| 280 subsequently condemned by the authorities in Utah, and as many as could be procured destroyed. In 1878 the church decided to republish it, and a committee was appointed to prepare it, which they did by inserting a few explanatory foot-notes, leaving the text just as it is in the original book.
On August 9 a circular letter of instruction was issued by William M. Evarts, secretary of state, to the diplomatic officers of the United States in various countries, calculated to prevent the emigration of polygamists. 1 This was met in Utah by some hostile demonstrations.
1 WASHINGTON, District of Columbia, August 9, 1879.
Sir: The annual statistics of emigration into the United States show that large numbers of emigrants to come to our shores every year from the various countries of Europe for the avowed purpose of joining the Mormon community at Salt Lake, in the territory of Utah, under the auspices and guidance of the emissaries and agents of that community in foreign parts. This representation of the interests of Mormonism abroad, which has been carried on for years, is understood to have developed unusual activity of late, especially in -, among other countries where it has unfortunately obtained a greater or less foothold. The system of polygamy which is prevalent in the community of Utah is largely based upon and promoted by these accessions from Europe, drawn mainly from the ignorant classes, who are easily influenced by the double appeal to their passions and their poverty, held out in the flattering picture of a home in the fertile and prosperous regions where Mormonism has established its material seat. Inasmuch as the practice of polygamy is based on a form of marriage by which additional wives are "sealed" to men of that community, these so-called "marriages" are pronounced by the laws of the United States to be crimes against statutes of the country, and punishable as such.
On the 1st of July, 1862, the Congress of the United States passed an act expressly designed, as appears from its title, "To punish and prevent the practice of polygamy in the Territories of the United States and other places," etc. That act remains the law of the land as to its continuing provisions, which, in the revision of the statutes of the United States made in 1874, read as follows:
"Section No. 5352-Every person having a husband or wife living who marries another, whether married or single, in a Territory or other place over which the United States have exclusive jurisdiction, is guilty of bigamy, and shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars, and by imprisonment for a term not exceeding more than three years. But this section shall not extend to any person by reason of any former marriage whose husband or wife by such marriage is absent for five successive years and is not known to such person to be living, nor to any person by reason of any former marriage which bas been dissolved by decree of a competent court, nor to any person by reason of any former marriage which has been pronounced void by decree of a competent court on the ground of nullity of the marriage contract."
Whatever doubt, if any, has heretofore existed as to the efficiency of the law above cited, and the intent of the general Government to enforce it, has now been terminated by the recent decision of the Supreme Court, the highest judicial tribunal of the land, sustaining the constitutionality of the legislation and affirming the conviction and punishment of offenders against that law.
Under whatever specious guise the subject may be presented by those engaged in investigating the European movement to swell the numbers of the law-defying Mormons of Utah, the bands and organizations which are got together in foreign lands as recruits, can not be regarded as otherwise than a deliberate and systematic attempt to bring persons
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