The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1906-12-10
MAINTAINING FAMILIES.


has "shown by irrefutablc testimony
who are the gc-brcakers in Utah,
and ii then proceeds TO deliver its own
false judgment upon the law-abiding
citizens of this State as conducting
persecution against the Latter-day
Saints because some Of them still main"
tain their families, -
1t would give the decent citizens OF
this community a great deal of salts.
faction if the Deseret News would
merely republish from the columns of
The Tribune, or from the record, the
testimony of the self-professed prophet,
seer and revelator Of the Mormon
church, which places certainly the atti-
tude of pledge breaking right where it
properly belongs-with the hierarchs
themselves. The fact is that the church
organ has repeatedly fled the con-
troversy in the most cowardly manner
and has persistently published false
| hood to its readers in order to cover
up the criminality of the ecclesiasts,
and to prevent an open revolt against
it and them within the church itself.
| The pledge given to the country in be-
| half of the Mormon church was that
| its adherents and officials would abide
| by the law against polygamy and
| polygamous living The chief Mormon
in the whole world recently pleaded
guilty in Salt Lake City. under the
against this particular statute and to
consequent disregard of that pledge
| made to the Nation. And yet his case
is but one among many hundreds which
the church organ knows to exist with
in the church of which he is the des-
potic ruler and to which he is the chief
exemplar. Yet The News, IN its hypo.
critical defense of the law-deiers with
in the organization which it represents,
ruthlessly brushes the truth aside, alb
solutelv refuses to meet the issue and
then viciously asserts that it has sat
isfactorily disposed of the whole mat
ter,
No citizen objects to the mainte"
nance of their families by polygamists,
but every decent man and woman in
the community does decidedly object
to the begetting of children in polyg-
amous living who are denied the right
of legitimacy.
But for years the church organ has
deliberately ignored facts and has set
itself up in disloyal defense of prac.
tices within the Mormon church which
elsewhere in the civilized world would
be considered licentiousness Of the
most brutal and unbridled nature. 1T
assumes to be righteous in its cham
pionship of the degraded, immoral and
lecherous personal habits of its bogus
prophet, and it expresses indignation
because American citizens call it and
its masters to task for their treachery.
And for performing this duty to the
commonwealth the Americans of Utah
are charged with having improper mo.
tlvesi
The old bierarchical cry Of "persc-
cution' is repeated with characteris-
tic deceit The hierarchs and the De-
seret News first create condition of
lawlessness for themselves and then
cry persecution" against those who
within the law. That is the most cow
ardly whine ever set up by devotees
Of lawless living since the world began;
but the hierarchs and their journalistic
representative continue TO mouth this
cheap defense as their stock deception,
Here is another example of the man
ner in which the Deseret News pre-
sents "irrcfutable testimony" in its
own behalf and against Americanism:
"Why did not the crusade commence
until the church authorities had refused
| TO lend their influence to the further
ance of certain political aspirations7''
| Scarcely an issue of the News appears
but that in it is printed some denial Of
| the truth that the church authorities
exert influence in politics; and il buries
it's ostrich head under the assertion
that present persecution is due to
the alleged fact that the HE
! rarchs refused to lend that in1u-
ence 10 Certain political aspirations. F"
1t has been the wall of the Mormon
church from its very beginning that it
has been prosecuted, In the public
| prints Of the church, from the pulpit,
in open-air meetings, in debate, in pri-
vate correspondence, in personal con
versation and in fireside teaching "per-
secution' has been the wheezy old hy-
pocritical cry ever since Joseph Smith,
| the original prophet, first claimed to
| have had a vision. And the News
knows this (it can be proven from it's
own files since its first publication)
and il also knows that the Mormon
church set up that howl years before
any member Of the American party was
| born, According TO the claim of the
Mormon church there has been a cru
sade against it ever since the date of
| its organization; therefore the crusade
did not commence in the offended poll
teal aspirations Of present day Ameri-
cans. The older the News gets the
farther it departs from the truth.
Its reference to the story of Aris.
tides, in stupid attempt to show i'm.
proper motive in Americans. is on