The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-11-19
WE HAVE SEEN.


The local Republican organ is still
sounding the calamity war-whoop, try
ing to frighten capital away from the
state, trying to injure business inter
ests. stirring up the embers of ancient
strife, and bowling about conditions it
has recognized and condoned for five
years.
Republicans are opposing the political
rights, or recognition, of men who hap
pen TO be involved in a social system
that has been in vogue in Utah for a
half century, men who are still bound
up in it by ties and obligations, the
majority of the people of the state hold
sacred, ties and obligations that the
Tribune itself has scored men for for
getting. And these same Republicans,
some of them, have supported active
polygamists" on their party tickets
year after year.
As candidates themselves, these Re
pubicans. some OF them, have accepted
the aid and profited by the votes of
active polygamists." They have made
speeches from the same rostrum,
marched in the same procession, con-
tributed to the same campaign fund,
shouted in the same chorus with "ac-
tive polygamists" They only asked
mat the practice of plural marriages
should cease. They never believed that
polygamous relations We're abandoned,
that polyganous ties had been severed
They knew better They are men of
the world Their plea Of innocence is
absurd
They never raised the question until
ii suited their partisan purposes to do
so. They never said to the polygamists
of the state: You may speak for the
party, use your influence in its behalf,
contribute to its fund, work for its
success, vote its ticket, but you cannot
run for Office
They never said; You may have
federal appointments. you may ill the
postohices, you may run for certain
positions, but you cannot run for
others" That is, they never said it un-
til il suited their partisan purposes to
do so.
IT has not been a month since the
bitterest opponents of B. II Roberts
sat upon the stage of the Salt Lake
theatre with John Henry Smith, an
avowed candidate for the United States
senate. Joined with him in the applause,
addressed the audience that he adj
dressed in the name of the party of
which Mr.. Smith was introduced as the
father" And they knew, for they had
said that Mr. Smiths domestic rela-
lions were a continuance of "old condi-
tons"
At the beginning of the constitution
al convention some of these very Re
publieans who are now so sensitive,
and so shocked over B. H. Roberts
election. voted for a man whom they
knew to be a polygamist and elected
him over Democratic opposition to the
presidency Of that body.
What has there been in the conduct
of the Republican party in Utah to
Justify its present attitude on this
question. or the efforts of its leaders
10 resurrect the old fight? VIII they
olead ignorance of the relations of the
men they supported 1t is noteworthy
fact that Republicans have never tired
to SPY these matters out except in the
case Of q political adversary, and for
partisan purposes.
Had any friend of B. Il. Roberts been
told "at the close Of the constitutional
convention" that the Tribune, filed to
overlooking with his eulogies, would
within three or four years be fighting
him on account of relations which We're
then as they are now. it would have re-
scented it.
AT the close of that convention had
the editor of the Tribune said, to a
Democratic member, You win be sup
porting a polygamist for congress with
in four years The Democrat might
well have turned and said; We'll,
what OF il? You championed po-
lygamist, an active polygamist' for the
presidency Of this state-making body.
You cannot complain