The Logan Republican. [volume] (Logan, Utah) 1902-1924, 1911-08-03


the whole case, despite some current
articles to the contrary. 1t Is dead
issue in Utah. More than that. polyg,
amy to most of the Mormon" people,
practiced as a religious duty, was not
sensual and was infinitely better than
tandem polygamy in the east. The
young men OF the Mormon church
are clean young men, clear-eyed,
brainy, and manly. The records OF the
half-million-dollar Deseret gymnas-
lum II the Mormon" church in Salt
Lake City show that of the hund eds
of young men examined there is, yet
to be found one tainted with unclean
disease--a record unparalleled in
most American cities. Whatever OF
deception the feuds and bitterness of
years gone by, II is a criminal act to
charge the stalwart Christian men OF
Utah with being race of deceivers.
No man who works side by siee with
them in the fight for temperance,
clean cities, and the boyhood OF Utah,
as do, for one moment believes any
such charge.
Today "Mormonism' eagerly vel
comes the best ideas and aids which
the age can furnish to uplift human
ity. Her Sunday schools are up-to-
date, her great Deseret gymnasium at
Salt Lake City, is the peer of any
west of Chicago. She is shoulder to
shoulder with us in the work for boys.
and is leading in the great fight to
wipe out the saloons In Utah, and
lately, in common with the English
speaking world she celebrated the
anniversary of the King James ver-
sion of the English Bible.
AS to bigotry. no doubt it exists
wherever there is isolation, but even
then 1t is no worse than that Of all
our ancestors. In the light OF common
friendship and service together for
common good II dies in Utah, as it
dies anywhere. It is true that for
very self-protection in the past they
had to go into politics, but the char
ges that they aim at national supre.
macy and threaten the life of the re.
public are about as real as England's
dred of Germany and Americas fear
of the little empire of the Pacific.
True it is that "Mormonism'
dreams of worldwide Christianity
bound together in great restored
church, the old medieval dream.
Others have dreamed the same; It was
no sin for them, nor is it for "Mor.
mons" They will all come some day
to see, as we see, that the bond of
the future Christianity will not be a
church, but the Christ; not a visible
temple. put an invisible brotherhood
Until then we can afford to wait and
be brothers in the common work of
God and man.
The statements circulated in Eng.
land causing the riots and agitation
there at this time are refuted by facts
here and seem absurd to one in Utah
President Smith has cabled the Brit.
ish government: Charges absolutely
and totally false. Polygamy is forbid
den by Mormon Church as well as
by Utah laws" Again, at the late
eighty-first annual conference Of the
church. President Smith said, in Civ.
ing the yearly statistics. that, be
sides the religious ceremonies of mar.
riage celebrated in the temples, that
there had been LOO civil marriages
among their people. The Salt Lake
Tribune represented him as saying
ELEVEN hundred marriages were con
tracted last year not In accordance
with the law Of God AS announced
twice and again. plural marriages
have ceased in this church. This state.
ment, copied in the Los Angeles Elk.
aminer was headed Eleven Hundred
Polygamous Marriages in year."
and so has gone broadcast over the
continent.
What Utah needs today Is not a