonment at hard labor for a term not exceeding five years besides being disqualified for holding any federal office the striking out of the army clause really amounts to nothing for in case the governor of utah shall nind find himself unable to execute the anti poleg amy lawhe dillof course call for troops and they cannot be refused unless the government chooses to stultify itself by permitting its agents and edicts to sink sin k into contempt if then th the e bill is accepted by the senate the issue may be considered as fairly made up and we are anthe eve of a conflict of opinion or of arms the result of which cannot be accurate accurately ely predicted even by the wise wisest 9 t political prophet it cannot be denied that the policy indicated in this enactment is nothing more nor less than persecution se and will be so regarded by the mormons cormons themselves to us the system Ys of polygamy is altogether wicked and abominable budwith but with these people it is dim dlf merent different they are not a nation of fools or of hypocrites and their faith such as it is has been tried by the severest ordeals and maintained its integrity unshaken they believe that joseph smith was the prophet of god that brigham young is his rightful suc cessor with the same bame powers and that a plurality of wives is night right in itself and pleasing in the sight of heaven leaven polygamy is to all human appearances as closely interwoven with their religious instincts and convictions vict ions as it was with those of david or of Solo monand there is no good reason for supposing that it will be less difficult to uproot it in utah in 1870 than it would have been to eradicate the same evil in palestine a century before the birth of christ this usage thus strongly entrenched we are to attack with fines imprisonments and disabilities bili ties we are to say to these men and women of the same anglo saxon stock as ourselves give up what you believe to be right but what we believe to be wrong or accept the consequences might wen we not otso so far as the result is concerned with equal propriety insist that they should discard the book of mormon and receive the bible from what we know of human nature are they any more likely to do the one th than an to do the other the bloodiest wars that ever desolated the earth have take taken their rise and caught their inspiration 11 from a mere difference g f opinion concerning some religious dogma which both parties were willing to concede was not essential to salvation and people have gone to the stake and to the scaffold rather than yield a single point of what they held sacred though that point was a trifle light as air possibly the dwellers in the valley of salt lake are framed of different material and will accede to our demands readily and gracefully but if they do it will be an 1 instance without p precedent or parallel in history there is a minor feature of the cullom bill which must not be passed by unnoticed the superfluous wives of young and his followers are declared concubines and their offspring bastards and both women and children are literally turned out of doors and consigned to the cold charities of the world the punishment of these comparatively innocent parties is actually more severe than that inflicted upon the more guilty the male polygamist may escape scot free by simply giving up his female companions but in any event they are reduced to pauperism at once and forced to beg starve or do worse we are not disposed to advocate advocate what has been tolled lied a concubine bureau but we t do insist that such treatment of the weak and the helpless as is rendered inevitable by the operations of this bill ia Is a disgrace to our civilization and our country V j missouri republican march 27 Z the house yesterday amended mr cullors Cul Cu lloma lomb bill to abolish polygamy in utah in several important particulars and passed it the more important amendments strike out sections which empower and direct the president to enforce the bill by sending bending regular troops to utah or by calling forth volunteers to the number of forty thousand directing the secretary of the treasury to tor relieve elleve such persons as are reduced to destitution to an amount not exceed log lug one hundred thousand dollars and providing for the division of the property of polygamists among the surplus wives and children As it stands now I 1 however the bill is till still 8 cruel and tyrannous t yr it provides for disfranchise ing and disqualifying from public office and the benefits of the homestead act all citizens practicing polygamy or concubinage cub inage debars aliens from becoming citizens deprives woman of the suffrage and the right to serve on juries so lately tendered her in utah establishes a test oath more severe than the ironclad iron clad and forbids a man marrying his grandmother or other near relations we must not forget in dealing with the mormons cormons that whatever their social errors they have built up a beautiful city in the desert and have flourished and thrived more prosperously t than ban any other settlement on the plains I 1 until now they are fixed and cannot be sudden suddenly y uprooted without great wrong and destitution ensuing for which there is now no proy provision ision in the bill besides they have not shown themselves bigoted in much else than their social system they have welcomed the gentile world and have aided the building of the pacific railroad it would be better to leave their system to the melting influences of the universal ballot chich which unfortunately this bill curtails the schisms and the iron horse aut lut but we are glad at least that the house refused to countenance war on the Saint baines sand and has determined to uproot polygamy if it uproots it at all by the slower and juster process legislation new york herald march bith iga A SCENE OP OF desolation ssi ysl A dispatch from utah emanating emanating from a colfax brother inlaw in law mr hollister linteri says gelf if the senate passes the house bill hill as it is the territory ory of utah will be a scene of desolation the matter with the utah gentiles do they begin to bee see the certain ruin which the passage of the cullom bill will bring are the hieroglyphics already discernible on the wall this paper long since predicted tile the consequences to which the cullom bill would lead if it should become a law and the wail from those who instigated nay who penned that infamous bill which we reprint above appropriates almost its very language we would not if we could alarm any body but we would if we could warn all against possible consequences arising aris in legislation which threatens the destruction of great interests reil religious bious fanatIC fanatics 3 driven to desperation by persecution are not to be trifled with there is great excitement in utah underneath this excitement there are deep feeling and determined resola 1 eions let no man be deceived vast interests are involved in the passage of this bullom bill and that man who does not appreciate their magnitude and the possible consequences of the measure which proposes by what the new york merald herald denounces as cruel a and nd tyrannous means to overthrow th the e kocl social a marital and domestic relations of people against their known religious convictions had better give ve heed to them uta utah may indeed with all its teeming industries become gia a scene of desolation but if we do not misjudge the condition of affairs those who would make it such buell those who would put the torch to their ow own n households and make ashes of their gods might not stop here omaha and all this western country have a deep stake in this matter and the union pacific railroad is also vitally doncer concerned ned in it the N nebraska delegation in the senate should never consent to making a law of the cullom bill its passage by the senate will incur not the certainty but the liability to the destruction of a vast and growing trade and business which it would require twenty years to repair and restore omaha herald march 30 tho row rew biow york thieves steal letters from bancs by means of a wire net |
