The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-01-26

there has been little excuse for the ex-
traord1nary efforts put forth through
out the country to crush a system of
marriage already practically dead and
abandoned.
THE election of the member from
Titan to the house of representatives
was no effort on the part of the Nor
mon church to revive poIygamy or stuff
it down the throat of the American
congress of people. Nothing of the
kind was contemplated in either his
nomination or election, all reports to
the contrary Notwithstanding. The al
legged statement often quoted to the
effect that Brigham Young on July 2,
1875, or at any other time declared that
he would make the American people
swallow Mormonism, polygarny and ALI
and that the election of the present
member-elect from Utah was an effort
to fulfill that prediction, is absolutely
untrue He made no such utterance
and the recent agitation respecting
Mormonism and its being a menace to
the purity of the American home is
utterly unwarranted by the facts in the
case.
Congress has been made to believe.
however, that such was the intention of
MOrmOnism, or at least have been aWed
into acquiescence that such were its in
tentionS and hence have been led to
vote to exclude the member from Utah
There is not virtue enough, it ap-
pears, in the American house of repre-
Sentatives to stand for their convictions
as to what is right in this matter Only
this morning the member from Utah re-
ceived a communication from a person
who is evidently a member of the house
of representatives since the letter is
written upon house official stationery
and sent to him in an official envelope
of the house Of representatives, although
the signature is "A Republican Friend
After citing the member from Utah to
a speech delivered by the Hon. James
G. Blaine, in 1872, with reference to
polygamy, he says:
g I regret that am not at liberty to
vote as my conscience dictates on this
question (the Roberts case) for reasons
which you fully understand. President
Mckinley and Speaker Henderson have
ton the test of Republican orthodoxy,
and 1 am obliged to wear the yoke
$50 far as this matter is a personal
affair, I may say that whatever hap
pens the member from Utah can con-
graduate himself that from obscure
birth and the conditions of iron fortune
and in spite of having espoused an IN
popular faith, he has fought his way up
ward until he reached a sufficient prom
inence to be the decided choice of the
people of a sovereign state to repre-
sent them in the American house of
representatives. From that summit he
was hurled down by the house under
spasm of prejudice, arising from mis-
representation and falsehood as to the
conditions existing in Utah.
That action will not runin him.
Conscious of the rectitude of his own
intentions, he will face the future I'M
discouraged by this incident in his ca
reer and will weave again his fortunes;
he will face the future with a light
heart and a determination to succeed.
mo, he will not stand for reelection
as a vindication of himself even should
his people desire it. He will ask that
his exclusion shall be permitted to close
for the present this incident in Utah's
history