The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-09-29
POLYGAMY REVlVING
THE IMPRESSION THAT TT Is
GROWING IN THE STATE
OF UTAH
TESTIMONY ON THE MATTER
That the Practice of the Mormons
Is Distinctly Toward PoIygamous
Marriages Again The Gentle
Press of the Commonwealth Sus-
tains the Presbyterinns.
By Rev. Arthur T. Rankin.


By Rev. Arthur T. Rankin
BRIGHAM CITY, Utah, Sept. 2S.-The re-
vival Of polygamy in Utah Is live question.
Religious politicians are stirred as never
since our admission to statehood. Suppressed
mutterings are heard all over the state One
OF the agencies In concentration of thought on
this question is a PAPER adopted by the
presbytery in Utah on Aug. 30. Since that
date about score of Presbyterian minister's
three times that number of ernest women and
men teachers and thoroughly educated work
ers from a score of the churches met in
Manti. almost under the caves of one of tho
beautiful Mormon temples. They came from
al ends s OF the state. Among these ministers
ana educators are men who have coma
through all the mysteries of the Mormon
temple service and the Vagaries of the nrac
tlce or Mormonism-even to pOlygamy itself
men, women and children of plural mar
rlages who have been educated in schooIs
academies and in Utah missions and who
after being graduated from the best Eastern
GGoiieges ana semnarles, have come back to
devote their lives to what they believe makes
for Utahs good. The number also Included
men of the highest ability and widest cul-
lure lure, VINO have been tgHting this thing for
une says: They are all men of Character.
Ihelr private lives are above reproach;
After twelve days conference, in a paper on
the %present situation in Utah, these things
are said: '''o 'i''"s'
-. Another phase of present day Utah is
Inat people are being urged to believe their
IelIglon. one lives his religion in Utah who
mas entered the celestial order of marr,cro
and has marital relations with all his wives
VI such cases more than 1000 have come to
bur 6rtb n0[ f and this living has resulted in the
h9ou. Jurles refuse to find Indictments
OlncerS make no arrests, religious immortality
goes unpunlshed. From the heads of the
chuTch down polygamy fourishes.
such is the judgment of Presbyterian
Oiah. They might have called it by some
O gu T,. name than polygamy. Gentiles make
PoIygamy or unchaste.'
PRESIDENT Snow says polygamy does not
g1fst IN Utah; Poylgamy has definite sig
nlhcatlon In law. The ,presbytery from the
neads of the church own, saw il poIvqamv
nourishes, unlawful Capitalization would have
causnt them When a man to all outward
n5Grn nves and associates with two or
IioFe women as wives in the habit and re-
Pute OF marriage 1t is unlawful Capitalization
GenIlles and American Mormans call that
nfu fo pl w bbvhg po4ygamy is the kind Of
nave sent them to the penitentiary and the
law OF Utah fine them $500 and six months in
the county jail -
-, The Tribune quotes the law and asks: Gin
the light of that what does young Utah
think of things these daysY'
SUHaWs tell the direction OF the wind G. A.
iEoFSOh' a lawyer and Mormon addressed
the Presoyterians on the situation in Utah
he said Of polygamy: Every honest, intsI-
Ilgent Mormon will admit there is a general
return to old relations all over the state"
/. Nearly every paper in the state has nc
tlced the result. PenroSe's reply to the Pres
DyterlanS filled page of Saturday evenings
said: -E
When blatant defender of polygamy and
persistent practicer of 1t takes up the cud-
gels against the charge that polygamy is
still practiced extensively in Utah a sardonic
grin may well chase itself over the visages of
the devils imps"
Cal T
ence of polygamy in Utah, no one doubts it.,
and that 1T has increased, since statehood is
known to all who have opportunity of OBJ
SerVatlon. Not only have old family relations
Deen resumed, but new marriages have been
contracted and are being contracted almost
daily. Those who protest that there is no
polygamy in Utah assume that the people of
Utah are O. class of chumps. The church
apologists claim there have been no plural
marriages since the manifesto. Maybe not;
but men in the church who have had one OF
more wives have taken uother women to
their homes and supported them wives.
No matter what it is called, the polygamy
question is going to get a good stirring up.
The church leaders, of course, In the face
of the manifesto, would not admit that polyg-
amy is now being practieed, and in order to
keep cut of trouble from man-made laws
they solemnly deny it. But they justify this
deception on the ground that polygamy is
commanded by Cod
And the Springfield Independent has this
to say: The arraignment cannot be safely
ignored. 1t does not charge, some of the
press seem to infer, that poygamous mar
riages are not being solemntzed. 1t does
charge that authoritatiyely persons are teach
ing that celestial marriages are an essential
part of Mormon faith, that God is a poyga-
mist and that Jesus Christ the husband
Of three wives Nothing of recent years in
religious matters has succeeded in stirring up
such a tremendous excitement, and it must
be met and answered.
"Penrose, in his reply to the Presbyterians
says there was 'tacit understanding, not to
say contract, that the dead strife should be
buried, that family obligations already en-
tered into and maintained for years should
not be disrupted, that men should be per-
mitted, without legal jeopardy, to care for
support and recognize their plural families
educate their children and perform a manly
and humane duty to those thus dependent
upon them 70
'The proof CT this understanding exists in
the cessation of wholesale prosecutions for
unlawful cohabitation, To this Presidents
Snow and Roberts agree. The trio need it.
"Presbyterians put two thousand more in
the same class. There should be wholesale
prosecution. Think of 1t. George Q. Can
non said under no other government could
this church have been recognized Now the
president, the writer, the orator Of the church
agrees that a fraud was perpetrated by the
leaders. They promised one thing and had a
tacit understanding that they would do
another. Was the United States a party to
has been framed that would send a Gentle
to jail and let saint go free?
you may hear priest comfort the mourn
ers at the funeral Of a young man who has
died without having entered wedlock with
the promise to seal a wife to him in heaven
And women go TO the temples and are mar
ried to dead men,