Show JUDGE CARLETON ON THE MORMON QUESTION judge carleton was for seven years a member of the utah commission MISSi Oll and went 0 utah when the commission first began work he has bas been reading the evidence on which the federal court refused to naturalize mormons cormons Mor mons he says it to is a strange mess of contradictions men whom he recognized as reputable citizens of salt lake city testified that there was no obligation against the government taken in the secret work of the endowment ceremonies others testified that there was such an obligation and that an oath to avenge upon the united states the deaths of joseph and was administered to all who passed through the secret ceremonies III t think the judge said that I 1 have read about all of the books for and against mormonism and also those which profess to take an unprejudiced view this declaration that the mormons cormons take an obligation against the government IA was as made first by john hyde I 1 think who wrote his exposures perhaps as long ago asin the hyde gives what purports to be the oath and a good deal of the ritual A well known ex mormon named clarke a business man in salt lake city once told me that the oath as given by hyde is purely a fabrication of the author mr harrison arrison fl who a acosta sta sized from toe church in the godbe movement twenty odd years ago agg I 1 observe says there is nothing in the mormon ritual against the government A degree of discrepancy in the testimony agny is not to be wondered at the mormon ritual as you perhaps know is entirely oral no part of it is in writing or in print As the endowment ceremony is about seven hours long one can easily understand that recollections of what is heard will vary considerably it map be that hyde fabricated the oath against the government and that m ny who have read the book really believe that the oath was administered to them in that form the apostates who testified that there was such an oath have been out of the church for fora a long time and having read hydes book or been seen the oath repeatedly reproduced in the papers may honestly think that they took such an oath when they went through the endowment house 1 t I had another theory said judge carleton to account for this contradiction about the oath for I 1 had heard of it long before the evidence was taken in the naturalization cases I 1 thought it lasquite was quite probable that in early times when the recollection of the mobs and of the assassinations of the smiths was fresh there might have been such an oath in the ritual one day in talking with a prominent mormon I 1 suggested my theory to him and said the ritual might have been modified BO as to leave out this oath against A roe government he answered that there had never been such an obligation in the secret work of the church and that every assertion to that effect was pure fie fic tion you doubtless know that in the early days of the church at nauvoo the leaders got a dispensation from the grand lodge of illinois and established a masonic lodge soon soen afterward the charter was taken away from them for reasons which the grand lodge deemed sufficient I 1 have understood that in forming their ritual the mormons cormons borrowed many ideas in respect to oaths and other material from the work of the lodge A great deal has been said and written about masonic oaths we have never heard of but one man suffering death for revealing masonic secrets he was morgan and there has always been a good deal of mystery as to his real fate my opinion is after a good deal of inquiry and observation that the obligations the mormons cormons take are no more dangerous than those the masons enter into when I 1 went to utah as a commissioner to help put the edmunds law in force I 1 entertained the usual impressions about the mormons cormons Mor mons 1 I had heard of the canites and the blood atonement and other bloodcurdling things I 1 stopped at the continental hotel and for a few nigh nights ts I 1 was pretty careful about the fastenings of my door and windows I 1 go out much at night after awhile as I 1 studied the mormon people I came to have different ideas about them I 1 found they were much like other people I 1 went about salt lake city as freely as I 1 do in washington and I 1 found that I 1 was as safe if not safer we get distorted views of the mormons cormons and the mormon question it is not to be wondered at take even the associated press dispatches which are supposed to be devoid of passion and prejudice nine out of ten of those dispatches from utah are adored or are gross exaggerations against the mormons cormons Mor mons the fact is tle gentiles Gentil eb are so bitterly hostile that they can not do justice to the mormons cormons even if they were inclined when the commissioners e rs first appeared at salt alake i ake city to put the edmunds law iu operation a committee of the Pec ples pes party called upon us the chairman was john sharp he told us amista would abide by the law dis franchising them thein and would make no attempt to register he said he be was a polygamist and that he would not try to register the people eop e in the territory would be adai advised to abstain in like manner and he believed they would ld give the commission no trouble it turned out as the committee had told us we had no trouble the non polygamous mormons cormons registered and the polygamists did not try to do so we found that there were men and women sustains sus sustaining taini ng polygamous relations of the seven years I 1 was a commissioner I 1 passed fully half of each year among the mormons cormons Mor mons the appearances indicate that they are giving up polygamy mayor jennings of salt lake since deceased repeatedly declared that the mormons cormons must give up polygamy it is undoubtedly a fact that the proportion of be lievers who hold bold polygamy to be optional rather than obligatory has rapidly increased and is in the large majority one singular thing Y said judge carleton esthe is the falling failing off in the number of apostates during baigh time abete were notable secessions recessions from the church the godbe movement for instance but since the commission was appointed and since the government has taken hold of the mormon question there have been very few apostates not nearly so many as previously our legislation Is ia certainly not having dg the effect anticipated to disintegrate the mormon church I 1 am not aware of any prominent mormon who has denied his bis faith since 1882 As to the liberalizing of the church there seems to be a disposition on the part of a large majority to take the view that the practice of polygamy ought to be abandoned but at the same time I 1 am not aware of any changes in regard to their vreed creed at the election in 1887 95 per cent of the mormon voters of utah voted in favor of a state constitution ution prohibiting and punishing polygamy singular thing in the progress of events is ia that the nearer the mormons cormons come to being en rapport with the public sentiment of the country the more the gentiles of utah want to push them to the wall this is not so curious however when you come to consider the motive many of the leading and controlling cont roling gentiles do not want the mormons cormons to abolish polygamy they want the mormons cormons to go on to increase the amount of polygamy and to afford an excuse for congress to utterly destroy local ment and to disfranchise all the gentile leaders in utah would be shocked if they knew that polygamy was done forever fore ver washington D C december |