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Show EDMUNDS' BILL DISCUSSED. An Amendment on Woman Suffrage Suf-frage Rejected, As Is Also One to Dispense With the Utah " Commission. Washington, January 6. On motion of Edmunds, the Senate took up the Utah bill, the pending question being on Hoar's motion mo-tion to strike out the section that would disfranchise the women of Utah. Brown expressed himself as being opposed to woman suffrage, and said if the question was in his own State he would vote against it, but as the question before the Senate was one affeoting a right already giveny to the women of .Utah by the laws of that Territory, he (Brown) would vote for Hoar's motion. A vote having been reached on the amendment amend-ment it was rejected ; yea 11, nays 31. The Senators voting yea were Aldrioh, Brown, Blair, Call, Dawes, Dolph, Hoar, Mitchell (of Oregon), Palmer, Stanford and Teller. The section disfranchising women remains, therefore, a part of the bill. The amendment proposed by Edmunds was agreed to, providing that marriage within, but not including fourth consanguinity, consan-guinity, should be termed incestuous and punishable by imprisonment. Van Wyck offered an amendment, dispensing dis-pensing with the Utah Commission. The so-called so-called duties of that body could, he said, just as well be performed by the army officers, at no extra expense to the Government, Govern-ment, and his amendment provided that! a board of three officers of the army should perform the duties now vested in the Commission. Com-mission. He denounced the extravagance of the Commission and insisted that it had been of no use to Utah or to the United States. The Commission, he said, had half a dozen clerks. Voorhees denied this, and challenged Van Wyck to prove his statement. Van Wyck in reply read from a list in his hands the names of seven clerks and a janitor. jan-itor. . Voorhees remarked those were not regularly regu-larly employed clerks, but had been employed em-ployed only temporarily to meet an emergency. He thought he knew the reason for Van Wyck's' attack on the Utah Commission. Com-mission. Van -Wyck thought Voorhees had better., understand himself on the subject before taking his seat. Laughter. Voorhees did not wish to speak on the time of the Senator from Nebraska. Van Wyck was willing he should. It seemed to make a difference, Van Wyck said, whose friend was "attacked." Van Wyck's amendment was rejected. Morgan opposed the provision for trustees to administer the affairs of the Mormon church. He characterized polygamy as an offense that "stinks in the nostrils of civilization." civili-zation." He thought if anything was to be done about it it should be torn up root and branch. Edmunds replied that those trustees would deal only with the property of the church. The committee had feared to abolish certain rights, and had confined the work of the trustees to the temporal affairs of the church. The committee had not wished to make a precedent for legislative interference with religion. Apart from the feature of polygamy, polyga-my, Edmunds did not think the belief of the Mormons differed from the belief of Teller thought the Mormons had very little lit-tle property except their temples. Edmunds had been informed they had. Teller said the Temple was one of the most wonderful buildings in the world, and had cost a great deal. But these trustees would have to deal withMormonism in every way. . He did not believe in polygamy, but he would say that if we had sent the right men to look after Utah, polygamy would have been dead long since. We have sent men there who irritated and persecuted the people of Utah. It was by our persecutions that we had kept polygamy alive. Religious enthusiasm had done much for civilization, but we could not forget that two-thirds of the people of the world to-day believed in polygamv. Great Britain had never put its hand on the polygamists within its dominions. The Mormons had their faults, but he had seen Salt Lake City when not a grog shop, gambling den or house of ? restitution could be found within its limits, t could not be expected that men who had married wives thirty years ago would put them aside now as so many prostitutes and declare their children .bastards. The bill under consideration Teller looked on as folly. It was too severe. We should treat the great evil existing in Utah with rather a velvety hand. Men who did not believe in polygamy, he said, had by the severity of our Government been driven into the condition condi-tion of opposition to the policy of the principle prin-ciple of the United States. Edmunds denied that there was anything oppressive in the bill. It was simply an attempt at-tempt to cut off the one-man power existing among the people of Utah. -He would not discuss the crimes oommitted, whether at Nauvoo or in Utah, but Mormonism could not be successfully dealt with by the "velvety "vel-vety hand" referred to by Teller. It was a shame, a delusion and a pretense to cover a crime. After further argument on the pro-, visions in relation to the testimony of the husband and wife, the debate went over until to-morrow, Edmunds saying he would ask the Senate to "sit it out" and bring the bill to a vote. ' - |