COMMITTEE ON TERRITORIES, Saturday, January 19, 1889. The committee met pursuant to adjournment and proceeded to hear further argument.

ARGUMENT OF HON. M. A. SMITH,

Mr. SMITH said:

Delegate from Arizona.

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee: While ignorant of the Mormon faith I am somewhat acquainted with the Mormon people, and while ignorant of their creed I know their conduct. I am not here to criticise any religious belief, no matter how far it may diverge from mine, but I am here for the purpose of briefly filing my protest against the persecution of any people on account of their religious belief. While religion is sacred to the soul of the believer, civil liberty is the birthright of every American citizen, and whenever it is stabbed the life blood of our matchless Republic flows from the wound.

Polygamy is a crime under the law and should be punished as the law directs. But simply belief in polygamy is no more a crime than any other mere mental conclusion. I am of those who believe that polygamy will find its burial in the statehood of Utah. The world moves, and our world moves westward. With proper safeguards against amendment the constitution of Utah so far as it prohibits polygamous marriages will secure forever its prohibition in that State, and insure conviction in Federal courts. What more can we ask in the face of the promises which have been made us?

Is this committee ready to say that every Mormon promise is made in order to be broken? If so, I beg to place my experience with these people against your conjectures. There are many of these people in Arizona, and I have taken occasion to study somewhat closely the effect of their peculiar belief on citizenship. I was for a time district attorney in Cochise County, Ariz. During my term of office no Mormon was ever called to plead to any indictment, for no Mormon was accused of crime, so far as I know, even before a justice of the peace.

In my practice of the law, covering some seven years in Arizona, I know of no indictment in my county against a Mormon-save one— and he was cleared, there being no evidence against him. He was tried for malicious mischief, in doing, in a certain water-right case, what he had the legal right to do. In my Territory they have the just reputation of being an industrious, law-abiding and law-loving people, unassuming in their habits, sober in their lives, honest in their dealings. They are in no sense, or by any standard, unworthy of American citizenship in its broadest sense. Of all people with whom I have come in contact they -if you will permit the paraphrase-of all others—

Along the hot and sandy plains of life

They keep the noiseless tenor of their way..

I am free to say that in Arizona they are very different from the people of that faith as pictured by my friend (Mr. Dubois), the Delegate from Idaho. Prejudice is still abroad in the land. Fanaticism still runs rampant.

I have great respect for my friend from Idaho (Mr. Dubois), and in common with him desire to see his Territory and mine soon admitted to the Union of States; but I go further than he, in desiring to see every Territory stripped of the villainage under which they labor, and place additional stars in the field on our national banner. America can take care of polygamy. It will die of itself. The author of that most wonderful of all poems, Paradise Lost, in his prose works reviews this question fully, and I commend his wise conclusion to your consideration. He simply demonstrates the impossibility of general polygamous relations in a thickly settled community. What killed it among the Jews? What has killed it among all modern nations? Population. The same will do it in Utah.

But it is claimed that polygamy is not the question that disturbs, but it is ecclesiastical interference in secular affairs-church domination of the state. Is this worthy of your consideration? Does not this alarm arise from a minority, who want the prestige of power and thus far have been unable to obtain it? There is no possibility of any church dominating for any length of time any State in this great Union.

The foundation of our Republic is not shaken by the Mormon faith. The Constitution guaranties protection. Then why this alarm, when we remember that thirteen States, locked together in the strong embrace of fraternal affection and a common interest, battled in vain with dauntless courage against the union? The Jews hoped under their theocratic government to dominate the world. They were ordered by the King of Kings to invade the land of Hittites and Jebusites and destroy men, women, and children, yea even the babe at the breast. This is not all. Peter looked forward to the establishment of a politicoecclesiastical kingdom on the earth, and when it came not, thrice denied his God. The mother of two of the Apostles went to Christ, praying that when He came into His earthly kingdom one of her sons should sit on His right and the other on His left. Yet the church of which Peter is the foundation stone (whatever of the many churches that may be) has not seriously affected any of our State governments. Neither will the Mormon creed. We have heard much of Gentile proscription by the Mormons. We have seen much of Mormon proscription by the Gentiles.

It is thus far a simple question of majority. Statehood is the simplest, plainest, straightest, and the proper road to a quick settlement of our differences. I think Utah honest in its effort to secure the blessings of statehood. I believe they are sincere, and believing dare maintain, even in opposition to the advice of some friends of mine on this committee. If you gentlemen had suffered in your States as we have suffered in my Territory from Federal interference in our simplest affairs; if you had endured as we endure a swarm of carpet-bag officeholders with no interest in common with ours; if you had borne the thousand burdens we bear, suffered the indignities we hourly meet under this infamous Territorial rule, you would with me say, give all the Territories statehood, even if populated by Hottentots, and trust to the manhood of America and the promiseful future to rub off all angularities and heal all wounds.

ARGUMENT OF MR. WILSON.

ADMISSION OF UTAH AS A STATE.

Mr. WILSON said:

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee: In making the concluding argument in favor of the admission of Utah as a State under the constitution which has been presented to you, I assume that you will expect of me that I shall confine myself to the material considerations that have been urged in opposition; and this I shall endeavor to do. And as I am doing so I desire you to remember that the world

moves.

There are, however, some things in connection with this opposition to which I desire briefly to allude before I proceed to the discussion of such as I deem of greater and real consequence.

We have here opposing this admission, first, the Territory of Idaho, appearing not only in the form of a memorial or remonstrance from her legislative assembly, but also, as represented through the argument of her Delegate in Congress, and who has read in support of his views a report of a committee of that legislature in a contested election case to which I will hereafter allude. We have also, second, the governor of the Territory of Utah in his official capacity, through the medium of a report, that he has made as governor, and which is legitimately before you for your consideration.

We have, again, third, the governor himself, not as governor, but as a private citizen, as he himself describes himself, as a citizen of the United States, and as an individual invited by the Gentiles of Utah to appear before you and represent their side of this controversy. I may be permitted, I trust, to remark without offense (for none is intended) that Governor West appears in this dual capacity. He is, so to speak, Doctor Jekyll when he is in Utah discharging his executive duties as a governor, but when he lays aside his official robes, and the duties of the executive of that Territory are left in the hands of the secretary, who is now governor, and comes here, I will not say (because that might be offensive) that he is Mr. Hyde, but I will say that he is here not as governor but as a citizen alone, and his utterances here as a citizen have precisely the same weight that those of any other citizen would have who has only had his opportunities to inform himself in respect of the situation in Utah.

And I wish further to remark that I am exceedingly glad that he is here, and that he has made his statement before you, because that statement is a calcium light turned upon his report. And from the statement that he has made here, you will be enabled to determine the weight that is to be attached to his official report, for presumably that official report was made upon the strength of the information which he has detailed in your presence, and the opinions he has expressed. And as to that official report, I shall have something to say as I pass along.

I pause right here, gentlemen of the committee, to say that when the governor assures you that he believes that if the Mormon Church would command the fathers and mothers of Utah to sacrifice their first-born they would obey that command, I think it throws a great deal of light upon the question as to how much credit is to be given to the views,

opinions, and statements of fact that are made by the gentleman who makes that assertion in your presence.

Then we have, fourth, the individuals who have been sent here by the remonstrants, whose presentation of the case in opposition will have that consideration which the facts they present will warrant; and you, from what they have stated, will determine what weight is to be attached to the opposition that they make. As to some of these I shall have something to say presently.

Then, again, you have in opposition, and I frankly admit it, fifth, what may be called the "public sentiment" of the country, which is entitled always to great respect, because the aggregate sentiment or opinion, which we commonly call "public opinion," is generally entitled to much higher consideration than any individual opinion. A single man may be utterly wrong, although his character and intelligence may be of the highest order and his judgment entitled to great consideration, and if the aggregate of public opinion is against him it is a strong indication that he is in the wrong.

But while this is so as to the weight that is to be attached to public opinion, it is always well to ascertain whether or not that public opinion is founded upon an accurate knowledge of the facts upon which that public opinion rests. I shall attempt to show you that that opiuion is not justified by the present condition in Utah.

As to one of these opponents, the Territory of Idaho, I have a word, in passing, to say.

The distinguished gentleman who represents Idaho in the House of Representatives as her Delegate has presented to you a memorial coming from the legislature of that Territory, in the nature of a protest against the admission of her sister Territory, Utah, and has likewise presented to you a report made by a committee of the legislature of that Territory in a contested election case. And he presents this memorial and this report for the purpose of showing that Utah is unfit to be a State in this Union.

It is, under the circumstances, therefore, not improper that I should invite your attention to the precise facts involved in the case with reference to which this report was made, and thereby I hope to show you that Idaho is in no position, when the light is turned upon her, to assert that Utah is unfit to occupy the position which she is seeking under this constitution. I want to show what the report is worth, and thereby to show what the memorial is worth.

Idaho asserts that the whole scheme of the Mormon system is antag onistic to free government, and that, in point of fact, is the contention, the main contention, throughout this entire dispute, and which I will hereafter consider. The case to which I have referred is, in brief, this: Idaho had passed a law which required that a citizen before casting a vote should take an oath that he did not belong to any order, organization, or association which teaches, advises, counsels, or encourages members, devotees, or any other person to commit the crime of bigamy or polygamy, or any other crime defined by law, as a duty arising or resulting from membership in such organization or association, or which practices bigamy, or polygamy, or plural or celestial marriage as a doctrinal rite of such organization.

Prior to the election out of which the case to which the Delegate has referred arose, and the report in which case he has read in the hearing of this committee, some six or seven hundred Mormons in Idaho dissolved their connection with the Mormon Church, and that dissolution was accepted by the church; and they thereby became as absolutely

free and absolved from that church as any gentleman on this committee here to-day.

Mr. DUBOIS. I would like to ask you how they dissolve their connec tion with the church; did they do it on their own request?

Mr. WILSON. I am simply stating the facts in this case.

Mr. DUBOIS. I beg your pardon, but you are not stating the facts when you state that the church did not dissolve their connection with it. Mr. WILSON. I am stating facts that come from one of the highest citizens of Idaho. They do not come from my clients, but I get them from a gentleman who is the peer of the distinguished Delegate from the Territory of Idaho.

Mr. DUBOIS. I will just state in opposition to my peer that the church dissolved these members without any request from the members themselves. Then, you see, this is a question of veracity.

Mr. WILSON. Well, we will see. Certificates filed with registration officers show that these people sent in their resignations as church members and they were endorsed by the bishop as accepted. But that is not material, as you will see in a moment. I do not care how it is done, but their connection with the church was absolutely dissolved at their own request, and I challenge any gentleman in this regard to say that that is not so.

After that dissolution these people presented themselves, for the purpose of casting their votes, in a certain legislative or council district, composed of the counties of Bear Lake, Oneida, and Cassia, and they each and all took this prescribed oath, severe and un-republican and un-American as it is. For whom they voted nobody knows but themselves, or ever did know. It is not known to this day.

Mr. DUBOIS. Excuse me, please, but that is not a fact as it appears on the record out there.

Mr. WILSON. Oh, no, gentlemen, I will show why it does not appear of record out there, if my friend will just possess his soul in patience. Mr. DUBOIS. I would like to have support for that statement.

Mr. WILSON. I will give the support for it. But I will quote here what the governor of Idaho says about the Mormons in his Territory in his official report to the Secretary of the Interior, of October 20, 1888:

Paris has a population of about 1,500, all Mormons, and there is not a saloon or gambling house, or any other place where intoxicating liquor is sold, and this is, I am told, the case in all the towns in Idaho where these people have exclusive control. In traveling through the Mormon settlements one is at once struck with their improvements and the certainty that they are persevering and industrious; their country towns and villages are thrifty, and their farms well cultivated. Their buildings are generally substantial, and many of them stylish, with all the modern improvements that make a country look progressive and prosperous; and I believe these people are, as a rule, frugal, industrious, and honest.

I am informed by men high in authority in the Mormon Church, and in whose word I have the highest confidence, that they are willing to live up to the laws (which they claim are now being fairly and more humanely administered) and that the doctrine of plural marriages is not now practiced as formerly, or taught either publicly or privately, and that they do not teach, advise, counsel, or encourage the prac tice of polygamy or bigamy.

Now, a certain gentleman by the name of Lamereaux was a candidate for the legislative council in these counties, and he was returned elected. He appeared at that council, and without objection was sworn into office. The laws of the Territory of Idaho require that where an election is to be contested notice shall be given of such contest within ten days after the result of the election is announced. No such notice was given in this case; but after Mr. Lamereaux had been not only returned elected, but had actually taken the oath of office, and was enjoy