The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1906-09-05
THE WHOLE CASE.


the Mormon people and the "leaders
of the Latter-day Saints 1t de-
clares that tho Mormon people are
'subject to the laws Of the land and
should be punished in the same manner
as other. people when they become law
breakers. - But that is precisely the
thing that is being contended for. AS
matter of fact, the Mormon leaders
at present are not subject to the laws
Of the land, and they are not punished
the same rs other people when they be-
come law breakers. The case of man
named Plant, who married a plural
wife in Davis county, fresh in the pub
lie mind, illustrates this exactly. Plant
was not a Mormon He left wife in
San Francisco, came to Davis county,
and married a second wife. That made
an immense uproar. The machinery of
the law was put in operation, and Plant
was promptly sent to the penitentiary.
But does any one pretend for one mo-
ment that the like punishment would
be meted out in like case to a Nor
mont On the contrary, every one
knows that Mormon might do the
same thing with entire impunity. There
would be no one to complain OF him;
there would be no witnesses possible
to be found who knew anything about
the offense, or who would go into court
and tell the least thing about that
plural marriage. 1t is precisely be-
cause the Mormons are not subject to
the laws as other people are that OBJ
lection is made to them in this re-
spect; and when our Idaho contem-
porary comedies, as it does In the same
article, that "there are members of the
Mormon church that are law w-breakers,
but the same can be said of every other
denomination on earth, - it begs the
whole question. No other denomination
on earth stands together pledged to
secrecy and the protection Of every one
Of their sect who breaks the law.
The Idaho paper says further that
there is no Justice i'll the persecution
or ridicule Of any class of people for
the wrong-doing of a few of their fol-
lowers. This is a truism, but as usual
in the argument on that side Of the
question, it is misapplled. 1t is true
that there is no justice either in the
persecution or ridicule of any class of
people for the wrong g-doing Of few
among them Neither is it at all sup
posable in any other community than
where the Mormons hold sway, or in
any other sect than the Mormon sect,
that those few law breakers and wrong
doers would be selected out and
made the chiefs of the sect. In
the sects where there are wrong
doers, weak brethren, and sisters, who
live in defiance of the law and who
repeatedly break the law and the moral
canons OF society, they are in the lowest
stratum of the church membership;
they are not selected out to be the
leaders, the preachers, the e1emplars Of
the society. They are under the ban,
and are spoken of slightingly or pity
ingly as persons who are morally in
firm and who fail to come up fully to
the required standard Of morality and
good conduct.
But in the Mormon cult it is different.
The very persons that our Fremont
county contemporary speaks Of as the
few wrong doers are the ones who ar
rogate to themselves the title of proph-
cts, seers, and revelators, the very elite
of the church; those who rule in the
name of God and who are sustained in
such positions by the mass of the sect
in their semi annual conferences, and
who are held up proudly as exemplars
to the growing generation as men of
God, too holy to be questioned in their
manner Of living and in their attitude
toward the civil government.
When the Fremont County News is
able to sense the difference between the
two attitudes that are occupied on the
one hand by the ordinary church sect
and on the other hand by the Mormon
cult, it will comprehend the difference
between the treatment Of those guilty
of wrong doing in the one sect and are
held shghtingly to account of it,, and
those guilty of wrong doing in the Nor
mon sect and are exalted and made
prophets of God because of it.. And
right there is the great antagonism be-
tween the moral ideas of the world at
large and the immoral ideas, Joined
with the lawless practices, of the Nor.
mon cult which makes itself so objec-
tionable in politics, in civil affairs, and
in it's reversion to barbarism in the re-
lations between the sexes, for the over
throw of the homogeneous home, and
the rearing up of multitudes Of illegiti-
mate children-offspring under the ban
of the law, and from their birth inca
pable Of heirship or the upright stand
ing that children of right hold in the |
legal American family.