| Show editorials THE TRE GRAND JURY juny to again refer to the highhanded high handed and unprecedented action actton of judge 11 zane in peremptorily dismissing three of the grand lury jury substituting andi andl others to his liking will not we trust be looked upon as harping or stirring 11 up a settled issue the importance ot 01 the subject its far reaching possibilities and the fact that no steps have been taken to test the tha matter in the courts cause it to be not merely a proper subject for discussion but make it imperative with the press as the peoples arbiter to thoroughly ventilate the transaction that whatever is evil in itself of its consequences may be understood and to some extent guarded against the fact that after the grand jury has been reconstructed upon a basis satisfactory to the judge and ills his associates of the prosecution the indictments sought were still not found makes no difference except to the persons against whom the departure was immediately aimed there is a p principle r nci aci pl at stake a question to be set tied tl edthe t h question and principle being whether or not the citizen is completely at the mercy of the judiciary restraint of law and no protection in practice the ex exact caca position in which he would be placed edif if the action ot of the third district judge on the occasion referred to is good law and sound policy it will vill not do to treat the subject in the light of immediate results it is not what chatis is accomplished but what may be under such a system that constitutes the gravity of tile the situation it lt at once passed outside the pale of secrecy and became the property prop erty eity of the public that two or three men whose sentences were about to expire and who expected their release from the p penitentiary enit entla 9 were the objective point of the e proceeding the determination bei bet being g to hold hoid ol 01 them by means of new I 1 indictments nd t for the same offense then nearly expiated expiated so that the punishment might have hase lave lase been made continuous or nearly so but there were elou enough 0 of the members of the grand jury to constitute a respectable opposition to a scheme so revolutionary lutio nary and subversive and to compass the object sou son sought lit these must go the assistant prosecuting attorney could not dismiss them b but d his chiet of staff could and would if it appealed to and this the former officer must in the very nature of things have known perfectly well beforehand not perhaps by any promise made in so many words or at all but by a comparison com cem parison of what had been done with what remained to be done clone atall axall at all ail events as the sequel 1 shows he proceeded upon sure ground round for his complaint a against ainest the three obstructionists was no so sooner oiher cluer made than acted upon ant and the panel were summoned to the presence without delay A brief examina tiong was engaged in and at its conclusion his honor said to the trio as plainly as other words could be made to say it gentlemen you are not wanted the prosecutor in these cases wanted to keep some men in the penitentiary who would soon be at liberty and you ref refused used to aid and abet him by not voting for re indict ment althou although iii lil I 1 instructed you plainly enough that you could conid do so yoh you have no right to construe the I 1 law aw and your ref refusal to find the desired indictments shows that you persist in doln doin doing it the will of tile the district attorney when endorsed by this court is all you require f for or any purpose sey seq and when you refuse to abnegate your independence as grand jurors of this district at their behest which you do when you ignore a request made by either of them thern you that you are unfit to sit on any jury you can go and they wen went ta then i n again came mr mckay who has the advantage of holding two positions one enabling him to bind over to the grand jury and the other permitting him to appear before that body and instruct them to indict persons so held with an array of authorities ponderous as to bulk and full of what he most needs generally but singularly and particularly inapplicable to the mauter matter in hand he wanted the gap made in the ranks of the inquisitors inqui tilled bry try means of the favorite and convenient open venire and must have bore bored deven even eyen cven the court when he proceeded to read section after section of his law ilaw to show how justifiable such a proceeding would be he would have lot jiust just what he asked for without the citations at all before dudl judge e zane and before any other ludge judge e they would not have advanced the points sou sought ht by me mckay lisy icay for they were no i more applice utie ubie uble than the songs of solomon would have been not reaching I 1 let iet leta ieta alone lonn covering the question og presented they mainly malnis went to show that when a jury panel was to be filled and the lists were exhausted the open venir plan could be resor regor resorted ted to for that purpose pa e there was not a 1 line not a byord r about a grand ury jury nor a syllable in justification of such a scheme as its dismemberment reconstruction and discipline but the order was issued without hesitation and made returnable without delay three suitable persons were selected and immediately installed as di ae facto grand jurors audit was then thena a justifiable supposition that the machinery would work smoothly and grind out its regular grist of indictments but strange as it may appear the engineers of the concern were awain again again doomed to disappointment the substituted pieces lit and the mechanism Is more completely out of gear t han than previously what will they do about it now I 1 is the question what new expedient or what new application of an old expedient can be utilized to help them out of the dilemma having gone so far in the direction of reducing ane grand jurors to the position of ali all automatons t lu in the hands of t the le prosecution what is there to prevent a complete job being made of it why not disband them in toto and obtain a full and completely new panel by means of another draft on the rabble and if these would not do as they were bidden I 1 ship them also and try it again and so on till a alot lot were herded in who might not have sense enough to know whether they were officers of the third judicial district as powerful and independent within their sphere as is the judge himself within his or whether illey they are so many creatures having the outward form and semblance of men but dependent entirely upon other sources for drains brains when the thu district attorney can get such a panel as t hat that we guarantee him in advance satisfactory work ak at all reasonable hours with f friction of whatever nature reduced to the least possible quantity and never an occasion for telling telline them in mournful accents that they have done very wron wrong 11 certainly if the third district court or any court has the inherent power to revise and rearrange a grand jury for ref refusal to indict or for that matter at all ali it can go as far as what is suggested above but bul the possession of that right i has not been made sufficiently aly apparent it looks in fact very much like disregarding inherent or legal rights and resorting to expedient methods of accomplishing comp lishing desired ends and if judges and other off meers officers are not restrained by what is found on record or do not act upon some great and imme immediate di public necessity how are we to know where liberty leaves off and tyranny begins one wrong paves the way for another one stone taken from the temple of justice un settles the whole structure but in affirmative opposition to judge zanes attitude on the question discussed there is an abundance of law lav written and unwritten we nee need d not refer to the sanctity and ind ceremony with which such potent factors in a commonwealth as the grand jury were surrounded in the early days and hov how the superstitious sti ious tiong reverence of semi civi clyl lazed times has scowl slowly y faded laded away with the approach of a fuller enlightenment supplanting devotion with respect and fear lear with a proper regard the saxons with whom the system is supposed to have originated selected a few able men with great care and invested them with all the authority and dignity such a place was susceptible of as time advanced and men became better In informed formell the crude practices of the saxons were set aside and the idea itself preserved for embodiment into a system which has been improved f from rom time to time but not so changed as to take from public bublic inquisitors inqui one lot jot or t tittle I 1 t tre of t heir their dignity and power there is not a civilized and enlightened nation on the globe not a state in the union that does not uphold and protect this condition of things and then coming down to our own territory and referring to the enactments in that regard by the supreme lawmaking law making power congress we find after prescribing how when and by whom the grand jury shall be drawn that it reads and the jurors so drawn and summoned shall constitute the ret rel regular pular lular grand ana and petit juries for the term in all cases the fact that the supreme pr e in e court arthas has instilled justi lusti fled lied judge zane in re resorting s orting to an open venire to fill till a jury abury when the regular list is not be construed as wi an authorization to fill a panel which has previously been depleted by himself more particularly ticul ariy arly when it provided that they are to be the grand jury muryor por for the term and in all cases whatsoever then what right had another body to assume the functions invested bylaw exclusively in the original one and what right had the court to make up the second jury when the statute requires him to recognize the firstin every instance for the whole of the term certainly either the law itself or he who sits in judgment in the third district court is is wrong and it is safer better and wiser to conclude that it is not the former communicated ANTI I 1 MORMON ARGUMENTS WHEN the latter day saints are requested by the anti antl mormon I 1 pre press ss to pause and consider as to their course in the retention of plural marriage ay as a doc doctrine irine and ethe arguments advanced as reasons why this principle should be aban abandoned boned are of such a character that they almost invariably appeal to some weakness of humanity rather than to mans higher and nobler instincts 4 the most powerful of these ments if lf such they may be termed is that which works upon the fears of individuals divi duals the determination of the government to put down polygamy is pointed to as a ver very strong reason the influence of etl people ell is held up as an exceedingly t terrorizing zin cause forthe for the desertion of a cardl cardi cardinal gal Zal doctrine of our 1 faith falth therill the will of the tile majority is cited to prove that the fal fai kalthof faith thoi of the minority Is wrong the squeezing process in the courts is reler Teler referred rei rel erred to as an almost invincible argument wh why our religion should be surrendered piecemeal and the flat polygamy must go echoed by nearly every petty politician ician ia Is held to be as sacred as though uttered from sinai itself force and not reason seems to be the lever that is expected to move the hearts of the mormon people crushing is substituted tor for conversion by the apostles apost ies lea of modern civilization I 1 how in the light of rell reil religious lous ious history sensible and educated men can so lar forget themselves as to 8 suppose that a people who have already sacrificed so in much ucb uch for their religion can be cowed in any material degree by threats of evid evident nt punishment we are at a loss to discern long before the principle of plural marriage was publicly preached or even generally known in the church the latter day saints suffered mob b bings in ass martyrdoms martyr doms and spoliation I 1 imprisonment was one of the mildest for forms ins of persecution inflicted men were at times kept in dungeons many months in succession waiting walting g for tor trial on tr trumped up charges and weak women wandered through trackless forests for that faith 11 which was once delivered to the saints untimely graves mark the meanderings of this people peoples as they made their forced marches ma relles from the frontiers of amal amai american civilization into the unknown wilderness der ness the same arguments were used then as now force violence persecution and death threatened but did not convince them grey headed sires who had defended american rights and liberties sank exhausted on their weary way delicate young children were buried by the roadside and their sorrowing survivors in gazing upon these solemn spectacles read their own probable late unless tle tie the god in whom they trusted should make bare his arm in defense of innocence and integrity hundreds of miles were traversed in poverty by a people who could have lived in luxury in their eastern homes had they been willing to deny their god and forfeit their privileges in the gospel they might have renounced the principles entrusted to them and been received among the vast throng that opposed their faith but while this course doubtless seemed a secure and sensible one to the nonbeliever non believer it was regarded as the very lowest and and most contemptible kind of bf treachery by those to whom the truth had been revealed f from rom heaven their nobility consisted in suffering every indignity that the wicked could devise rather than yield evena seeming acquiescence in such outrageous persecution the principle of religious liberty has always been too precious to the latter day saints to admit of the slightest surrender of it under any pretext whatever and add to this the unmoved conviction that their religion is divine it is not to be wondered at that such a people would cling to their belief and to god knowing that he recon recognizes izes such ster sterlin linz sr gorili worth and has alwa always s wrought out deliverance for ills his people when the divine object of any given trial has been obtained it must be plain to every thinking person on calm reflection that the weapons used from the beginning to overthrow the church have been the least calculated to ta effect its destruction and this would be correct whether the religion of the saints were true or false unkindness oppression unreasoning prejudice and measures all ail nave have a tendency to drive their victims even when they are arc mere fanatics into a united defense it is natural for people to cling tenaciously to those ideas which are attacked by lucli means weans A man luan who has the hatred ot another simply because he holds to a belief that is in his opinion incontrovertible is not likely to bield it up under the pressure of his bis baiers balers persecution true he may be slain in the conflict but he dies honest in his belief and he feels that his martyrdom will cement the cause for which he has heroically fallen while on the other hand ethe the pressure iet let kindness and humanity pre vall yail let the cold winds of persecution cease and the genial rays ot of a prosperous os 1 berous sun shine upon him and tr he e is apt to relax much of that nirm firm grip on his religious faith which adversity and opposition had bad only fixed and tightened Hence except in a few cas esthe greatest apostasies apost asies have occurred in days of the churchs churche prosperity and among amon those who were in prosperous circumstances it is quite possible however we believe that some who claim to be saints are hypocrites at heart and only await the convenient hour to depart from their posts aldoin and |
