The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-11-25
ROBERTS AT CAPITAL
Spent Busy Day Talking to News
paper Men.
WILL RETAIN HIS SEAT
HE ASSURES ALL INQUIRERs TO
THAT EFFECT.
Tells of the Provisions of the En-
abling Act That Touch On Polyg-
amy and Plural Marriage-What
Was Required of the Utah Consti-
tutional Convention.
(Special 70 The Herald)

Washington, d. c.. Nov. Z4.-Con-
gresham Roberts passed a very busy
day at the Metropolitan hotel talking
to the many newspaper reporters who
called on him. He answered all ques-
tions, and assured the newspaper men
that he had no doubt whatever of his
retaining his seat One of the best in
terviewS appears in the Evening Star.
He savs:
THE legality of my election is be-
yond all question. | possess all the con-
stitutional qualifications, and am un-
convicted of any crime. am not even
charged with any offense against the
laws CT my state which would constl-
tute a sufficient offense for my expul-
sion. The United States law requiring
the Edmunds-Tucker oath expired by
Limitation on the admission of Utah TO
the Union, and since that time we have
been living under the constitution and
laws of the state of Utah
The expiration by limitation of the
United States laws is the part that has
not yet been stated. The fulfllment
of marital obligations incurred prior to
the admission of the state is not in vio-
lation of the compact with the United
States. The constitutional convention
carefully avoided the adoption of a
measure which would have made such
fuliillment a violation of the contract.
Basis of Settlement.
THE settlement of the question OF po-
lygamy by the adoption of the state
constitution and the admission of the
state into the Union was upon this
basis. The demand on the part of the
people of the United States, as eX-
pressed by their representatives in the
passage of the Utah enabling act. was
hnr hn nol N
Utah should provide by ordinance, ir-
revocable without the consent of the
people of the United States and state
of Utah, that there should be perfect
liberation of religious sentiment, pro-
viding that polygamy of plural mar
riages are forever prohibited. That was
the demand of the United States upon
the people of Utah. When the constitu-
tional convention came to deal with
this proposition. we adopted the very
language of the enabling act.
Here was a system of social life
which had obtained for half a century
in Titan, and however wrong it may
have been esteemed by the people of the
United States. there is no question but
what its relations were regarded as
sacred by the Mormon people. They
found themselves involved in moral OBJ
legations of which they certainly could
not divest themselves and remain at
peace with their conSciences.
Homes of Plural Wives.
What good could come either to
morals or religion by disrupting those
relationships which had been formed?
What Christian home in the east would
be made more secure in its purity by
destroying the homes of these plural
wives, whose acceptance of the Mormon
marriage system had been based upon
the conviction that it was right and
was in conformity with the moral ideas
of the community in which they lived?
Il affirm most positively that the
state of Utah has adhered to the set
tlement of this question. The represent
ative from Utah has not violated that
compact. but as he took a somewhat
prominent part in framing it, every
where and at all times he has held that
it should be strictly observed"