A NICE DILEMMA.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 416, 13 February 1890, Page 2

A NICE DILEMMA.

The United States Government ars always in trouble with the Mormons, and no matter how they try to suppress the disciples of Brigham Young, the crafty people generally find some means of evading the law. It was easy enough to pass stringent measures to provide against polygamy, but it was a very different thing to get the law obeyed. By acknowledging openly only one wife the Mormon could still Have his complete harem without fear of being made to bear those penalties which the Legislature intended should be inflicted upon him. Then another attempt. was made to combat with the wily Latter Day Saints. Illegal cohabitation was made a felony in territories remaining within the direct operation of federal jurisdiction. But the District of Columbia, which has remained permanently attached to such jurisdiction, was overlooked, and cases that might possibly arise under the new law were suggested, when a popular officer of Washington City was arrested for keeping a mistress, an enraged friend of the female having taken the opportunity to set the law in motion. As so many more people of high position,whom society adored rather than shunned, were “ tarred with the same brush,” and became apprehensive as to future proceedings, an agitation soon led to the law being altered. But it would not do to let the Mormons escape, and the territory of Utah is being populated by men of all nationalities, who assist in swelling the clamor, to have the territory elevated into a State. A decision was recently given by a United States judge precluding aliens belonging to a church which has assumed the possession of paramount claims to their obedience from taking the oath of allegiance to the Republic. The effect of this was to deprive Mormon immigrants of the right to vote, and thus leave them in a minority if Utah were proclaimed a State. This was naturally hailed with joy by the antagonists of Mormonism, but very soon there was a new development of an unexpected nature. If, it is contended, the oath of allegiance implies that the authority of the United Slates Government is held as paramount over the conscience of the adjuror, as against that of any other Government on earth, can it continue to be administered to aliens attached to another religious organisation, governed by a foreign potentate? Can Roman Catholic immigrants not become naturalised and exercise the suffrage? The Roman Catholics will affirm that there is nothing in the fealty they owe to their ecclesiastical head that interferes with their allegiance to the civil authority. But 1 the Mormans make a similar protest, and though no one would care to write the words Roman Catholic in the same line as the word Mormon and the principles it suggests, the difficulty is one of a genuine character. The .question remains, how is the law to be framed so as to suppress the abhorred doctrines of the Mormons, and yet allow the disciples of the Vatican full civil and religious liberty. The difficulty could be easily overcome by passing an edict aimed directly at the Mormons, but then the Republic professes to give equal liberty to all religions, and to treat all alike. The Mormons display a great deal of perverted ingenuity.