Show UTAH AFFAIRS THE mae bloomington ills bulletin of july ath coital contains us an interesting communication from salt lake city and signed will condon it starts out with same some remarks about affairs with which the writer could not be familiar as he claims to have resided only a year in the territory and in these he makes some mistakes having gained his information from liberal sources but in the main he shows himself a man of bf observation and sound judgment we W clip the following extracts from his letter touching on the everlasting polygamy question he says nothing can be charged to the dhe present daily practice trac practice tice of the church chur cli except were mere elief belief abstract conviction unless indeed there should be clandestine lan destine solemnization of polygamous marriages a condition which some Gen gentiles tilds suspect at any rate very few mormons cormons have been arrested for eute neutering ring the polygamous state during the past year this fact is frequently cited by the mormons cormons Mor mons and the court records corroborate their S statement tat ement we cannot ta take k e from the I 1 mormons the common presumption which the be courts give to murderers namely that until found guilty they are to be considered as innocent can not a mormon teach and believe in polygamy as an abstract article of faith not to be practiced just as freely as can the iowa saloonkeeper preach against the prohibition law and clamor for its repeal I 1 ask as this question merely to bolshow abow h how 0 w unjust unius and tand unwise in precedent was t the e bill offered by senator cullom in the Senate for the bo purpose of taking from the mormons cormons the right to vote merely because became they belong to an organization which teaches polygamy formerly as a practice but n now w as a mere doctrinal tenet lenet I 1 the cullom bill has been properly rejected in committee but several substitutes 4 u for it on largely the same plan p lan are pending if any bill dis franchising the mormons cormons indiscriminately is passed such a bill as a law would be disastrous to the commercial interests of utah as in this territory there are miny many mercantile and public enterprises in which both mormons cormons and yen u gentiles antiles tiles operate cooperate co harmoniously but which will be injured and tampered hampered by a disfranchisement bill which reduces the mormons cormons to a political degradation on a level with that of the savage red man not taxed and the leprous opium smoking chinese the mor mons anions will not associate in commercial union with ith men who will try to so degrade them A trampled worm will turn upon its tormentor in the spirit of resentment many of the mormons cormons are intelligent progressive and 1 I think sufficiently patriotic to make as good citizens as the anarchists of chicago and the venal dogs that sell their votes for money not only in the great cities of cf our land but even in bloomington that hub of culture the boston of illinois the mormons cormons are industrious honest law abiding as a rule and some of them would grace the finest parlors of new york or boston when a stran stranger gr arrives here he sees nothing to dis anguish ingui sh mormons cormons from gentiles all seem to hustle along and contributor contri buto their share in building up in these valleys a now new denver a city that will glisten like the n new w jerusalem encircled round about by limitless fields of grain and golu ondas of precious ore against the proc procrustean device of kullorn making all the same I 1 would quote the famous remark of edmund burke you cannot indict a whole people 1 the mor mons are not as good i in n many respects as they pretend to be nor are they as bad in many respects as the rest of the world believes and for this very reason they are pretty much like other people christendom points with horror at the polygamous life of the mohammedan and ancl the followers of the crescent point back at the drunkenness the marital infidelity and the polyandry of christendom 0 this is a free country but our freedom will be taken away gradually first from one denomination and then from another according to the caprice 4 and clamor of the hour unless we adhere closely to the traditions heretofore considered the bulwarks bulwa of the republic no matter what the supreme court said of the idaho test oath ex governor west ex confederate soldier sent here as governor from kentucky by grover cleveland is a democrat in favor avor of disfranchisement and yet he says utah has made marvelous progress during the past three years if so why not lot let good enough alone under the present working of the ed munds tucker law why try to aaeng old wrongs 0 after a residence of almost a year in utah during which period I 1 have seen considerable of the territory and its people I 1 must conclude by endorsing the opposition of william M springer to atie ane cullom and kindred bills which will do more harm barm in a day than good in a week |