OCR Text |
Show UTAH IN THE MESSAGE. The space which Utah occupies in the President's message is considerable, and the President has treated of ; Utah and polygamy in . the same comprehensive and conservative manner that he has treated all other matters. No specific recommendations are made, although the President says he shall be glad to approve such further discreet legislation as will rid the country of polygamy. What would constitute discreet-legislation, as understood by the President, can only be known when bills affecting Utah are submitted sub-mitted to the' President for his signature and he approves or disapproves them. -The man who is in the midst of the fight does not see so clearly how it is j going as one who watches it from afar. So it is with people in Utah, and all parties par-ties engaged in the conflict in Utah have their eyes more or less clouded by pas- j sion and prejudice. But there is some j chance to estimate how goes the battle bat-tle even in Utah. Look at the field ; j look at the parties and their respective j positions. Every stand that the Government Gov-ernment has taken in regard to the enforcement of the Edmunds law and the suppression of polygamy has been main tained. Not so with those who have been violating the Edmunds law. From a bold and open defiance of Congress and the laws of the land they went to the President with a muling, puking petition, and the pretensions of divine right sank into an insignificant request for an impartial impar-tial enforcement cf the laws. It has been clearly demonstrated that men can be convicted under the. Edmunds law, for men are now suffering imprisonment for violating that law. That the evidence in these cases is difficult to obtain is true. It is difficult to obtain because of the general gen-eral sympathy which violators of the Edmunds Ed-munds law receive from the great majority major-ity of the people of Utah. ' So long as this sj'mpathy exists it will always be more or less difficult to obtain evidence in prosecutions for polygamy or unlawful cohabitation ; and this will be the case, no matter what laws may be enacted for the suppression of polygamy. Many radical measures have been advocated advo-cated for the solution of the Utah question. H ithin a week martial law has been advocated ad-vocated for Utah, but martial law would in nowise solve the Utah question. Martial law would prevent any organized outbreak, but we do not think there is any danger of such an outbreak. Neither would martial law make the lives of the citizens secure from the attack of the assassin. On the contrary, martial law would be an invitation to the assassin. The enactment of any of .the recommendations recommen-dations of the Utah Commission would not be a solution of the question, because the adverse conditions which exist in Utah to-day would continue after there had been a complete revolution in political politi-cal affairs. That which all who have any sincere desire to see the Territory happy and prosperous and jn harmony with the rest of the country wish to see, is tne removal ot tne adverse conditions with which the Territory is troubled. To establish martial law or to institute a Legislative Commission would not be ipso facto a solution of the Utah question. The question whether the one or the other of these radical remedies would j hasten the solution of the problem, and bring about that condition of things which all lovers of the country so ardently desire, still remains. Are not these radical remedies more liable lia-ble to delay the -day of Utah's redemption redemp-tion than to hasten it? It is this appre hension, this well-founded apprehension, which makes so many hesitate to give any countenance to such remedies, as well as their dislike to such a radical departure from the true principles of republican re-publican government. We believe the solution is now going on, but that it may finally be accom-'plished accom-'plished there should be, as the President says, "no relaxation in the firm but just execution of the laws now in operation." Any such relaxation at the present or at any future time, would be looked upon by the violators of the Edmunds law as an encouragement and invitation to a further violation of the law. The evil under which Utah suffers is already great, and all efforts of the Government should be to make it less, while everything which would in any way give the violators of the law hope or encouragement should be avoided. |