| Show OFFICIAL declaration to whom it may concern PRESS dispatches having been sent for political purposes from salt lake city which have been widely published to the effect that the utah commission in their recent report to the secretary of the interior allege that plural marriages are still being solemnized and that forty or more such marriages have been contracted in utah since last june or during the past year also that in public discourses the leaders of the church have encouraged and urged the continuance of the practice of polygamy 1 I therefore as president of the church of jesus christ of f latter day saints do hereby in the most solemn manner declare that these charges hharges are false we are not teaching polygamy or plural marriage t arriage nor permitting any person to enter into its practice and I 1 deny that either forty or any ther other number of plural marriages have during durin 9 that period been solemnized in our temples temple or in any other place in the territory one ease case has been reported in which the parties alleged that the marriage was wag performed in the endowment house in salt lake city in the spring of 1889 but I 1 hive not been able to learn who performed the ceremony whatever was done in this matter was without my knowledge in consequence of this alleged occurrence the endowment ent housa w was by my iny instructions taken down without delay inasmuch as laws have been enacted by congress fot forbidding bidding plural marriages which laws have been pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort I 1 hereby declare my intention to submit to those laws and to use my influence with the members of the church over which I 1 preside to have them do likewise there is nothing in my teachings to the church or in those of my associates d during u ri ng th the e ti time me apeci specified fl ed which can reasonably be construed trued to inculcate or encourage polygamy and when any elder of the church has used language which appeared to convey such teaching he has been promptly reproved cepro ved and I 1 now publicly declare that my advice to the latter day saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land WILFORD WOODRUFF president of the church of jesus christ of latter day saints |
