The Idaho scimitar. [volume] (Boise, Idaho) 1907-1908, 1907-11-16
For National Assistance.

lNdIIOIIdI ASSLSIdIlCG.
Following Immediately the partisan act of the Sen
ate of the United States through which that body
sustained the proposition that Senator Smoot, of
Utah, was entitled to the seat that had been held
i'll dispute through the agency of the moral forces
of the country, Senator Dubois, of Idaho, intro
duced this resolutions
Resolved That the Committee on the Judiciary be-
and is hereby authorized and instructed to prepare
and report to the Senate within thirty days after the
beginning of the next session OF Congress, joint
resolution of the two Houses of Congress proposing
the several States amendments to the Constitution
of the United States which shall provide, in sub
stance for the prohibition and punishment of polyga
marriages and plural cohabation contracted
or practiced within the United States and in every
place subject the jurisdiction of the United States,
and which SHALL in substance also require all persons
taking office under the Constitution laws of the
United States of any State to take and subscribe
oath that he or she is not and will not be mem
Der or adherent of any organization whatever, the
laws, rules nature of which organization require
him her to disregard his her duty to support
and maintain the Constitution and laws of the United
States and of the several States.
The resolution was given into the custody of the
Senate the 21st of February but ten days before
the demise of the Fifty-nnth Congress and the Sen
ate merely ordered that it lie and be printed.
Thus matter of the highest Importance
given perfunctory recognition in the halls of Con
earnest effort to empower the federal authority to
deal with the crime of poygamy wherever it mani
tests its presence in any of the States of the Union.
With the opening of the first session of the Sxeth
Congress the resolution will be reintroduced in the
Senate by Senator Burrows, of Michigan, and in the
House by Representative Landis of Indiana. They
will employ their best efforts to the recogn
ton by Congress of proposed constitutional amend
ment for submission to the states for their ratica
ton. The suppression of polygamy will devove upon
the federal authorities under the terms of the con-
temp1ated constitutional provision as the
States agree to waive jurisdiction and invoke the
strong arm of the general government.
Polygamy is national issue. Confined in its in
ception to the limits of single struggling western
community, it has covered state and crept beyond
its limits and invaded contiguous States With its
progress unimpeded, say how far it will
extend its Entertainments Wherever Mormonsm
thrves its twin evil is nurtured and in time society
confronts the full grown menace that saps morality
and degrades humanity.
1t is therefore the plain duty of all the people
of all the United States to apply their persuasive in
gress in behalf of the proposed amendment as soon
as it reaches the order of legislative action the
calendars of the two houses of Congress.
The mountain states under the curse of po-
1ygamy cannot alone accomplish the reform to which
they are applying their efforts. But with the assist
ance of the good men and good women who in
terested in the cause, the crying sin of nation
be blotted out and the good name of the home
stored and sustained in all the land that yields al
legiance to the Stars and Stripes.