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Show in my father's house/ 83 "Any person who has entered plural marriage since the Manifesto is not a credit to any community, and the same may be said of their children." At President Grant's request, Church official Hugh B. Brown authored an amendment to the original illegal cohabitation act. The amendment made the crime a felony, punishable by five years in prison. A Mormon legislative majority had quickly passed the amendment and a Mormon governor had signed it in 1935. The ill-defined separation of church and state in Utah affairs had an effect almost opposite its influence during the polygamous epoch of the 1800's. Now all Church's power concerted to stamp out, rather than protect, polygamy. As the trials progressed, it came out that the Church had hired detectives and ordered member-spies to infiltrate the fundmen-talist sector. A Utah judge, disqualified because of Church connections, gave way to a district court judge from Denver. The defense founded its basic appeal on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution guaranteeing freedom of religious worship. But even the second judge over-ruled attempts to quash on those grounds. One woman, who had borne a child in polygamy and then turned state's evidence, clearly had been coached and at one point forgot her lines. "I can't remember what I was supposed to say," she hedged. The prosecutor bristled. "Come, come, what is it you can't |