| Show THE MORMON SITUATION THE chicago times of nov ath contains a long letter from salt lake city in which the mormon situation is carefully and fairly discussed it embodies the substance of an interview with president woodruff and is of sufficient interest to our readers to reproduce following is the full text with the exception of such quotations as need not be copied as the discourses from which they are taken have appeared entire in the columns of the deseret NEWS the times letter is as follows salt lake city utah nov 6 5 we have had a mouth month of no polygamy that is to say a month has passed since the president of the mormon church proclaimed procla imel the practice which had been indulged for half a century and since the masses of the church in general conference assembled unanimously indorsed endorsed indor sed and approved the decree thereby making it binding upon all members your correspondent was here before the inhibition and has bas been here all the time since and he can observe no real difference between the conduct of the people now and what it was previous to the forbidding revelation proclamation or whatever else it may be called As a matter of fact there has been no polygamy here for two or three years past or if there has been any the partle partie have been so careful and so successful in their efforts to keep the knowledge of their guilt from the public that nobody has been able to discover the truth I 1 mean by this not that there have been no polygamists lyga mists here and not that they g ve have discontinued association with their plural wives for this would lie be untrue as the records of the court will demonstrate and the pleas of guilty establish but there have been no polygamous marriages within the p period named po eo far as vigilant eager and active marshals and active prosecutors have been able to discover and secrets secrete of this kind are more difficult to hide in this community than elsewhere for outside of two or three cities the people live in small towns and villages or on farms and everybody knows everybody and everybody affairs there has been just one arrest for polygamy in three years in that ewe case the woman went upon the stand and swore that she was married in the endowment house in this city but by wh the ceremony was performed a she e did not know the affair created a sensation in both gentile awl and mor mou mon circles for all had understood that the endowment house bouse had been closed fur for ye years irs and that no marriages or other ceremonies were performed there president woodruff and other church officials who would ordinarily and as the public thought necessarily have known of such an event emphatically denied all knowledge of the marriage and ex expressed greater astonishment than others it was evident that if any such marriage had been celebrated the people who were generally supposed to be co guizan of such events and whose permission was believed to be essential to them were ignorant of the facts and were annoyed by the circumstance they did not propose that another illegal union should be celebrated without their knowledge for they at once caused the endowment house to be demolished nd the th old adobe structure which has stood on the corner of the temple squa aqua e for a third of a century the object of so much awe to the saints and so much mystery to the sinners was razed without ceremony or regret As remarked that was the only polygamous marriage which became public during tyree three years or longer and it warrants the statement that polygamy was practically discontinued long ago hence the late decree was simply an official and popular confession and approval of what had bad already been done so far as the actual fact face was concerned today things are moving along as ot of old I 1 can observe no change in the conduct or sentiments of the people except that in conversing with individual mormons cormons they express a sense of relief for years they have lived under a strain and tb this is applies to both polygamists and monogamists the latter suffering more or less with the former all now feel that the pressure has been lifted that the strain has been broken the mormons cormons as a community and as individuals standing squarely before their fellows and before the law with nothing to hide and without a secret incentive to band together in resistance to the whole of mankind this sense of relief Is manifest in the iu individual members and has shown itself in the community and it is noted with pleasure by the conservative resident gentiles who have for commercial and other reasons long been een wishing for the coming of greater harmony when the people could live and feel like communities elsewhere when the gentile would not feel that he could prove his loyalty only by despising auk and opposing the mormons cormons Mor mons and the mormon would not consider it necessary to esteem all who were not his brethren as ene enemies inies to him and church the anti poleg amy decree has furnished the non fanatic gentiles with a reasonable excuse for softening sott euing ening in their sentiments toward the saints and for extending to the latter a hand sug cestive of social and political friendship and the cormons mormons are manifesting fe a disposition to meet these advances halfway half way it is predicted that in a little while the utah community will not be so radically unlike all other american communities as it has been and that while mormons cormons will cling to their religion will be pious and prayerful and will live as they have lived with the exception of their polygamous practices they will not be as outcasts by other people A day or two ago I 1 called upon president woodruff with the view to an interview on the subject which is uppermost in the minds of an all here and is exciting so much comment in the press of the country the rhe old gentleman received me cor dial bially ly and after presenting me to the dignitaries by whom he was surrounded in his cozy office at the gardo house the official residence of the president of the church inquired what he could do for me president woodruff is one of the most moat agreeable of men he is in his eighty fourth year but the iron constitution which his parents gave him film in connecticut and the out door life which ue he has led have stood him in such good hand that he is truly as active as the average man of 60 nor is he be older than this in ap bearance pe arance there is no good reason why he should not round out a hundred years unless it be that cooping cooking him up in an office where he can not get the sweet pure air and where he be must work with his brain instead of his body will out cut his bis days short until late years when he wat wa called to the church councils and later when he assumed the presidency of the organization he was a farmer and not a fancy theoretical scientific one either he dug his living from the soil and men tell me that they nave have seen him wrestling with the plow day after day swinging the cradle before the day of reapers readers and binders and running his scythe through his splendid meadow just shuib of this city they also tell me that in those days he was no BO more particular and extravagant in the matters of personal appearance and drear than are the connecticut farmers of this age who are economists from necessity but president delat wood 1 ruff lo is now well to do if not rich his city lots and farming land which be used to till and cultivate with varying success have increased wonderfully in value within I 1 the last few years making him independent of physical work it is also assumed that he receives a fair salary as president of the church although the church is not in a condition to be generous with its officials since the government confiscated all its productive property to the extent of or actual value today president woodruff dresses in black and a tailor instead of his bis wife faa fashions blons his clothes he is neatly barbered has red cheeks showing that the iron continues in his blood and he gives one the impression of a farmer who realized that he had enough ot of this worlds r goods odland and should take life easy but idt id t know exactly how to do it 11 imagine that he be would ajaj enjoy oy guiding a plow through one of his fields bild and that the odor from the rich i sweet soil would be mosie agreeable and appetizing when I 1 stated my business aud and informed the venerable president that the tunes would be glad to give his views on what had recently taken place he asked what do they want me to say anything that you want to say president VV ruff the times has always been fair in its treatment of the mormons cormons Mor mons it has ever manifested an intelligent interest in the s problem which presented itself here has discussed what has been done understandingly andt and now that a aae nev v phase has been put upon the mormon question the times wants to lot let its readers know all about it and it comes direct to headquarters for its information PY I 1 went on to assure him that anything he might desire to say would be published just as he said it and that at least one great newspaper in the united states had the courage to print the exact words of the mormon president rhe fhe old gentleman was not ignorant of the times fairness in the past nor was he unappreciative of it but president woodruff want to be interviewed on the subject jentof of the recent manifesto insisting that there was nothing to be said the thing had been done the decree hall haj gone forth the people hai ha 1 accepted and approved and that ended the matter there was nothing to discuss no do probabilities to ako take into account no possibilities to considered I 1 suggested that some public men mein and not a few newspapers doubted tb the sincerity of the manifesto 1 I know it said he be but can toot help it the world has always distrusted us but has always found us true it has said laid we were not honest bonest though it has never been able to point to a dishonest act on our part it has denied our sincerity and has never intimated an instance of insincerity if edito dito s and statesmen will not believe the manifesto which was adopted by the body of the church in solemn confert conference nee they will not believe what I 1 or any individual here may say I 1 presume that in thim matter us as in other things we will have to trust to time for our vindication we know that we are honest and sincere in this as we have been in everything we have done and while we are sorry that others do not trust us tie in time they all acknowledge that wo we were never deceiving your correspondent did not doubt the ven veneable emble presidents sincerity nor does he doubt that polygamous marriages have come to an end the decree will be obeyed indeed it c inott be disobeyed as I 1 understand it except the authority be given or the manifesto be nullified by the presidency of there is no likelihood of this be ing done I 1 questioned the president as to what had bad brought about this action and he replied that he could not make the matter clearer than had been done in the great tabernacle when the conference had voted on the manifesto which had bad been previously issued by him and nd he handed me printed verbatim reports of what he and george Q cannon who is second in authority said on that occasion at the risk of being prolix I 1 will quote from these sermons or statements which are both authoritative and explanatory here are annexed copious extracts from the discourses of president george Q cannon and president wilford woodruff at t the general conference the letter concludes in this way and now president woodruff f I 1 asked what will be the policy of the church or what will be your advice as to the men who are a already in polygamy the venerable patriarch said that he know kitow that the church would have any policy in this mat ter or that he would assume to give any advice that matter was indi vidual and aad he presumed that each person would decide for himself as to what he would do the president went on to say that he thought it would be humane and just if congress were to make a law by which husbands and fathers could care for their plural wives and properly look after and train their children without running the risk of being sent to the penitentiary on the charge of unlawful cohabitation however this was a matter for others tj t consider and not for him and he care to talk about it his manifesto went only to the matter of future polygamous marriages it stopped these but did not dot say that a man already in that relation mation should turn adrift and abandon his extra families nor did it command him to live with those families in defiance of law until the penitentiary separated them my own opinion is that in the cases of all ail but a few of the poleg a mists amista who have not yet been caught and convicted the parties when arraigned will signify their willingness to discontinue the unlawful relations and to abide by the sta statutes tuter not many will abandon their plural wives in the sense of casting them off to do for themselves they will continue to care for the women but bat will wiil not live with them polygamy to is a thing of the past it is dead and I 1 cannot believe that any attempt will ever be made to revive it of course there will be polygamists in a technical sense until this genera generation tiou has passed away for while men and their plural plum wives may not live together they will continue to the end of their days polygamous hus bands and wives in name but the country need not fear other polygamous marriages among the mor mons than those already existing and which will gradually decrease in number my knowledge of the mormon people leads me to this conclusion cl and the conversation with president woodruff here detailed me in the opinion |
