I've concluded the greatest "Anti-Mormon Tract ever written" came from the pen of Robert N. Baskin with his "Reminiscences of Early Utah." Baskin was a Gentile lawyer who settled in Utah just before the assassination of his friend, Dr. J. King Robinson, and he later became mayor of Salt Lake City and ultimately Chief Justice of the Utah State Supreme Court.

Brigham D. Madsen's edited compilation of Baskin's work is printed by Signature Books and available through Amazon and other outlets... Here he quotes from the D-News issue dated May 20, 1886:

http://signaturebooks.com/2010/02/reminiscences-of-early-utah/

>"Polygamy, in the ordinary Asiatic sense of the term, never was, and is not now, a tenet of the Latter-day Saints. We have repeatedly shown that the Mormon system of plural marriage is not bigamy, and it does not contain the essential elements of that offense. We have also indicated that, properly speaking, it is not polygamy. In reviewing the statement of President Arthur [Chester A. Arthur, 21st U.S. President] we refuted the statement that polygamy is the cornerstone of the Mormon church and said polygamy, speaking properly, is not now, and has never been, even a tenet of the Mormon faith. In that statement we made no attempt to deny the doctrine of celestial marriage, which is an essential part of the creed of the Latter-day Saints. What we claim is that the Mormon system of marriage is, properly speaking, neither polygamy nor bigamy."

(p. 190)

Right...

Great post.

Is this yet more mormon semantic masturbation ?

They seem not to realize that the Holy Land is close to modern day Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries where polygamy is still practiced...

Asiatic as in the Indian sub-continent, China, Mongolia, Russia, or Japan... Those places weren't part of their operating reality...

http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/roughingit/map/morburton.html

"To the unprejudiced traveler it appears that polygamy is the rule where population is required, and where the great social evil has not had time to develop itself. In Paris or London the institution would, like slavery, die a natural death; in Arabia and in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains it maintains a strong hold upon the affections of mankind."