rcle spread to the man on the fringe
of the Church--who could not obtain even such poor authorization for his
perfidy he found a way to perpetrate a pretended plural marriage with
his victim, and the Church authorities did not dare but protect him.

This was polygamy without the great saving grace that had previously
defended the Mormon women from the cruelties and abuses of the practice.
It was polygamy without honor--polygamy against an assumed revelation
of God instead of by virtue of one--polygamy worse than that of the
Mohammedans, since it was necessarily clandestine, could claim no social
respect or acceptance, and was forbidden "by the laws of God and man"
alike.

This is the "new polygamy" of Mormonism. The Church leaders dare not
acknowledge it for fear of the national consequences. They dare not even
secretly issue certificates of plural marriage, lest the record should
be betrayed. They protect the polygamist by a conspiracy of falsehood
that is almost as shameful as the shame it seeks to cover; and the
infection of the duplicity spreads like a plague to corrupt the whole
social life of the people. The wife of a new polygamist cannot claim
a husband; she has no social status; she cannot, even to her parents,
prove the religious sanction for her marital relations. Her children
are taught that they must not use a father's name. They are hopelessly
outside the law--without the possibility that any further statutes
of legitimization will be enacted for their relief. They are born in
falsehood and bred to the living of a lie. Their father cannot claim
the authority of the Church for their parentage, for he must protect his
Prophet. He cannot even publicly acknowledge them--any more than he can
publicly acknowledge their mother.

Out of these terrible conditions comes such an instance as the notorious
case of one of Henry S. Tanner's wives, who went on a visit to one
of her relatives, with her children, and denied that they were her
children, and denied that she was married--and was supported by her
children's denial that she was their mother. Similarly, a plural wife of
a wealthy Mormon, whose fortune is estimated at $25,000,000--a partner
of the sugar trust, a community leader, a favorite of the Church went
before the Senate Committee in December, 1904, and swore that her first
husband had died thirteen years before, that she had had a child within
six years, and that she had no second husband. And by doing so