The Mormon citizen of Utah has additional disadvantages. After paying one-tenth of all his earnings as a tithe offering, he is called upon to erect and maintain the meetinghouses and other edifices of the church; he is called upon to donate to the poor fund in his ward, through his local Bishop; he is called upon to sustain the Women's Relief Society, whose purpose is to care for the poor and to minister to the sick; he is called upon to pay his share of the expense for the 2,500 missionaries of the church who are constantly kept in the field without drawing upon the general funds of the church. When all this is done, it is found that, in defiance of the old and deserved boast of the predecessors of the present president, there are some Mormons in the poorhouses of Utah, and these are sustained by the public taxes derived from the Gentiles and Mormons alike.
Broadly speaking, the Gentiles compose 35 per cent of the population and pay one-half of the taxes of Utah. In the long run they carry their share of all these great charges.
The almost unbearable community burden which is thus inflicted must be visible to your minds without argument from me.
Let it be sufficient on this point for me to say that all the property of Utah is made to contribute to the grandeur of the president of the church, and that at his instance any industry, any institution, within the State, could be destroyed except the mining and smelting industry. Even this industry his personal and church organ has attacked with a threat of extermination by the courts, or by additional legislation, if the smelters do not meet the view expressed by the church organ.
Mr. President, I ask to have read at this point an editorial from the Deseret Evening News of October 31, 1904, which I send to the desk.
The President pro tempore. The Secretary will read as requested.
The Secretary read as follows:
DESERET EVENING NEWS.
[Organ of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.]
SALT LAKE CITY, October 31, 1904.
AWAY WITH THE NUISANCE.
The people of Salt Lake City are waking up to the realization of the trouble of which our cousins out in the country are complaining. The sulphurous fumes which have been tasted by many folks here, particularly late at night, are not only those of a partisan nature emanating from the smokestacks of the slanderers and maligners, but are treats bestowed upon our citizens by the smelters, and are samples of the goods, or rather evils, which farmers and horticulturists have been burdened with so long. Complaints have come to us from some of the best people of the city, of different faiths and parties, that the air has been laden with sulphurous fumes that can not only be felt in the throat, but tasted in the mouth, and they rest upon the city at night, appearing like a thin fog.
The fact is this smelter smoke will have to go; there is no mistake about that. If the smelters can not consume it, they will have to close up. This fair county must not be devastated and this city must not be rendered unhealthful by any such a nuisance as that which has been borne with now for a long time. The evasive policy that has been pursued, the tantalizing treatment toward the farmers who have vainly sought for redress, the destruction that has come upon vegetation and upon live stock, and now the choking fumes that reach this city all demand some practical remedy in place of the shilly-shally of the past.
The Deseret News has counseled peace, consideration for the smelter people in the difficulties that they have to meet, favor toward a valuable industry that should be encouraged on proper lines, and arbitration instead-of litigation. But it really seems now as though an aggressive policy will have to be pursued, or ruin will come to the agricultural pursuits of Salt Lake County, while the city will not escape from the ravages of the smelter fiend. If the companies that control those works will not or can not dispose of the poisonous metallic fumes that pour out of their smokestacks, the fires will have to be banked and the nuisance suppressed. We do not believe the latter is the necessary alternative. We are of opinion that the evil can be disposed of, and we are sure that efforts ought to be made to effect it without further delay.
It looks as if the courts will have to be appealed to to obtain compensation or damages already inflicted. Also that they will have to be applied to for injunctions against the continuance of the cause of the trouble. We think there is law enough now to proceed under. But if that is not the case, then legislation must be had to fully cover the ground. Litigation will have to come first, legislation afterwards. However that may be, temporizing with the evil will not do. Patience has ceased to be a virtue in this matter. The conviction is fastening itself upon the public mind that no active steps are intended by the responsible parties, but simply a policy of delay. They must be taught that this will not answer the purpose, and that the injured people will not be fooled in that way. The smelter smoke must go. And it must not go in the old way.
The proposition to put the matter in the hands of experts chosen by the complainants is not to be seriously considered. The onus is upon the smelter men; they are the offenders, and they must take the steps necessary to remove the cause of complaint, and also reimburse those who have been injured. We do not ask anything unreasonable. We join with those of our citizens who intend that this beautiful part of our lovely State shall not be laid waste, even if the only cure is the suppression of the destroying cause. This may as well be understood first as last. Unless practical measures are adopted to abate the evil, active proceedings will have to be taken and pushed to the utmost to remove entirely the root and branch and trunk and body of this tree of destruction. The people affected are deeply in earnest, and they certainly mean business.
Mr. Kearns. Mr. President, I must not burden you with too many details, but in order for you to see how complete is the business power of this man I will cite you to one case. The Great Salt Lake is estimated to contain 14,000,000,000 tons of salt. Probably salt can be made cheaper on the shores of this lake than anywhere else in the world. Nearly all its shore line is adaptable for salt gardens. The president of the church is interested in a large salt monopoly which has gathered in the various smaller enterprises. He is president of a railroad which runs from the salt gardens to Salt Lake City, connecting there with trunk lines. It costs to manufacture the salt and place it on board the cars 75 cents per ton. He receives for it $5 and $6 per ton. His company and its subsidiary corporation are probably capitalized at three-quarters of a million dollars, and upon this large sum he is able to pay dividends of 8 or 10 per cent.
Not long since two men, who for many years had been tithe payers and loyal members of the church, undertook to establish a salt garden along the line of a trunk railway. One of them was a large dealer in salt, and proposed to extend his trade by making the salt and reaching territory prohibited to him by the church price of salt; the other was the owner of the land upon which it was proposed to establish the salt garden. These men formed a corporation, put in pumping stations and flumes, and the corporation became indebted to one of the financial institutions over which the church exercises considerable influence. Then the president of the church sent for them. There is scarcely an instance on record where a message of this kind failed of its purpose. These men went to meet the prophet, seer, and revelator of God, as they supposed, but he had laid aside his robes of sanctity for the moment and he was a plain, unadorned, aggressive, if not an able, business man. He first denounced them for interfering with a business which he had made peculiarly his own; and, when they protested that they had no intention to interfere with his trade, but were seeking new markets, he declared in a voice of thunderous passion that if they did not cease with their projected enterprise, he would crush them. They escaped from his presence feeling like courtiers repulsed from the foot of a king's throne, and then surveyed their enterprise. If they stopped, they would lose all the money invested and their enterprise would possibly be sold out to their creditors; if they went on and invested more money, the president had the power, as he had threatened, to crush them. Not only could he ruin their enterprise, but he could ostracize them socially and could make of them marked and shunned men in the community where they had always been respected.
Is there menace in this system? To me it seems like a great danger to all the people who are now affected, and therefore of great danger to the people of the United States, because the power of this monarchy within the Republic