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CHAPTER XIV.
The Edmunds-Tucker Bill and Its Effect.
I took no part in the Poland bill, the effective provisions of which were copied from the Cullom bill. Nor did I take any active part in the Edmunds bill of 1882, which also contained additional provisions of the Cullom bill, except to call Mr. Edmund's attention to the latter bill as containing the provisions required by the anomalous conditions in Utah. When the Edmunds-Tucker bill, which contained additional provisions of the Cullom bill and others more stringent, passed the Senate, the Gentiles of the Territory who were posted knew that a strenuous effort would he made by the priesthood to defeat it in the Judiciary Committee of the House, as through Mormon influence and money many other bills had been defeated in the committees to which they had been referred. Consequently, at a meeting of a large number of business Gentiles at the Walker House, I was selected to go to Washington, and on behalf of the Gentiles of the Territory to advocate the passage of that bill at its discussion before the judiciary Committee of the House, to which it had been referred. Upon my arrival at Washington, I called upon Judge Randolph Tucker, chairman of the committee, with whom I was well acquainted, and stated to him the purpose for which I had been selected to visit Washington, requesting him to fix a day on which I could be heard by the committee in favor of the passage of the bill. He stated that on principle he was opposed to the arbitrary confiscation by the general government of property, and that as present advised he was not favorable to the clause of the bill confiscating the property of the church; and that while he had never, except in a casual way, given any attention to the Mormon question, his present inclination was against any radical and exceptional legislation on the subject. In reply, I said the evil of the polygamic anti- American system established and maintained by the priesthood of the Mormon church in Utah was radical and exceptional, and it required extraordinary measures to eradicate that evil, and that the accomplishment of that desirable end could only be attained by adequate legislation by Congress; that as he had only given the matter casual attention, and as his position of chairman now imposed upon him the duty of making a thorough investigation of the subject, by his permission, I would furnish him with the official documents and data necessary in making such an investigation, which without my assistance, would be difficult, if not impossible, for him to obtain. He replied that it was his intention to make a thorough investigation of the matter, and any documents bearing upon the subject which I might see proper to submit to the committee, through him, would receive due consideration. Shortly afterwards I placed in his hands the revised territorial statute of 1870 with a reference to the various provisions which I deemed had a material bearing upon the subject, among which were the act incorporating the Mormon church, and the clause of the organic act, in the sixth section of which it was provided that: "All laws passed by the legislature assembly and governor shall be submitted to Congress of the United States, and if disapproved shall be null and of no effect." The act incorporating the Mormon church authorized the church to hold and occupy (without limitation) real and personal estate; provided for the election at General Conference of the church, one trustee in trust, and not to exceed twelve assistant trustees; to receive, hold, buy, sell, and manage, use and control, real and personal property of the church, and authorized said trustees to receive real and personal property (without limitation), by gift, donation and bequest, and prohibited the transaction of any business in relation to buying, selling or otherwise disposing of church property, without the consent of the trustee in trust. From the passage of said act in 1851, Brigham Young until his death was trustee in trust of the church. The church was also authorized to solemnize marriages compatible with revelations, and pass laws for the government of the church, and for the punishment or forgiveness of all officers relative to fellowship, according to church covenants. The act also contained the following proviso, "Provided, however that each and every act or practice so established or adopted for law or custom shall relate to solemnities, sacraments, ceremonies, consecrations, endowments, tithing, marriage, fellowship, or the religious duties of man to his maker. Inasmuch as the doctrines, principles, practices or performances support virtue and increase morality, and are not inconsistent with or repugnant to the constitution of the United States, and are founded in the revelations of the Lord.
The power thus granted to acquire by purchase and gift, real and personal property without limitation was against public policy. The Mormon church had, in its corporate Capacity, acquired extensive tracts of land, and was extensively engaged in secular pursuits, owned large herds of sheep, cattle and horses, and had invested large sums of church money in various money-making enterprises. A grant of such power to any corporation is indefensible and especially dangerous when, as in the cage of the Mormon church it is given to an ecclesiastical corporation whose adherents concede its claims of the right by divine authority to govern in both spiritual and temporal affairs, and which derives an immense annual income from its law of tithing. The exercise by corporations of such dangerous power in the, mother country was wisely restricted by the statutes of mortmain. The act incorporating the Mormon church clearly authorized the solemnization of plural marriage alleged to have been revealed to Joseph Smith. The character of the punishment which the church was authorized to inflict upon its members can be inferred from the character of the church endowments and covenants hereinbefore shown.
It was the manifest duty of Congress to disapprove that vicious act, and it is astonishing that it was permitted to remain in force for thirty-seven years. It was riot disapproved by Congress until the enactment of the Edmunds-Tucker bill of 1887. By its disapproval the church corporation was dissolved and could no longer acquire or hold property. During its existence it had acquired large and valuable quantities of both real and personal property which was not, as is usual in the case of private corporations, represented by shares of stock. In the property so acquired no person had any specific interest or the right to any share of the proceeds resulting from the sale of said property provided for in the act dissolving the church corporation. Upon the disapproval of the act incorporating the church, as there was no person legally entitled to hold the property of the church or share in the proceeds of its sale by operation of law, it escheated to the United States. That result unavoidably followed the annulment of an extremely vicious charter of an ecclesiastical corporation. It is therefore apparent that the property of the church was not, as the mass of the Mormon people are taught to believe, arbitrarily confiscated by the Edmunds-Tucker act as a punishment of the Mormons, but necessarily followed the rightful and praiseworthy disapproval by that measure of a vicious and wrongful act of a Mormon legislature. Many persons throughout the country who are not members of the Mormon church believe that the Edmunds-Tucker act arbitrarily confiscated the church property, and regard the act as an oppressive one evidently because they have been misinformed respecting the facts, and do not know the circumstances which caused and justified the escheating of the church property. Upon the disapproval by Congress of the act incorporating the Mormon church and the dissolution of that corporation, and the escheating of the property which resulted therefrom, the sixteenth section of the Edmunds-Tucker act, in accordance with the settled practice of the courts in such instances, prescribed the method of winding up the affairs of the dissolved corporation. and is as follows:
"That it shall he the duty of the attorney general of the United States to cause such proceedings to be taken in the supreme court of the Territory of Utah as shall be proper to carry into effect the provisions of the preceding section, and to pay the debts and dispose of the property and assets of said corporation according to law. Said property and assets in excess of the debts, and the amount of any lawful claims established by the court against the same, shall escheat to the United States, and shall be taken, invested, and disposed of by the Secretary of the Interior under the direction of the President of the United States for the benefit of common schools in said Territory."
The discussion was carried on at various meetings of the committee for several weeks, after which the committee unanimously adopted the report presented by Mr. Tucker, the chairman recommending the passage of the act; also a report recommending the passage of a resolution authorizing the amendment of the constitution of the United States defining polygamy and unlawful cohabitation, and vesting Congress with the power to legislate respecting the same. In Mr. Tucker's report of that resolution, he, among other things, said:
"The evils of the Mormon system are deeper than can be cured by ordinary legislation. To punish the offender may be accomplished by law, but to extirpate the system, to eradicate it from this Union of free and civilized commonwealths, will require a change in the constitution of the United States. If a polygamist can claim the privilege of having plural wives because of his religion, and the monogamist cannot because he has no such religion, or the former is granted immunity for his crime because of his conscience, which is refused to the latter, then a privilege to do the act and immunity from punishment for so doing will accord to one man that which is denied to another, and as a reward for the religion of the one and as a penalty for that of the other. In other words, if the fact that the Mormon belief in polygamy as commanded of God could prevent the government from punishing the Mormons for it, while it punished anti-Mormons, it would be preferring that religion to all others by shielding its adherents from a penalty inflicted without mercy on all who would not profess its creed; or if to prevent this preference the law was annulled entirely as to all, it would create the supremacy of this one system of religion over the civil authority of the government, and take from the government all power to mould its policy except in conformity to the Mormon creed. Polygamy could not be made a crime by the government because sanctioned by the Mormon religion! What better example of an established religion could be given than this would be? A union of Church and State in which the Church would be supreme, and the State subordinate."
After Wilford Woodruff, president of the Mormon church, issued the Manifesto advising the Latter-day Saints to refrain from contracting any marriages forbidden by the law of the land, Congress passed an act requiring that the escheated property be returned to the church, and the President of the United States granted an amnesty to all Mormon polygamists on condition that they would in the future obey the law against polygamy. (See Appendix).
At the discussion before the committee, the church was represented by the following named persons employed by it: Hon. Jefferson Chandler, distinguished attorney; Franklin S. Richards; A. M. Gibson; Hon. Geo. S. Boutwell; Epa Hunton, ex-senator from Virgina, and Joseph A. West. John T. Caine, the delegate from Utah, also appeared and addressed the committee in opposition to the bill.
I represented the Gentiles.
In the territorial legislature of 1892 a majority of the upper house Committee on Memorials made a report recommending the passage of a memorial praying Congress to repeal the Poland act of 1874, the Edmunds law of 1882, and the Edmunds-Tucker act of 1887, and to admit the Territory into the Union.
James Glendinning and myself were the only members of that committee belonging to the Liberal party, and joined in a minority report which I drew up, and which is as follows:
"The majority of the Committee on Memorials, to whom was referred C. J. M. No. 2, having reported the same back and recommended its passage, and the minority being unable to concur in said report, or give assent to the statements contained in the memorial, respectfully submit the following minority report:
"`While Congress has the sole power to legislate for the government of the Territory, yet at an early day it adopted the method of governing the territories in all matters of local policy through the agency of the people inhabiting the territories. It was intended and expected that each Territory, in accordance with the true intent and spirit of the agency delegated to it, would pass and faithfully execute such laws as experience has pointed out as being essential to the proper regulation and government of American communities, and to the laying of the foundation of a new state on the American and democratic plan, with institutions in harmony with the other states of the Union. The Territory of Utah was given substantially the same Organic Act under which other territories have founded new and prosperous states, but in Utah the agency granted to the Territory by the Organic Act, under the domination of the Mormon church, has been used, not to lay the foundation of a new State on the American plan, but to establish a system which, as Mr. Tucker in his report on the Edmunds-Tucker Bill expressed it, "is directly antagonistic to all ideas of European and American civilization," and which as further expressed by Mr. Tucker, "presents the alternative of admitting a polygamous State into the Union, or one from which polygamy was excluded as a Territory, but may be restored by the new State after admission.
"`Congress first expressed the sense of the nation against this abuse of territorial agency by the passage of the act against polygamy in 1862. This law for many years remained a dead letter on the statute, because under the laws passed by the legislature, the selection of the grand and petit juries was in the hands of territorial officers who yielded allegiance to the church and were subservient to its will. Congress was therefore forced to resort to additional legislation, and it passed the Poland bill of 1874. The provisions of this bill took from these faithless territorial officers all their power and established the present jury system of which the memorial complains.
"`The law of 1862, after the passage of the Poland bill, still remained unexecuted, because under the law of 1862 the gist of the crime of polygamy was the solemnization of the marriage ceremony, and all polygamous marriages were performed in the secret precincts of the endowment house of the Mormon church, and those present were sworn under severe penalties to reveal nothing that therein transpired. Congress was therefore again forced to resort to legislation to prevent the execution of this law from being defeated. The Edmunds law of 1882 was accordingly passed. Its provisions were also complained of in the memorial.
"`Notwithstanding the passage of these laws, still the opposition by the priesthood of the Mormon church to their execution was successfully continued, and Congress was again forced to resort to still more rigid measures. In 1887 the Edmunds-Tucker Law was passed.
"`From these statements it will be seen that Congress was forced to pass the foregoing measures by the unjustifiable contumacy of a church, the membership of which embraces an overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of the Territory. The memorial aims at the repeal of these measures, and asks for the passage of a law by Congress which will place in the hands of this contumacious majority, powers far greater than any which have ever been extended to those territories which have at all times been true in the execution of their agency.
"`The admission of the Territory into the Union is also asked for. The granting of this request would place the powers of the State in the hands of a church whose history and whose tenets make it both probable and possible that, protected by the safeguards which a State under our system would afford, the priesthood would revive the suspended revelation of polygamy. In determining the propriety of repealing the existing law of Congress referred to by the passage of either the Teller or Faulkner bills, what has been and is still being accomplished under those laws should be carefully considered.
"`Immediately following the passage of the Edmunds-Tucker bill there came a boom unprecedented in the history of the Territory. Salt Lake City and Ogden, the now leading towns of the Territory, have doubled their population. The former has grown into a magnificent, metropolitan city. A school system which before was disgraceful, has given way to one which would be a credit to any community. The incommodious and poorly ventilated school houses (in Salt Lake City) have been replaced by others of modern architecture-roomy, convenient, well-lighted and properly ventilated.
"`Large amounts of capital have been invested, and are still seeking investments. The industries and business of the Territory were never in such prosperous and healthy condition. The present advancement which is being made is as great as the most sanguine could expect, and nearly the entire Gentile population is satisfied with the present prosperity of the Territory and the promise of continued advancement. They do not feel that Utah has yet been freed from her humiliation and disgrace, but that she is being gradually lifted to the exalted position she would have occupied had she not been retarded by the opposition which forced Congress to enact and enforce the laws which have produced and still are producing such magic changes.
"`In the opinion of the minority, the commercial and business interests of the whole Territory - the interests of both the Gentile and Mormon inhabitants alike - demand that the Territory be left alone, so far as congressional legislation is concerned, until the forces which are actively at work solve the Utah problem. If left alone, the desired end will be reached sooner; but the passage of either of the bills mentioned in the memorial (the Teller and Faulkner bills) will prove detrimental - will complicate the affairs of the Territory and prolong the time of final settlement of the Utah problem. In the opinion of the minority of your committee it would be dangerous and disastrous to admit the Territory into the Union before the constitution of the United States is amended so as to prohibit polygamy, and give to Congress jurisdiction to pass laws for its enforcement, and until after the lapse of sufficient time in which to test the sincerity of the new departure (the Manifesto), and until the Gentile population shall have become strong enough to protect themselves and American institutions in the new State.
"`The charges made in the memorial against the Utah Commission are false. However, such charges are not a matter of surprise, because from the early infancy of the Territory up to the present time, few, if any, federal officers of the Territory who have been faithful and vigilant in the execution of the federal laws, have escaped vituperation and slander.'"
A bill containing the same provisions as the first and third sections of the Edmunds law of 1882 was passed by the territorial legislature in 1892. The first section of that law prohibited polygamy and prescribed the penalty for its violation; but it was as ineffective, for the reason which I have heretofore stated, as the anti-polygamy law of 1862 had been. The third section made the cohabitation of any male person with more than one woman in the Territory a misdemeanor, punishable by fine of not more than $300, or by imprisonment for not more than six months, or by both of said punishments. This section proved to be very effective, and its provisions are the only ones under which Mormon polygamists have ever been or can he successfully prosecuted in Utah.
During the term of that able and impartial judge, Chief Justice Charles S. Zane, numerous polygamist Mormons were convicted for violating the provisions of that section in the court over which he presided. The important decisions sustaining the laws of Congress relating to the Mormon problem delivered by him and for which he was decried by the leading members of the Mormon church, were all reviewed and affirmed by the supreme court of the United States.
As the first and third sections of the Edmunds laws remained in force from their passage in 1882 until the admission of Utah as a State in 1896, their re-enactment in 1892 by the Mormon territorial legislature was farcical and nugatory; because during the time the Edmunds law was in force it was paramount, and no prosecutions for the crimes therein prohibited were permissible under any act of the territorial legislature.
The evident purpose of said re-enactment was to induce the people of the United States to believe that polygamy and the temporal power of the priesthood no longer existed in the Territory, and thereby strengthen the memorial before mentioned and aid the movement for the admission of the Territory into the Union.
Section 4611 of the Revised Statutes of Utah of 1898 provides that "every person who has reason to believe that a crime or public offense has been committed, must make complaint against such person before some magistrate having authority to make inquiry of the same." If that section had been observed many members of the Mormon church who have been guilty of polygamy since the Woodruff manifesto, but who have escaped punishment, would at least have been exposed, if not convicted.
In order to exclude polygamous practices from the operation of that section, the Mormon members of the State legislature in 1901 passed a bill which amended it by adding the following provisions at the end of the same: "Provided, that no prosecution for adultery shall be commenced except on the complaint of the husband or legal wife of the accused, and no prosecution for unlawful cohabitation shall be commenced except on the complaint of the legal wife of the accused."
The evident purpose of that bill was to secure immunity to polygamy. Governor Heber M. Wells, though a Mormon and scion of a father deep in the depths of plural marriage, evinced his good sense and courage by vetoing the bill: but notwithstanding that the section sought to be amended has remained in force ever since its enactment, polygamy has been continually practiced with impunity by members of the Mormon church, and numerous new plural marriages have been entered into by them. In view of the fact that such marriages are secretly formed and have, except in a very few instances, always been successfully concealed, no doubt many unknown to those not members of the church have been solemnized since the manifesto. No doubt, too, there are many instances of the violation of the law against unlawful cohabitation by members of the church who had married plural wives previous to the manifesto, which are likewise unknown.
Since the manifesto, and the admission of the Territory as a State, many known plural marriages have been performed, and the Salt Lake Tribune has published two hundred and thirty such marriages which have occurred since the Woodruff mandate, and in the publication of each plural marriage the names and residence of the parties thereto were stated. Up to the present time not one of the guilty parties have ever been arrested by the civil authorities of the State.
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