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SHALL UTAH BE MADE A MORMON STATE?

THINK of the horse-thieves of one of the Territories combining together and asking Congress to intrust to them hereafter the enforcement of the laws against horse-stealing. The request would be just as reasonable as the petition on the part of the polygamists of Utah that Congress will intrust to them hereafter the enforcement of the laws against the odious crime of polygamy, by giving them the privileges of Statehood.

While all Congressional legislation for Utah is largely a failure up to this date, since it leaves the local, civil control of an American Territory in the hands of a bitterly anti-American priesthood, still the vigorous enforcement of the laws during the past three years has made the Mormon leaders very uncomfortable. Perpetual hiding from the United States officers becomes at last monotonous and burdensome, and yet the priestly rebels are determined that they will not obey the laws to which all the other religious denominations in Utah render obedience, namely, the Baptists, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Catholics. They are determined to retain exclusive control of the political affairs of this grand Territory through their ecclesiastical power as a priesthood, since it is one of the main purposes of the Mormon Church organization, through its priesthood, to control the civil affairs of whatever community they live in.

To escape the necessity of perpetual hiding, and secure more thoroughly than ever the civil control of the Territory, a new and adroit scheme to make Utah a State was concocted. The plan was this: Let a Constitutional Convention be called, and let the Americans as well as the Mormons be invited to take part in it. Let a Constitution be adopted making polygamy a penitentiary offense (on paper), and then let Congress be asked to admit Utah into the Union on the strength of this anti-polygamy Constitution (which Mormons would allow to stand as a

dead letter from the very day it is adopted). This is the plan which the Mormon leaders are now seeking to put into execution. And there are worthy people in various parts of the country who say: Why not admit Utah as a State if it has an anti-polygamy Constitution and has also the requisite population?

Since those who put this inquiry have not sufficiently studied the Mormon question to understand thoroughly the real dangers which underlie the whole case, it seems necessary for those who are familiar with the subject, both by study and long residence in Utah, to let in the light upon this conspiracy so that the American people generally may see that this Territory is almost as poorly prepared to become a State in the Union as one of the Turkish provinces. The unanswerable objections to the Mormon scheme for the admission of Utah may be summarized under the following specifications:

1. This movement to make Utah a State is solely and exclusively a Mormon movement. Or, to speak more accurately, it is exclusively a movement on the part of the priesthood to perpetuate and enlarge priestly control of the civil power of this Territory. The Mormon people, as such, have nothing more to do with this movement than simply to obey the dictates of the priesthood, in fact that is all they have to do with any movement. Nor have the Americans in Utah, who constitute fully one third of the population, had anything to do with this movement for Statehood, except to oppose it vigorously. The priestly leaders tried to inveigle the Americans here to coöperate with them in making Utah a State. The Territorial committees of the Republican and Democratic parties were invited to arrange for sending delegates to the Convention, last July, which framed the Constitution now before Congress. But this invitation of the priesthood was promptly declined by both parties, in a vigorous and spicy correspondence which has become historic, so that the movement to make Utah a State is purely a movement of the priesthood.

2. It is a thoroughly dishonest movement, intended to deceive both Congress and the American people. In what way? By pretending that polygamy has been abandoned, since the

new Constitution provides for punishing this offense by fine and imprisonment. The Mormon leaders now come before Congress and the American people, with an overdone smile on their anti-American faces, and say: "See! We have done the very thing you have been asking us to do. We have adopted an anti-polygamy Constitution. Pray, therefore, admit us into the Union and hereafter leave to us (who believe in polygamy) the duty of punishing those who practice it." And some worthy people, who are not familiar with the underlying facts say, Why not grant this request of the Mormons? For two very important reasons: —

(1.) Because this pretense that the Mormons have given up polygamy is thoroughly dishonest, and intended to deceive. These very leaders furnish the proof of their dishonesty over their own signatures. About two years and three months before the adoption of this pretended anti-polygamy constitution last July, there was appointed, at the annual conference of the Mormon Church in Logan, a committee of twenty-two from the priesthood, with John T. Caine, the present delegate to Congress, at their head. The special object of this committee was "to draft a series of resolutions and a protest to the President of the United States, and to the nation, in which the wrongs the people of this Territory have suffered and are still suffering from the tyrannical conduct of Federal officials should be set forth specifically and in detail." It may be well to state here that the grievous wrongs which the Federal officials were inflicting upon the poor Mormon people and their leaders consisted in the requirement that the Mormons should obey the same laws of Congress which the Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and all other religious denominations in Utah are required to obey.

The committee of twenty-two proceeded to draw up the "Declaration of Grievances and Protest," and the document was duly ratified at a Mormon mass-meeting in the Tabernacle, in Salt Lake City, on May 2, 1885. John T. Caine presided and made the opening speech, urging the adoption of the "Declaration" he had helped prepare, as one of the committee of twenty-two. This "Declaration" was forwarded to the President and the members of Congress.