Arizona weekly citizen., 1890-09-27
moRAoNIsM AND CRIME.

with what he does not credit Gus "a desire to be fair, and endeavor to answer him on that line.
 The republican party has taken a stand against Mormonism on two grounds:
 First. Because it alleges that the Mormon creed teaches polygamy.
 Second. Because it alleges the Nor mon church means an ecclesiastical control that has ever been aggressive. exacting and tyranIcal; and the people vote as one man under the dictatlon of priesthood.
 Passing over the truth or falsity of these two statements for the time being, we wish to the assure the public, mor- mon and gentle, that such individuals as do not not come under these heads that is polygamists or traitors to the Constitution-have never been referred to, are not now intended, and will not be referred to in the future, so far as the mormon IssueSis concerned. Our cor respondent therefore can rest easy. The republican party is only after law breakers. It seems strange however t0 us why the omrmons en masse oppose the test oath. We should not object to taking it. No citizen should object to taking the oath, whose intentions :are right. Why is it again that when law is passed against criminals-and crimi- nals only, that those members of the mormon church who are virtuous; who are ''honest upright citizens, that are making this desert to blossom as the rose" set up cry of protest as a single man. Does the shoe pinch:. If not, why does the jade vince before she Is galled? Why is it when the republican platform denounces an unholy, an unlawful, an unAmerican practice that these people who have no guilty consciences resent the denunciation as directed against themselves. It do7en't do to protest too much of virture before you are accused of vice. Let our mormon brethern then who are not lin it. know by these pre- sents that they are not the persimmOns which the law is after.
 The question next arises what has the mormon church done that 1t should be so bitterly arraigned. The republican platform states explicitly and in man her not to be misunderstood, " at is wrong with mormonism and the state ments are prime facia evidence. Even such stalwart defenders of the faith and apoligizers of the Latter Day Saints as the Florence Enterprise, the Tombstone Prospector, the Prescott Courier and the St Johns Herald know that polygamy is authorized in every mormon bible, which is in every Mormon house. The public and these papers know that within the past week three mormon Bishops have been arrested on charge of CONSPIRACY AND TREASON against the government of the United States. If the mormons of Arizona repudiate poly gamy why don't they tear out the be- sotted page which authorizes the curse. If they repudiate the statement that they are led like oxen to the the polls why don't they support there denial.
 Last spring Apostle Lyman of Apache county according to the Phenix Repub- Ecan said:
 You" (meaning the St. Johns nor monsJ "are now regarded by the church authorities in the light of missionaries. practical missionaries. You are here by the order of the church. It is your duty to develOpe this cOuntry--to build up the waste places. l am fully cog nizant and the central authorities are also, of the many disadvantages under which you labor. They know of this bad land, worse water and terrible winds. But am glad ssto inform you, and will take this opportunity of acquainting you with the precise time when you will cease to carry the burdens necessary to the pioneer in any movement, and be looked upon in the light of permanent people, do not know, Brother Smith"
 
 sent. whether I have ever told you of this date.or not, but the exact time when the church authorities at Salt Lake City will cease to regard you here in the St. Johns as missionaries, the moment is, whenever you become con- tented to remain here"
 In the year 1872 the writer heard Apostle Orson; Pratt in the Tabernacle at Salt Lake use these words in substance: 1.-The gentiles wonder why mormons vote so solidly. It is because the order em- mates from the head of the church. The apostle gives it to the president; the president to the bishop, and the bishop to the layman".
 What right has thei mormon apostle to drive his flock about like steers any more than the Methodist elder, the Presbyterian moderator, the Episcopal bishop, the Catholic cardinal, a Greek metropolitan or the Jewish rabbi.Should not this abrogation of civil liberty call forth anethmas from pulpit, the altar and the synagogue.
 There is still another feature or this Mormon question which we have not the space to enter upon here. It Is the moral side. It is the side which is looked upon by the wife, and the mother. Can any man of reason pre- sume that this system of concubinage Is notrevolting to the efemenine nature Bad as 1t is for the first wife and her off spring, what is it for the subsequent ones who can claim no legal wifehood or parentage The infamy of the thing is sufficient to produce a wave of indigna- tion that will sweep aside all opposition. Polygamy is more deadly to the social fabric than the venom of the corbra or the exhalations of the upas The touch of the leper is not more unclean and the dank winds which blow from the dis nal sXamps freighted with malaria is pure and wholesome to the noisome