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Show I . Smoot Charged With Polygamy Local Methodist Minister Charges Senator - Elect With Serious Crime President Smith's Denial. WASHINGTON, Feb. 26. Senator Burrows, chairman of the senate committee on privileges and elections, elec-tions, today presented to the senate a protest signed by the Rev. J. L. Leilich in the case of Senator-elect Reed Smoot of Utah, urging that Mr. Smoot shall not be permitted to take his seat in the senate. Mr. Leilich is in charge of the Methodist missions in Utah, and resides in Salt Lake City. He is in Washington Washing-ton as the representative of the Ministers' Minis-ters' association of Salt Lake. His statement is sworn to. Mr. Leilich declares that Smoot is a polygamist and now has a plural wife, although he deems it inexpedient to give the maiden name of the woman at this time. His charge on this point is as follows: "That the said Reed Srrioot is a polygamist, polyg-amist, and that since the admission of Utah into the union of states he, although al-though then and there having a legal' wife, married a plural wife in the state of Utah, in violation of the laws and compacts hereinbefore described, and since such plural or polygamous marriage mar-riage the said Reed Smoot has lived and cohabited with both his legal wife and his plural wife in the state of Utah and elsewhere, as occasion offered, and that the only record of such plural marriage mar-riage is the secret record made and kept by the authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which secret record is in the exclusive custody and control of the first presidency presi-dency and the quorum of the twelve apostles of the said church, of which the said Reed Smoot is one, and is beyond be-yond the control or power of the prot-estants. prot-estants. "Your protestant respectfully asks that the senate of the United States or its committee compel the first presidency pres-idency and the quorum of the twelve apostles and the said Reed Smoot to produce such secret record for the consideration con-sideration of the senate. Your protestant says that h. is advised by counsel that it is: inexpedient ac this time to give further particulars con-cernings con-cernings such plural marriasie and its results, or the place in which it wii.i solemnized, or the maiden name ot the plural wife." Mr. Leilich also asserts that "President "Presi-dent Joseph F. Smith, the president of the Mormon church, is livinir in open polygamy and has had a child born t him by his plural wife at late as And also that "President Lorenzo Snow lived and died in the practice of polygamy and polygamous cohabitation, cohabita-tion, and that his plural wife. Minnie Jensen Snow, bore him a child as laftf as the winter of lSO-'j?.". President Smith's Denial. President Joseph F. Smith and th authorities of the .Mormon church would not be seen by a Herald representative repre-sentative yesterday about the -harges of Dr. Leilich that M' Smoot was a polygamist, but the Deseret Evening News, the official organ of the church, makes the following statement coming from President Smith: "You may state in the most emphatic; terms possible that there is not one word of truth in the assertion that Reed Smoot is or has been a polygamist, or that he has married a plural wife either since or before Utah became a state of the Union. Mr. Smoot has n-wr had but one wife at any time. As to the record which I understand from the dispatch we are desired to produce, there is no such record. No plural or polygamous marriages have been solemnized so-lemnized by sanction of the church for many years and. therefore, there is not and cannot be a record kept concerning them. The whole slory about Rel Smoot is a sheer fabrication, evidently designed to hinder his taking the sent . in the United States senate to which ho was elected by the legislature of Utah. It is untrue in every particular. Every marriage ceremony performed by th church is such as the law provides for, and the license issued by the county clerk has to be produced in every instance in-stance before the ceremony can take place." |
