| Show THE NEW EDMUNDS BILL vigorous speech against its pas sage unprecedented in the senate of the united states on january ath senator morgan made tile the following final speech on the passage of i the edmunds bill mr morgan mor an mr prest president d en t t the h e friends of zia tm measure seem deter aeter mined to pass it in its present shape yielding nothing to the opinions oi of others atio have not had tae bunty to study it which of course they have had llad 1 bave eatn oc abion liucc jue we the bill has beau under discussion to ask aak some questions ouy for information about its meaning purpose ac sume some of these questions qu ealious have beun been answered by one member of the committee tile the 0 others t ers not participating in the debate but shall hall take it for the opinion of every member ut 0 tle the committee who has not voted to the contrary on the call of the yeas and nays I 1 one ques ion I 1 have asked which the senator from vermont said he would answer before retook betook he took his seat I 1 ad diessel that chat question also to my colleague and siso to the senator from roxas it aas who it is on the committee on the judiciary and that was what do you expect to pay these trustees why do we send this bill out of the senate for fourteen trustees to perform the novel aud and important duties that we imposed on this body ot of men iu in the anent jentof of the mormon ai church u ach its pi ciup ap erty its income dad and questions quest ious relating to its missions tile the chuick shall direct its I 1 funds to be applied to missionary operations or not do we select fourteen men to exercise these peculiar functions and in the bill say nothing about paying baem p provide r ide no salary ve we put them under bonds they axe are required to give bonded security I 1 suppose payable to the church it does not say so they are required to make reports annually or oftener to the government ern ment they abuy are required to take in trus trust and in charge all ail the property as I 1 understand it of every kind deter acter of this corporation we are informed that that property amounts in personal estate esmati one way and another to perhaps several million dollars and to a large amount in real estate andyes and yet the senate of the united states tor for some reason whick no senator has deigned exen even to allude to has remained entirely silent as to what compensation if any these trustees or commissioners are to have now sir air I 1 do not want to send fourteen men out there to loot the mormon church and come back with a hamper full of money they have taken from it which they say bay the mormon hierarch hierarchy ay iy are disposed to misappropriate tor for the encouragement of polygamy and then ask us to divide it out and give them us as much of it as we think they are entitled to for their activity and their zeal and their skill in getting this money into their hands they have the right to receive money they are not naked trustees the money in their theil possession poss is ia charged with certain uses to which they must apply it unless in their opinion they should come to the conclusion that the uses to which they are directed to apply it may be in violation of some statute of the united states or may be possibly in an encouragement to and promotion of polygamy being thus in possession of this large fund having to account for it under a bond the senate of the united states makes no BO provision at all hints at no provision for their compensation but leaves to them the unfortunate temptation of derivi deriving ug from this church and this people all the money that they can in tile the hope and expectation that when they get back from this raid upon this church congress will be disposed to compensate th them em liberally for their services sir I 1 undertake to affirm that no set of officers have ever been created with such important trusts and duties no set of banded officers with a fixed tenure of niile 0 o have been created by any act of coutress Cuu Cou gress without some provision being made at least that they should be compensated if in any act of congress the amount of compensation has been left indefinite there has been still an expression that these officers were to receive compensation for their services in what attitude do we place ourselves before the world by sending forth these trustees into the body of a society which they call a church and in which they pro propose ose to direct religious worship re religious ti ivious sacraments and ng them out there under bond giving them a two years tenure of office and making no mention of the fact that they are to have compensation the world will say you intend to put your agents imo that church for the purpose of looting it you intend to put your agents there without instructions as to their anthonty or their line of conduct without definition really of their po pow ers era for the purpose of making schism and in mischief in the body of of the church and upon this mischief and schism arising you the majority 14 against 18 eau can take the money into your own hands and bring it back to congress and ask how bow shall we divide it I 1 do not want to be put in that condition there is 18 no occasion for the senate of the united states to put itself in that condition we ought to have said these commissioners or t these hese trustees shall have 1000 a year or a year or as in the case of the commissioners in utah that they should have V a year or we ought to have said in the bill they shall have no compensation this is not a fair and legitimate way of legislating with respect to any community whatsoever and this curious original abnormal manner of legislation will bring reproach upon this body bv the enactment of the law in that s shape ape the world will put to us the question why is it that you are afraid to speak your mind in respect reaped to the compensation that these men shall have or upon the question whether they alia shall ai have any compensation at all why do you leave it to an ampro pria tion committee hereafter to advise in advance of their appointment or after afier they have done thair work whether they shall have any compensation or what their compensation shall be T r heard of a bill creating officers in this country of great trust and responsibility bonded officers bersi in which the congress was afraid to say whether it would pay them anything or not mr president there a dangerous look in this style of legislation there is som something somei elbing hing that br brings 1 ng 8 upon the co congress 11 of the united states unnecessary suspicion in regard to it indeed this committee in submitting this bill to the senate in this form has attempted to legislate to point no point they have attempted to legislate to get a result without stating the means b by which the result is to be ob obtained they thay have not ventured to express the even whether that act of tar tap territorial legislature of utah Is still in existence they leave th thir lir chairman without an expression on this subject to state his own individual opinion heie is a legal organization remaining there in the face beof of anace an act of congress of 1862 which repeals it no member of the committee arises for the purpose of taking issue with the honorable chairman no member arises to indorse his opinion and we are left here by the leading judicial committee of this body to in inference fience to conjecture to guessing as to what the state of the law is on this question and when I 1 offer an amendment which shows what the state of the law ought to be that this corporation no longer exists I 1 am met by the proposition the gentleman op opposes sea the twelfth section of the bill anso and the president of the church would do the same thing 11 that is the answer which is made to me when I 1 ask the committee on the judiciary to state what the law is the reply is the senator from alabama takes the same ground on this measure that the president of the church would take ah mr president I 1 am not to be deterred from the expression of my opinion humble bumble as it may be by an allusion of that character would would the president of this church be less alarmed or more alarmed at a measure which would take down that legal structure which upholds all of his au authority thorit y than he be would at a measure which interjects a governing power along with his power and the power of his trustees and the management of it upon the hypothesis that the corporation still exists and retains its power which would alarm him the more to see the house tumbling about his head absolutely demolished as it was in 1862 by an act of congress or to see it maintained by an act of congress that we enact today to day and merely occupied by a board ol of unpaid trustees in conjunction with his trustees thirteen cormons mormons compose the mormon side of that board fourteen gentiles I 1 suppose will compose the gentile side or of the board r our men go there and they sit two years so far as this bill gives us any information on the subject without compensation Z how easy would it be for them to IQ find perhaps one man unfaithful to the views of the honorable senator from vermont who would accept a few thousand dollars to vote with the minority in that board and conduct that business precisely ly as the president of that church and that heir archy might require you put an ui unpaid and unsalaried set of trustees on a bond payable to the church and not to us into that organization for the purpose of conducting its temporal affairs and with milf millions lons of money at their control and without conscience chev corn come e and slip some of their loot and ana their bribe into the pocket of one trustee which cari can ies the atie majority on the other side of the question and the church has its way it is merely an opening for the purpose of getting men in there upon the idea that they will produce achis schisms m 8 and dissensions in a egal body of th that at church and yet we expose them to the temptation which the mormons cormons can bring about them to divert them so that mormonism will be encouraged by this act and sanctioned by th the e adlof aci ot congress ra her than discouraged discourage ed and broken down that Is thy the shape in which this bill is left did it ever occur to the honorable senator from vermont or any other member of the committe committees ee that these fourteen gnp unpaid s id trustees that they aney put into into this abis board boar d might possibly accept a stipend from the head of that church to go not in the direction that the honorable senator from vermont would have them go but right to the reverse and to make the instrumentality ot of the law which we create here the power by which the chuich will be sustained and promoted e d even in its effort to establish and p propagate rop agate polygamy sir such unwise legislation as this does not deserve toe the sanction of a senators vote and I 1 can noi DOL give it if I 1 T have ive proven on this floor my determination to as far as ruy my power extends to strike this chuich root ani branch until afterward there snail be nothing left of it but a name and an unholy i memory I 1 am met by the proposition to keep the thing up to hold it up and let it woi k and and to put fourteen trustees in ia there subject to tiie power of money tu assist the in running I 1 it t now which is the better proposition I 1 dare say the president of the chu church ach would select the apropo proportion of the senator from froin vermont a thou thousand and times before tie lie would select mine lie iiri would taked take hid chances his fourteen laust lau gis though ahey might b continued confirm cd by tile the senate much in pro pre ference to taking his chances with a court upon the pow r of on press to dissolve and annul annal and dissipate that corpo corporation ratin I 1 shall therefore vote against this bill |
