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Show The Salt Lake Tribune UTAH CENTENNIAL 1896-1996 Sunday, January28, 1996 Matter of Time Before Utah Lost Waron Polygamy the federal government attacked Mormon polygamy with a vengeance, jailing womenas well as men in its relentless crusade to crush thepractice Electricity and telephones came to theterritory, railroads Our marriage systemdoes not exist in any otherpart ofthe United States. therefore it cannot be punishedthere as criminal. Commonbigamy and ‘Mormon’ plural marriage. as has been repeatedly demonstrated have nothing in common The law againstit was framedspecially to prohibit and punish areligious ordinance continued to make Utah the hub and was aimeddirectly andsolely against The Church of Jesus the Edmunds-Tucker Act. Christ of Latter-day Saints, as is well known. and not denied by any of the West. and Congress passed death blow to Mormon the plural marriageas a churchdoctrine Utah's growing pains were au- dible and visible Fort Cameron, the U.S. military post near Beaver, was closed and its buildings sold at auction. The post, having servedits primary functionas a place to hold JohnD. onebut sophists and quibblers,”’ So onceagain Utahandits ap- pointed officials were at logger- heads. and with each succeeding collision, the federal government added another weapontoits antipolygamy arsenal. It would only Lee during his trials and in the months beforehis ultimate execution in 1877, was deactivated and dismantled. The territory's population in be a matterof time beforethebattle became overwhelmingly sided; Utah and the LDS Church werecertain to bethe losers. Until that day, however, polygamists fought desperately to ward 1880, off the inevitable according to the census stood at 143,963 Eli Murray, theterritory’s 11th Meanwhile. progress, though plodding, was inexorable. Salt Lake Lake City streets. which had been City with his family in February lighted by oil lamps since November 1869, made the changeto gas. in June 1873, and in September 1880, the first electric lights blazed in the city When hydroelectric plants governor, arrived in Salt 1880, and by the fall of the year made his presence felt with a monumental thumpin the formof a report of conditions in Utah to the secretary of the interior in Washington In essence the governor decried the enactment of laws against polygamy without enforcement Murray, a Kentuckian who had joined the Union armyat 19 when the Civil War brokeout, left the service at the endof hostilities as a brigadier general. Now, as the City. Provo and Ogden, the Rocky Mountain Electric Light Co. gave way to Utah Power& Light Co In the general elections that year (1880), George Q. Cannon walloped Allan G, Campbell for Utah's congressional seat but Gov. Murray refused to issue an election certificate to Cannon, a the nation’s capital: some man in Kentucky andfollowed. Whenhis appointment was announced, the Deseret News smirkededitorially, “We trust his excellency will have something more than this [his manly good looks] to recommendhimto the position of governor. ‘Pretty men are not appreciated in the west But Murraysurprised the pub: lic by suggesting that existing polygamist Cannonprotested and left for Campbell picked uptheelection certificate Once in Washington, Cannon producedadeclaration of results of the election, which attested that he had received the greater number of votes, and the chief gate After a year of bickering and acrimonious debate in and out of anti-polygamylaws shouldeither Congress, the House of Represen- tatives denied Cannon and Campbell and declared the delegate’s 0nW TAYLON seonae gc Tobe Paidfor the Arrestof Jobr ‘aylor ad Goorge @, Cannon i¥LOR, George Q. Cannon, $500 will be paid for Cannon alone, and $300 for Taylor. Ait Canterenens a? Laltars hopt wirewxere! S$. H. CILSON, 22 and 23 waasich Buidng, belt babe Ch fam Lon ny, dam, 9, 1887, LDS Church Photo Archives LDS Church leaders found themselves on wanted posters in anti-polygamy crusade that would forever stifle the re. maining “relic of barbarism From this distance in time and in light of the 1990s attitude toward “consenting adults.” the scribed by scribed Mormon polygamy as a editorial comment. Whenhede- 10 years Without a voiceon thefloor of practice punished as criminal in Congressin the early part of the everypartofthe republic, but one that “flourishes unchecked in Utah,” the Deseret News snapped decade, Utahns could only watch as those who wouldcrush polygamylaboredto fashionlegislation - 100 years ago, this was how you piptected money: ‘Today, Home Credit Bank | offers the highest return in Utah | on FDIC insured certificates. Home CREDIT culiar institution,” as it was de- spired such hatred during the tence that it seriously occupied armies andpresidents ofthe United States Not all individuals viewed the matter with the biting good humorof Mark Twain. who recalled in Roughing It ! 9 Member 487-0811 FDIC A women My heart was wiser than my head. It warmed toward these poor ungainly and pathetically homely” creatures, and as I turnedto hidethe generous mois ture in myeyes, I said, “No — the man that marries one ofthem has done an act of Christian charity whichentitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their harsh censure — and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deedof open-handedgen erosity so sublime that the na tions should stand uncovered in his presence and worship in si lence The Edmundsbill, introduced by Sen. George F, Edmunds of Vermont, was an amendment to the anti-bigamy law of 1862 andit five years in prison, or both Edmunds’ amendment went further. It excluded polygamists or those engaging in unlawful cohabitation from jury duty and madeit sufficient causefor chal- lenge to any juror who believed in ; ANAS £20azay ee youll polygamy Polygamists also were denied voting rights through an oath administered by registration officers and were denied the privilege of holding elected office Asaresult of the Edmundslaw. anywhere from 12,000 to 14,000 polygamous Mormons — citizens of Utah — weredisenfranchised The U.S. SupremeCourt in Oc- tober 1884, declared such atest oath null and void Mormonauthorities, however, believed the real motive of this anti-polygamy narshal AndrewBurt was shot to death in downtown Salt Lake City, an angry mob hangedthe perpetrator fromastable rafter at the e of the city jail on Aug. 25 1883. The Salt Lake Tribune lamented crusade was the political control of Utah on the part of the “‘crusaders,’”’ and that polygamy was the smokescreen used to “hide the brutal villainy and outrageous hypocrisy of the wholeinfamousplot Life in Utah otherwise was as nearly routine as it could be under the circumstances. John Taylor had succeeded to the presidency of the LDS Church upon the death of Brigham Young and in 1882 had movedinto a newly renovated Gardo House. Because churchauthorities felt their president should havea residence befitting his position, they invested $15,000 in completing the Gardo House andfurnishing it to his tastes. Taylor was not to enjoy his newdigs forlong, since the Edmundsbill kept him one step ahead of federal marshals. He and apostle Cannon decided to “visit” southern Utah Liberty Park was officially opened to the public in balmy May Western railroad completed its link between Salt Lake City and Denver that March. Andthe notorious desperado WilliamA. Hickman died in bed near Lander, Wyo., on Aug. 21 Whenpolice captain and city '82; but the winter that fol- lowedwasnasty. Those who could find a thermometer on Jan. 19. 1883, discovered the mercury at It was done underthe noon day sun andinthe shadow of the temple of the Saints. We do not believe that there hasbeen a parallel to the case in history. Mobs have hung men repeatedly, but neverbefore that we remember of havethe policemen whohadthis prisoner in charge, first beaten himinto half insensibility; and then turned himoverto the mob. This is not a question betwen MormonandGentile; it is onein which the good name of the city government is at stake. Had the samething happened in theoffice of the U.S. Marshal, we would demand the Marshal's instant dismissal andthat of his deputies. Now, in the name ofthe law which was yesterday so cowardly insulted by officers sworn to upholdit, wecall uponthecity authorities to vindicate their claim and the claim of their people that they are a law-abiding people and that they stand ready to punish unfaithfulness on the part of those in whomthey reposeofficial trust. 35 below! The Denver and Rio Grande @ See POLYGAMY, Page P-4 We Were Selling Grands When Utah Was Just A Baby! BABY GRANDS AS Lowy $6,500 0. State 6-17629 WEST'S OLDEST MUSIC STORE Enjoy our... * Hometown. Goodness 1455 East 2100 South here — until I saw the Mormon half-century of its official exis: Cannonandtofill his unexpired tion Caine wouldholdforthe next I was guilty of polygamy Thepenalty was a $500 fine and try turned over to the LDS Church Murray's plea had the expected effect of provoking newspaper the workings of polygamy non-Mormons, in- venom spewed toward the phe. nomenon of Mormon polygamy is difficult to understand. This “pe- term as well as the full term for the 48th Congress. It was a posi- therefore we had no time to make the customary inquisition into defined polygamy as a crime: Every person who had a husbandor wife living, who thereafter married another, and any manwhosimultaneously. or on the sameday married more than one woman seat vacant Finally, in October 1883, John T. Caine was elected to succeed fromthe territory and the coun- Our stay in Salt Lake City amounted to only two days, and had the will to do it. With the gushing self-sufficiency of youth Twas feverish to plunge in head: long and achieve great reform clerk of Congress entered the Mormon’s name as Utah’s dele- bestrictly enforced or repealed With repeal, he said, officers of the United States should be recalled, non-Mormons removed sr Mormon apostle George Q. Cannon, center back, with fellow polygamists imprisoned at the old Utah Penitentiary in Sugar House. went into operation in Salt Lake newchief executive of Utah, he had already aroused somesnickering animosity because of his reputation as the “most hand- 2 Utah becameindustrialized and peevishly cu Harold Schindler rail ! By THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE In the decade of the 1880s see @et188b “Owned *Warmth .& PeHospitality r eeel Atmosphere DAYNES MUSIC 566-6090 4 |
