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(Vol. 6; No. 40. SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, JUNE 15, 1907. Price 5 Cents. H . !' Tiie Ministers and ma Mormons r "" - t A couple of weeks ago the Minis terial association issued a "review" of an address to the world issued by the Mormon church authorities. The i 1 Ministerial review wasn't worth no ticing. Mr. B. II. Roberts, however, did notice it and according to the ideas of most people, thereby made a grave nuistakc. Last Sunday in the ! Tabernacle both afternoon and even- 1 ing Mr. Roberts delivered two great orntions in which he answered the re view. The review and the answer were theological discussions with the Mormon church as the storm center. ,, Of course there was acrimony and ill feeling in plenty in both, Mr. Roberts J being especially heated and severe in , i his denunciation of the preachers. Perhaps that was to some extent excusiblc in Mr. Roberts as he was j repelling a gratuitous and unwar ranted attack by the ministers on his church. It is nobody's business but their own whether the Mormons believe or do not believe in the doctrines of j marriage for time and eternity, bap- ! tism for the dead, the continuance of 1 the physical body in the world to 1 come, the rightfulness of the prin- 1 ciple of polygamy, that God was j once a man and even now has a wife or wives or any other tenet of the faith, so long as they arc not guilty I ,?f of breaking the civil laws as a result i ' of holding those beliefs. Neither is it anybody's business but their own whether or not the Presbyterians or 1 any other denomination believe in in- ' fant damnation, an eternal literal hell, j election and predestination, the ef- 51 ftcacy of baptism, salvation by faith I' or anything else, so long as those bc- 1 liefs don't cause them to break any laws of the land. 1 These theological points wciethe 1 principal things discussed by the ? ministers and Mr. Roberts, and in f doing so both were meddling with ) other people's business instead of at- '. tending to their own. iOnly two points appeared in the whole volcanic like erruptions which concerned the public or that the pub li lie care anything about. These were: I First: Are the Mormons breaking HHMMMHHMMHH the law of the land as a result of their belief in polygamy? That they arc ever since the church manifesto of 1890, keep ing with exceeding faithfulness their covenant with the nation not to enter into new polygamous marriages no reasonable man can doubt; very few do doubt it, but their arc some for profit or revenge pretend to doubt it. The prosecution in the Smoot case with all the money they could possibly use, the prestige -of the Min isterial association and powerful sen ators at their command and after the most diligent search could find only three or four cases of polygamous' marriages during a period of more than a dozen years, and these mar riages were not performed with either the knowledge or the consent of the church. It is safe to say that in that period there were more bigamous marriages, 10 to 1, among the Gen tiles than the Mormons in this state, the population of each class consid ered. Hut because of those exceed ingly few infractions of the law the Ministerial association, the Tribune and a few others seek to condemn a whole people. Suppose the same rule were applied to the Ministerial association, where would its members get off? In about the same period of time it has had among its few members, one double murdcr.er, adulterers, perjurers, forg ers, embezzlers and what not. Would it to be fair on that showing to con demn the whole people represented by the Ministerial association? The principal one of the two points is thus justly and truly disposed of. The second point is that those Mor mons who entered into the polyga mous relation prior to the church manifesto, prohibiting i, arc still maintaining that relation and cohab iting with their plural wives. That is not denied. On the contrary it is freely admitted and on that issue Mr Roberts based his defiance of all crea tion and almost of the Mormon God who was once a man. There are in Salt Lake today not to exceed 43 polygamists and in the whole state only a few hundreds, They arc nearly all old men and their wives arc old. They entered into this relation when they thought they had a right to do so, they in the ma jority of cases did it because they were religious fanatics, not from lust ful motives. In a very few years they will have departed from this sphere of action. It was and is understood, was so understood when statehood came, that they should be permitted to live their lives to the end. Judge Powers, an ultra anti-Mormon, the leader of the former Liberal or anti Mormon party, the man who won the victories for that party stated the condition most excellently in his tes timony before the United States Sen ate Committee in the Smoot investi gation as follows: The chairman of the committee said to the witness. (Judge Powers.): "Will you state why it is that Miose who live in polygamous cohabitation today are not prosecuted?" The witness answered: "I will do so as well as I can, and I simply state here the views as I know them of what are termed the old guard of the Liberal party, Republicans and Demo crats, who fought the church in the days when it was a power. Those men have felt and still feel that if the church will only stop new plural marriages and will allow this matter to die out and pass away they will not interfere with them. First of all, of course, we want peace in Utah; we would like to be like the rest of the country; we want to make of it a state like the states of the rest of the Union. "We want the Mormon people to be like the rest of the American peo ple, but we realize hat there is a con dition there which the people of the East do not, and I presume-cannot understand. You cannot make peo ple, but we realize that there is a con our system of government and our system of marriage believe that folks can sincerely and honestly believe that it is right to have more than one wife, and yet those people believe it. They are a God-fearing people, and it has been a part of their faith and their life. "The Mormon wives arc as sincere in their belief in polygamy as the Mormon men, and they have r-i nore hesitation in declaring that are one of several wives of a man Mian a good woman in the East has in de claring that she is the one v"j of a man. There is that condition. There II arc those people " U Senator Hopkins interrupted to ,M say: "Do you mean to say that a H Mormon wonin will as readily be- M come a plural wife as she would the H first wife?" H The witness: "Those who are sin- M cere in the Mormon faith, who arc M good Mormons, so-called, I think M would just as readily become plural ,M wives that has been my experience fl as they would become the first ( M wife. That condition exists. There M is a question for statesmen to solve." M You remember that is what I said ' U to these gentlemen this afternoon. fl "We have not known what was best fl to do. It has been discussed and pco- fl pie would say that such and such a M man ouglit to be prosecuted; then M they would consider whether any- M thing would be gained, whether we M vould not delay instead of hastening M the time that we hope to live to sec, 'H whether the institution would not M fiourish by reason of what they would M term persecution. And so uotwith- H standing a protest has been sent down H here (meaning to Washington), I H will say to you, the people have ac- H (uicsced in the conditions that exist." An attorney said: "You mean the H Gentiles?" The witness said: "Yes, H the Gentiles." H That's a fair statement of the case H by Judge Powers. H On these few rapidly passing "amorous old jack rabbits," as Mr. H Fitch calls them, living in the sage H brush, the Ministerial association and H their allies base their agitation for H the overthrow of ,thc constitution of , H the United States, a return to the H days of the thumb screw and the H rack, so that they can dictate to men H what they shall believe and what H they shall not believe, although their H churches countenance or at least per- H mit polygamy (wrong thought it be) H in members of their churches in other H lands. The Ministerial politico-reli- H gious review is a "fake" issued by H fakers who want to make personal H gain and notoriety out of it. H We have little, if any, more respect H for Mr. Roberts' evident motives in H making his spectacular reply to it. H To begin with it wasn't worth a re- H ply. His answer didn't convert any H Gentiles to the Mormon faith, didn't I make any Mormons more staunch I Mormons than they v. -re before. It I just served the purpose of arraying H