Arizona republican., 1890-05-22
DEMOCRACY AND MORMONISM.

The relations between the Democratic party and Mormonism appear to be gagged largely by location. While the two institutions are cheek by jowl in Arizona, they seem to be anything but congenial in the Solid South. It was the Democracy of Missouri that mas sacred the Mormons under the guise of law and drove them, in midwinter, across the river to Quincy and finally to Navoo. The most horrible outrages ever perpetrated on Mormon mission aries were inflicted upon those who have labored in the South. The follow ing is the latest and comes by Associated Press from Vernon, La., under date of May l5:
 Two Mormon elders, hailing from Utah, have been tramping through Washington and Holmes counties, distributing their religious tracts. They had proselytes to a considerable extent, and especially among unmarried females. A party of eight women was secured to go west. Adam King had two daughters in the party. King and his son, with neighbors, pursued the party, and capturing them, they tied the elders to trees, and after fogging them unmercifully, loosened them aud began firing on them. The Mormons ran into the swamps. They have not been seen since, nd undoubtedly perished. The young women were returned home, and every one of them well chastised, their parents making each one whip the other.
 Yes they were probably killed, also. Singular, isn't it, that no Democratic newspaper has been heard to raise it's voice in denunciation of this outrage.
 But it is not 80 singular, on reflection. This outrage was perpetrated in q solidly Democratic district, where Mormon votes were not an object, and yet it wouldn't do to publicly condemn it. Yet here were two "honest, industrious Mormons, good citizens," as their defenders in Arizona describe them, who were by a band of the staunchest sort of Demo- crats ''tied to trees" and unmercifully logged" undoubtedly by the castigators which these same Democrats used on the backs of their slaves. Then when they were turned loose, this same Democratic crowd began firing on them and drove them into the swamps," where, the re- porter pathetically informs us, "they undoubtedly perished.
 This is the way in which the Demo- crats in Louisiana received the propa- gators of that infamous faith. In the Democratic State of Louisiana death follows the effort to spread Mormonism. Vat bara opI tbrourhnut tba rorr;t,r are to be found Christian men, the fathers of daughters, who for political reasons are defending men of the iden- tical faith as those who were by their partisan friends in Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri driven to death like wild beasts.
 Because Republicans here say that these Mormons are not true, loyal citi- zens and incapable of becoming such because of their higher fealty to Mormonism, they are vilifed and maligned by the Democratic press from one end of the Territory to the other.
 Why this jealous defense of a so- called religion whose main tenet is re- pulsive to every good woman? Why must the mothers, the wives and the daughters of Arizona be brought in con- tact with, aye, governed by, these same Mormons?
 Simply and solely because it happens that the Morrnons hold the balance of political power in the Territory. In at least one county, Apache, all the schools are taught by men of this faith, a faith which the Supreme Court of the United States has branded as crime, a danger to society and as such to be extirpated. These men who are hunted to death by the Democrats of the South are exalted by the Democrats of Arizona and even intrusted with the education of the children in the public schools.
 Why this difference in sentiment be- tween the Democracy of the South and that of Arizona? Intimate and constant association with crime blunts the finer feelings and warps the moral sentiment. Does this account for the position of the Democrats of Arizona on the Mormon question: