The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1883-12-05
ARTHUR AND UTAH.

The treatment that poor Utah n
ceives at the hands ef Pfesider
Arthur in his message which ap
pears in this edition of TIL
HERALD, is rough and harsh in th
extreme. We must acknowledg
that better things were expecte
from the President. The man
well known easy, conservative
nature and his proverbial caution
led to the belief that he would no
be Influenced by the clamor an.
clatter of the mob, and that what
eaer recommendations he made
would be guided by common sense
and the rules OF reason. Before ap-
proving the Edmunds law he held
the bill for several days, and it was
discussed at more than one cabinet
meeting. Some Of its provisions
were thought to be un-
necessarily severe, and the Presi-
dents antipathy to radical meas
ures inspired in some hope that
he would not lend his assent to a
law for convicting and Furnishing
people without giving them hear
ing. Mr.. Arthur, however, was
coerced by public opinion into an
approval of the bill. The law has
been in operation about a year and
a half, and has been enforced in
spirit of harshneSs and severity
that does credit to the hatred of
the Commissioners. Wherever it
could be made to apply it has been
unyieldingly employed. No mercy
has been shown, the aim of the ad-
ministrators being cruelty without
kindness. We undertake to say that
no law has ever been enforced with
greater strictness than this one. If
the results have not been all that its
projectors and trainers wished for,
it has been no fault of the law, of
the men into whose hands its en-
forcement was entrusted, nor of the
people. It has been made to do all
that was contemplated in the text
and the punishment intended to be
imposed upon certain class has
been duly inflicted. Hence the law
has not proven a failure any more
than any law in the books is a
failure. Every statute is violated
in a greater or less degree and will
be while men remain mortal.
Now, without giving the act time
to show whether it possesses value
or not as a curative measure, the |
President goes beyond his Commits |
sioners and recommends something |
that is so outrageous as to be infam-
Gus in its suggestions and possibili
ties. He would deprive everybody |
in Utah of the commOnest rights Of |
and deny to all every |
privilege except access to air and
water, and the prerogative of sur
rendering their property into the
keeping of such persons as Mr.. Ar
thur may designate as custodians of
persons and possessions. It should
be borne in mind that the innocent
and the guilty, the churchman and
the scoffer, the poor and the rich
are, in the Presidents opinion, de-
serving only Of the deprivation OF
political, civil and social rights, and |
should all be thrown into one boat.
The chief crime of each is the fact |
that he happens to reside within the |
borders of the condemned Territory,
and the principal punishment would |
come upon him because he was
guilty of no more grave offense |
than living in Utah.
That this wholesale disfranchise-
ment and punishment Of all classes
would aid Mr.. Arthur in his raid
upon those at whom he is aiming,
we deny. Depriving homogeneous
Jones of his rights as citizen will
not materially affect polygamous
Brown, who has already been de-
barred the polls and fenced from Of
dce.holding. The proposition is as
unstatesmanlike as it is out
rageous. Placing the Territory
under q legislative commission is
well enough to be talked about by
sensational editors and such politi-
cal nincompoops as Governor Muir
raw and Rev. Talmage, but when
the indignity is recommended in a
state paper, emanating from the
chief executive of the nation, we
may well ask if our rulers have not
lest their heads in their mad on