This monarchy permits its favorites to enter into polygamy and to
maintain polygamous relations, and it protects them from prosecution by
its political power.

Lately no effort has been made to punish any of these people by the
local law. On the contrary, the ruling monarch has continued to grow in
power, wealth, and importance. He sits upon innumerable boards of
directors, among others that of the Union Pacific Railway, where he
joins upon terms of fraternity with the great financial and
transportation magnates of the United States, who hold him in their
councils because his power to benefit or to injure their possessions
must be taken into account.

I charge that no apostle has ever protested publicly against the
continuation of this sovereign authority over the Mormon kingdom.

Within a few months past the last apostle elected to the quorum was a
polygamist--Charles W. Penrose--and his law-breaking career is well
known. Previous to 1889 Penrose was living publicly with three wives.
Under false pretenses to President Cleveland he obtained amnesty for his
past offenses. He represented that he had but two wives, and that he
married his second wife in 1862, while it was generally known that he
took a third wife just prior to 1888. He promised to obey the law in the
future, and to urge others to do so; yet after that amnesty, obtained by
concealing his third marriage from President Cleveland, he continued
living with his three wives. His action in this matter has been
notorious. He has publicly defended this kind of lawbreaking on the
false pretense that there was a tacit understanding with the American
Congress and people, when Utah was admitted, that these polygamists