A Doubtful Policy

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Sep 6, 1883

A Doubtful Policy.

THE S. F. Alta contains the following:—

"The Boston Advertiser wants to dismember Utah and give its fragments to adjoining governments. The Advertiser is not far from right. Dismemberment is the only antidote for polygamy. To abolish the Territorial Legislature and vest the government in an appointed council, according to the plan favored by Governor Murray, would not convict and punish a single polygamist, but by dismembering the Territory and dividing it among Colorado, Nevada, and Arizona, it would be possible to get changes of venue in polygamy trials which would make it possible to obtain impartial juries and secure convictions."

Very few, either east or west, seem to apprehend the force of polygamy; the Mormons are already colonizing the adjoining States and Territories. Were Utah divided up and attached as suggested, the polygamous element would soon hold the balance of power in them all, and it would thus be in the States, which has been the object of its desire for years. As we see the utter futility of every effort made to control it, the inefficiency of every law for its suppression, we are more and more convinced of the truthfulness of a remark made to us some time ago by Dr. Stratton, of the University of the Pacific. The Doctor spent a few years in Salt Lake, and he said, "Polygamy has come to stay." The time was when energetic measures might have checked the evil, but every year increases the difficulty. It is a disgrace to our civilization that it has been permitted to grow to its present proportions. It is a standing menace to the peace of the Republic of no small magnitude.