The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1906-07-25
EYSTERICAL SYMPATHY.

The Smoot bureau continues 10
} spread lies to mislesd the American
people concerning the kind of polygnmy
which is practiced by the Mormon lead
ers in Utah and surrounding country,
1T is strange that any one should be the
victim of the fraud but even a few
supposedly Intelligent educators and
writers of the country have been
gulled. One fact alone, if they would
weigh it, would dispose Of all their
sympathy. Polygamy is right or
wrong. IF IL is wrong then it should
not be excused, but reprehended. If it
is right it needs no apology. The Smoot
bureau occupies tho inconsistent at
titude Of admitting that il is wrong,
and then defending it.
The plea most commonly put forth is
one recently quoted by TIE Deseret
News with much gusto as having been
circulated in the East. It is to the eff
feet that the men who now live in plu
raj marriage in the Mormon church are
those who took their polygamous wives
under the sanction Of the law and the
church, and therefore should NOT now be
required to break their covenants. It
Is difficult to conceive Of a moro mon
strous misrepresentation Of com
munity wrong. The men who are now
living in polygamy never took plural
1 wife under the sanction Of law, but in
every case against the plain letter and
the spirit Of the law, They would not
be violaters Of covenant if they ceased
to live with their plural wives but rath-
| er would be upholdors Of their own
| pledge. Every man in the Mormon
church who was a polygamist in 1890
voluntarily covenanted to God, to wo.
| manhood, and to childhood that he
would cease to live in the relation of
plural marriage. Every polygamist in the
church accepted amnesty from Presi-
dent Harrison in 1891, on the petition
made by the leaders of the church and
on the condition imposed by the Pres
ident of the United States that such
polygamists would cease to cohabit
with his plural wives. If the covenant
to the plural wife was so sacred that it
could not-b broken, why in the name
Of common decency and every day man
hood did the polygamists renounce that
covenant in 1890 and accept the reward
FOR violating it by accepting amnesty
from President Harrison in 1917 Is
the covenant only sacred after the man
has received the Judas price for be-
traying itl Is man s devotion to
woman, who has suffered martyrdom on
his account, only to be awakened when
he has escaped all possibility Of his suf
fering on her account?
or all the brazen arguments, of all
the cowardly falsehoods over invoked
to protect crime, this is tho worst. The
male creature who would take refuge
under the plea that he lives with q
plural wife now because he covenanted
to do so (he having sworn to God and
man, for his own safety in 1890 and
1891, that he would not live with her
any more) is placing double brand OF
dlshonor upon the devoted woman and
should be known for what he is-a man
without personal honor and without re. |
spect for womankind.
it is peculiar, to say the least, that
the big politicians MT Washington
should permit themselves to be deceived |
by men who have no higher sense of |
integrity and no higher ideals of GOV. |
enant than is portrayed by the polyg-
amists who renounced polygamy in 1890 |
for safety, and who now practice IL for
comfort
And there Is another class of polyp-
arnists who are even in a worse case |
than those described by the Smoot press
bureau ns having covenanted with their
wives before the manifesto. This other
class consists Of mon who have taken
plural wives since the manifesto Of the
church, since the amnesty by the Pres
ident of the United States, and since
Statehood was accorded to Utah by the
Nation. 1t is pity that the handful
of active but misguided friends who
have been induced by the Smoot bu-
reau in the East TO defend unlawful co.
habitation on the absurd ground that
men had promised to commit the crime
and therefore must be permitted to con.
tinue 1T, cannot know that every areu-
ment which they use 10 countenance,
and every measure which they take to
protect, the men who entered into
polygamy previous to lS90-is used here
as commeDdation and defense of the
men who have entered into polygamy
since 1890. AS both offenses Of polyg-
amy and Polygamous living are CON
trhry to the law, 1t is impossible here
TO protect one class without protecting
the other; and therefore those misled
persons IN the East who are working
their sympathy overtime in behalf Of
The ''elderly gentlemen who covenanted
with their plural wives previous to
1890, are really extending practical
guardianship over the welfare of the
younger, If not more ardent, gentle.
men, who have covenanted with their
plural wives since 1890. Cannot these
hysterical persons realize that if the |
covenant is good in one case it is good
IN the other' Why should an "elderly |,
gentleman be praised for keeping his
plural marriage VOW, !nnd "younc-
'r gentleman be reprehended for
keeping the same kind Of "plural !
vow7"
1t is just such idiotic nonsense as {
his which the Reed Smoot bureau In ,
he East has pcrpetrated and which a )
OF of foolish faddists have accepted I
hat has encouraged poIygamy and has 7
nIsled young women into plural mar ] r