sibilities, but has trampled upon instinct,
when mothers coming with grown daughters to Utah not only marry Mormons
themselves, but urge their girls to become polygamic wives to their own
husbands. Very few probably are of this character, and the majority are
mere tools in the hands of a tyrannical priesthood.

A gentleman well versed in the history of the church in Utah writes
"that after a thousand years of Christianity and civilization, Mormons
have stripped woman of all her rights, have trampled her in the dust,
have sworn her on her life to obey her jailor husband, then have given
her the ballot and boast of their liberality."

Suffrage under a theocratic government is a farce for both man or woman
and, in the latter case, a pure mockery, as the Mormon woman has
apparently a privilege which is denied to woman elsewhere, but this
privilege is entirely out of her power to use excepting as ordered by
the church that controls her. Suffrage given to the women of Utah has
had two results; first, to increase greatly the vote for the church and
its institutions, and secondly, to make woman herself the champion of
her own degradation. Brigham Young gave the suffrage to Morman women,
and he was confident that he could manipulate this element as he had all
others in behalf of his own aggrandizement, both spiritual and temporal.
Our government and Gentile residents hoped that the franchise would be
productive of great good in opening the eyes of these women to the
knowledge of the power invested in them, to free themselves from the
superstitious obedience with which their vicegerent had enchained them;
but the folly of endowing them with our privilege so long as theocracy
exists, has been fully demonstrated. To ask for rights which are
cheerfully conceded to woman in every other section of the country,
would be utterly useless in Utah. The law of suffrage like all other
laws in Utah have been made for the sole protection of their divine
institution; so these Mormon women have only raised their voices to
uphold polygamy which they have been forced to do on all occasions when
it would benefit their church. They assembled in Mass-meeting and
petitioned Congress to propose an amendment to the constitution
sanctioning polygamy, and they have waved banners in the streets of Salt
Lake on which were inscribed "The women of Utah believe in polygamy."
The brutal teachings of Brigham Young and his councillors and all the
laws and instit