No. 600.
Mr. Fish
to Mr. Evarts.
Legation of
the United States,
Berne, November 27, 1879.
(Received December 13.)
No. 229.]Sir: Referring to my dispatch No. 220, in which I
inclose a copy of my note to this government respecting the Mormon question,
I have now the honor to submit a copy and translation of their reply.
It will be seen that their answer, while dealing in general with the
question, refers to a particular case, of which I have no other knowledge
than that contained in their note.
* * * * * * *
The reply of the Swiss Government indicates to me a disposition to furnish us
a moral support in the suppression of Mormonism, but it does not encourage
me to hope for an active assistance on their part. I am of opinion that were
we to exert an active influence over here by instructing our consuls to
vigilantly search for and protest against the shipment of recruits to the
polygamous colony, we might occasionally thwart the shipment of individual
recruits; but were we to cause the detention of some of these latter at the
ports of embarkation upon satisfactory evidence, as we are now authorized to
do in regard to paupers imbeciles, and lunatics, we might easily draw to our
aid a more active co-operation, or a more explicit opposition than we are,
in view of the present correspondence, led to expect.
I have, &c.,
[Page 954]
[Inclosure 2in No.
229.—Translation.]
Mr. Hammer to Mr.
Fish
Berne, November 19–25,
1879.
By his note of the 17th October last, the chargé d’affaires of the United
States at Berne draws the attention of the Federal Council to the
propaganda carried on in Switzerland by the agents (apostles) of
Mormonism, and expresses the desire that measures may be taken
with a view of putting an end to this condition of affairs, contrary not
only to the laws of the United States, but also to the peace, good
order, and morality which are cultivated and encouraged by ail civilized
nations.
While admitting with regret that in fact agents of Mormonism have at
various periods spread themselves, and perhaps even now are scattered
over many countries of Europe, including Switzerland, the Federal
Council must remark that these proceedings have taken place on no
portion of our territory with the tacit assent of the Federal or
cantonal authorities; but, on the contrary, that the laws of all the
cantons are quite as severe against polygamy as that one of the United
States mentioned in the note of October 17, and that each time that such
acts have been discovered against the Swiss laws they have been
repressed according to the gravity of the circumstances. The same will
not fail to be the case in the future.
On the other hand it cannot be disputed that as long as the laws voted by
the Congress of the United States shall remain unapplied in Utah
Territory, it must unfortunately be expected that a secret propaganda,
difficult to lay hold of, will be made in favor of Mormonism in other
countries, and the strictest scrutiny will not be successful in
preventing persons free in their persons and their property from
emigrating towards the country which promises the realization of their
ideas.
Furthermore, the Federal Council can but hope for the time when the
severe measures taken by the Government of the United States to do away
with the blot of Mormonism shall have produced all the effects expected
of them. In this reference the Federal Council should inform Mr. Fish,
chargé d’affaires, that it has addressed to the American Government,
through the Swiss consul-general at Washington, a request concerning a
young Swiss girl, Marie Wyss, of Zaziwyl (Berne), who allowed herself to
be seduced by the hidden propaganda of Mormon emissaries, and who,
having fallen into the most unfortunate situation at Bear Lake County,
where she now is, is to-day demanded by her parents. Cases of this
nature show sufficiently that, in order to destroy the evil, a
commencement must be made by destroying the cause, and the latter is
without question the existence of a state of Mormons, which we hope will
not fail to make place for a condition of affairs in conformity with
notions of morality and social order as well as with the intentions of
the Government of the United States.
The Federal Council seizes this occasion, &c.,
In the name of the Federal Council.
The President of the
Confederation:
HAMMER.
The chancellor of the
Confederation:
SCHIESS.
[Inclosure 3 in No. 229. Extract from the Gazette de
Lausanne, November 24,
1879
.—Translation.
swiss abroad.
Several complaints having been addressed to the Federal Council, in order
that an end might be put to the active propaganda of Mormon agents in
Switzerland, the Federal Council has decided that there is no occasion
for them to take special measures, inasmuch as the cantonal laws punish
polygamy, and that the American Government, in execution of the act of
Congress of July 1, 1862, seeks to completely suppress it in the
Territory of Utah. The Federal Council declares, moreover, that last
summer,* it intervened upon the request of a family to reclaim a
young girl who had emigrated at the instigation of a Morman agent.
