People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1894 — THE UTAH BILL SIGNED. [ARTICLE]

THE UTAH BILL SIGNED.

The Territory Has Only to Hold a Constitutional Conventloi to Become a State. Washington, July 18.—The president has signed the bill to permit Utah to hold a constitutional cenvention and be admitted into the union as a state. The Utah bill as amended by the senate, which amendments have been accepted by the house, makes it Impossible for the territory to carry out the processes of admission before the close of 1895. Had the house bill passed it could have been admitted during the present year. The bill as amended and sent to the president provides that delegates to the constitutional convention called by the governor of the territory shall be chosen on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November, 1894, and that the convention itself shall not assemble until the first Monday in March, 1895. The constitutional convention will frame a state constitution, which will be submitted to the people for ratification at an election in November, 1895. when the governor and other state officers and a member of congress will be elected. If the constitution is ratified and if the president finds that it provides for a republican form of government under the provisions of the act of congress, he will issue a proclamation announcing the fact and declaring Utah a state. First, the convention must declare on behalf ot the people of the state to adopt the constitution of the United States. Several important requirements for the state constitution are made by congress: that it shall be republican in form and make no distinction in civil or political rank on account of race or color, except as to Indians, who are not taxed: that it shall not be repugnant to the constitution of the United States and the principles of the declaration of independence. One of the most crucial requirements of the state constitution, which was evoked by the power of the Mormon church, is that it shall provide by ordinance irrevocable without the consent of the United States and the people of the statd, that perfect toleration of religious lentiment shall be secured, and that no inhabitants of the state shall ever be molested on account of the mode of religious worship, provided that polygamous or plural marriages are forever prohibited. The state is to disclaim all title to the unappropriated public lands, and all Indian tribes are to remain under the absolute jurisdiction of the United States. However, the government concedes liberal grants of lands to the state for public purposes. One hundred sections are given for publlo buildings at the capital. 90,000 acres for an agricultural college, two townships and 110.000 acres for the University of Utah, for irrigation purposes, 500,000 acres: for an Insane asylum, for a school of mines, for a deaf and dumb asylum, for a reform school, for a state normal school, for an Institution for the blind, each 10,000 acres, and for a miners' hospital 50,000 acres. The United States penitentiary near .nalt Lake City is granted to the state. All granted lands are to be sold at public sales for not less than $5 an acre, but the state may lease them for terms of five years. Ten per cent, of the proceeds of the sale of the public lands, after the admission of the state, is to be paid by the government to the state as a permanent fund for the support of the common schools, of which the interest only is available. It will be seen that liberal provisions are made for educational institutions and charitable purposes. All of the educational institutions are to remain under the exclusive control of the state and no part of the proceeds of the land can be used for the support of any sectarian or denominational school. These are the principal provisions of the contract upon which the government of the fortyfour existing states admits to statehood the territory of Utah. Her population is now estimated at 225,000 and the proportion of foreign born is less than in thirteen of the states. The legislature elected at the November election will meet early in December, and one of its first acts will be to choose two United States senators.