The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-01-22

Game should have approached his son
at all on such delicate question.
Mr.. Caine answered that he consid-
cred he had perfect right to commune
with his own son.
Mr.. BAsKIN-Was he not OF age2
Mr.. Game thought not; and that
Mormon received satisfaction.
CHAIRMAN SPRINGER then inquired
which of the gentlemen of the other
side was to next occupy the floor. AS
neither was ready Mr.. @. G. Bean, ex-
delegate from Arizona, who was pres
eEtreqnested permission to briefly ad-
dress the committee, as he had had
dealings with the Mormon people of
his own Territory. The committee
signified assent and
EX-DELEeATE BEAN
said he was somewhat in the position
that Mark Twain found himself In
when he undertook to defend Joe
Hile before a Boston audience. The
humorist said that he was not there to
vouch for Joe's literary attainments,
but to back up his moral character; that
Joe was his neighbor, and his vegetable
garden butted up against Joe's house,
but he had never caught Joe carrying
of any of his yes GABLES. Joe was also
a member of his church, but he had
never known him, when the contribu-
ton tox was being passed, to put his
hand in and take out cent. Mr..
Bean said he appeared before the
solici ed to say few words in behalf #
his Mormon npjOhhOrS. tab
neighbor of Arizona. and there
were some 25,OOO or 10000 Mormon
people living in his Territory. He
admitted that he once solicited their
votes, but they couldn't see it thatYay.
He therefore was under no political 0 D.
legations to them. As an American
citizen, however, he could not stand by
silently and see any man oppressed or
maligued or prosecuted, whether he
was white or black, red or yellow. He
regarded it the inherent right of every
American citizen to believe what he
chooses; he might worship the SUP,
moon and seven stars, and that alone il
his business; he might worship a
woman if he wanted to, and to do so
was sometimes esteemed blessed priv
ilege. The WAGNER on the broad
prairie might kneel down and say his
prayers to his Wagon-wheel, when it
refuses to turn after he had anointed it
with axle grease of some celebrated
brand, and when he gets ready to roll
ol.nobody knows or Cares any thing at all
about his wagon-Wheel prayers.
In 1S69-70. the speaker said. he had
some curiosity to satisfy himself as TO
the true character of his neighbors. He
crossed through northern Arizona
and swan the big Colorado with
four ten male teams, just te-
fore the July rise of that river.
He travelled north through the Terri
tory of Utah and stopped with the Mo-
mon bishops along the great thorough
fare from St. George to Salt Lake City.
And from that day to this-nearly
twenty years-he had been thrown
directly among members ofthe Mormon
community. and he could unhesitatingly
say that he had found them as good
class IF people as he had ever met in
his life, and he was born in New HANG
shire and raised in New England, and
had not forgotten the home of his
fathers. Honest, temperate, industri-
GUS. frugal, economical, they were as
good neighbors as he could possibly
wish tor, providing-he could induce
them &c. vote for him. (The honorable
Committee was moved: they saw the
point; they laughed.J
The literature OF the country
abounded with misrepresentation-a
that was an exceedingly mild term for
it-of the Mormon people. He was a
member of the Forty ninth Cong1 ess
when the Edmunds bill was brought up
in the House he went to Senator Ed
munds and told him that it was Useless
and pernicious legislation; that polyg-
amy was in reality dead, that he had
already extinguished it, and that it was
as dead as slavery and-if the term was
admissable-a little deader. He also
told the Senator there were three things
he would like to see done-to d,vest the
measure OF the test oath, of the clause
disrobing the women of suffrage, and
that which conhscated the property of
the Mormon Church. Their churches,
he told him, were barns comparatively
speaking; they had no lofty cathedrals,
and their church properties were ut
teFly Insignificant, AMI he would be
very sorry to see the government of the
United States enrich itself in any such
way as contemplated in his bill. In
his Territory, the speaker said,
polyamy was never heard of:
there had been few cases
of unlawful cohabitatioD. The officers
hauled three Mormon bishops $50 miles
and secured cloud of witnesses. 1t
was found that the charge of polygamy
could not be made to stick, so they con-
victed them for unlawful cohabitation.
They were sentenced to three years
with hard labor, and to be imprisoned
in the Detroit Penitentiary, whereas
the law provided six months as the
maximum punishment for that class OF
offences. He brought the matter be-
fore the Attorney. General, who suid
it was the greatest outrage
he had ever known. He then
went to the Preaident, explained
the matter 10 him and told HIM how
the Attorney General regarded it. The
men were pardoned, as they ought to
have been.
When the question of Arizona's ad
mission into the Union came up, and
seeing that she had 20, 1000 or 80 600 Nor
mon people within her borders, Mr.. 1
Bean did not want to see the claims of
Arizona denied because his Territory
was blessed with so many thrifty. peace
and home-loving citizens who vote the
Democratic ticket.