Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-06-23
Mor Eleven MOS
""S ended May 8
UTAH AHD1rs CommIssIoNERs.

The Utah commissioners will soon set out
to perform the duties laid upon them by the
Edmunds bill. The present Legislature Is
dissolved, and a new one is to be elected I'M
der the commissioned Supervision. Persons
who are living in polygamy, men or women,
and men who cohabit with more than one
woman, can neither register nor vote. All
duties relating to the registration OF voters,
the conducting of elections, the receiving,
rejecting, canvsssing, and returning of votes,
and the issuing of evidences of election, de-
volve upon them. The members of the COM
mission are considered to be we'll capable Of
dI1chsrging their duties efficiently; two OF
them have had personal experience in terri
torial government, two are lawyers and one
is an editor Their work is to disfranchise
practical polygamisis; those who sustain the
principle of polygamy but have not yet par
ticipated In its beastliness can vote just as
before. As these are in the majority, and
as the powers of the commissioners cease
when the Legislature is organized, the
practical effect of their action is not, in any
direct way, likely to be great. That part of
the bill that disqualifss polygamists and
contenders for and approvers of polygamy
from being jurors may probably do more
than the commissioners themselves TO re-
strain the abomination, if the mild terms Of
the bill are capable of exercising any per-
ceptible fleet at all in diminishing crime.
The Salt Lake Tribune, the organ of the Utah
Gentiles, expresses the disappointment OF the
people there that the commissioners are men
OF no practical acquaintance with the prob
lem they have to solve and with the people
they have TO deal with. The Tribune thinks
Utah sighted when not one man in it was
deemed worthy, by the President, OF being
put upon the commission, which lis simply
a proof that, in the narrow estimation OF the
East, there is here both low order OF intel
lect and integrity" The Tribune adds: sit
is little hard to bear, this assumed superb
ority of a people who, while strong in the
aggregate, individually are SO weak that
it would take 1000 of them TO supply man.
hood enough for one grsy-shirted miner OF
the West; but it will all come right after
awhile. We do not doubt but President
Arthur has done what he thought was best. u
The christian part of the Utah people feel
aggrievsd, especially because petition
signed by the foremost men in the Territory.
and backed by United States senators and
judges, "asking for an appointment on the
score of eminent worth. stainless int gritty
aud a full knowledge, both of the law and %
the facts, is CONTEMPORARY ignored" In
the meantime commissioners from Utah are
on their way to Washington TO present the
constitution formed there month or two
ago, and to apply to have the Territory ad
mitted as a State. That constitution says
never a word about polygamy. 1t makes
provisions by which the breaking people
in Utah would get into power, and use Stat.
sovereignty to make their crimes law, tC
make their Church dominant, to constitute
priestcraft civil power, to establish Church
and State. The constitution is drawn al
with an artful innocence, but its effect woulG
| be to give the Mormon Church, and its sup
| porters, supreme power to make the STATE
uninhabitable to any but the Polygamisti'
| heather OF Mormonism.