Читать книгу Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Vol.1&2) - B. H. Roberts - Страница 38

Briefly reviewing the matters which I have offered here, and the logical deductions therefrom, I maintain the following propositions:

We set aside the religion of the Mormon people as sacred from assault.

Outside of religion the Mormons as a community are ruled by a special privileged class, constituting what I call the church monarchy.

This monarchy pledged the country that there would be no more violations of law and no more defiance of the sentiment of the United States regarding polygamy and the plural marriage relation.

This monarchy pledged the United States that it would refrain from controlling its subjects in secular affairs.

Every member of this monarchy is responsible for the system of government and for the acts of the monarchy, since (as shown in the cases of the deposed apostle, Moses Thatcher, and others) the man who is not in accord with the system is dropped from the ruling class.

This monarchy sets up a regal social order within this Republic.

This monarchy monopolizes the business of one commonwealth and is rapidly reaching into others.

This monarchy takes practically all the surplus product of the toil of its subjects for its own purpose, and makes no account to anyone on earth of its immense secret fund.

This monarchy rules all politics in Utah, and is rapidly extending its dominion into other States and Territories.

This monarchy permits its favorites to enter into polygamy and to maintain polygamous relations, and it protects them from prosecution by its political power.

Lately no effort has been made to punish any of these people by the local law. On the contrary, the ruling monarch has continued to grow in power, wealth, and importance. He sits upon innumerable boards of directors, among others that of the Union Pacific Railway, where he joins upon terms of fraternity with the great financial and transportation magnates of the United States, who hold him in their councils because his power to benefit or to injure their possessions must be taken into account.

I charge that no apostle has ever protested publicly against the continuation of this sovereign authority over the Mormon kingdom.

Within a few months past the last apostle elected to the quorum was a polygamist—Charles W. Penrose—and his law-breaking career is well known. Previous to 1889 Penrose was living publicly with three wives. Under false pretenses to President Cleveland he obtained amnesty for his past offenses. He represented that he had but two wives, and that he married his second wife in 1862, while it was generally known that he took a third wife just prior to 1888. He promised to obey the law in the future, and to urge others to do so; yet after that amnesty, obtained by concealing his third marriage from President Cleveland, he continued living with his three wives. His action in this matter has been notorious. He has publicly defended this kind of law-breaking on the false pretense that there was a tacit understanding with the American Congress and people, when Utah was admitted, that these polygamists might continue to live as they had been living.

And it was this traitor to his country's laws, this unrepentant knave and cheat of the nation's mercy, this defamer of Congress and the people, that was elected to the apostleship to help govern the church, and through the church the State.

Is it not demonstrated that Utah is an abnormal State? Our problem is vast and complex. I have endeavored to simplify it so that the Senate and the country may readily grasp the questions at issue.