The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-11-01
THE SINS OF THE SAINTS.
The Hon. Schuyler CoIfax on the
Mormon Situation.
An Appeal to Christian People to Act at
Once-Suggestions to Fit the Case
Proposed by MIR. CoIfax.

Growing more rapidly than any other land
around the circuit of the GLOBE prospecting
as no other fifty millions on the earth's sur
face are prospering with more liberal laws
as to citizenship than any of the nations
from which emigrants flock to our open
gates-we are endeavoring to build up and
consolidate together nationality which not
only shall be the hope and the joy of the
poor of all other lands but shall become.
in its experience and results, beacon light
to all who love liberty, around the world.
| Contemplate the scenel We have lifted
over five millions at the South from under
the bee! of slavery to the dignity and equal
ity of freedom. and have placed the ballot.
with all its power in their hands, despite
their centuries of ignorance and degradation
from their previous condition of seryitude.
The iron hand of Bismarck is driving coG.-
munists from Germany, and although sim
| gle one in hard times might disaffect fac
tory of fellow workmeD, we welcome them
to our shores In the confidence that the in
spring influence of our free institutions will
render them safe custodians OF the governing
power of the ballot so sure to be in their
hands. The Car of all the Russians uses the
autocratic DEGREES of tyranny aud the dread
| of Siberian exile and suffering to induce
| Nihilists to leave their dominions; and they
come hither, openly asserting their desire TO
remove those whom they decide to be gov
| ernmental oppressors by the bloody hand OF
assassination A hundred thousand heather
Asiatics, with their heather temples, have
encamped on our Pacific coast This Re-
public of ours, through its free and liberal
institutions and its mild and equitable
| laws, is striving thoroughly to Ameri-
caniZe all these diverse elements, to har-
monte all these variant and antagoniz-
| ing characteristics, to cause them
to forget their fatherland with all its preiu-
dices and hostilities, to enkindle in their
hearts and the hearts of their children de-
votion and allegiance to the nation which
has opened its doors and ityhomes to them,
and out of the whole mass, thus fully and
heartily Americanized to make great self
| governing, law abiding people. 1t is, indeed,
a gigantic work. And all who are proud OF
our historic past, and hopeful of our glori-
Gus future, pray that it may be successfully
accomplished. Meanwhile, for thirty years
and more Asiatic polygamy has grown ami
| strengthened and fortified itself in the hears
of our continent, where our national Law
against it is derided and defied by chose ovet
whose homes the flag of our nsulted nation
foatsl More than this Not only has this
| American cancer grown and spread till it
| has filled all Utah with its poison but its
|
all, of the great Territories which adjoin it,
poisoning them also. And every remedy
| thus far sought to be applied has failed, be-
cause, not being of the heroic practice
needed, it has been utterly inadequate for its
| eradication
THE LET-AL0NE POLICY.
l remember right we'll, in my earlier can
vases for Congress, thirty years ago, when
insisted that something effective should be
done to extrpate it, my competitors insisted
in reply that eff it were let alone it would
die of itself" But letting alone" only gave
it greater strength. A decade later, when
! the Pacific railroad was contemplated, and
Utah. by it, was to be brought from its iso-
| lation into railroad communication with the
rest of the country, our optimists thought
that when this Mohammedan system of ha-
rems should be thus brought face to face
with American civilization, it would surely
| die the death. And Samuel Bcwles of the
Springfield Republican, who had studied
1.-THE Mormon problem" on the spot, conf
| IDENTIFY predicted that 1.-THE whistle of the
locomotive would sound its requiem and the
| pickax of the miner would dig its grave"
| The Pacific railway at last was built, and
half dozen others in that region besides, but
'the relic of barbarisn' would not and did
not die. Then our soothing soothsayers pre-
/
| tempt any harsh legislation, for when Brig
ham Young, who is now old and who has
| built up the system, passes away, the institu-
| ton which he made the cornerstone of
| Mormonism will surely tumble into ruins"
| And again the nation waited, but only to be
as sorely disappointed as before. Brigham
has died, but John Taylor reigns in his stead,
| the head of a theocracy which every Nor
| mon is taught to believe receives its power
and authority directly from heaven for the
government OF the ''Latter-day Saints" and
| whose orders are ten thousand times more
potential with the hundred thousand Nor
mons than president and cabinet judges and
| governor, constitution and laws. He is to-
| day the head of government within gov
eminent, hostile to that governments laws,
and daily teaching his followers to spit upon
! and defy them-an organization (which
breaches perpetual treason and practices per-
petual law-breaking."
Then other prophesiers of smooth things
predicted that fashion would certainly put it
down; that the many wives of one husband.
would desire to follow the fashions of dress
of the wives who visited Salt Lake. But
| fashion has been as powerless as the rest.
! Finally, the nation did bestir itself and
the public demanded that something should
be done. The Edmunds bill was offered both
as an olive branch and as persuasive to-
ward monogamy. 1t legitimized all the po-
lygamous children there, and provided for
non-pclygamous voters, officers and legisla-
tors. And again the nation waited. But as
i'll the case of all other United States laws.
what the Mormons liked was accepted and
the rest spurned. Polygamous marriages
continue as numerous as ever. And, by
command of the Mormon chiefs, Legisla-
ture is elected of monogamsts who are
just as bigoted as their many-wived breth-
rem. And, as in the South, the poor
whites proved, in the olden time to De as
devoted to the interests of slavery as the
wealthy Shareholders, so this homogeneous
Mormon Legislature will prove as hos
tile to the vigorous and earnest enforce
ment of the national law as those who
have established their harems there. Cannot
the people of the United States see, at last.