The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-12-07
WILL THE MORMONs MAKE GOOD
CITIZENSf

pack the course of history.
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WILL THE MORMONS MAKE GOOD
CITIZENsf
Ten years ago the question Of our caption
would have been answered in the negative.
Today, however, it is answered in the
affirmative by a very high authority, Chief
Justice Zane, of the supreme court of Utah,
who for many years has enforced judi
cially the federal anti-polygamy statutes
against the Latter Day Saints" After
more than 1900 men had been sent to
prison for violation of the anti-polygamy
statutes of 1s62-1SS2 and 1887 President
Woodruff, of the Mormon church, pub
lished an official declaration termed
''manifesto," in which he said:
We are not teaching polygamy or plural mar
rage, nor permitting any person to enter upon
its practice. Inasmuch as laws have been en-
acted by congress forbiddiug plural marriages,
which laws have been pronounced constitu-
tional by the court of last resort hereby de-
clare my intention to submit to those laws and
to use my influence with the members OF the
church over which I preside to have them do
likewise And now publicly declare that my
advice to the Latter Day Saints 10 to refrain from
contracting any marriage forbidden by the law
of the land
The General Conference of the Mormon
Church October 6. 1891, adopted a resolu-
ton recognizing this declaration of Presi-
dent Woodruff as authoritative and bind
ing. The adoption of this resolution was
supported by George Q. Cannon, who has
hitherto been the leader of the polygamist
faction of the Mormons, and has been i'm
prisoned for his faith. It should be re-
membered that polygamy was not one of
the doctrines of the Mormon church until
O number of years after its foundation,
and has never been a universal practice.
Since this action Of the Mormon confer
ence Judge Zane testified that the
Mormons have without hesitation given
cheerful obedience to the anti-polygamy
laws, on the ground that it would not be
right after the manifesto and its endorse
ment by the church to enter into polyg-
amy or practice unlawful cohabitation,
and Judge Zane is convinced that the Nor
mon church has sincerely abandoned
polygamy and will never adopt it again in
the United States.
There are 150,0Oo Mormons in Utah, but
of the number many are only nominally
so. Judge Zane does not favor the dis.
franchising of the Latter Day Saints.
They are industrious, temperate people,
and are law-abiding since the church took
its stand against plural marriage. No
plural marriages have been authorized or
sanctioned by the officers of the Mormon
church since the publication of President
Woodruff's manifesto. Judge Zane be-
lieves that henceforth the Mormon is with
us. and has no doubt that confidence.
goodwill and harmony will be restored
sooner or later, and that ere long these
valleys and mountains will be the homo
of o patriotic, harmonious, progressive,
and great people,"
1t justice to the Mormon in the past 1t
should be said that uncompromising
fanatic that he was in religion he never
sought to interfere with the religion of
others, he was not bigot; he advocated
| universal religious liberty, but he de-
| manded more of it for his own sect than
the United States laws would allow. The
Mormon has been the subject, too, of
some unjust obloquy. Hubert Bancroft,
in his history of Utah, says that he does
not find any evidence that the doctrine of
blood atonement, or the oath of ''the en-
dowment house" inculcated or imposed the
death penalty upon offenders against the
church. John d. Lee, the executor of the
Mountain Meadows massacre OF 1857, was
"a fanatic Of the worst stamp, a member
of the Mormon church, but OF whose in
tentions the church knew nothing and
whose bloody acts the members of the
church, high and low. regard with ahhor
enee." Lee was brought TO justice by the
assistance of the leaders of the church and
was convicted by jury largely composed
of Mormons. The Mormon church was no
Masonic order for the murder Of Morgan
by q few zealots who committed great
crime without the knowledge or instiga-
ton of the order. This view of Bancroft
is confirmed by the speech of the United
States prosecuting attorney at the trial of
John d. Lee, who said he had documen-
tsry proof OF the non-complicity of the
Mormon church in the crime.
The Mormon church was organized April
/ I, 1850. By this church the Old and New
TestAments were accepted in their entirety
and the Book OF Mormon was accepted as
later and supplemental revelation. In
the original creed OF the church there vas
no sanction of polygamy. Mormonism
had existed thirteen years when, in ls4S,
Joseph Smith had revelation" author
izing po.ygamy; but this revelation was
not generally promulgated until after the
great exodus, when the Mormons had
become established in Utah. The
inferior order of wifehood, known in
the Scriptures SIS eoneubinage, was not
recognized by the Mormon church. By
the pnnvriacs coy.Dane all vwnp,au rob ah;t