HIS FIVE WIVES

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1681, 18 May 1904, Page 76 (Supplement)

HIS FIVE WIVES

A MUCH-MARRIED MORMON'S ADMISSIONS. SAYS HE IS HAPPY, ' Mr Reed Smoot, the Senator elected by the Utah Legislature to represent his State in the Upper House, is undergoing his investigation before the Senate Committee of Privileges and Elections as to his fitness for the exalted post. The Mormons have tried to make his election a precedent for the Senate to countenance polygamous members, ana thus enable other Mormons to become members of Congress. Hundreds of religious societies all over the country have in consequence deluged the Senate with protests. It is alleged against Mr Smoot that, being a Mormon, he is a polygamist, and, therefore, a law breaker. He has brought to hie aid all the most powerful men in the Mormon Churoh among them being Mir Joseph Smith, the ohief prophet of Salt Lake City, and Mir Smith, to give himself more confidence, has brought with him no fewer than five wives. Mr Smith had a sixth wife, but she was divorced. They are all at the same hotel, are all called Mrs Joseph Smith, and are quartered on five separate floors. The first Mrs Smith—'Mrs Eva—was with him at the Capitol yesterday when her husband gave evidence on behalf of his friend Slnioot. The other four wives went on shopping expeditions together, and all seemed to be on very good terms with each other. The bills for their purchases of millinery were sent to Mr Smith. The chief Mormon makes a strong point of polygamy in the Mormon Church.' He tola the S'eamte Committee that violations of the law were regularly committed, and that many of the Mormon elders had married from two to eight wives since the passage of the law prohibiting polygamy. Mr Smith's candid admissions are, says

1 the Washington correspondent of the “Daily Express/’ shocking the entire naI tion. He makes no apology for his dew I fence of Mormon principles, and boldly 1 deolared his conviction before the com--1 mittee that he was the recipient of ! divine revelations. ■ The “Apostle/’ now a man of 66, said that he has twenty-on© daughters and twenty-one sons. He maintains five households, one for each wife, at an an- | nual cost of <£4ooo. His income is | <£15,000 a year, derived from his business as a banker, and the innumerable offices he holds in the "church,” of which he is the veritable Pooh-Bah. ! The harmony whioh reigns in his different families is, he declares, "a perennial topic of conversation in Salt Lake City/' He holds an occasional reunion there of his five families, in what he described as his "sixth and official residence/' and on these occasions his different wives "exchange endearments/' He boasts that he provides liberally for each of his family. Each member is always dressed In the height of fashion. In appearance Mr Smith is a short, amiable, patriarchal looking little man. The secret of the domestic tranquility that pervades his homes in Salt Lake City is, he says, his perfect fa'rness. He does not favour one more than ai other. They all share and share exactly alike. His masterly diplomacy is wnll illustrated by the fact that he Vs opei ,-y evaded the law for years without suffering any harm. He declared ro the- committee that he would rather go to gaol than abandon his families. The anti-Mormon agitators now promise to prove that the abandonment of polygamy by the Mormons in accordance with the law, is simply nominal, and that polygamy is as rife as ever.