The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1911-07-02
PRESIDENT SMITHS INTERVIEW

President Joseph f. Smith is quoted
in an interview in the Washington Post
Is saying that since he mas been Presi
dent of the Mormon church he has
tried in every way possible TO stop
the custom of polygamy among his
people: that they are firmly convinced
that ;he custom must he wiped out,
and they have worked to such good
ends that it has been wiped out He
is further quoted rs stating:
It has been charged that sOn live
with my plural wives. That is absolutely
testify. | still support my plural wives,
because " would he manifestly unjust
for mo 30 do otherwise. who would have
me turn them afrfi 10 suffer and he IN
lived with them since the manifesto went
into effect, Ny youngest child is twenty
years old.
President Smith is further quoted as
saying:
The number OF active Mormons who
still have plural wives whom they mar
ried before the manifesto was issued does
not reach more than fifty. and is steadily
growing smaller. None OF these men live
with their plural wives: they simply sup
port them.
inasmuch rs there has been no pre-
tense ON the part Of President Smith
of abandoning his polygamous living
since he definitely swore in the Smoot
examination in 1904, fourteen years
after the manifesto, that he had con-
tinucd to live with his plural wives in
defiance of the manifesto; that eleven
children had been born to him through
those wives since the manifesto, and
since he has pleaded guilty in the
district court since that testimony to
unlawful cohabitation through the birth
of another child, making the twelfth,
the statement in that interview must
certainly be read with amaZement in
Utah The estimate of fifty polyga
mists who had married their wives be-
fore the manifesto as all that remained
is another absurdity. Nor is it in the
least true that those who had married
their plural wives before the manifesto
discontinued marital relations with
them after that manifesto was issued.
Quite the contrary is true, as is shown
by the testimony of President Smith
himself and that Of President Lyman
in the Smoot case. Further, the con-
tention is made here brazenly by the
church organ, that it was perfectly
right to keep on living in marital re-
lations with the plural wives, against
the law and in spite Of it, because of
a false claim which it makes, that
there was ga tacit understanding
that this should be done.
1t is quite conceivable that the re-
porter who wrote the interview which
the Washington Post printed, and from
which the above quotations are made,
wrote in his own way and language
the impression which he gained from
President Smith g talk This impres,
sion, however, as is SO often the case
in talking with the willy polygamists,
was altogether different from the fact.
This is recognized fully by the church
organ, which, while on Friday even
ing printing a portion of the inter
view above referred to. appended to
the same the following words of
warning:
We give the lines quoted as reported
by the Associated Press from the col
umns of the Washington Post, but the
accuracy OF the report Is not vouched for
Newspaper reporters frequently fall to
grasp the meaning of statement made
rola fpoy fa hGtr
rnisrepresent the victims of
their interviews.-Ed.
Evidently this is meant as an Cease
down. for President Smith. The re-
porter, no doubt, got the impression
from President Smiths talk such as
he wrote down, but being unfamiliar
with the inside technicalities of this
intricate question, and failing to real
ize the special interpretations put up
on words when discussing polygamy,
gave the plain, commonsense interpre-
tation to President Smiths utterances
that one unfamiliar with the intricacies
Of the situation here would naturally
interpret as the meaning of what he said.
In place of misrepresenting the CIVIC
TIM that "victlm'' bamboozled him.
That the real meaning was quite diff
ferent from the apparent meaning was
something that the reporter evidently
did not sense. The church organ, how
ever, understood the matter fully, and
while realizing that the utterances of
President Smith had put the reporter
on the wrong scent altogether. it, as
usual, undertook to lay the blame of
the misunderstanding upon the reporter
in place Of upon the subtle language
which had mislead him, Tt is easy
enough for person versed in the in
side crookedness of all this deception
to see precisely how the reporter got his
impressions and TO understand that he
was perfectly honest in interpreting
the expressions of President Smith as
he did. But that they are woefully
wide Of the facts, as we'll as of what
President Smith really meant, is a