Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-02-18
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charitable as to try to prevent Joseph F.
Smith from living with g. paltry half dozen
As matter Of fact, our fathers could not,
during these years, get at the unclean
spirit. They were new kind in our land
There was nothing against polygamy save
common law And one of the acquiescers
said in the Senate the other day: Suppose
that polygamy were crime against COM
mon law, these are no common-law crimes
against the United States. Nothing can be
done against the new evil without federal
legislation.
But in 1862 a federal law was passed
against bigamy in the territories. and was
not executed. This not because the people
of the United States then acquiesced in
polygamy. but because the law was defec-
tive. 1t made no provision against the
crime of polygamous living. Now no law
against polygamy is worth the paper on
which 1t is written unless 1t also deals rig
idly and inexorably with polygamous CO.
habitation or polygamous living. We can
not to this day prove that Joseph F. Smith
Is polygamst, but only that he is a po-
lygamous co-habitator
The ceremony of marriage is single act
and easily concealed as an act. The DO
lygamous after life is the conspicuous cog
nizable fact. When the people of the United
States acquiesce In the continuance Of po-
lygamous cohabitation of Mormon po-
lygamy, those who oppose it meet a dis
tnct rebuff.
Those who plead for let-alone policy
do not find much comfort in the light of
Utah history. There was some seven years
in which we had good laws and effective
ones The Edmunds and Edmunds-Tucker
acts 1SS2-1SSO are the only acts which
ever reached the just where they lived
These acts made polygamous living a crime
TO De prosecuted, not custom to be ac-
quiesced in or tolerated. The efficiency of
these acts was almost wholly due to their
assault on polygamous living.
Only Dozen Out Of Thousand.
"Of the thousands of cases in the Utah
courts then only perhaps a dozen were
for polygamous marriages. The ones prose-
cuted to success were for polygamous liv-
ing, or unlawful cohabitation. This was
the law which brought the polygamists to
their knees. In 1880 the church capitulated
and made unconditional surrender The
president of the church published a mani
festo setting aside the practice of polygamy
and polygamous living. By pledges made
in courts on oath the then president of the
church president Snow and his successor.
President Smith, the present polygamous
president Of the Mormon Church. the mani
festo promised not only the positive dis
continuance Of polygamous marriages, but
the discontinuance of polygamous living.
For a time these polygamists pretended
to be law abiding. During the years pre-
ceding statehood OS9O-1S96) men who lived
In polygamy did so with the greatest Sc
crecy. Even men like Smith and Roberts
kept the evidences of their polygamous liy-
ing closely hidden.
This was true for year or SO after
statehood. Even as late as the year 1897
II was hard to get evidence that Brigham
II. Roberts was living with his third wife.
When We got that and gave 1t to you, the
way you threw him out of Congress indi-
Gated that YOU did not intend to tolerate
polygamous living. But the polygamists
| were not discouraged On the contrary.
| relying on it's sovereignty In a sovereign
state. 1t threw OF all pretense and not
merely acquiesced in, but insisted on the
resumption Of polygamous living. For the
men like Taylor, Cowley. Tanner, Tease
| dale. etc, were fugitives from the United
States marshal. who wanted to bring them
| to Washington to testify in the Smoot case
poly gamous living has been more open and
olygamists more In evidence than at any
time since 1882. Not since 1882 have so
many men been living in defiance of the
laws of both God and man. And this is
what the signers of the minority report of
| the Smoot committee wish US to tolerate.
Boasts Of Having So Children.
"The plea is made that these polyga-
mists are all old men. Apostle Teasdale Is
an old man. and years after the manifesto
| he married a young wife, the only legal
| wife he ever had being then alive and
undivorced. and Joseph F. Smith, presi-
dent of the church now, has had children
| born to him by each Of his five wives since
the manifesto prohibiting polygamous Nv
| ing was issued. Apostles Taylor, Cowley,
| Grant and ]. M. Tanner and Brigham H.
/ Roberts. are men past fifty, and Thomas
Chamberlain. who lives in Provo 0he home
/ of Smoot), boasts Of having fifty-three
| children. These are samples of these poor
i old men who got caught in polygamy be-
| fore there was any law against It.
why, there has been laws against II for
| forty-hve years Laws against 1T before
| scores Of these plural wives were born, and
| laws long enough to catch q polygam0us
Gentle. Adolescence Ii the word when O
president of the church. an apostle or
Mormon is cornered, but for q Gentle to
live with more than one wife Is bigamy,
adultery and all that Is unclean. In other
words, Smoot and others who advocate