Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-03-17
THE I.sre Gasp or po.,veAmy,

The determination of an indignant people
has made itself known so unmistska ably that
Edmunds', bill, mild but in some respects
an efficien: measure, passed the Senate unan-
imously. In the House not single amend
ment was made to the bill as it came from
the Senate. One hundred members voted for
it, only for.y-two voted contrary to the moral
sentiment of the nation. This bill will be
put into operation before the eyes of the
whole people, who will bear with no half
measures III putting it into practice, but will
insist upon every clause and provision being
fully carried out. This law, so administered,
will purify the jury system, and, it is hoped,
render the conviction of polygamists posi-
BILE and their righteous punishment certain.
The addition making cohabitation of the
sexes punishable, gives power of repression
not before possessed. The appointment Of
commission to superintend all matters con-
nected with elections, and the disfranchIse-
ment of pelygamists, strikes terror into
the souls of the Utah peanut priests,
for it strikes at the very root of the
power which it was their aim to secure and
their pride to exercise. For this power, TO
make it complete and ensure its endurance,
polygany, begun in vile grossness, was clusg
TO as a religion and paraded as glory. The
victims of the willy priests once entangled in
the meshes Of polygamy, where could they
flee if their surroundings became intolera-
Bile? To what country, what city, what
State-to what civilized land in the wide
world-could the polygamist family go and
reside? Every hand would be against them,
every tongue would accuse them, go where
they might. AS criminals they would be
consigned to the common jail, to bear the
doom Of outraged law. The young man and
the young woman entrapped into the in
EQUITY of polygamy had no chance of escsp-
ing the base priesthood that had inflicted
upon them curse as heavy as that of Cain,
surrounding with danger their steps if they
should wander away. In this slavery, this
subsection to the vile creatures that have
undone them, those creatures find the foun-
dations of their power. Victim and vic
timber, bound by the chain of crime, live
in a hell where one torments and the other
suffers. To reign in this hell to WELD the power
their crimes have won, is the ambition of the |
Utah priesthood. To secure this power there |
is no sacrifice they are not prepared to make. |
"There is not tenet of their creed, says |
the Salt Lake Tribune, ''they would not sur
render to retain that power" And it is at
this power the new law strikes-it takes |
might from the muscle and energy from the |
will of the tyrants, who are banded by the |
chains OF rebellion against law. To retain !
this power they will struggle, and threat, |
and writhe, and curse, and lie, and cajole,
and fawn, and promise, and grovel, and:deny
the past and pledge their souls for the
future. But ii will BE all in vain. The. !
people have, after long patience, pronounced |
their doom, and hereafter the vicious polyg |
amist, like the pickpocket and the burglar,
must 90 to Jail, aud Utah must be redeemed |