The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-10-16

the supreme court Of the United States and thus
made contrary to the law of the land. There
Is really no room for doubt that hereafter
polygamy will be discountenanced as much
oy the Mormons as by the Gentiles There are
very considerable number OF women polyga-
mously married in Utah already. in whose
cases IT would be cruel and inhuman to execute
the law that would turn them out upon the
world as beggars, and the Mormons who have
married them would be less than men if they
consented to abandon them to such a fate lis
neither likely nor desirable that the law shall
De strictly enforced post facto pr divided it is
ooeye1 in future, and provided polygamy is
really and in good faith given up.
Doubtless the renuncation of polygamy has
come little in advance of the overwhelming
pressure of the westward movement of popula-
ton The Mormons might have hung on for
few years longer. But the longer they chung to
their peculiar institution the more they would
have been regarded as alien enemies by the peo-
pie OF the United States, and the less DISPOSE
ton there would have been to concede anything
to them when the Gentiles became the majority
in Utah and the territory was admitted as q
state. Moreover, they were already beset by
Gentle politicians Of the same character as ter
ritorial politicians in general, that is to say by
characterless and constituencies vagabonds who
had cast covetous eyes upon the Mormon pos
sessions and marked them FOR their own. Some
Of the laws that Congress has been induced TO
pass at the instance of these politicians come
altogether too near to ruthless confsca' ion to
be agreeable reading fer disinterested and pa
triotic American citizens The persecution thus
begun was certain not merely to continue but to
increase as the Gentle population Of the tori
tory increased, and with it the hostility OF
| which polygamy was either the cause or the
pretext. The Mormon leaders have shown
more worldly good sense ard prudence in decid-
ing to surrender the bone OF contention.
| What Mormonism viii be and what it will
amount to without polygany are interesting
but not very important que tons Polygamy
is not vital to Mormonism any more than it is
to Mohammedanism. Though some prophets
OF the Mormon church have laid down the
practice of polygamy as not merely privilege
but duty, the Mormon revelations have the
useful quality, in common with the dellv-
erances of the Pope and the decisions OF the
supreme court, of being sus ceptible of
modification. There is no religious organi-
cation in this country not even the
Roman Catholic church where it i
most firmly established, that exerts anything
like the same mastery of the daily lives OF its
members as the Mormon church. AS Utah fills
up with Gentiles, the Mormons will surely envy
these their liberty, and sooner or later will
| attainit for themselves. That will be the end
OF Morrnonism as temporal power. What be-
comes of it as queer religious denomination is
a question not very important, except to the
history of religious imposture, to which the
church OF the Latter day Saints has already fur
nished one Of the most striking chapters.