Show PRESS COMMENTS OX ON TIIE wile noar HOAR BILL I 1 I 1 tim THE comments of the press on the so called antl anti polygamy bill introduced by senator hoar are very amusing to one acquainted with mormon 11 affairs and thus able to perceive the general lack of understanding concerning them prominently exhibited both by our national legislators and the writers forthe for the public who criticize congressional gress lonal legislation the opinions of the press vary very much as to the merits of the bill so some me think it an important move others s say a t that 1 the important octant move is so I 1 1 p plainly yla yia i 1 y unconstitutional that it would not stand for a moment as slaw siaw law and characterize it as a stupid violation of all principles of law and orals morals 1 I soule some think that it if it becomes a law its passage c will almost entirely mark the era of the decadence of Mormonism Monnon ism 77 others think that the country cannot afford to confiscate the mormon f funds and convert them int into 0 campaign calr cair isaim ammunition the provision in regard to husbands and wives giving evidence against each other in bigamy cases is regarded by some as eminently proper I 1 I 1 while others denounce it as contrary to eve every ry princia principle I 1 e of common law and one of of the most sweeping pieces of proposed legislation to be pieces lound found 4 outside of the draconian code many journals make a mistake as to t the he last named provision it is not simply to make for a husband or wite wife to testify against the other in any prosecution for bigamy polygamy or unlawful cohabitation but to compel such evidence it gives power to courts to send their officers eul eui cers without previous subpoena to kidnap a wife whose evidence is wanted and under threats of pains and penalties to force her to testify against her husband this distinction should be understood it is not in merely making the evidence of the wife against the husband lawful that the bill violates established principles of jurisprudence but in seizing and compelling the wife or husband ta to testify against the other and this was d denounced enon need by the late erni eminent nent jurist jeremiah ablack S black not only as but as an inhuman diere disregard ard of family f feeling and the sanctities of private life a the proposition to tuny tover the funds and property of the church into the hands of trustees appointed by the president and senate meets with almost universal disfavor and no one can find anything to say in its support except as A a plan to rid this country of polygamy so with the provision in regard to the perpetual emigrating fund company and such papers as countenance it do so rounder sounder under the impression that it will stop the system s t edof of the mormon church and t ye the immigration of its members from the nations of europe if these matters were understood it would be seen that there is nothing in the measure which is likely to have any powerful effect on therol the polygamy 91 gain K question that the mormon church 1 U I 1 e is hot dependent upon the act rf of th the e legislature by which it was made a legal corporation that the missionary work of this church is entirely independent of the perpetual emigrating fund that the work of the gat gathering herink of the saints from all nations would not be stopped and could not be to any great extent impeded d by the dissolution I 1 of the ther E co pany p a cori Po horation por ration atlon the bill do not understand tho church orits or its methods they are fumbling in tho the dark they are arc blows blogg in directions that do not lend lead towards the object they have in view the they y are striking at some things that do not wilc alic exist A and at others the nature of which they do not comprehend wiAnd it is much the same with the writers for the press who comment on their proceedings what is needed by antii 1 mormon legislators and editors is correct information but this they will not seek f for or and to domnake make their position worse they illey receive for facts and adopt for avis wisdom dom the rankest kind of falsehood and the baldasti bal bai balde baide desti dusti sti kind of fol foi folly I 1 we agree with some of our contemporaries por aries that this new attempted legislation is not likely to pass in its present shape we think it unlikely togo through the senate unshorn of some of its crudities and unclipped clipped nn of some of its perversions of constitutional and common law and even should it be passed by a republican senate in order er to throw the odium of defeating a so called anti polygamy measure upon a democratic house coasto so as to utilize the blame for jor political capital we do not think that a house so largely composed of men who standon stand on constitutional ground round will come down to tile the level ol 01 such demagogic dirt as to do violence to their profoundest convictions of right for fear of the unjust taunts anz ant and shallow charges of their political opponents the edmunds hoar judiciary bill is a monstrosity and ought to be strangled in the birth if it should be permitted to see the light of life it will vill prove to be aleak a weakling lin instead of a giant measure and its effect against nisin be a solemn nothing r k |