The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1885-05-13
THE uNpKoFrTABLE RAID.


Some of our contemporaries endeaVo
10 quarrel with The HERALD becaus
this journal has said that the presen
raid on polygamists is unwise and no
ia the interests OF morality. TIL
HERALD doesn t quarrel, hence GU
esteemed critics are wasting their words
and energies. But looking at the raic
in the light of its results, and not in the
light of what some people would like
those results to be. let US see If The
HERABB's position isn't correct. We
take it that the object, the sole purpose
OF the Edmund's law was to put a stop to
the practice of polygamy; its friends
will hardly claim any other aim for the
statute To suppress polygamy being
its motive, how well it is succeeding? 1t
is net now alleged that the act is not
being enforced; it is not asserted that
the law is not being applied with all the
rigor, and determination that can be
desired; those whose duty it is to inter
pref and enforce the act seem capable,
earnest and decided; they are accorded
all the assistance they can ask for and
encounter little or no opposition; in
fact they have everything their own
way, and their way is in the direction
OF making the law count for all
it is worth and more too.
How much polygamy are they
suppressing, and at what cost are they |
doing it7 Half-a-dozen men are con-
fined in the Penitentiary for a few
months, but has any polygamy been
suppress Ell? True, the half dozen are
not Irving in actual practice of polyg-
amy, but they are yet within the defini-
alton of unlawful cohabitation laid
down by the Chief Jushce-they are
each holding out more than one woman |
as wives; the Penitentiary, horrible as
it is, has not made these men anything +
but pOlygamists, nor will it make them
anything else in six months or six |
years; in six months they will leave
the prison, and in belief if not in prac-
tice viii be as much polygamists as they
were on the day the indictments were
found; their wives will still be their
wives, their houses will continue to be
their houses, and their faith will be |
firmer than ever before, for they viii |
have been made to suffer for that faith,
and the world certainly know by this
time, how suffering, especially when the
suffering is the result of what is held to
be persecution, intensiies and confirms
religious faith. The half-dozen polyg-
amists already in the Penitentiary Will be
steadily added to, but the result will be
the same in all cases where the indiyid-
uals have been conscientious and sin
cere in their practice and belief-they
viii be polygamists still.
Then the raid" is not suppressing
polygamy. nor will it suppress 1t; as be-
lieved in and practiced by the Mormons
polygamy is an institution or doctrine
or belief that will not and cannot be
suppressed by law, however shrewd and
determined may be the officers. Po-
lygamists may be jailed for such ex-
tended terms as the law may allow, but
that dees not suppress polygamy; so
long as belief in the divinity and right
fitness Of the practice is held, and that
belief is entertained by alarge majority
of the community, laws viii avail little,
and the energy of efficient officers will
be largely wasted.
There are in this and sur
rounding Territories, perhaps four
Thousand men who have more than
one wife; does anyone suppose that
these four thousand are going to be sent
to prison and kept there? Ii one IN
fifty of them is committed to the Peni- !
Tertiary, the proportion will be larger /
than most intelligent people believe it
can be, and yet while the forty nine are
free, there wont be much suppression of
polygamy.
To suppress polygamy by law you
must suppress polygamists by law; the
should be plain enough. t
Who will say that 1t can be done7 Who !
will say that the government is going
10 herd four thousand men in prison, :
lot for six moRths but for many years,
n order tostop practice which social
and the thinkers of the age
'ay would itself stop for want of mate
ial on which to feed, if left alone and
n -
'rnment could and would keep these v
men in prison during their natural /
ives, who viii say the suppression of s
'olygan1y 10 such a manner would be e
but the grossest of immor- e:
lity2 V
The HERALD is satisfied with its po- is
ltionkOn the problem" which people
re so anxious TO solve. II our esteemed J