The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1867-12-29

ant questions which cannot be safely over.
looked or disregarded. When they first settled.
some twenty years ago, in the valley Of the
Great Salt Lake, after being expelled by mob
law from Missouri and Illinois, these poor Nor
mons had reason to suppose that they were
beyond the reach Of the prosecuting Gentiles
for many generations There they were, in
region only two years before made known to
the world by the explorations OF Fremont
beyond the great western timberless plains
and the Rocky Mountalns-a thousand miles
from the nearest white settlements of the East,
and seven hundred miles over the Great Desert
Basin and the lofty chain OF the Sierra Nevada
from the nearest white settlements OF Caliror-
mia. With these extensive and apparently i'm
passable barriers separating them on each side
from their remorseless enemies, surely, thought
the Latter Day Saints we can here build up
our New Jerusalem and flourish for thousand
years.
But they were mistaken. The silver mines
discovered in Nevada to the west Of them;
and the golden discoveries in Idaho, north
Of them in Montana and Colorado, east of
them, and in Arizona, to the southwark,
have made within q few years the Happy VAL
ley Of the Mormons the common thoroughfare
Of migratory hordes identities from oil points
Of the compass Worse still from the impulse
which these rich and enveloping mines Of gold
and silver have given to the enterprise Of the
Pacific Railroad, the iron horse from the East
now thunders along to the base of the Rocky
Mountains, while from the Pacific he has
already surmounted the lofty crest of the
Sierra Nevada, and in the summer will be
snorting in the sandy waste of the Great Basin.
Two years hence his course will be free, from
the Mississippi to the Pacific, and then, with
four days as his time from st. Louis to San
Francisco, Salt Lake City. the city OF the
Mormon saints and their sanity institution Of
polygamy, will be overwhelmed by the swarm
ing Goths and Vandas.
Meantime, Brigham Young seems to be blind
to this approaching danger He still breaches
polygamy the supreme law. His temporal
kingdom in Utah embraces perhaps seventy
five thousand souls, twenty-five thousand Of
them in Great Salt Lake City and suburbs.
In q political view he Is to US what the Holy
Father of Rome is to the King and kingdom
of Italy. He stands in our way and he must be
removed. But hows That is the question.
1t is morally certain that unless the
government shall in season interpose
and secure their peaceable removal, these Nor
mons will be exterminated in bloody conflict
with the Genties. We tolerate some queer
secis of socialists and religionsts in the midst
of the Christian communities Of our oldest
States, but these sects are either too small to
excite alarm or too inoffensive to awaken the
jealousy or wrath OF their ncighbors. Not so |
with the Mormons Of Utah. They are impe-
rum in impero, State within the State, in the
most offensive antagOnism to our established |
social laws, the basis Of our political system. |
The saints at the Great Salt Lake, with the |
gathering OF the Gcntles around them, if not |
removed by the government. win be expelled
by the mob, as they were from Ohio, Missouri
and Nauvoo. We say removed, because this |
Mormon evil Of polygamy cannot be abolished !
without removal of the Mormon community. |
Their institution Of polygamy has become 100
deeply fixed to be otherwise extrpated. |
Moreover, they have built up and accumulate |
valuable properties, the appropriation of |
which, when the opportunity comes to reck.
less adventurers will be apt to afford MS a !
living illustration Of tho fable of the wolf and
the lamb.
What, then, ought we TO do. How is this
violent solution Of the Mormon difficulty to be
avoided! There is a way as simple as the
purchase Of Alaska. We think that the true plan
was preached some six or seven years ago By
an enterprising seafarng man named Captain
Perkins. His proposition was to buy out the
Mormons in Utah, buy an island or nest of
islands for them in the Pacific and remov,
them there in government. vessels Strange, il
seems to as, that while buying up ice
bergs and earthquakes from the Rus
slams and the Danes Mr.. Seward has not hit
upon this idea Of buying out Brigham Young.
But It is not yet too late to ac, upon it, and the
Sandwich islands are just the thing. We have,
too, friend at court In the person OF the
amiable Queen Emma, and for a reasonable
sum, no doubt, King Kamehamela would dis
pose Of his sovereignty to Uncle Sam. Buy
him out. Mr. Seward, and turn those Islands
over to Brigham Young, and he will soon make
them blossom like the rose with their tropical
productions.
But again. in the Alaska purchase we have
acquired string Of islands, big and little,
some two thousand miles long. Perhaps some
OF these would suit the Mormons, especially
as among their native Esquimaux polygamy
would BE- nothing new. And yet again, as
Junrez is short Of funds he may be induced to
accept the Mormons as q colony for few
millions, or even for few thousands cash in
hand. At all events, as the republican party
J stands pledged to "tho abolition Of those twin
relics Of barbarism, slavery and rolygamy," the
duty devolves upon this republican Congress