The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-09-11

gard as law whatever they pleased, what
over the advantage of the moment might
suggest, or'whatever they had the strength
and skill to accomplish or realize.
we have modern sophists, who hold, in
erect, much the same opinions as the an
Gent order and endeavor to have their
opinions realized Or, rather, they mistake
their desires for their opinions and per-
suade themselves that in carrying out their
desires, they are merely promulgating
their own opinions.
Tins, it is held that if law can be
secured which will declare membership in
q certain church a crime, then such con-
dition will thereafter be, and should be, a
punishable offense. 1t is, of course not
urged that membership in the Mormon
church is now crime (at least none of
them has made such declaration,) but
that it will become real crime and thence
punishable, if a law can only be made to
say so. Those who advocate the punish
ment of church members merely as such
without regard to any alleged wrong done
by them, hold, of course, that there are no
absolute principles of right or wrong, and
that those acts Tor conditions, more prop
erly, in this case) are wrong if law de-
clares them so, without regard to any sup
posed principles. They say that if the
majority of the people of this nation see fit
to declare membership in the Mormon
church crime. that is the end of the mat
ter; and no one, least of all the Mormons
themselves, should be permitted to find
fault with such law as it is contemplated
to enact against them. The will of the
majority is the standard of right for the
time being on all questions; and not only
so, but citizens who question the law that
is enacted especially to Cypress them may
be regarded as reasonable.
Itwas this same sephistry thatattempted
to justify life Imprisonment for the simple
acknowledgment of plural wives mot the
living with them), the constructive CO.
habitation'' of the Utah courts. When it
was pointed out that such punishment was
out of all proportion to the magnitude of
the offense, the sophists mad a safe retreat;
they uniformly said ''It is the law" and
then talked about the laws ''vindicaton,"
etc. If they had discovered that the law
gave them power to guillotine man for the
"offense' of admitting in court that he still
recognized" two women as his wives,
though he did not live with them, these bar
barrie sophists would no doubt have inflicted
the penalty without any remorse, and would
still have said with patriotic lf-deception,
sit is the law" When it was discovered
that it was not ''the law'' to imprison
for life for a constructive offense,
the fanatical sophists had no remorse; they
had merely mistaken the law; they had no
other criterion. their consciences being
dead, judged by their admissions and az
lions.
| 1t is this same imbecile and cowardly
sophistry that seeks to punish man for
the supposed state of his mind, his belief,
or his church membership, without any
reference to criminal actions. Anything
act, condition, thought, state of mind or
body-is a crime if the law says so, is
really the position of the n-American
clique in Utah who are striving with lnfa-
nous zeal to use the widespread prejudice
against the Mormons for the accomplish
ment of the most dastardly crime in the
whole history of American politics-pun-
ishment for belief And it is fact greatly
to be deplored that there is no SOCRATES
among them to arise and say: II will not
punish my Deighbors for what judge to be
the state ot their minds, for, unlike the
rest of you, on subject like this, /, for
the most part, know my ignorance