Then the Gentiles, taking Mormon word in good faith, recognized "changed conditions," and made Utah a sovereign state. And now the fox is out, nerved by his devotions, and leads his pursuers once more a steaming chase. For there are times in the life of every rightminded fox when he is so good that he is sorry afterwards, and the Mormon church has lately come to one of those times. The Saints break their pledge two ways at once. The editor of the Deseret News (the "organ of the Lord") admits new plural marriages since the manifesto of 1890, while no one attempts to cloak or dissemble the survival of numberless plural marriages contracted before that manifesto.

"Let Utah alone," says B. H. Roberts. "Polygamy will die of itself," says the Mormon church. Polygamy, I reply, will die when we kill it, and not sooner. What matter if new polygamous marriages are rare; what matter if they have to be contracted in states other than Utah; what matter if an apostle must enter into a ship and sail out in to the Pacific Ocean, that he may espouse a fifth concubine? The trouble is not the isolated instance of law-breaking; the trouble is the determined attitude of the Mormon church, which permits the crime, covers the crime, and honors the criminal. Only when Zion will cut off a Saint for his breaking the law can we take Mormon declarations as anything but the delicious hoaxes they have hitherto proved to be.

With the survival or rehabilitation of plural marriages contracted before the manifesto we have been altogether too lenient. Mormons say "Sir, suppose that for fifteen years you have had two wives; suppose you tenderly loved them both; and then suppose that Congress should compel you to relinquish one of them. Do you think you would keep the law?" What puling sentimentality! The Mormons took their wives when polygamy was a crime; they perjured themselves, one and all, when they promise to give them up; and now they stand defiant. A thousand polygamous children have been born in Utah since it was made a state. The church smugly grins and approves. Naturally, for its leaders rank chief among the offenders. Mr. C. M. Owen, who is traversing the state to expose polygamists, telegraphed his paper a dispatch which concluded with this interesting summary: “Of the fifteen leaders who pledged their faith and honor for the future compliance with the law by the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of LatterDay Saints, eleven have been actually guilty of the transgression of the law; one is undoubtedly morally so; and three, two of whom are exceedingly old and feeble men, have complied with the pledge given to the people of the United States through their president."

There was also a purely political side of the contest with Mormonism, Salt Lake, a walled city for years, still remained departmentally a close corporation in the hands of the Mormons. For three long decades their opponents, the “Liberal" party, persevered with a patriotic, unselfish patience, awaiting recognition. Their ranks grew, also their power; and 1889, to the surprise of every Gentile, they carried the county election. That night, the chief of police might well have posted a writ (like that of his Helena comrade, when the capital of Montana had been snatched from Anaconda) to the effect that "any man found sober on the streets after midnight would be run in." The next year Gentiles learned a lesson from Mormondom, organized "tens" in room of "seventies," accounted for every vote in every block in every ward, bought drums by the carload and torches by the mile, and fought "the greatest political battle ever pulled off in this country." When the returns lagged in, all good Mormons buried their heads in the sand. Gentiles thronged the streets. The city flamed with bonfires. Bales, crates, boxes, gates, horseblocks, signs, wagons, I n short, every movable and combustible object in sight was gayly tossed into the blaze.