Year: 1871

rHteen years ago, IN the platform OF the
first National Convention of the present
republican party, it was declared that cit is
both the right and the duty Of Congress to
prohibit in the Territories those twin relics Of
barbarism, polygamy and slavery" We have
travelled long way since that modest
| proclamation was made. Not only has slavery
been prohibited in the Territories, but it has


been abolished in the States, and the negro


who was slave or an outcast, having mo
| rights which white man was bound to


respect" is now a citizen and voter. But


the ''twin relic," polygamy, has still con-


tinued to flourish in Utah, although now it is


becoming apparent that its extirpation will be


among the achievements of General Grants


administration.


| From our special dispatches which we publish
this morning from Great Salt Lake City twill be
seen that the United States judicial authorities
of Utah, in pushing the sanity polygamists
into corner from which the only outlet ap-
pears to lead into the iron door of prison, have
created panic among the Saints that their
Prophet, Brigham, abandoning the sanity de-
lights of his harem, has left for parts unknown,
charged with murder; that his Congressional
Delegate, Hooper, has gone to Washington to
see President Grant, in order, if possible, to
patch up some compromise whereby the
national authorities in Utah may be restrained
from their present prosecutions against the
Mormon polygamists or removed from the
Territory. Our correspondent says that the
Church at Salt Lake is in great ferment
that something mysterious is in the wind;
that an ominous silence reigns in the Mormon
quarters; that in the absence of the Prophet
and other Mormon chiefs Mayor Wells is
practically the head of the community, and
that the coming days will be full of interest to
the community.


We have no doubt of it, for we have no
doubt that General Grant has made up his
mind and has deliberately entered upon the
work of putting an end to Mormon polygamy.
We suspect that Brigham Young is at last
convinced upon this point, and that he does
not intend to risk trial for adultery or '.lewd
and lascivious conduct" which may consign
him to prison. Brigham is charged
with the murder of man named Richard
Yates. Hawkins, one of his disciples
man of only three wives, has been
tried and convicted upon charge under
which he may be imprisone to the end of his
life; and if 'Gentile" judge and jury deal
SO remorselessly with Hawkins, what mercy
can be expected from the same tribunal by
the justly frightened Brigham? We presume
it is the intention of the President to push these
prosecutions against the aduterous Mormons
until there is an end of them, unless in the
meantime Congress shall interpose in some
measure of legislation W hich will remove the
evil Of polygamy, and at the same time make
some provision for the maintenance of the
nun poor women and children, who will
| otherwise be thrown as outcas!s defenceless


and destitute upon the world.


And here we may say something for the


Mormons. Their religion is ridiculous
| fraud-the founder of it, 10 Smith, was an
| ignorant loafer and charlatan his successor
is a shrewd and INSCRIPTIONS impostor, and
his revelations confirming the institution of
polygamy are horrible nuisance; but for all
this these Mormons shave done the State
some service, and so much that we cannot
overlook it. They had been driven by mob
of ''border rufians" out Of Missouri; they had
been driven by mob from their enticing pos
sessions at Nauvoo, Ill.,, and they were
encamped on the plains near Council Bluffs,
Iowa, when the grand idea seized Brigham
Young (the anointed successor of 10 Smith,
of founding q new settlement at Great Salt
Lake. That lake had been discovered by
Fremont only two years before, and he and
his exploring party are the first recorded
white men who penetrated those previously
unknown regions. Fremont's reports of the
desert and desolate character of those strange
lands were anything but inviting to the emf
grant. Salt Lake was then thousand miles
from the frontier white settlements east, and
well on to a thousand miles from the whites of
the Pacific Slope. 1t was in the midst of
great desert, and its approaches from every
side were over vast sterile plains, immense
chains of difficult mountains and frightful
wastes of sand, volcanic ashes and sage
brush.


But these repelling impediments to the
Mormon emigrant were the special attractions
which drew Brigham Young and his Mormon
community to the Great Salt Lake. There
they supposed for hundreds of years they
would be beyond the reach of the Gentiles.
There was nothing in the general desert char
acter Of Utah Territory to attract the greedy
Gentiles and everything in its difficult
approaches to repel them. There was no
danger Of railroad of two thousand miles
over those sterile plains, mountains and
deserts from the Missouri to the Pacific,
because money enough could not be raised
to build it, and because there never could be
any inducement for such stupid undertaking.
The Mormons then removed to Great Salt