The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1883-09-08
OUR WASHINGTON LETTER.
From our Regular Correspor dent

- 40 GINNING W De prelty Seuerdlly
understood that Secretary Teller has
a very level head. His course con-
corning the Indian question is warm
~ commended by those best acquaint-
ed with the subject, and in many other
things he has by series of moderate
and judicious decisions reversed some
of the Objectionable practices of his
predecessors, and has shown that he
is independent of the railroad COM
Panies and disposed to execute the
laws affecting them, with view to
the rights of all concerned. His re-
cent order requiring the Northern
Pacific compay to select their indem-
nifty lands within three months, will
throw open large tract of country
to settlement and also oblige the COM
pany to pay taxes on their lands.
| This course will be heartily approved
by the people Of the northwest. An
other popularity of Secretary Teller's
administration of the Interior depart
ment is noticeable: The practice of
affirming the decisions of subOrdi-
mates. apparently by force of habit,
without adequate consideration and
deIiberation, has been abandoned.
Heads of bureaus are now aware that
mere matters of form for the purpose
of registering their action, but such
appeals subject the case involved to a
careful and critical review in a prac-
teal and systematic manner. When
we consider the autocratic power
lodged in the head of department,
we value more highly the practical
and judicious review of the action of
subordinates by the Secretary.
The Edmunds law, from which the
decent portion of the Utah people ex-
pected so much in the way of wiping
out that Mormon abomination, pa
lygamy, has proved to be most
lamentable failure. By the result of
the Territorial election the other day
the nastiness is made to perpetuate
itself, and the sovereignty of the ma
tional government laughed to scorn.
The Edmunds act provides that no
polygamist or higami.t shall be al
lowed to vote or hold Office in the
Territory, and in enforcing the pro-
visions all persons who had eyer prac-
tlced polygamy were strictly exclud-
ed from the list of voters but in the
presence of the fact that all of the
Utah MOrmnns are believers in po-
lygamy, and that they outnumber
the Gentiles in the proportion of
about twelve TO one, it will be seen
how futile must be any effort to de-
prive them of political power by lin
ting the voting privilege to monoga-
Emists, who are Obedient to the church
and consider their allegiance to the
church rulers paramount to that due
to the national or any other sort of
government. The Gentiles being so
vastly in the minority, refrained from
going to the polls at all, and as a con-
sequence the Territory remains at it
promises to always remain-under
the complete control of the Mormon
church. For upwards of thirty Years
American institutions have been dis
graced and the United States govern
ment Inundated by the existence of
this great crime, and all the greater
crime because intrenched in the re.
ligious faith of a legion of deluded
fanatics. The law-making power has
shown itself either unwilling or I'M
able to cope with the infamy, or to
compel the recognition by the people
of Utah of its statutes, while the
Federal authorities sent to Utah to
administer the laws have been over
awed and their authority nullified.
So long, therefore, as polygamy is
permitted to exist in Utah, and the
Territorial government relegated to
the control or the Mormon church,
so long will this relic of barbarism
and spirit of Oriental lechery be con
tinued as one Ofthe institutions which
will become extinct only when its
aggressiveness shall have aroused the
American people to a sense of its ap.
palling wickedness and its dire effects
upon our character as nation.
The question whether the little
! English sparrowS are or are not un-
desirable pests has been discussed pro
and con without satisfactory settle
ment. Mr.. Bergh and other phian-
thlopists and naturalists stand up for
the birds, while on the other hand
their enemies are legion. The war
upon them has begun here in Wash
ington in earnest. District Commits
sioner Lydecker is in favor of eXter-
nination, and the well known orni-
biologist, Prof. Elliott Coues, who is
convinced that these little birds are
nuisance. has undertaken to show him