Show ADMISSION QUESTION the effects of judge jere M wilsons Wll Wil sons argument have been very beneficial to the cause of utah and if the opposition do not very much regret coming here and provoking this controversy it is because they are insincere in their hostility or are very insensitive to the smart of utter defeat the ground they assumed has been literally swept from under their feet and the committee before whom they appeared were at the close of the hearing as thoroughly convinced as men could be of two very important things first that utah is full fully entitled to admission into the buffon union as a state second that most of what was allega alleged against her application was false and the rest of it inapplicable judge wilson after a few prefatory remarks drew attention to the nature and makeup make up of the opposition he has a slim flere figure not above the medium height and a well formed head with abundant greyish grayish light hair loose loosely eat combed back from a lofty fareh forehead prominent features a clear incisive voice and a very impressive deliberate manner yet sharp and vigorous when arouse dand a quiet humor which he ex expresses somewhat atter after the style of th the late artemus ward he made passing allusion to the delegate from idaho and then spoke of the different positions assumed here by governor west and said I 1 1 I may be permitted I 1 trust to remark without offense for none is intended that governor west appears in his dual capacity he is so to speak doctor J jekyll ek 11 when he be is in utah discharging his is executive duties as a governor but when he lays aside his official robes and the duties of the executive of that territory are left in the hands of the secretary who is now governor and comes here I 1 will not say because that might be offensive that he is mr hyde but I 1 will say that he is here not as governor but as a citizen alone and his utterances here as a citizen have precisely the same weight that those of any other citizen would have who has only had his opportunities to inform himself in respect of the situation in utah pause right here gentlemen of t the e committee to say that when the governor assures you that he believes that if the mormon church would command the fathers and mothers of utah to sacrifice their first born they would obey that command I 1 think it throws a great deal of light upon the question as to how much credit is to be given to the views opinions and statements of feet fact that are made aae by the gentleman who makes that assertion in your presence the speaker then touched on 1 public ab opinion and its small value w when misinformed as to the facts and paid his respects to the idaho ae legislature and the test oath which he fully exposed by simply citing its anti mormon clauses and then related the particulars of the expulsion of mr lamoreaux ju amoreaux because it ft was alleged that mor mons who had left the church had J voted for him he was interrupted by mr dubois who had the hardi hood to say that the church dissolved these members without any request frow from t the members themselves s mr wilson replied certificates filed with tion officers show that these people 41 sent in their resignations as church members and they were endorsed J by the bishop as accepted he ele then quoted from governor steven sons report to show the excellent y character of the mormon peopled people and added if you doubt what I 1 have said sad here heie and if un americanism anti republicanism and a scheme or of system that is ia antagonistic to re pub publican 1 can government is to weigh Z wi with th you when you come to con 1 erasto sid sider as to the admission of a term ira I 1 res respectfully u au submit that 1 you might well inquire when 4 rj idaho comes to be an applicant for admission whether the methods of government that prevail in that A territory are not too un american y and anti republican to justify you in admitting her to the sisterhood of f states yand I 1 further most respectfully v submit that with a record like th thial T 17 k a memorial from that law defying s 91 A 4 as well as lawmaking law making body may be received with some scruples I 1 and nd f that it is unbecoming in idaho ta t 4 come here in the nature of a p pro ro aff against the admission a dinis sion of utah if such performances SO as r these could have been brought against utah these gentlemen would have set the wild echoes flying the judge then showed tho the J nature of the opposition in utah and read some editorials from the anti mormon ring organ at salt lake in which it brutally denounced the democrats in con grees ess who dared to move in favor of butah utah he remarked when they write that kind of stuff of such men that are named here what think you they would do if some business man of utah although he conscientiously believed that the true interests of tha that territory demanded statch statehood sa said id so go what would they not say OIL of t him does he not know just what they would say of him and does doea he not know that he would be izee does he not know that no limit would be placed upon the abuse and obloquy that would be heaped upon him he ne next x t took to ok u up the governors governor 0 attempt to explain explain the error ina in to which he be fell in regard to Z C af 4 I 1 as exposed by mr richards 8 ana nd showed how the governor had chereb thereby Y made matters worse for him self he e completely upset mr baskins effort to prove that the mormon church today regulated by revelation every persons person wk ness affairs and showed that ahat aaa baskin pretend pretender ei to quote bote related w to affairs more than half a ce ago referring to the facts ana figures presented here in fa favor 0 r of 0 utah he showed that none of theol was disputed mr ferry horev however er had stated that the public schools in utah were controlled by tho the glorch 11 in reply to this judge wil son said 1 I was surprised that a gentleman w of his bis obvious intelligence should state we this they are under the con S 01 of the e church in n such sense as abe to schools are under the control of the s church anywhere else where the w adherents of a particular church the preponderance of the peo ale I 1 that these schools are under the atrol of the church in any other or way I 1 utterly deny and 1 I y that any religious creed is aught in them he does not even that it is they hey are essentially and em public schools open to the fedren of all does mr ferry oy that they axe are thus open no lie ue admits that they are he comins ins that he pays taxes but dont sw lot the benefit of the schools he lys t ai taxes just as other people pay Z 4 Es and if he dont get the bene ft of w the schools it is only because he 4 wW tsee see fit to avail himself of S and this same thing is hap N ng 39 as we all know in localities eai ete it cannot be attributed to or monism again he says that they hold re bous g IOU 8 services in their school houses ses that reminded me of my fai chood d days in a locality not as ar off as utah where every sun the schoolhouse schoolhouse school louse house did duty as a ch zd and it never entered the id of any one that there was waa any ty in using it for religious ices jaoes nor did any one ever sus aft c that if a particular u n preponderated that fact made the ue schools that were taught there ay y the less public alic schools or evi the ced that t they y were controlled by ch church happened to be the ng 9 church there ake judge mcbrides Mc Brides references to the aae troubles in ohio and missouri were next handled without gloves aia the speaker remarked tile th judge evidently is of the 14 i 08 intensely orthodox school for he gauld would if he ee could visit the in besof 01 the fathers upon the ebil chil C e nto the latest generation u ani he gravely tells you that thirty y years or more ago the mor of 0 that at day were in open res an against the united states thal d that at that is an evidence that these pa of have fobs people today no sym gy pathy with the government he the wa that in this presence forgetting yago dreadful history of twenty five of forgetting that the policy tho this 1 government jovern ment has been just tn w D averse berse of the one he desires you adopt a policy of oblivion a policy sass pa OF trust a policy that has rean 4 great 1131 sentiment and dyni sympathy athy B people and must ever be be re fe dat a victory of peace mr fo bably ar y kinder grander than any achieved their thuei sections objections as theme these assert 41 se ovill 0 unworthiness but they useful and useful only in that they y show to what trivial and trans antly inconsequential things our 51 are driven to resort as an cl wt StI objections what I 1 understand to be their COU down dow n to the only real question at issue judge wilson analyzed the e polygamy 0 objection e on an and the 11 figures res in the re reports As of the utah commission and the attorney generals generans Gene raPs report of convictions under the edmunds act and argued now if it appeared that 1 per cent or 2 per cent of the adult population in the course of a period of three years had been guilty of even rape arson or murder you would not treat as outlaws and as being unworthy of political association 98 per cent of good law abiding people because 2 per cent were guilty of crimes if the cities of the plain could have shown ten I 1 just persons they would have been spared and lovs lots wife would not have become a pillar of salt nat the learned judge enlarged upon this subject at considerable length showing that there had been only ten convictions in three years for polygamy the others were for unlawful cohabitation cohabitation and after replying to several questions said polygamy is a crime denounced by the statute and you say it is an offense against morals be it so then we have it that there is a community of people splendidly equipped for state government 2 per cent of of them have committed or if you will have it so are committing today that offense against law and morals I 1 think I 1 can safely say that not one of you would entertain for a moment the thought of excluding such a community for an opinion you might exclude a community for prevalence re valence of crime but not for op opinion illon 11 mr baker I 1 believe you make out cases of indictment in about three years mr wilson between four and five hundred convictions mr symes that is very nearly cases a year there is only one district attorney now how many any cases do you think a district district attorney could try and get an indictment for mr aft richards he had three or four assistants there are four places for holding district courts mr symes well that changes it mr mansur in the whole indian territory up to oklahoma occupied by civilized tribes and including less than white peo people ale in no mans land which is part A of the contemplated oklahoma there ere were murders last year how would that compare with utah mr wilson I 1 think it is a worse state of affairs than you can find in utah unless you make polygamy worse than murder the governor here thought he would show his gubernatorial smartness and this to is how he succeeded governor west wed let me ask you is it not a fact in the submission of this question that there were thirty live five thousand people of an age to go into polygamy and is it not a fact that in the submission of this there were ere only thirteen thousand who were were for it would not that leave a balance of twenty two thousand against against 1 it mr r W wilson n I 1 say no it is no evidence at all on the subject we are constantly having our atten attention tiou called to the fact that in in some of the districts members are sent here by a very few votes the voters are there but do not vote it is no uncommon thing to have it said mid to a member of congress on the floor Why sir you ou are elected by only a handful olmen of men a few thousand votes and I 1 represent a constituency who vote or strong now the answer to it is very well but that indicates nothing there was nothing that called upon the people to come out you gentlemen who are resisting would not vote on the subject and there being no opposition the fact that only voted signifies nothing your argument goes too far for yourself for if no gentile voted against then no gentiles were opposed to it on your theory of political mathematics mr mansur it was stated yesterday in the house that only voted for south dakota and that voted last fall mr wilson I 1 could give numerous instances of a like character and I 1 say that there is nothing in Governors the suggestion that would have any weight whatever in my mind whatever it might have in the minds of others on this part of the question the judge maintained that when analyzed in the light of existing facts if rejection should ensue it would be rejection solely for opinion turn this about as you will reason about it from any and every standpoint you are brought invariably and inevitably evit ably to the position as a bottom fact that rejection if it occurs must rest upon the religious belief of these people and not upon actual guilt upon the sin of wrong belief aud and not the sin of wrong doing an adjournment took place before the judge could finish his argument on reopening opening re he summarized some of his preceding remarks and then took up Mr Baskins quotation dodges he said 1 I know from what has happened here that this committee commA is much better informed upon some things than I 1 am therefore if I 1 make a mistake you please correct me if I 1 rightly remember judas iscariot after selling his master for thirty pieces of silver went out and hanged himself an able bodied divine it is said read that and then skipped over a few hundred pages more or less and solemnly read go thou and do likewise it is said that another muscular divine on one occasion took as his text the wicked flee when no man fursueth purs but the righteous is bold as a lion this divine whose orthography was somewhat defective supposed that that word spelled 1 flee f l 1 e e ll 11 did not Te represent present a go as you please lease but that it did represent that ague agile little animal that makes you swear and then like a coward skips spelled shelled fa flea f l e a and so he read it to his astonished toni shed hearers the wicked flea when no man fursueth purs but the j righteous Is bold as a lion and that is the way with my brother baskin when he is dealing with the mormon revelation on marriage he reads the first five paragraphs then leaps into the air passes over all the homes and elephants turns himself three or four times in the transit alights with both feet upon paragraphs 61 62 and 63 and bows gracefully to his audience then he holds up his hands in holy horror and assures you that in these paragraphs be he has found polygamy commanded and blood atonement whoever will carefully analyze that production will find that it is in part to joseph smith only and in part to others that it relates to celestial marriage marr lage in one part and to polygamy a different matter in another that celestial marriage which is defined to be the marriage of a man and a wife for all eternity is mandatory upon all who desire to obtain the highest glory nam elythe celestial that the marriage of other wives is permissive under given conditions that there is no command in it to any one to enter into plural marriage but joseph smith himself lum self and no judgment pronounced upon any woman who refuses to join her husband in this matter but the wife nafe of the head of the church and that this judgment is to be executed by the lord himself and not by any man or church injustice to the people I 1 represent I 1 cannot pass by in silence what mr baskin said in this connection about blood atonement he manifestly or I 1 wholly misunderstood der stood him undertook to impress upon u I 1 this committee com |