| Show WHAT WILL THEY DO i As the summer draws to a closo and j i i the September term of the courts approaches t I ap-proaches people are returning to the old i I I and familiar topic in Utah the topic of I I I the law its violation and its vindication A i I I number of prominent Mormons prominent promin-ent not only religiously but socially and J financially arc under Indictment and I their trials will come on in the next sixty t days What will be their course action is the wonderment of all The trials of i these men and their decision in obeying Ii j I the law iu i future whether they will i yield to tho Stato or to the church may Iso I-so to spoak be compared to the playing i of trump cards in a desperate game for i large stakes The church may play its j cards and its bluff but it will not win For the first time in tho history of Utah j the people of Utah who have enjoyed so i ftnucli imnymityin their lawlessness are brought face to lace with the fact that j they must render obedience to the laws I t > I or they must suffer the punishment consequent con-sequent upon their lawlessness The people of Utah claim that they have a divine sanction for doing as they do and that also what they do is a Constitutional Constitu-tional right That they have a divine sanction for their conduct can neither be proven nor disproven but the only power and authority known to the Constitution to determine such questions as Constitutional rights nameiy the Supreme Court says they have no such right Is a man entitled to exercise any rights or privileges because he has a religious faith in them any more than a person who has no such religious faith Are the rights of conscience in essence any more sacred and to be more jealously guarded than other rights Before the law and before reason do not all rights stand on the same level These are serious and important questions and are too little pondered but we are firmly convinced that no such distinction as these questions suggest as to rights exists Such being the case as we believe can the people of Utah expect any indulgence from prosecution when they violate the law although in so doing they may think they have a divine sanction They forget that in the domination of the civil power is the sole protection of all religions They not only forget this important fact hut they also forget that the Government is determined to enforce the law and that it can enforced enforced as experience proves The people peo-ple here for long long years have had a contempt both for the law and the Government Gov-ernment arising from two causes The first their belief that the Mormon church was to be a temporal Kingdom of God here on earth and that here in the midst of America it was to be raised The second and the most potent cause is the vacillating listless and spasmodic manner in which all attempts heretofore to vindicate vindi-cate the law have been made The second sec-ond cause has certainly warranted their contempt for the law and the Government So often as the Government has ceased its effort to enforce the laws just so often have the people of Utah seen the hand of Providence stretched forth to shield and protect them A people who are filled with faith and fanaticism fanat-icism see a divine interposition in all things and the fact that it is faith which rules them is sufficient answer to all reasoning Faith and belief do not assume as-sume to rest on reason they are things which belong to a world of illogical expectation ex-pectation These things may be more prominent here than elsewhere These then are some of the elements which complicate the problem of enforcing the law in Utah For the Government now to cease its vindication of the law would bo for it to prove to the people of Utah once more that God had interfered to protect them from the machinations machi-nations of Satan and those through whom he works This would be the general belief be-lief of the Mormon masses while those of broader views and larger experience such as the more prominent Mormons now under indictment would mainly regard it in its true light as at best but a respite What these men will do no one can tell Some think they will obey tho law while others think differently Our own opinion opin-ion is that they will obey counsel and suffer fine and imprisonment for the pressure being brought to bear upon them by the leaders who are in hiding is tremendous tre-mendous But if these gentlemen think that their suffering fine and imprisonment will stay the tide of prosecution aganst those who shall continue to violate the law against polygamy and unlawful cohabitation co-habitation they will find themselves mistaken mis-taken and that their time and money so far as their object is concerned have been thrown awaY For the Government to grant any leniency now will be for it to strengthen what it would weaken |
