The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1882-03-30
THE NEW PERSECUTION.
SALT LAKE CITY, March 2s, 'S2.

Editors Herald:
The enactment of the Infamous
Edmunds bill as a law of the land
may be considered the first act Of
the Ubiquitous drama OF the new
persecution of the MormOns. What
the remaining acts will develop in
detail is not for me to say. But this
much | may say-the development
will be bad enough anyway, even at
the best, for in such cases bad goes
before, but worse remains behind.
| have been asked several times
what the more immediate conse-
quences of the passage of the bill
will be. To which l answer, that
will depend very largely upon the
men chosen for the irresponsible
oligarchal quincunx which is prac-
tically to rule Utah under the new
law, this most unchristian, unrepub-
lican, unconstitutional law. If the
irresponsible five manifest them
selves as prominent local antl-Mor-
mons have done, the worst may be
anticipated. The community is well
satisfied on that point. If the five
prove honorable, hsnest men, and
capable, no great harm may ensue,
but YOUR rabid contemporary will
throw all sorts Of dirt at them, and
besmear them from head to
foot if possible. Yet how
can the appointment of honest and
honorable men be expected? We
know what we know, and we do
know that many federal appointeeS
for Utah have not been of that char
acter; no, not by long way. When
we see notorious thieves, swindlers
and usurpers appointed to high Of
hce and sustained therein, nOtwith-
standing their manifest terpitude,
how can the appointment of good
men and true be counted upon, even
if so many such can be found who
are willing to serve in the Office of
commissioner under such an unjust
and persecutive law?
Now, the probability is that the
oligarchy, as body, will be no bet
ter than it ought to be, and will not
be any better than the law that
creates it, if so good. We know
what unworthy characters have
been sent here, dressed in little
brief authority, and we know the fam
| tastic tricks they have played before
high heaven, and before the people
who had no voice in their choosing.
That knowledge makes US suspicious
of that class of men. When people
| have been bitten they know how it
is, they understand the unpleasant
ness of the sensation and the other
consequences. They have no great
desire to be bitten again, at least not
in the same place nor by the same
dog nor sort of dog. They naturally
have no great respect for, nor conf
dence in the kind of cur that did the
biting.
Some of the foremost in this new
persecution of the Mormons are
equally forward in asserting that
they are not prosecuting that much
belied and everywhere spoken
against people, are not pursuing
them for their religions sake.
What awful liars those prosecutors
are They must know that they are
liars, must know that everybody
else knows that they are liars. Do
prosecutors. even the bittereSt OF
them, ever proclaim themselves per
secutOrs? They are not famous as
Self-accuSerS. They are too vile and
too hypocritical for that, mosS OF
them, although few of them may
be deceiving themselves as to the
true nature of their dark deeds
Almost invariably they pash theil
prosecutions under cover of some
other and plausible plea, a gossamel
cover often Notwithstanding, a re
fuge of lies really, in each anG
every instance. When the mad and
murderous Jews cried out, "Crucify
him! Cruelty him. they would
have quickly repudiated the idea
that they were prosecuting Jesus
Though he confessed the fact after
ward, yet previous to the time when
the voice from heaven asked, saul
| Saul! why persecuteSt thou me?'
Saul would have energeticaDy de,
MED that he was prosecuting Jesus
Christ, or his disciples.
The fiends in human shape who
massacred so many thousands of
Huguenots on st. Bartholomew
day would have repudiated the
charge that their bloody work was
persecution. The Catholics who
murdered so many thousands of the
Albigenses would have denied that
they were prosecuting their victims.
The massacres and attempted extir-
patton of the Waldenses, as a mat
ter of course, were not persecution
in the eyes of the brutal prosecutors.
The bloody tribunals of the inqulsi-
ton" would never have admitted
| that their barbaric cruelties were
persecution. The prosecutor in any
| age allies himself with the mos H.
famous and diabolical prosecutors
of all ages, yea, with the very devil
himself. They are all hail fellows
together, members of the very same
political, religious, and high moral
party, engaged in the Identical
partisan purpose, the overthrow of
the agency of man before God. They
would dethrone Jehovah himself
if they could, and turn heaven into
hell. 1t does not mend matters
one particle that the prosecutors per-
petrate their deadly and devilish
deeds under pretence of law, loyalty,