As I remarked, I desired to read that passage to you, that you may know that my charge that the people are slipping away from the influences of the churches and the ministry was not inconsiderately made. Of course, the decline in the influence of the churches marks also the decline in the influence of the ministry, hence the pertinency of this quotation. What is said by this authority concerning conditions in England is equally and more emphatically true of our own country than it is of England. That is, the decline of the influence of the ministry and churches in the United States is more marked than in England. Ministers, then, don't count for much when it comes to dealing with practical questions. And the conditions that have and do exist in Utah, and that come down to us out of a remarkable past connected with our former plural marriages are practical questions. Questions for statesmen, not for sectarian priests and their trundle-bed notion of things. It is a question for men of blood and brains, and when it was referred to such a body of men not long since—the Senate of the United States—they at least refused to take the radical steps you suggested. Through four long years you raked the country as with a fine-toothed comb to gather up your evidence and to convince the United States Senate that they ought to follow your dictation, to assail the Latter-day Saints, and to break up and terrify, as a few years ago our community was broken up and terrified by a severe, rigid and, I may say, cruel administration of this law against polygamous living; and after you have done your best, submitted your evidence—employed the best counsel you could find, and after you have awakened all the prejudices to which you could appeal, the court has turned you down, gentlemen! You could not move that body to adopt your view of the case.
I made some remarks this afternoon upon the subject of the toleration for those conditions respecting polygamous living that have come to us out of the past. I do not desire to be understood as standing in any defiant attitude against the public sentiment of our state or of our nation. The fact of the matter is, these ministerial friends of ours are disposed to make mountains out of mole-hills, and are representing to the world as conditions existing here things that do not exist. The Latter-day Saints are not a law-defying body of people, but on the contrary they have manifested an obedience and respect for law, and you shall find no better order or a more universal acquiescence in and obedience to law than you find here in the settlements of the Latter-day Saints. We believe in law and in order and in being subject to kings and presidents, in honoring and magnifying the law; but the conditions here in Utah are unusual in respect of this one matter of polygamous living. The conditions, however, are well understood by our non-"Mormon" friends; and but for the agitation of these ministerial meddlers and a few disreputable and disgruntled politicians, the peculiar conditions which confront the community, and in which some of the best men of the community are involved, would go to their settlement along the lines in which they are being settled, namely: by the termination of these relations in death as, one by one, the parties pass out of existence to the grave. Now, in order to convince you that I am right in this view of the case I shall read an extract from the testimony of a prominent citizen of our state, a non-"Mormon," who I believe, better than anyone else, in the testimony he gave before the committee on Privileges and Elections of the Senate, in the Smoot case, described conditions in Utah as they are. He analyzed the situation here and told the truth in respect of it. I shall read his testimony—never mind who he is just for the present, but let me read to you what he said before the committee. Keep in mind that he is a non-"Mormon" and one not at all prejudiced in favor of the Latter-day Saints:
"The Chairman said: Will you state why it is that those who live in polygamous cohabitation today are not prosecuted?
"The witness: 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 Democrats, who fought the Church party 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 people; but we realize that there is a condition there which the people of the east do not—and, I presume, cannot—understand. You cannot make people who have been brought up under 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.
"Now, to the eastern people their manner of living is looked upon as immoral. Of course it is, viewed from their standpoint. Viewed from the standpoint of a 'Mormon' it is not. The 'Mormon' wives are as sincere in polygamy as the 'Mormon' men, and they have no more hesitation in declaring that they are one of several wives of a man than a good woman in the east has in declaring that she is the single wife of a man. There is that condition. There are those people—
"Senator Hopkins interrupted to say: Do you mean to say that a 'Mormon' woman will as readily become a plural wife as she would a first wife?
"The witness: Those who are sincere in the 'Mormon' faith—who are good "Mormons," so called—I think would just as readily become plural wives (that has been my experience) as they would become the first wife. That condition exists. There is a question for statesmen to solve."
You will remember that is what I said to these ministerial gentlemen this afternoon. The witness continued:
"We have not known what was best to do. It has been discussed, and people would say that such and such a man ought to be prosecuted. Then they would consider whether anything would be gained; whether we would not delay instead of hastening the time that we hope to live to see; whether the institution would not flourish by reason of what they would term persecution. And so, notwithstanding a protest has been sent down here to you, I will say to you the people have acquiesced in the condition that exists.
"Mr. Van Colt, an Attorney: You mean the Gentiles?
"The witness: Yes, the Gentiles."
The witness who gave that testimony was Judge O. W. Powers, and you know, and all Utah knows, that he spoke the truth.
Mr. J. Martin Miller writing to the Newark (New Jersey) News, represents Rabbi Louis G. Reynolds as holding the views expressed in the accompanying quotation on conditions in Utah:
"I found a very prominent former Newarker, in the person of Rabbi Louis G. Reynolds, of the Synagogue B'nai Israel here. He was rabbi of the Oheb Shalem Synagogue, Newark, from 1892 to '96.
"There is a Jewish population of about 500 in Salt Lake City, said Rabbi Reynolds. Aside from that particular feature of their creed, polygamy, I think the 'Mormons' are a very good people. Everything indicates that polygamy is dying out and that the Church means to obey the law. Aside from polygamy, I am of the opinion that in morals the 'Mormons' will average higher than the Gentiles who live here. The records show that the 'Mormons' furnish a very small quota of the vice of the city. As a rule, they are a temperate people. If Senator Smoot is unseated, would the influence of the 'Mormons' in the state and nation be diminished? I inquired. Not in the least; it would make them feel their persecution more than now and cause them to have less faith in the fairness of the government. They know the government cannot be fooled to any great extent, and that polygamy must go. Now that the tendency on the part of the 'Mormons' is to abandon polygamy, the purposes of the government in making better Americans of the 'Mormon' people than they are now will be better subserved by allowing the influential men among the 'Mormons' to help the government bring about the desired end. I say this with Senator Smoot in mind, and in view of the believed fact among every class in Utah that he is not a polygamist. He is one of the most level-headed businessmen in Utah, and is exceedingly popular with all classes. Polygamy was deeply rooted. The people for the most part were born in it. Why humiliate these innocent victims by persecuting them unnecessarily when they show an inclination to rid themselves and the country of the blot? The United States is a conciliatory and humane government. I was born in Russia and can appreciate this government. It is the kind of a government that begets loyalty in its subjects. Will these erring children of Utah, who in all probability are not now contracting any new polygamous marriages, be better citizens if they are hounded and misrepresented by agitators, or if they are fairly but firmly dealt with by the government and given a reasonable chance to prove their good intentions and their good citizenship? There is a very strong element throughout the country that takes absolutely no stock in this ecclesiastical warfare that is being made from Salt Lake City against the 'Mormons.' It has been plainly demonstrated very recently in the case of one minister here who carried on a bitter crusade, that was worse than a waste of energy, that such methods are reactive in the extreme."
These statements are thoughtful and fair; and no one acquainted with existing conditions can doubt their truthfulness.
And why have they, and why do they, the non-"Mormons," acquiesce in these conditions, and tacitly consent that this question should be settled by the grave. First, because they recognize the honesty and the purity of the lives of the people who are involved in the "Mormon" system of marriage; and they know that it was the promptings of a religious duty that involved them in that system, and not criminal instincts nor worldly or ungodly lust.