We have a right to insist that there shall be no more legislation in the nature of Coercion acts for Utah, until a full and fair investigation has been had by a competent Commission. Barren as may be the result of a thorough investigation at the hands of the politicians who could alone compose a Congressional Committee, even in their hands facts hitherto purposely concealed would be brought out, and the economic aspect of the problem brought into clearer rehef. This at least we have a right to demand of the men we see fit to intrust with the responsibilities of our representation. In the meantime, while witnessing the growing aggressiveness of capital and its firmer hold acquired over legal processes, the shameless subserviency of the judiciary to its selfish interests, and the hearty alliance between the befouled bench and the political representatives of the people, we may gain a sterner resolve not to weaken in this struggle, the heir of the ages,-industrial independence. If the facts I have given in the foregoing pages tend to awaken interest in the social system of the Mormons, if it incites a deeper interest in their attempt to solve the social problem of the age, and if above all it will lead a few to protest against condemnation and persecution before investigation, the writer will have accomplished his purpose. In the present chapter I have made an attempt to outline the nature and significance of the so-called labor movement. How near it is akin to the Mormon question you will determine, as well as whether the signs of the times indicate the approach of a legal crusade in the East to bolster vested wrongs and to intrench injustice. Shall we meet the blow with Mormon passiveness? However dissimilar the Mormon Saint and our workingmen, still underlying the social question which in reality constitutes the secret spring of antagonism to both, there is the spirit of the nineteenth century urging men on, the voice of the living future crying out against the voice of the dead past, living demands of the present arrayed against the entrenched privileges of the dead. Can the issue be doubtful? Doth Progress halt as on revolve the ages In man's sad martyrdom to power's behest? |