The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1885-05-10
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Seldom if ever before in this genera
ton has there been seen such an exhl-
hilton as was witnessed in the Third
District Court on Saturday. Three well
known citizens were arraigned for SEN
tence on a Judgment found against them
for violating section of the Edmunds
act, which declares it crime for man
to cohabit with more than one woman;
they had been convicted after going
through form of trial, and stood be-
fore the court to have him pronounce
sentence of fine and imprlson-
ment against them, and ready
to have that sentence put
into execution. These men knew fully
what they must suffer-that they must
for half year live among thieves, cut
Threats and scoundrels of high and low
degree; that their food will be coarse
and uninviting; that they must sleep in
an oyercrowded room, badly ventilated,
and which it is said emits such
foul and overpowering odor in the
morning, that the guards who open the
door dodge aside to escape the deadly
blast; that they viii be cooped in
mud corral, and limited to a few rods
space in which to exercise and breathe;
in fact, that they must suffer much
physical inconvenience and torture.
And yet knowing all this, they were
neither down-hearted nor depressed in
spirit; on the contrary, they were
really cheerful, and so far at least as
one might Judge from. outward signs
and expressions were the only
happy ones in the vast crowd making
up the court and filling the hall The
physical power of the government COM
PEELED those men to assume the atti-
tude of criminals, but that power, how
eyer harshly it might be exercised,
could not make the defendants feel that
they were convicts; the Penitentiary,
with all its horrors, will not
be able to convince these men
that they are wicked, that they have
done wrong, or are guilty of anything
which they regret; nothing will dispel
the conviction in their minds that they
are the victims of cruel persecution at
the hands OF the government and its
officers and representatives. The ma
jority of those in the court room wit
Messing the proceedings were filled
with sympathy, and were more sore at
heart than Cannon, Musser and Watson.
There is a vast community, extending
from Idaho on the north into Arizona
on the south, and from Nevada into
Colorado and New Mexico, which is
condoling with the prisoners on ac-
count of their physical sufferings, but
this community is at the same time en-
couraging the unfortunate sufferers to
continue firm in their faith, and wayer
not in their religious belief.
Judge Zane and Attorney Dickson
may fatter themselves that they are
crushing out" religion belief by
herding men in the Penit .tiary, but if
SO, in the light of Saturdays spectacle
they should no longer deceive them
squarely and intelligently in the face.
The faith of those prisoners in the
rightfulness of their conduct is firmer
to-day than it has ever before been, and
the men themselves hold a warmer
place in the respect and affections of
the community. Then their convection
and commitment to prison lave had
the contrary effect to that hoped for by
the court and its officers, not only on
the prisoners themselves, but on the
community at large. And so it will
continue. The laws can be enforced in
such manner and with such rigor,
that the plural wife system win be
practically stopped, but belief in its
rightfulness will not thereby be
destroyed; and when we consider what
the rigorous enforcement of the act
necessary to absolutely prevent the
practice means, the propriety of
going to that length may well
be called in question, and the govern
ment can wisely ask if it would not be
better to attempt cure by milder and
more effective means than the i'm
prisonment of four or five thousand
men, and the depriying OF that number
of families of their protectors and
bread-winners. There are times when
the question of right or wrong may be
laid aside for that of expediency; when
wisdom suggests different course to
that dictated by strict construction OF
statutes. Has not such time come in
the treatment of the Mormon problem?
1t is farcical to go ahead in the line ROW
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