The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-10-08
SECRETARY NoBLEASD THE COMMISSION

Secretary NOBLE, of the interior depart
ment, refuses to accept the statement of
the head of the Mormon church as regards
the practice Of polygamy. This is proper
enough, considering the position which
Mr.. NOBLE occupies. His officials, or at
least, officials for whose conduct he is in
sense responsible, have reported to him
that polygamous marriages continue to be
celebrated in this territory They go fur
Their, and say they have evidence of forty
such marriages since last June, we believe.
They fortify themselves IN this assertion
by declaring that they have the names of
the forty offenders against the law. On
the other hand, President WOODRUFF, who
should know the facts and who, in our
opinion, does know them, says that the
marriages have not taken place. or if so,
they have been celebrated without his
knowledge-an improbable thing and
against the advice of himself and those as
sociated with him in the leadership Of the
Mormon church. which is also improbable.
Here is direct conflict of assertion, and
under the circumstances, and in the absence
of proof, the secretary is necessarily com
PEELED TO stand by the report of the Utah
commission. To discredit that report
would be to declare that the officials he
keeps in this territory TO apply the law and
in sense to represent the federal govern
ment are reckless in their statements,
irresponsible, and unfit TO hold the Offices
for which they are commissioned. In short,
were the secretary, without further ado, to
accept as correct what President WooD-
RUFF says the official would be obliged to
remove the Utah commission and appoint
men in whom he and other officials of the
government could have confidence.
But Secretary NOBLE, while standing by
his aDpointees, proposes to be more fair
than they have been in that he will permit
an opportunity to establish who is correct,
the Utah commission or President WooD-
RUFF. Mr.. NOBLE tells our Washington
correspondent that he has promised Dele
gate GAME to assist the latter in ascertain
ing the real facts. When Mr.. GAME
told the secretary that he doubted
his ability to identify the accused
forty, Mr.. NOBLE said he would
instruct the commission to divulge the
names and furnish such information as
they might have. This seems fair and
proper, and now we shall await develop
ments, not in anxiety as to what the inves-
tigation will prove, but as to what Secre-
tary NOBLE VIII do when he learns the
truth.
The HERALD has such perfect confidence
in the declaration Of President WOODRUFF.
and in the ability of the United States
marshal's force, that we do not believe the
commission can name one man who has
contracted polygamous marriage within a
year. We do not believe the commission
has the names of forty men, or of one man
against whom there is reasonable ground
for suspicion We even doubt that the
commission has heard suspicion ex
pressed against forty men. We do be
lieve that the commission deliberately ant
willfully invented the polygamy allegation
which was incorporated in the report, and
that the number forty was used because
that happened to first come into the minC
of the man who wrote the report. We
believe that if the commission
or any member of it, hat
any sort of evidence of forty
polygamous marriages, the gentlemen
would not have waited to incorporate the
fact in their annual report; on the con
trary, we believe that complaints would
have been laid against the forty men, anC
that the forty would be now restrained by
heavy bonds or by the walls of the peni
Tertiary. 1t would serve the purpose O.
the commission much better to have forty
convictions for polygamy, or to even hav,
forty arrests on the charge of polygamy
than to have an indefinite rumor that ter
times forty men had violated the law.
We hope that Secretary NOBLE will be a.
good as his word, in which event we ar,
quite certain that he will crowd his com
which they will be unable to extricat,
themselves only by exposing how mean
how partisan and how contemplate the,
are. They will be compelled to confes
that the only evidence they have of tn
violation OF the anti-polygamy law i
their own suspicion or the unsupporte
word of some of the partisan and unprin
cipled wretches which the Utah commission
delights to employ
We commend Secretary NOBLE for plac
ing confidence in his official representatives
That is the proper thing for him to do. Blu
if it shall transpire that those Representa-
tives have deliberately deceived him an
willfully slandered this community, it Wi
be more commendable and equally prone
for the secretary to remove the commits
sioners and appoint men who will be fan
truthful and non partisan in the perform
ance of the duty which the law imposes.