The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1906-09-28
DUBOIS AND KEARNS.


Some of the recent allies Of the Nor.
mon church who have known nothing
Of the past experiences of the Mormon
people or Of the past struggles of the
GentIles TO secure general enfranchise-
ment from Mormon control in Utah,
Idaho and surrounding country, find
themselves IN an extremely contented
mood because they can quote from SEN
ator Fred 7. Dubois and others the
statement made within four or fvs
years past that the Mormon question
was, III the Judgment of Dubois and
these gentlemen who thought as he,
practically settled. Senator Dubois has
within that time given his statement
so far as his knowledge extended, that
polyGamy was moribund within the
church.
The manly uttcrances OF such men as
| Dubois and others who have spoken as.
he, are now taken as a proof of their
lnslncerity and of their prosecuting
purposes toward the Mormon church.
because they now avow the opposition
and because they now charge the church
with polygamy, periidy, and violation
of covenant; and, after proving that
charge seek in some instances to impose
| n test oath which will disfrapchise the
offenders and the supporters Of the
offenders within the Mormon church \
great many of the new Mormon allies
seek to associate former Senator kearns
OF this city with the same accusation.
The Tribune will discuss the matter,
however, from the Dubois standpoint,
as he is a candidate for reelection.
Fred T. Dubois was loath TO believe
that polygamy had been renewed as a
system of the Mormon church; like The
Salt Lake Tribune and all the Gentilcs
of Salt Lake and like all the indepen-
dent Mormons, he believed that the two
or three sporadic cases which were re-
ported about 1886 were a warning and
a still greater assurance that the ofTeuse
against the laws Of God and man would
not be renewed under the church sane
tion. Joseph T. Smith visited The
| Tribune Office about that time, and IN
company with his relative, John Henry
Smith, said that such q thing as the
noted plural marriage of 1896 would not
occur again. 1t was not surprising that
stories continued TO be current of re-
uewed plural marriage, but none were
proved for many years after that. Men
like Dubois, having faith III human ma
ture and supposing that these rumors
were but the continuation of old and
incorrect reports, continued to assert
that polygamy was not practiced under
| the sanction Of the church. However,
! they had incontcstable proof. They
found that polygamous living was con
! tinued-both IN Utah and Idaho-and
polygamous children were being brought
into the world by hundreds without the
right of legitimacy; they found scores
of well-proved new plural marriages,
and they discovered that the men en-
| gagged in these crimes were being ad-
vanced to high church positions; they
found that to protect the polygamlsts
a Utah apostle in Idaho had nefariouely
and secretly attempted TO secure q
change in the Constitution of that
State; they found that two apostles of
the church were confessedly living in
new poIygamy and that apostles of the
Mormon church were notoriously per
forming plural marriage ceremonies for
others
Because they then denounced the
crimes shall they be charged with bad
faith because they had retained their
belief in tho people until that belief
was no longer possible?
The wretched creatures who attack
them now for having certified for the
people when the Mormons apparently
deserved certification are ingrates OF
the blackest type Dubois and such
men AS he would have been the cruel
prosecutors that they are now charged
with being if they had not accepted
evidence which seemed good to even
well informed Mormons in Utah, of IL
cessation of polygamy. They would be
less than the good citizens that they
are if they did not denounce the prac-
! tice OF new polygamy and the political
! interference by the high ecclesiasts of
/ the Mormon church.
! That is the case. 1t applies TO Sen
ator Dubois; it applies to The Salt Lake
! Tribune; it applies to Senator Kearns;
! it applies to plenty Of others, who hav-
/ ing accepted the word of the Mormon
! leaders were loath to believe that word