law was passed making it a crime, the opinion was not uncommon among lawyers that the law was violative of the first amendment to the Constitution. These marriages exist, and under them children have been born. But it is demanded that they shall be broken up; and men are denounced in ferocious style because they do not comply with this demand. How shall this be done? This is a practical question, and must be met in a practical way. These contracts were made with the solemn sanction of religious ordinances and the understanding that the union was for time and all eternity. Shall the husbands throw off the wives and children obtained under such circumstances and leave them to bear alone all the consequences which the opinion of the world would inflict? The men of Utah are not such scoundrels and poltroons as to commit such a crime against heaven and humanity as this.

There can be no greater mistake than to suppose that sensualism is at the foundation of this system of marriage. For, were that the motive, the responsibility, trouble, and expense of marriage and its fruits need not be incurred. Its gratification can be reached in ways cheaper and very much more popular. The idea in Utah is that every woman should have the privilege of marrying, if she wishes to be a wife and mother, and there should be no unmarried element for lust to prey upon. As the late census shows that the male sex predominates, if all men would marry, of course there could be no plural wives, and the same end would be achieved.

It is the religious aspect of this system of marriage which makes it hateful to many well-meaning persons. They can tolerate defects in morals better than defects in doctrine. Two hundred years ago, John Locke commented upon the fact that there was a class of people naturally more eager against error than against vice. Comte mentions the preference of dogmas by the same class to moral truths, and Kant also alludes to the same peculiarity. In these days, a man can escape much censure for being pliant in his morals if he is inflexible in his orthodoxy. Reformers have often learned this to their cost. Still, charges of immorality were used as effectively against them as against the primitive Christians. It was not those who, in popular estimation, were virtuous and saint-like who were crucified, decapitated, and burned.

The complaint is made that the Mormon people are a solid

phalanx. If so, the outside pressure has contributed to make them such. It has had the effect to hoop them up, to force upon them the necessity of clinging to their co-religionists, by whom alone their virtues have been acknowledged. There have been those who, representing them as like Chinese, would treat them as Chinese. More than once they have had printed forms of petition sent to churches everywhere, for the signatures of congregations, many of whom knew less about the real condition of Utah than they did about the antipodes,-asking Congress for legislation that would disfranchise the people there and deprive them of every function of citizenship, except that of paying taxes for others to expend, if not to squander. If the Mormons hold themselves aloof from the Gentiles and are exclusive, as has been charged, the fault is not with them. A clique, composed of a few men, frame the canons to govern Gentile society in Salt Lake City. One of the most stringent of these is that there must be no social intercourse with Mormons generally. Those who violate this are tabooed, and if they persist, they are called "Jack-Mormons." A person may break the entire decalogue with lighter consequences than attend the affixing of this name. It is held over visitors also as a punishment for treating Mormons with the courtesy due to citizens. The highest civil and military officers of the Government have not escaped the name, the only offense of the army dignitary being that he said the Mormons had some rights, and were not undeserving of credit for their patient toil. A man reaches the condition of "Jack-Mormon” when he ventures to express such sentiments.

For one, I am content to have this policy of proscription applied in Utah so far as its effect upon the rising generation is concerned. When a line of demarcation is so sharply drawn as it has been for years between those who profess a certain faith and those who do not, and young people are forced to elect to which class they will belong, those who have pluck and the higher qualities well developed will cast their lots with their persecuted friends, and endure all the consequences which such a decision brings, while the cowardly and the selfish may gravitate to the side which promises them ease and popularity.

History attests that no people who are willing to die for their principles need fear the effect of violence and unjust treatment upon them. If their convictions are profound, persecution solidifies them and evokes sympathy for their cause from those not of

their faith. Their constancy excites admiration, creates an interest in their doctrines, and adds converts to their ranks. This has always been the effect of persecution where it stopped short of extermination. The liberty which followed the edict of Nantes did more to check Protestantism in France than the previous denial of rights and even persecuting war itself. Catholic and Protestant writers alike testify that Protestants diminished during those peaceful times (diminuoient en nombre et un crédit pendant la paix"). Henry III. hated them so much that he excluded them from all positions in the government. Henry IV. took a more liberal view. He decided that violence or the withholding of rights was not a legitimate means of correcting schisms in religion. He chose men for office for their abilities without regard to their religion. This drew the attention of some Protestants from their own sect to the government. They felt gratitude toward, and took interest in, that authority which employed them. I do not say that such a policy on the part of our Government toward the people of Utah would result similarly. But it has not been tried. Inflammatory appeals are made to the country to prevent it or any other kind policy being tried. The administration is urged to adopt a treatment which would be more in violation of the Constitution and all republican principles of government than the acts themselves against which the rigor of the law is invoked. Free-born men are to be deprived of all rights as citizens, and to be governed as Indians, insane, and minors; and yet it is admitted that they are "in their daily lives peaceable, industrious, frugal, and courteous"; and that their system has in a decade "waived some of its atrocities." Can prejudiced, unreasoning bigotry be more stupid than this? Free and popular government is to be maintained by methods which would disgrace an autocracy. Church and state, which are falsely said to be united, are to be divorced by the transfer of the people, their improvements and varied industries, the treasury and sources of revenue, to a commission, whose members would hold office till they should be accused of being "JackMormons."

As to plural marriage, the people of Utah took no broader views than many of the early fathers-Theodoret, St. Ambrose, St. Chrysostom, and others. St. Augustine said (Lib. xxii., contra Faustum, cap. 47): "It is objected against Jacob that he had four wives"; to which he answered, "which, when a

custom, was not a crime." And the learned Grotius, speaking of such marriages (B. I., c. ii., sec. 17), said that "when God permits a thing in certain cases, and to certain persons, or in regard to certain nations, it may be inferred that the thing permitted is not evil in its own nature." Until the Supreme Court held otherwise, they entertained the opinion that, under the Constitution, Jacob the names of whose twelve sons are to be on the gates of the New Jerusalem, which all who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life are to enter-could, if he were here, have lived in a Territory and not been thought guilty of "animalism,” or unfit to exercise civil rights. Surely before thunder-bolts of wrath are launched upon them they should have time to unlearn these views, and the interpretation they have given to the teachings of Jefferson, Madison, and other founders of the republic, respecting "the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammedan, the Hindu and infidel of every denomination," being protected in the fullest enjoyment of religious liberty, and the practices, as in their own case, flowing therefrom.

Tested by any rules which prevail among enlightened peoples, Utah will not shrink from comparison with any part of the republic. I doubt if in any other part there can be found so large a proportion who own their own homes. The percentage of illiteracy is lower, and taxation is lighter, than in any of the other Territories, and than in many of the States. The Territory has no public debt. The enterprise of her people is shown in the building of railroads, the extension of telegraph lines, and other progress, to keep abreast of the age. Without the study and practice of coöperation upon a grand scale, with the poverty of her pioneers, her lands could not have been settled and cultivated as they are. All this has been accomplished, not with the encouragement of cheering praise, but in the midst of cruel and malignant abuse. Is there no credit due to a people, whatever their faults may be, who, under such constant assaults and misrepresentations, have accomplished so much in peopling the desert and filling the desolate valleys with peaceful homes and the hum of civilized industries? People proscribed in their religion, stinted in their rights, assailed as if they were aliens, do not usually display all their good qualities. Utah has been the Cinderella of the family. Give her a fair opportunity, and see if she will not at least rank in all that is admirable and attractive with her more favored sisters.

GEORGE Q. CANNON.

SHALL AMERICANS BUILD SHIPS?

YES. By reason of our position and products, we ought to be the first ocean-carrying nation in the world. To become that, we must build ships. National ambition, prosperity, and selfdefense alike are involved in the answer, Yes.

Our early history proves us worthy of that position. When we achieved independence and began as a nation, we began as a nation of ship-builders. Among the first acts of our earliest statesmen was the passage of protective navigation laws, to meet those of England. Starting out with the sturdy spirit of selfreliance, though with bankrupt treasury, no national credit, but a large national debt, only some three millions of people, and a wilderness to conquer, we made such progress in ship-building as the world never saw before.

It was not until we had 46,000,000 of people, resources superior, and foreigners dependent on us for bread, that it was declared we must go abroad to buy ships, and buy them of our great commercial rival at that.

From 1789 to 1812 our tonnage grew from 280,000 to 1,100,000 tons, an increase so remarkable that England, jealous of us as ocean rivals from the first, made war upon our commerce-for the war of 1812 was nothing else. But in twenty years from the date of peace our commerce had doubled, and our tonnage increased yet more largely, till in 1850 it was 3,335,454 tons, and we had sold over 400,000 tons of ships abroad, besides. We built the fastest and cheapest wooden ships, and the well-known Yankee clippers were seen in every port all over the world. In 1860 we had 5,350,000 tons, and of our total foreign trade $437,190,000 was carried in American bottoms, against $160,057,000 in foreign ships. Then came our civil war and England's opportunity.