St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-03-17
THE MORMON PROBLEM.
Bishp Tuttle, of Utah, on a Visit to
st. Paul.
A Calm and Able Review Of the Situation,
Politically and Religiously.


Christ church yesterday morning in regard to
the missionary work of the Episcopal church
in Utah, and very eloquently and ably delin-
lated the condition of affairs there. as well as
gave a succinct narrative of what forces the
church had to contend against.
Since the last general conference of the
church he had been visiting the churches
on the Atlantic coast, and on
his return had DETECTED from his
homeward route to make this visit
on the middle Sabbath of Lent to Rev. NJ N.
Gilbert, rector of Christ's church, between
whom and himself existed warm personal
friendship of years standing, even such as
might exist between a father and son, and
to friends in st. Paul who were members Of
his first parish in Oswego county, N. Y. He
had intended to spend next Sabbath at
Omaha with the Bishop of Nebraska, but
since making the appointment this gentle
man had been removed by death.
After earnest words of commentator to
Christ church for its zeal in home and foreign
mission work, and thanks to its Sabbath
school for the scholarship it supported in St..
Marks church, Utah, he exhorted it to do its
full measure of duty in all the fields OF
Christian work. Seventeen years ago he was
sent out a junior missionary to Montana,
Nebraska and Utah, among many who were
his seniors, but now he was the senior OF all
the Episcopal missionaries in those terri
tories, with Utah and Idaho in
his special charge. Here was a great
field of labor open for the
missionary work that should be entered upon
by brave young men of the Episcopal clergy,
full of earnestness and willing to undergo
privations. but of sterling common sense.
Utah, with its hamlets, camps and crude
settlements, was the Mormon stronghold.
He would speak of it Gf it was Sunday po-
litically, religiously and in reference ito the
work of the Episcopal church being carried
on there. Its government consisted OF a
legislature, eight in nine of whose members
were Mormons, but its governor was ap-
pointed by the United States government
While other territorial governors could have
governors veto annulled by a two-thirds
vote of their legislators, for obvious reasons
government made the veto OF its Utah
governor absolute.
Up to 1862 the Mormons violated no law Of
the United States, for Utah had no law
touching on the marriage relations, either
in contract, record, solemnization or
ceremony. Then congress passed law
against polygamy which ever since the Nor
mons had successfully defied. There had
been only one suit brought in Utah for viola
ton of this law, and that one was helped on
by the Mormons to get the matter before the
supreme court to test its constitutionality, on
the ground of interference with religious
worship. The supreme court decided that
the law was constitutional, and since then it
had virtually become dead letter.
HaGn nf fha To- hoe
full from the fact that polygamous marriage
and living has been and is church secret,
and because the only way conviction could
be obtained was by the Indictment of a grand
jury for the crime, which body always being
composed largely of Mormons, bill could
never be found. To illustrate, it would be
harder to get a grand jury indictment for
polygamy in Utah than it would to get a
Ramsey county grand jury to indict liquor
dealer.
There was no Republican or Democratic
party in Utah, but church party and an
anti-church party, the former having thin gs
all their own way. The states for mayor, legis-
lators, etc., were all made up by the Mormon
leaders in their ecclesiastical councils, the
tickets printed by them, and the Mormons
went up like sheep and voted it to man
and woman. The government had thought
that if they gave the ballot to woman in
Utah she would use it for the defense of her
own rights, but it had proved to be the re
verse. Ninety-nine out of every hundred of
the Mormon women marched up to the polls
and voted the same way as the Mormon
men.
He was not pessimist in any sense what
ever, and did not think our government was
going to pieces if in some things it was lack
ing in sweetness and strength, but he be-
lieved that the only way to sustain free gov
eminent of and by the people was by having
two strong political parties fighting and
watching each other to the utmost, without
bad blood. This is what Utah needed and
had not. The hope was to in some way
build up an opposition party to the church
party in their own ranks by intoxicating a
spirit of independence in their young men,
and to create a spirit of opposition in them
to the crafty tory leadership of the church,
which arrogated everything to itself and fed
them husks.
He had some faith in the Edmunds bill of
which Ex-Governor Ramsey was at the head,
of five commissioners to carry out, in help
ing to accomplish this result, which dis
franchised from voting and holding any ter
ritorial office the Mormon polygamist. First
it places stain upon polygamy which is felt,
and second it makes the polygamist sore who
has ruled with high hand before, because
he is not eligible for office, and cannot have
any voice in saying who shall rule over him.
He thought by this deprivation a schism
might be created which would give Nor
mon young mems party the victory
in the distance and finally
overthrow the toryism of a century.
Religiously, he felt that the Mormons had
been painted blacker to the people of the
east than they are. They were as people
hospitable, friendly, devoted to and ac-
complished in music and proverbislly just
and true-hearted. They were not sensuous,
criminal or lawless, and their polygamy was
the barbarous outgrowth of a gross theology.
1t was their leaders who were crafty, schem-
ing and avaricous. He believed that when
they started in their careers that Brigham
Young as well as Oliver Cromwellwere religi-
Gus fanatics, but that in later years both lost
their religious thoughts and became selfish
Enthusiastically this was the case with
the former.
Orson Pratt was a learned man, a fine
orator and an earnest and believing fanatic
in Mormonism. When he had charge of the
English saints in 1850, more self sacrifc-
ing, nODle 1mpulSed ana devoted man uid
not exist in the whole world But when
Brigham Young announced the doctrine of
polygamy in 1882, the saints in England to
the number of fully one-half left his ranks
in adherence.
The Mormon is ready to accept all that you
may believe as regards God and the Bible,
and after he has heard you and done So,
feels he has something to add to your faith
in, fba odd Of a>,I bo
belief that the Mormon ministers are in
spired of God, and ''wants to get you on a
higher plane" The Mormons keep the Sab
bath, and every Sabbath administer
the sacrament of bread and