Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 November 1883 — CURSE OF THE NATION. [ARTICLE]

CURSE OF THE NATION.

The Report of the Utah Commissioners < Submitted to Secretary Teller. Recounting the Year’s Operations and Hinting at Thunderbolts in Reserve. The Utah commission, composed of Alex. Ramsay, A. S. Paddock, G. L. Godfrey,. A. B. Carlton, and J. R. Pettigrew, have made their report to Secretary Teller. The clear intimation is that, unless the monogamic Mormon Legislature shall enact laws which will carry out the Edmunds act in the spirit and provide for the disfranchisethent of polygamists, the most severe legislation compatible -with the limitations of the constitution will be recommended. The Commissioners privately say that this reserve recommendation is the abolition of suffrage. They do not expect the Legislature will enact any such laws, so that it may be. presumed that the most important recommendations for the overthrow of polygamy will be made in a report next January or February. statement of the.former legislation of Congress in relation to bigamy or polygamy, the commission said: The duties of the commission appertain only to matters of registration, and election, and eligibility to office, while the punishment of the crime of polygamy is left, as under the former law, to the courts of justice. Under the AntiPolygamy act the commission had good success at the general election of August, 1883, in excludiii gpolygamists from the polls and as far as advised very little if any illegal votes have been cast in Utah since the commission took charge of the registration and elections in August, 1882. The enforcement of the present law against 12.000 polygamists who have been excluded from the polls shows the act has been fully and successfully’ executed. It is thought that the, discrimination between those Mormons who practice polygamy and those who do not, while not likely to have much effect upon elderly men who have already a plurality of wives, must have great weight on the young men of the Territory, many of whom are ambitious andl aspiring, and would not like voluntarily to embrace political ostracism. The very existence of a law disfranchising polygamists must tend to destroy their influence whenever it As understood it is to be .a permanent discrimination. The fact also that it will be necessary to the preservation of the political influence of the “People’s party” -(aw the Mormons style themselves) to have a large body of their members who are not polygamists, must tend in time to weaken the practice of polygamy, for every Mormon who takes but .one plural wife loses three votes for: ills party—his own and those of his two wives (woman suffrage being established by law in Utah). —--z, *

Concerning plurality of wives, that a doctrine and practice so odious throughout Christ, ndom should have been upheld so many years against the taws of Congress and the sentiments of the civilized world is one of the marvels of the nineteenth century, and can be scarcely appreciated, even by those familiar with the worlds ■ history in relation to the difficulties of Governments to control or suppress religious fanaticism. Certainly no Government can permit the Violation .of laws under the guise of religious freedom, and, while Congress may not legislate as to mere matters of opinion, yet it may denounce and punish as crimes those actions which are in violation of social duties onsubversive of good order. The right of Congress to sunpress this great evil is undoubted. It is equally plain the dignity and good name of this great Government among the nations of the earth demand such Congressional action as shall effectually eliminate this, "national disgrace. The commission renew the recommendations contained In the report of Nov. 17. 1882, notably the cue regarding .the enactment of a marrige law by Congress declaring all future marriages in the Territory null and void unless contracted and evidenced in the man her provided by the act. If the next Legislature shall fail to adopt measures in conformity with the provisions of the act of 1882 forthe suppression of polygamy, the commission ‘brill be prepared to recommend, and Congress certainly will not delay the adoption of the most stringent measures compatibtewith the limitations of the constitution that may be considered necessary for the suppression of this great evil.”