POLYGAMY IN UTAH.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 330, 17 June 1911, Page 10

POLYGAMY IN UTAH.

-MAINTAINED AS A CHURCH DOCTRINE. Mr. iiuiLun J. Hundrick, after visiting the Mormon Mate of Utaii, gives abundant proof in the February number of McCluru'a Magazine that polygamy is still prevalent in spite of the action of the Mormon president, V\oodrutf, in denouncing the practice of the famous manifesto of IBUO. Tim following instances may be quoted:—

"The Thatcher episode is an excellent illustration of modem polygamy in the Mormon Church. Clarice Thatcher was a member of one of the richest and most prominent families in Utah. She was a polygamous child, the daughter of Thatcher s thiru wife. In the latter part of lUO2 the fact became public property that Clarice Thatcher»had entered the celestial order. People obtained the earliest intimations of it when a white hearse, containing the dead body of the lirst child of Miss Thatcher and Henry S. Tanner, her polygamous husband, passed through the streets of Salt Lake Ut.y. Like his piural wife, Tanner belonged io the higher social classes.

"Clarice Thatcher now lives quietly m the Cannon Ward of Salt Lake City, has at least one child—who calls her 'amitie' -and, with her husband, enjoys the privileges of the church and is closely identified with its work. Tanner himself has prospered temporally, and has become idcntiiied, unquestionably throumi ecclesiastical iiillnctice, with church laud schemes.

"The interesting couple are representative of the ■younger generation.' They have been familiar with polygamy from their earliest days. As small children in the Sunday School they have been taught the divinity of plural. liven though the church has ostensibly given up Hie practice it has never, even ostensibly, abandoned its belief in the principle. It constantly upholds as models to its growing children men who, almost without exception, are or have been polygamists.

"As late us 1905 the Mormons used tlie public schools of Utah, supported l),y public taxation, for teaching the principles of Mormonism. The church still openly teaches polygamy as orthodox Mormon doctrine.

"'Apostle Merrill was probably the most inlluential Mormon in the northern part of Utah. At the time of his death in 1!)07 he had seven wives, forty-five children, and 127 grandchildren. From the lirst lie did not pay the slightest attention to the 181)0 manifesto. In March, 1891, he performed the marriage which united his son, Charles E. Merrill, in polygamous marriage to Chloe Hendricks. Afterwards Apostle Merrill further showed his contempt of the manifesio by taking a new plural wife himself.

■■Apostles Taylor and Cowley, inseparable friends from boyhood, were lirebrands in the cause of polygamy. At a meeting in the Uugal Tabernacle" in January, 1901, Cowley voiced these opinions: 'Aone of the revelations of the prophets, past or present, have been repealed. . . . If you have a teacher in the Sunday Schools who would encourage the young to disregard or disrespect a single doctrine of the churen—plural marriage and all—turn them out; they have no right in the priesthood. Parents, you must teach the whole doctrine to your children or they will apostatise anil lie damned.

•The plural marriage of Lillian Hamlin with Abraham Cannon, son of the great Mormon leader, was, according to Abraham's other wife, Wilhehnina, 'performed by Joseph F. Smith'—the same Joseph F. Smith who is now president of the Mormon church. Though President Smitn has always denied this, the circumstantial evidence against him is strong.

"No penalty, social or ecclesiastical, 'lias ever been visited on Miss Hamlin. A child was subsequently born to her, to whom she gave tJie name of Marba— Ahraiu reversed. A few years ago Miss Hamlin became the plural wife of another Cannon, Lewis M. "Up to 1890 Apostie Teasdale, so far as is generally known, had had four wives. In that year he employed as his housekeeper at Nephi, Utah, an Englistiwoman who he had converted several years before in England. "\\ itli this woman came her daughter, Marion Scoles. The daughter was only thirty-one years old, and Teasdale nt this time was sixty-seven. A year or two after taking up her residence in the house of Apostle Teasdale, Marion Scoles, died in childbed.

"Six of the apostles of the Mormon Uiurch expressed their sympathy with Teasdale by attending the funeral. If one wishes definite proof that Marion Scoles was Teasdale's wife, he needs only to visit the burial yard at Xephi, I "tali. There stands a grave with a headstone hearing the following inscription: •Sacred to the memory of Marion E. Scoles, wife of Apostle George Teasdale. Born in London, England, April ti, ISGS; died December 17, 1808.' If, on the other hand, one wishes the other essential link in the evidence—proving that Teasdale had another wife living—the records of the Utah divorce courts furnish it.

"There is a well-grounded belief that another apostle, Brigham Voting, junr., also married plurally since ISM). Other conspicuous members of the Mormon Church have followed the apostolic example. One of the most interesting cases is that of Benjamin Chill', junr,, wno for several years was president of the most prominent Mormon educational institution —the Brigham Young University at Provo. "About two years ago the Salt Lake Tribune—a newspaper which for twentylive years, under the editorship of Judge (i. 0. Goodwin and William Nelson, has rendered signal service to the cause of Anglo-Saxon civilisation in Utah—began industriously to collect and publish the names of new polygamists. Up to date it has published detailed records of 224 polygamous marriages. The Mormon Church has made no attempt to deny the substantial accuracy of the Tribune's list. It may safely be assumed, I herefore, that the tacts are delinitely known concerning at least 224 cases of polygamous marriages since the manifesto. "The desire for self-protection and secrecy has led to the establishment of several polygamous settlements. There are two within trolley-car distance of Salt Lake City—Foresldalc and liountiful. The polygamists sometimes maintain their Metal I'nmilites' in Sale Lake, and stow away their 'celestial households' in one of these places."