The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1903-11-21
DIVORCE VS.. POLYGAMY.

n
Pa, IN late issue says
Bourke Cochran, in a recent ad-
dress IN New York, has declared that
the increasing number of divorces
from the marriage relation is one of
the most conspicuous blots on civili-
zatlon. He denounces divorce as the
one foul growth upon our soil, upon
whose riddance depends the fate of
the future, and says plainly that if
we are to choose between divorces
and polygamy we should take polyg-
amy. Fortunately, we do not have
to take either, but Mr.. Cochran is
certainly correct in placing divorces
ahead of polygamy in the scale of
iniquity.
We have had reformers going about
and Systematically agitating the coun-
try against plllral tuarEiaoegSs With
against that practice in the far West,
when worse and wide spread evil
was receiving little attention, and Only
mild and occasional rebuke. 1t can
be confidently affirmed that, measur-
ed as an immoral and corrupting force
upon society at large, the quick d.
vorce machinery of South and North
Dakota has had a more baleful in
fuence than polygamy in Utah. And
yet it has escaped, so to speak, under
cover of the loud and incessant fire
directed against the peculiar institu-
tion of the "Saints. J"
The agitation against polygamy, if
it is really practiced at this time,
ought to be kept up, but the divorce
iniquity ought to be denounced sim
ultaneously, or rather it should have
first attention as the more insidious
and dangerous of the two. If we are
to dispatch two threatening serpents,
let us go at the larger and more poi
sonous of the two.
The spirit behind polygamy and
that behind many of the hasty di-
vorces is precisely the same-they are
the offspring of one evil father. This
difference only is to be noted: One
parades behind the hypocritical cant
about religious conviction, calculated
to deceive few, and the other parades
behind the lying and hypocritical talk
about incompatibi1ity of temper, un-
suited natures, discovery of lack of
affection, or something similar, calcu-
lated to deceive many.
The open crime of polygamy has
disgusted the world and has aroused
a sentiment that has outlawed it and
driven it out among the heather
tribes. The stealthy foe that has
sought to undermine the marriage re-
lation has come under the cover of
law and has sought the sanction Of
the courts and has had the passport
of respectability. The poor dupes of
Brigham Young have at least made
no parade socially before the world,
and have been in some sense the OBJ
lects of sympathy as we'll as contempt.
But the poIygamlStS who have made
loose divorce laws the convenient ma
chinery for carrying out their plans
for trampling under foot the sanctity
of marriage have glittered before the
nation and have walked to polluted
altars with splendid equipages and
with all the prestige that wealth and
social station could command. They
have attracted a thousand eyes and
sowed dangerous seed in a thousand
poorly balanced minds to where the
isolated polygamy of the West has
had that effect on one.
Mr.. Cochran deserves the thanks
of the country for setting forth the
facts of the matter in their true light.
1t remains for the different State Leg
islatures to conserve the interests of
our civilization by raising new and in
surmountable distractions on this
open road to disgrace and shame.