The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1885-03-22
TERRORIZING.

THE HERALD is not going to deny
that the United States officers have the
lawful power to do as they are doing in
the matter of serving writs- of subpoena
and warrants of arrest. The court
can and does arm them with authority
and power to enter private residences,
forcibly if necessary, and to search for
persons wanted as witnesses or to ans
wer to charges of violating the laws.
Nora we going to advise anyone to
resist these officers in the lawful per-
Torrance of their duties. On the con-
trary, people should understand that it
dangerous business to oppose an officer
in the line of his duty and equally so to
set the authority of "a court at defiance,
or treat it with contempt. The court
must be respected, or there is no pro-
tectica for society.
At the same time we ask if the law
officers consider that they are
doing right in going about the
country at all times of the day and
night, frightening women and children
and terrOrizlng people generally?
Armed with search warrants and
authority to force doors they demand
admittanoe at unreasonable hours and
to places where there is no probability
of finding the parties wanted. They
search and EaHsack private houses, it
seems to Us, out of mere curiosity, to
crafty morbid tastes and to display a
misused and abused authority. We
have in mind two houses that were
searched last week by the officers under
authority to hunt for person who was
publicly known to be thousands of miles
away from the city. The conduct of the
marshals and those who are behind
them, urging them on to these acts.
is anything but creditable to the
government; it is not right,
it is not Just. it is not gentlemanly; nor
are these officers acting in the interests
of justice. tits a species of vicious vul-
garity or brutality, largely tainted with
cruelty and downright meanness. The
ends of justice are not served by terror
izing the innocent as well as the guilty,
and in the enforcement of the laws IN
Utah there is not the least occasion for
brutality. Weundertake to say that no
community IN America is more respect
full to the authority of the law than this
one here in Utah. Such thing as defy
ing an officer or treating a court with
disrespect or contempt is almost I'M
known; whenever it occurs, tits through
ignorance rather than Yiciousness. The
officers themselves will bear US out in
the assertion that the Mormons who are
arrested are the very soul of honor in
dealing with those into whose custody
they fall. The marshals know that the
word OF Mormon arrested on the
charge of polygamy is "as good as
gold.n He can be trusted at all times,
and under all circumstances and condi-
tons; If told to be at the court at a
certain hour he will be there whether he
is held by bond or his mere word has
passed. OF all the Mormons arrested
during the present raid, we do not be-
lieVe there is one from whom bail
bond was necessary; if one of them had
been convicted and were told that his
sentence would be pronounced on the
morrow, he would not have to be placed
under bond to appearif he said he would
be on hand at the appointed time The
officers are as eognzant as we of this
trait.
The fact that so many per-
sons are lodging the officers
argues no dlscredit to the
shippers" they regard themselves as
prosecuted, and believe they cannot
obtain fair trials in the local courts,
hence they get out of the way, which
they have perfect right TO do. It is
neither a crime nor a contempt of
court for an accused person to avoid
arrest, and under the conditions exist
ing here, where the presentment of a
man for trial is equivalent to a convic-
ton the keeping out of the clutches of
the officers argues shrewdness rather
than defiance to the courts. 1t is GER
tainly not criminal, and in no sense can
it be construed as Justification of the
obstreperous, the bull-doziDg, the brutal,
the terrorizing conduct of the officers.
The course that is being pursued by the
courts officials is all wrong. 1t is work
ing much harm in the community, and
as doing no good. Both justice and
decency demand that it be stopped, and
that the courts methods be those of
civilization and respeetability.