The first train that passed over the new narrow guage road that runs through Colorado, carried a load of foreign emigrants to Utah. Railroads intersect Utah in all directions, and the church is also laying her own peculiar rails throughout the whole region of the Rocky Mountains, and they will give promising dividends in strength and security to the church institutions.
The Edmunds bill is a step towards the abolishment of polygamy. It has disfranchised the law-breakers but has not had the effect of discouraging plural marriages. Some Gentiles maintain that there are as many solemnized now as before the passage of the bill, and the Commission itself acknowledges that the practice still exists, though they think there is a decrease.
However this may be, it is certainly true that strenuous efforts were made immediately upon its adoption to force young people into polygamy; and at the late conferences addresses were delivered enjoining upon the people the fact that, the Kingdom of God could not progress unless they obeyed the revelation given to Joseph Smith at Nauvoo, and God would never forgive his people if they did not obey his commands. While these sentiments were freely expressed in the Tabernacle, a statement is sent to the eastern papers by a prominent member of the church that "the Edmunds Bill has practically abolished polygamy."
To overthrow this theocratic government and to parry the subtle wiles of the priesthood, more than ordinary attention and wisdom will be required, and it will be a great triumph to our legislators if they can succeed in bringing about a peaceable solution of the greatest problem now before the American people.