| Show S F CHRONICLE vs CHICAGO INTER inte journalists continue to have mormonism on oil the brain many of them have exhausted their skill and ingenuity in their attempts to solve the knotty problem they thy appear to be as far from a solution today to day as they were when they first undertook the difficult task mormonism surpasses their human comprehension and they have no idea whatever of seeking divine aid to assist them to understand it and to dissipate their dull jaesoon jae ness aj saon on tho subject many I 1 mans L d i i 8 a few statesmen n dixan divine and a host of journ journalists have tried for many years to solve the question but they have all failed thua thus far and many of them ay c ceased to mako mak a an a ny y further attempt in that direction As a few days since the chicago cabica 0 inter ocean rec 4 I 1 VA the enactment of a law by congress Congre sm that will treat mormonism inon ism as treason against the united states and cause its ad her ant ato be treated as traitors trai tr i tora the article was dispatched to the pacific coast and has been commented upon in the bay city papers the san francisco r s co chronicle olt ronicle is no friend to the mormons cormons Mor mons or their religious py system stem that journal thas jaech beets aa bat berand in its iti opposition to both as any other paper p er in the west or in the east it would rejoice as exceedingly as any other anti mormon if it could ece fee mormonism annihilated but it is not prepared to go to euch such length nor to indorse such measures to accomplish the object as those proposed p by y the chicago inter ocean omit no the chronicle has discernment cern ment sufficient to see that such talk amounts to nothing that it is at best only like sounding brass and tinkling cymbal sV legal enactments act ments may inay enable an official to enforce pains and penalties against a it person or a people who pra practise caise certain forms of religion but they never will convictions of 1 any l iu man an or woman if reason and argument ail fail can effect it tito latter cour course sobas has been tried time and und p again ili n lufft neve r aaa 44 y aeed I 1 I 1 I 1 r aws tk liesa V F chronie Ch ronde of the dinst contains an editorial on the inter oceans suggestion some of which we ire in gri iid sow of which t wo we do not indorse we reproduce it here bere for our readers A chicago paper stig suggests tests the enactment ent of a law that will treat mormonism ilio nisin as treason against the th Unitt eUnit ed states thid this will not turn any of ali flig 0 church leaders pale they very w well ell understand no law would be worth the tile paper on which it was written T tho caper 0 constitution defines treason strictly and the law cannot go of that definition atiq it is levying of war against the united states or adhering to its enemies pol ganiyu which is the obnoxious I 1 caolo plank in tho the morman norman platform is not within the of this definition of treason therefore any ally law making it treason would bo be null and void in every other part of the country polygamy is a felony but in utah and oven there it is felonious under united states law and works political disability but tho the trouble is that no n 0 faw which is distasteful to the mormons cormons can be enforced w any part of tho the country v here they pro in alie majority mon cannot be excluded tided from grand and petty juries imply because they cre mormons cormons Mor mons mormonism Is not a crime tho the crime is polygamy poly pamy and not one adult mormon in living in polygamy for the reason perhaps that there are not enough women to go a around buethe but the poly gainous mormons cormons ara are the rich tho tile influential the intellectual and the ruling claa they corn com belthe pel alio others to do at their bidding and when one not living in polygamy stand is called to a jury or the witness stand his verdict and liis his testimony arc are gaivenas given as directed from thia this ruling class ko law that ha as yet been passed has reached the situation to remedy it lt no law ever w ill that per mits mormon ormon violators v lola tors of it to bo be tried by jury or by a jury jur y with a single mormon on ou it whether IVI lether congress under the present can enact a law to exclude a man mail from juries ou oil account of his stu or religion ia is not a question it cannot whether it would wo uld bo wise to amend tho the constitution BO so as asto to give congress this power is a very serious question if the tile power were once extended to tho the exclusion of mormons cormons apart from poly amista it might by and by bo be istrea stretched r 11 so as 09 to extend to the worshipers in other faiths and to those who do not liot believe in any ro religion ligion and that bah might jeanto lead to worse practices than iah polygamy my U the Chio Chion mcle iUa knows well weil enough he be cormons mormons Mor mons are not t gu guilty alty and cannot be truthfully acci raed of trea sax and that they have no 3 0 anted to turn pale at the of the ilie 7 inter ocean on aai adyth an roth er rid radical leal 0 e adf 0 f the go government vern n 0 i e n t wet olve endorse eni lorse our bay city contemporary when it saya san Mormonism ia is not a crime if then it ia is oot not a crime its votaries vot aries as a euch such cannot be criminal and if they di are ri n nol 61 brimi criminals n as they therefore are living above the law anre law abidi abiding 1 rig and who haa has a right to enact aliecia t i e isolation to omage their pell religion 11 ji A crime and to punish them as crinini criminals n als because they believe and practise mormonism nobody neither in a state or national leg 1 isla turc it is true that thousands of morr mort mons bave been dis franchised by the provisions of the edmunds law but that fact neither makes the law constitutional nor changes the faith of the sufferers in their rel religious tenets the chronicle as well aa as other journals lias has shrewdness enough to see that if the constitution of the united states were so amended as to empower congress to pass laws to make the religion of the mormons cormons Mor mons w a crime treason against the government ern ment it might soon bo be extended too to other therrell igus bodies and hi is ta ry 11 mig might J epert itself the iracy and na the gibbet might be called into requisition and tho the fires of smith field might be kindled in the land of the free and tho the homo home of the brave an d every v vestige 1 es tige of religious freedom become extinct we believe there ia is yet too much good sense and love 0 of equal rights among the people of the Nati III t b Z such injustice to prevail |
