THE ARRAIGNMENT OF MORMONISM.
ON the Senate resolution to declare vacant the seat of Senator Reed Smoot, the Mormon, Senator Burroughs was the leading speaker. He said there was no proof submitted to show that Mr. Smoot was a polygamist, but based his argument on the fact that Senator Smoot represented the "twelve apostles," or hierarchy of the Mormon church. The following are excerpts from Mr. Burroughs' powerful arraignment: "Smoot was nominated by the monarchy and the selection was ratified by the Legislature. No more cunningly devised scheme could possibly be concocted to put the church in politics and make it potential there than this. There has been no case in which a candidate for a high office in Utah has obtained the consent of the church to run and has been defeated. "The evidence is complete and overwhelming that a majority of the members of this hierarchy have continually and persistently lived in polygamy, and are to-day openly and confessedly defying the laws of the land prohibiting such crimes. The record is so shocking as to challenge credulity. "If the public press is to be credited, this number [of President Smith's (five) wives] has been augmented during the last year to forty-three, and while we are discussing the right of the representatives of the hierarchy to a seat in this body, we can imagine its saintly head sitting in the home of his fifth plural wife, rocking the cradle of the latest illegitimate offspring of his debauchery and crime, and with sanctimonious air singing the familiar hymn of his church: "Now the Gentile reign is o'er,
Darkness covers earth no more;
Gentile tyrants sink to hell,
Now's the day of Israel." "The vital question is, Can one become a member of, and identify himself with, a band of law-breakers, knowing them to be such, participate in their counsels and sustain them in their conferences, and yet escape all responsibility for their unlawful acts? Such a contention will not stand the test of either law or reason. "The Senator's complicity in encouraging polygamy and polygamous cohabitation does not consist wholly in the fact that he is one of the governing body of that church. By repeated acts he has, as a member of the quorum of the twelve apostles, given active aid and support to the hierarchy in its defiance of the statutes of this state and the laws of common decency, and in its encouragement of polygamous practises by both precept and example. "It is submitted that the Senator, by becoming a member of, and identifying himself with, such an organization and participating in its functions, has disqualified himself for membership in this body; an organization that fosters and encourages crime; tramples upon all law, human and divine; practises polygamy and polygamous cohabitation; desecrates the home; degrades womanhood; debauches public morals; strikes at the Christian civilization of this age; undermines and shakes the foundations of human society and government; destroys the sanctity of the marriage relation; defies the authority of the State and national government; registers an oath of hostility to the American nation, and brings the name and fame of the good people of Utah into disrepute and shame and humiliation to the American people. I submit that such an organization is not entitled to have its representative in the Senate of the United States, and I therefore move the adoption of the resolution." Mr. Burroughs criticised those who have given the Mormons political aid. Altho making no direct reference to the President sending Secretary Taft to Idaho in the last campaign he said: "The purposes and aims of the great Republican Party have been entirely misrepresented by its leaders in their political dealings with the Mormon Church."