I have given you in terms the opinion my four years' experience has enabled me to form of the Mormons, preferring to force you to deduce it for yourselves from the facts. But I will add that I have not heard a single charge made against them as a community—against their habitual purity of life, their willing integrity, their toleration of religious differences of opinion, their regard for the laws, their devotion to the constitutional government under which we live—that I do not, from my own observation, or upon the testimony of others, know to be unfounded.
Chief Justice White, formerly of Huntsville, Alabama, in charging the Grand Jury, Salt Lake City, February, 1876, said:
I do not utter the language of prejudice, nor treat lightly or derisively the Mormon people or their faith. No matter how much I differ from them in belief, nor how widely they differ from the American people in matters of religion, yet testing them and it by a standard which the world recognizes as just, that is, what they have practised and what they have accomplished, and they deserve higher consideration than ever has been accorded to them. Industry, frugality, temperance, honesty, and in every respect but one, obedience to the law, are with them the common practices of life.
This land thy have redeemed from sterility, and occupied its once barren solitudes with cities, villages, cultivated fields and farm houses, and made it the habitation of a numerous people, where a beggar is never seen and alms houses are neither needed or known. These are facts and accomplishments which any candid observer recognizes and every fair mind admits.
United States Prosecuting Attorney Dickson:
It was a matter of history that the Mormons did not cohabit together, in the sense as used by the other side, without a form of marriage, and it was alone this form of marriage and the practice under it, and not sexual sins, that Congress was legislating against. They knew that those sins are not upheld in Utah, but are condemned by the Mormons and deplored by the Gentiles; they recognized the Mormon system of marriage as a constant menace against monogamous marriage, and thus legislated against it, and it was the prevention of its continuance that was the primal object of the law. The cause and necessity of the act showed its intention and the only objects against which it should be directed; and for this it could be extended to its full purpose. The design and only purpose of the law was to root out and extirpate polygamy. The two systems of marriage could not dwell side by side. If polygamy was allowed to grow, without being placed under the ban of the law and of public opinion, it would in the end supplant the monogamic system, and was a constant threat and menace to and jeopardized the latter, and Congress so viewed it.
The following statistics covering the year 1882, obtained mainly from Gentile sources, furnish their own comment.
Let the reader bear in mind that the non-"Mormons" of Utah are clamorous for the enforcement of unconstitutional laws against the "Mormons," for the purpose of purifying their morals and Christianizing their practices.
These men and their associates, are the ones, who engage in the wholesale denunciation of the "Mormon" people.
CRIMINAL STATISTICS.
| Assault and battery | 40 | 260 |
| Assault with intent to kill | 40 | 260 |
| Assault with deadly weapons | 2 | |
| Assault with intent to commit rape | 7 | |
| Assault with threats | 1 | 5 |
| Murder | 18 | |
| Manslaughter | 1 | 15 |
| Attempt to murder | 1 | |
| Accused of murder | 4 | |
| Threatening to murder | 6 | |
| Mayhem | 1 | |
| Dueling | 2 | |
| Prostitution | 1 | |
| Keeping brothels | 95 | |
| Lewd conduct | 27 | |
| Insulting women | 6 | |
| Exposing person | 3 | |
| Nuisance | 9 | |
| Obscene and profane language | 5 | |
| Forgery and counterfeiting | 4 | 24 |
| Drunkenness | 8 | |
| Drunk and disorderly | 68 | 307 |
| Drunk and profane | 29 | 151 |
| Selling liquor without license | 12 | 136 |
| Gambling and keeping gambling houses | 18 | |
| Mail and highway robbery | 1 | 52 |
| Grand larceny | 1 | 6 |
| Burglary | 3 | 48 |
| Disturbing peace | 1 | 8 |
| Bigamy | 34 | 111 |
| Destroying property | 1 | |
| Arson | 15 | 26 |
| Obtaining money under false pretenses | 26 | |
| Opium smoking, etc | 25 | |
| Stealing railroad rides | 16 | |
| Vagrancy | 19 | |
| Violating prison rules | 147 | |
| Total | 6 |