The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1883-11-22
VOL. XIII.
A CALAMITOUS FAILURE.

Iho chicago IrlDUu0 CALLS Ino IT.
port of the Utah congressman a rose
ate affair. Have we not had official
roseate reports regarding Mormon
conditions for the last twenty
reports Mormonism has gone on
increasing in power, and polygamy
has increased, in spite of reports
to the contrary, in the same proper
tion. A correspondent of the Salt
Lake Tribune writes from st. Pete,
one of the towns of Utah, that the
Utah commission is greatly mistaken
in their statements that the Edmunds
law has put a stop to polygamy. There
are, he declares, just as many polyga-
nous marriages contracted in Utah
now as before the law was passed.
Four men in his neighborhood have
gone into these unlawful unions since
the Edmunds law was enacted, and the
same state of facts exists elsewhere.
The commissioners. this correspon-
dent says, do not understand the pow
ers of the Mormon priesthood. If
they did they would know that their
command or advice possesses more in
fluence over their followers than any
law or command of congress or the
president. What can their people do
but obey when they are told by priests
whom they believe to be inspired di-
rectly by God, that polygamy is the
command of God, and that they have
power to curse anyone who illustrates
it or neglects to fulfil it? Here is
the citadel, behind which the
Mormon stand in his armor, and all
Mormons, be they polygamists or nom
polygemists, stand ready to defend
religious right. The spirit of antag-
onism to the laws of the United
States, touching them and their
special condition, has not just now
been manifested by the Nor
mon powers and the Mormon peo-
pie. The disloyal attitude of the
Mormon church to the government is
not new thing. William Smith, the
brother of Joe Smith, as long ago as
1S45 exposed the designs of the clique
lof which Brigham Young was the
head soon after Young was elected
president of the church. In the New
York Sun of November, 1845, Smith
is quoted as having said: at is the
purpose of the Mormon leaders to
set up an independent government
somewhere in the neighborhood of
the Rocky Mountains, or near Cali
fornia. The plan has been maturing
for a long time, and with hate in their
hearts, skillfully kept up by the Nor
mon leaders, whose pockets are to be
enriched by their toll, the mass of the
Mormons will be alike purged of
American feeling and shut out by
barrier of mountains and church re-
strictions from any other than Nor
mon freedom. The designs of Brig
ham Young and the Twelve are to
build up a sacerdotal tyranny, the
spirit of which will be more repugnant
to the spread of republican
principles than could possibly
be the rule Of Europe"
1t is asserted that the same spirit of
hostility to the United States govern
ment that existed in the minds of the
early Mormon leaders prevails now to
as marked degree as ever. Their
claims to rule their followers by
spiritual sovereignty as much supe-
rior to that of the Union as God is
greater than the president of the
United States are strong now as then.
They are stronger, for they
are now the line of defense for
the enormous acquisitions of prop
erty and power which these
shrewd men have built up out of
the superstitious fealty of their
dupes. The New York Tribune styles
Mormonism the domination of an
unlawful and reasonable conspiracy,
and it claims to present the greatest
root of the evil when it says that this
rule rests on It's monopoly or property
rights in the Territory, and that mo-
nopoly is based on the laws of the
United States. 1t is held
that the remedy is simple,
as plain as anything can be. The
government grants the territory, and
now it is urged this same territory
may be reclaimed on the ground, that
the Mormons,in opposing federal laws,
have become the enemies of this gov
ernment. The Mormon condition is
denominated insurrection against the
government, and that the right to CO.
cree and confiscate property follows.
These are partisan views, and they
arise from mouthpieces of a party
that has been claiming to
deal satisfactory with Mormonism
during the past twenty years.
The Mormon side of the question has
yet to be argued, and the Latter Day
Saints argue that they may shield
themselves under the constitution of
the country which guarantees reli-
gious liberty. Polygamy is attached
by the alleged divine word of God to
their religion, as it was attached in
the day of Solomon and David to the
chosen people of God.