OCR Text |
Show GET AT THE REAL WRONG. We hope that when the Smoot investigation committee once more gets to work it will keep in mind the really important count in the indictment indict-ment against Mr. Smoot. It is not polygamy. Many polygamists in Utah are living with their families precisely as, they did prior to 1890, and there have been sporadic plural marriages, under one form or another, solemnized since that date, but, nevertheless, polygamy is a doomed institu- tion in our country. Not very many years will pass until it will cease to exist. We do not he- -, Heve that in forty years there have been, at conference, con-ference, forty hands upraised to negative any proposition submitted by the ruling priests, but notwithstanding this perfect discipline, those priests would not dare re-submit to that body a proposition to resume polygamous marriages. It would be snowed under by an overwhelming vote. It would not be through fear of legal consequences conse-quences either. It would be because both the manhood and womanhood of Utah has so advanced ad-vanced that neither sex would listen to it. We know there are still a good many Mormon men and women who would consent to it, that .some priests still in secret advocate it, but Mormon public sentiment will never again sanction It. The thought has penetrated their souls that it is a dishonor to honest wifehood, and that men cannot can-not dishonor women without they, themselves, being dishonored. , But the Church still holds its rule over the political acts and votes of the people, and the wrong in ApoBtle's Smoot's case is that when he aspired to the Senate he did not do it on his werits as a man, not on account of eminent services, serv-ices, performed, but because he knew that, being a candidate with the consent of the First Presidency, Presi-dency, his apostleship would insure him the place. By that act he practically disfranchised every man who opposed him; that is, made their votes no avail. More, he knew he was-helping to dishonor the Constitution of the United States by subordinating the State to the rule of a creed. Wore, still, he was so magnifying the power of B tho Church in Utah that his election was a notice to every young Mormon that his only hope for K Promotion must be through the Church. Finally, he became the candidate knowing that he owed a higher allegiance to an alien government, established estab-lished here, than to the Government of the United States. It is not necessary to go back and dig out the raw oaths .administered in the secrecy of the temple, it is enough to state that, were he to disobey or deride the edict of his quorum of apostles, he would be unfrocked as certainly as was Moses Thatcher. These are the reasons why Apostle, Smoot should be denied a seat in the Senate, denied a position where he is a lawmaker law-maker for a free people who believe as the fathers fa-thers did, that this country should never have established es-tablished within, its boundaries a. government which is but a revival of ancient Asian despotism. The committee can secure ample proof of all these things? Why does it not call it out and not cling to something which Is but a temporary cement ce-ment in the wall of despotism that encircles Utah? |