1890-05-15-New York Tribune-Can Mormons Be Kept Out
- The New York Tribune, 15 May 1890, p. 1, c.6
Can Mormons Be Kept Out?
One hundred and forty converts to Mormonism arrived here yesterday on the steamer Wyoming from Liverpool, and the appearance of the party here brought before the United States Immigration offficers at this port the question as to whether the Mormon problem could be solved by prohibiting this class of people from landing in this country, on the ground that they are contract laborers. Superintendent Milholland, of the Federal Inspectors at the Barge Office, has believed for some time that the general run of Mormon immigrants come properly under the Contract Labor law, and he will soon take steps to make a test case. He visited Salt Lake City last fall to make inquiries in the case, and there learned that the Gentiles believed that the converts who were brought to Utah every year from Europe were imported under contract to elders who brought them to or received them in the promised land." These people are, as a rule, the lowest kind of immigrants, and it is not a difficult thing to tempt them to leave their European homes with the promise or assurance of plenty of work here. Arrived at Utah the new converts receive employment, and it would not be unfair to draw a parallel between them and numerous bodies of Italian and Hungarian laborers who have managed to avoid convicting themselves at Castle Garden or the Barge Office, and afterward flocked to mining regions where contract laborers are known to go.
Under the recent years of the administration of the decaying State Board no provisions were adopted to investigate the cases of Mormon immigrants. Indeed, one Commissioner seemed to be exceedingly eager to pass them through Castle Garden and to obtain for them special facilities for procuring their baggage and railroad tickets. But the intention of the Government officials here in charge of the immigration business is to investigate this new aspect of Mormonism as thoroughly as they can, which will be in line with the progressive policy adopted by Secretary Windom in the Government's discharge of the immigration business.
Superintendent Weber is now studying the Contract Labor law, to see whether the law can be applied to Mormons. If he is persuaded that it can be, he will enforce it. The Mormons who arrived yesterday were released under surveillance. They can be examined again any time within a year after their landing, and it is probable that some of their numbers will figure in the test case. These people are Swedes and Danes. They were in charge of Adolf Anderson and three other elders. Anderson was sharp enough to say that his flock came here to join friends in Utah, who would give them work. But inland inspectors can readily ascertain whether this kind of testimony, which is always given by the elders, is true. But it is known that Mormon agents in Europe have already arranged to send 1,200 converts to this country this summer, so that the Government will have ample opportunity to find whether these immigrants come under the Contract Labor law. It is argued that if they do, the Mormon Church will suffer greatly, if not die out, because it depends on foreign material for its fresh blood.
Ex-United States Senator Platt said yesterday he thought that this plan for exterminating Mormonism was one of the best measures proposed under the present Administration for the benefit of the country.
