Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-04-15
THE CHARGE TO THE GRANDJURY

The charge to the Grand jury yeSter-
day was a clear and pointed enunciatiOn
of their duties to themselves and to the
country. The careful study of this charge
by the community at large would be a
most desirable thing, not because it calls
attention to the condition of things in our
midst, but because of the sound exposi-
ton of the duties of the Grand Jury that
they shall investigate all violations of
the law without prejudice and with
out passion, without fear and without
favor. This charge clearly shows that it
is the law which determines what crime
is and when it has been committed, and
how it shall be punished. 1t calls the
fact to the attention of those composing
the Grand Jury, that they are to act not
from any motives of malice, or hatred or
i'll will they are TO act in the spirit of the
law and not in the spirit of party. 1t tells
anew the old truth that there is but
one way that laws can be made in this
country, and the laws so made are the
only ones that you can recognize" The
too general view in Utah has been that
the laws SO made, that is by Congress,
or by our local Legislature, when they
have not been in harmony with the specia
likes or dislikes of certain classes, they
were neither to be obeyed nor respected,
and with many it has been deemed high
merit to violate these laws Filled with
passion and hatred, the violators of the
law have thought and loudly proclaimed
that the law was being enforced from a
feeling of passion and hatred, not know
ing that in the law and obedience to it
lies the safety of all classes of society, and
that to let any claim privilege above the
law and exercise it is the beginning of
chaos and anarchy. The prevail
ing idea in Utah is that civil soci-
ETY. was organized that a religious
class might rule, and that their right to
rule was based on other grounds than the
rights of the citizen. 1t is a pernicious
and false idea, and has been engendered
from a neglect to study and investigate
the source of civil power in our govern
ment. 1t is false because it does not con-
slider the facts as they are, and that the
facts may not be in accordance with a
trurer ard higher idea of government is
not a reason for ignoring those facts.
An appreciation of the actual state
of things is the first and most indispensi-
bic condition to an improvement of
things, whether the things be temporal
or spiritual, and to ignore the funda-
mental condition is to show incompe-
tency to lead to a better one.
Civil society is organized for mans
temporal wants and needs, and these
wants and needs become his rights, while
the protection of these rights is the object
and the justification of the existence of
laws. 1t is not the aim of the law to
promulgate truth nor to suppress error, but
to make and enforce such regulations as
shall best preserve society upon the basis
of the ideas it has chosen as fundamental
to its welfare. So long as a state shall
deem its existence secure only on the
basis of certain theory it will make laws
to uphold that theory and to undermine
those laws by evading or by violating
them, is to undermine the society
making them. If safer and a
firmer foundation is to be had in
the enforcement of another theory, it is
requisite that such theory shall be made
known by argument and persuasion, by
appealing to the intellect and letting the
mind rule the body, even the body pol
itic. What man is we may know, but
what is his destiny beyond this world we
can only conjecture, and we must build
our civil societies upon what we know
him to be and not upon the hope of what
he may become. To deal with man i'm
time as being of eternity is for the finite
to assume to control the infinite; it is to
leave to vagueness and dreams the direc- |
ton of affairs in which the passions of |
mankind are ever at war and acting in
certainty, and where they need an imme-
diate control to preserve man from the |
brute nature which is too often with us.
The safety of the lowest and most de-
praved man in society is guarded as much
by the law as the safety of the highest
and most worthy. This very care of the
rights of all, no matter what their condi-
ton, is the supreme excellence of the
law; and if the law infringes upon some
rights and does not protect others, let
those who are aggrieved ask from the law
making power that they be protected and
that their rights be not infringed, and not
seek their rights in defiance of the
power can protest them. But in asking
this protection, let them remember that
the authority which alone can grant what
they ask can alone decide whether what
they ask is an infringement upon the
rights of others and whether it is incon-
sistent with the very being of society as
founded.
PLEURO-PNEUMONIA.