The Montana post. [volume] (Virginia City, Montana Territory [i.e. Mont.]) 1864-1869, 1867-06-15
REFORM Or YOU PERISH.

Our neighbors of Utah are in agony.
The Telegraph is torlnented by every
allusion made to their iniquitous insti-
tutions and assumes that the Saints are
martyrs to the prejudices of mankind,
while they are, in reality, criminals be-
fore the law of God and man. 1t is not
the Mormon people that are hated, it is
their infamous. detestable, criminal
practices; and the faith they have in
historic precedents, where persecution
strengthened the prosecuted, will not
save from sure and quick coming de-
struction, in this latter day, church
whose tenets are repulsive TO, and
people whose social system is a stigma
upon, the whole American people. The
people of these United States recognize
in theMormons an industrious and thrifty
community, who, driven from place to
place for their practices, sought the
shores of an inland sea, across thous-
and miles of waste, and in the face of OBJ
stacles well nigh insurmouptable, have
planted graden of beauty and fruitful
plenty, and builded prosperous cities
where was a desert and a solitude. They
recognize in them a people practically
educated to habits of economy and forti-
tude. with enterprise, ability and wealth.
Utah will become great and prosper
Gus State, and Mormonism may live, but
not as it is now. The government of
the United States, or its people, or civil
lization, or christianity will not long
submit to the pernicious and demoral-
izing institutions connected with the
Mormon belief; TO that hostility toward
residents who do not believe in their
doctrines; to the Federal government
and its officers. They cannot intimidate
the courts or maintain an Independent
government; they cannot bid de-
fiance to the nations laws by
system of locally legalized abomination,
an insult TO the name of marriage;
they cannot import cargoes of fanatical
followers from Europe and bring them
across the continent to add freshness TO
their decaying harems, and expect a
government that has taken the front
rank in the cause of humanity to make
no effort to abolish these evils, and if un-
dertaken now, it will be different from
the johnson fiasco of a dozen years ago.
Then, Salt Lake was a thousand miles
from anywhere: now, it is surrounded
with populous States and Territories. Ii
it requires a recourse to arms to enforce
law, the law will be well sustained.
There is just two things the Saints have
to do and that right speedily, or the day
of their prosperity and peace will have
passed They must abandon polygs my
and come down from the status of Saints
to that of American citizens, having laws,
institutions and fraternal feeling in com
mon. All their chaff about being the
chosen people of God is blasphemy, and
insufferable, conceited hypocrisy, and
while they are guaranteed the right to
worship according to the dictates of their
own consciences, they will not be per-
mitted to disgrace American intelligence
by mistaking for the inward monitor"
the lecherous propensities, without re-
ceiving a severe correction. The rebel
lion quashed, and reconstruction &C
complished, Mormonism stands the next
best chance of receiving attention at the
hands of government, unless they cor
rect their odious and disgraceful ways.