On the road to Cripple Creek—We were always turning, always turning upwardOn the road to Cripple Creek—We were always turning, always turning upward
In its mountain setting, with the pink sandstone cliffs rising abruptly behind it, this castle of the General's is one of the most dramatic homes I have ever seen. There is a superb austerity about it, which makes it very different from the large homes of Broadmoor, at the other side of Colorado Springs. As I have already mentioned, one of these is a replica of the Grand Trianon; others are Elizabethan and Tudor, and many of them are very fine, but the house of houses at Colorado Springs is "El Pomar," the residence of the late Ashton H. Potter. I do not know a house in the United Stateswhich fits its setting better than this one, or which is a more perfect thing from every point of view. It is a one-story building of Spanish architecture—a style which, to my mind, fits better than any other, the sort of landscape in which plains and mountains meet. Houses as elaborate as the Grand Trianon, always seem to me to lend themselves best to a rather formal, park-like country which is flat, or nearly so; while Elizabethan and adapted Tudor houses of the kind one sees at Broadmoor, seem to cry out for English lawns, and great lush-growing trees to soften the hard lines of roof and gable. Such houses may be set in rolling country with good effect, but in the face of the vast mountain range which dominates this neighborhood, the most elaborate architecture is so completely dwarfed as to seem almost ridiculous. Architecture cannot compete with the Rocky Mountains; the best thing it can do is to submit to them: to blend itself into the picture as unostentatiously as possible. And that is what "El Pomar" does.
One day, during our stay at Colorado Springs, we were invited to take a trip to Cripple Creek.
Driving to the station a friend, a resident of the Springs, pointed out to me a little clay hillock, beside the road.
"That," he said, "is what we call Mount Washington."
"I don't see the resemblance," I remarked.
"Well," he explained, "the top of that little hump has an elevation of about six thousand three hundred feet, which is exactly the height of Mount Washington. You see our mountains, out here, begin where yours, in the East, leave off."
Presently, on the little train, bound for Cripple Creek, the fact was further demonstrated. I had never imagined that anything less than a cog-road could ascend a grade so steep. All the way the grade persisted. Never had I seen such a railroad, either for steepness or for sinuosity. The train crawled slowly along ledges cut into the mountain-sides, now burrowing through an obstruction, now creeping from one mountain to another on a spindly bridge of the most shocking height, below which a wild torrent dashed through a rocky cañon;now slipping out upon a sky-high terrace commanding a view of hundreds of square miles of plains, now winding its way gingerly about dizzy cliffs which seemed to lean out over chasms, into which one looked with admiring terror; now coming out upon the other side, the main chain of the Rockies was revealed a hundred miles to the westward, glittering superbly with eternal ice and snow. It is an unbelievable railroad—the Cripple Creek Short Line. It travels fifty miles to make what, in a straight line, would be eighteen, and if there is, on the entire system, a hundred yards of track without a turn, I did not see the place. We were always turning; always turning upward. We would go into a tunnel and presently emerge at a point which seemed to be directly above the place where we had entered; and at times our windings, our doublings back, our writhings, were conducted in so limited an area that I began to fear our train would get tied in a knot and be unable to proceed.
However, we did get to Cripple Creek, and for all its mountain setting, and all the three hundred millions of gold that it has yielded in the last twenty years or so, it is one of the most depressing places in the world. Its buildings run from shabbiness to downright ruin; its streets are ill paved, and its outlying districts are a horror of smokestacks, ore-dumps, shaft-houses, reduction-plants, gallows-frames and squalid shanties, situated in the mud. It seemed to me that Cripple Creek must be the most awful looking little city in the world, but I was informed that, as mining camps go, it is unusually presentable, and later I learned for myself that that is true.
Cripple Creek is not only above the timber-line; it is above the cat-line. I mean this literally. Domestic cats cannot live there. And many human beings are affected by the altitude. I was. I had a headache; my breath was short, and upon the least exertion my heart did flip-flops. Therefore I did not circulate about the town excepting within a radius of a few blocks of the station. That, however, was enough.
After walking up the main street a little way, I turned off into a side street lined with flimsy buildings, half of them tumbledown and abandoned. Turning into another street I came upon a long row of tiny one story houses, crowded close together in a block. Some of them were empty, but others showed signs of being occupied. And instead of a number, the door of each one bore a name, "Clara," "Louise," "Lina," and so on, down the block. For a time there was not a soul in sight as I walked slowly down that line of box-stall houses. Then, far ahead, I saw a woman come out of a doorway. She wore a loose pink wrapper and carried a pitcher in her hand. I watched her cross the street and go into a dingy building. Then the street was empty again. I walked on slowly. As I passed one doorway it opened suddenly and a man came out—a shabby man with a drooping mustache. He did not look at me as he passed. The window-shade of the crib from which he had come went up as I moved by. Ilooked at the window, and as I did so, the curtains parted and the face of a negress was pressed against the pane, grinning at me with a knowing, sickening grin.
I passed on. From another window a white woman with very black hair and eyes, and cheeks of a light orchid-shade, showed her gold teeth in a mirthless automatic smile, and added the allurement of an ice-cold wink.
The door of the crib at the corner stood open, and just before I reached it a woman stepped out and surveyed me as I approached. She wore a white linen skirt and a middy blouse, attire grotesquely juvenile for one of her years. Her hair, of which she had but a moderate amount, was light brown and stringy, and she wore gold-rimmed spectacles. She did not look depraved but, upon the contrary resembled a highly respectable, if homely, German cook I once employed. As I passed her window I saw hanging there a glass sign, across which, in gold letters, was the title, "Madam Leo."
"Madam Leo," she said to me, nodding and pointing at her chest. "That's me. Leo, the lion, eh?" She laughed foolishly.
I paused and made some casual inquiry concerning her prosperity.
"Things is dull now in Cripple Creek," she said. "There ain't much business any more. I wish they'd start a white man's club or a dance hall across the street. Then Cripple Creek would be booming."
I think I remarked, in reply, that things did lookrather dull. In the meantime I glanced in at her little room. There was a chair or two, a cheap oak dresser, and an iron bed. The room looked neat.
"Ain't I got a nice clean place?" suggested Madam Leo. Then as I assented, she pointed to a calendar which hung upon the wall. At the top of it was a colored print from some French painting, showing a Cupid kissing a filmily draped Psyche.
"That's me," said Madam Leo. "That's me when I was a young girl!" Again she loosed her laugh.
I started to move on.
"Where are you from?" she asked.
"I came up from Colorado Springs," I said.
"Well," she returned, "when you go back send some nice boys up here. Tell them to see Madam Leo. Tell them a middle-aged woman with spectacles. I'm known here. I been here four years. Oh, things ain't so bad. I manage to make two or three dollars a day."
As I passed to leeward of her on the narrow walk I got the smell of a strong, brutal perfume.
"Have you got to be going?" she asked.
"Yes," I answered. "I must go to the train."
"Well, then—so long," she said.
"So long."
"Don't forget Madam Leo," she admonished, giving utterance, again, to her strident, feeble-minded laugh.
"I won't," I promised.
And I never, never shall.
I think it was in Kansas City that I first became conscious of the fact that, without my knowing it, my mind had made, in advance, imaginary pictures of certain sections of the country, and that, in almost every instance, these pictures were remarkable for their untruthfulness. Kansas City itself surprised me with its hills, for I had been thinking of it in connection with the prairies. With Denver it was the other way about. Thinking of Denver as a mountain city, instead of a city near the mountains, I expected hills, but did not find them. And when I crossed the Rockies, they too afforded a surprise, not because of their height, but because of their width. Evidently I must have had some vague idea that a train, traveling west from Denver, would climb very definitely up the Rocky Mountains, cross the Great Divide, and proceed very definitely down again, upon the other side, whither a sort of long, sloping plain would lead to California. Denver itself I thought of as being placed further west upon the continent than is, in reality, the case. I did not realize at all that the city is, in fact, only a few hundred miles west of the halfway point on an imaginary line drawnfrom coast to coast; nor was I aware that, instead of being for the most part sloping plain, the thousand miles that intervenes between Denver and the Pacific Ocean, is made up of series after series of mountain ranges and valleys, their successive crests and hollows following one another like the waves of the sea.
In short, I had imagined that the Rockies were the whole show. I had not the faintest recollection of the Cordilleran System (of which the Rockies and all these other ranges are but a part), while as for the Sierra Nevadas, I remembered them only when I came to them and then much as one will recall a slight acquaintance who has been in jail for many years.
Are you shocked by my ignorance—or my confession of it? Then let me ask you if you know that the Uintah Mountain Range, in Utah, is the only range in the entire country which runs east and west? And have you ever heard of the Pequop Mountains, or the Cedar Mountains, or the Santa Roasas, or the Egans, or the Humboldts, or the Washoes, or the Gosiutes, or the Toyales, or the Toquimas, or the Hot Creek Mountains? And did you know that in California as well as in New Hampshire there are the White Mountains? And what do you know of the Wahsatch and Oquirrh Ranges?
Not wishing to keep the class in geography after school, I shall not tell you about all these mountains, but will satisfy myself with the statement that, in an amphitheater formed between the two last mentioned ranges,at the head of a broad, irrigated valley, is situated Salt Lake City.
The very name of Salt Lake City had a flat sound in my ears; and in that mental album of imaginary photographs of cities, to which I have referred, I saw the Mormon capital as on a sandy plain, with the Great Salt Lake on one side and the Great Salt Desert on the other. Therefore, upon arriving, I was surprised again, for the lake is not visible at all, being a dozen miles distant, and the desert is removed still farther, while instead of sandy plains the mountains rise abruptly on three sides of the city, and on the fourth is the sweet valley, covered with rich farms and orchards, and dotted here and there with minor Mormon settlements.
Like Mark Twain, who visited Salt Lake many years ago, before the railroad went there, I managed to forget the lake entirely after I had been there for a little while. I made no excursion to Saltair Beach, the playground of the neighborhood, and only saw the lake when our train crossed a portion of it after leaving the city.
I do not know that the great pavilion at Saltair Beach, of which every one has seen pictures, is a Mormon property, but it well may be, for the Mormons have never been a narrow-minded sect with regard to decent gaieties. They approve of dancing, and the ragtime craze has reached them, for, as I was walking past the Lion House, one evening, I heard the music and saw a lot of young people "trotting" gaily, in the place where formerly resided most of the twenty odd known wivesof the late Brigham Young. Later a Mormon told me that dances are held in Mormon meeting-houses and that they are always opened with prayer.
Also in the café of the Hotel Utah there was dancing every night, and when the members of the "Honeymoon Express" Company put in an appearance there one night, we might have been on Broadway. The hotel, I was informed, is owned by Mormons; it is an excellent establishment. They do not stare at you as though they thought you an eccentric if you ask for tea at five o'clock, but bring it to you in the most approved fashion, with a kettle and a lamp, and the neatest silver tea service I have ever seen in an American hotel. But that is by the way, for I was speaking of the frivolities of Mormondom, and afternoon tea is, with me at least, a serious matter.
Salt Lake City was, until a few years ago, a "wide open town." The "stockade" was famous among the red-light institutions of the country. But that is gone, having been washed away by our national "wave of reform," and the town has now a rather orderly appearance, although it is not without its night cafés, one of them being the inevitable "Maxim's," without which, it would appear, no American city is now complete.
One of the first things the Mormons did, on establishing their city, was to build an amusement hall, and as long as fifty years ago, this was superseded by the Salt Lake Theatre, a picturesque old playhouse which is stillstanding, and which looks, inside and out, like an old wartime wood-cut of Ford's Theatre in Washington. Even before the railroads came the best actors and actresses in the country played in this theater, drawn there by the strong financial inducements which the Mormons offered, and it is interesting to note that many stage favorites of to-day made their first appearances in this playhouse. If I am not mistaken, Edwin Milton Royle made his début as an actor there, and both Maude Adams and Ada Dwyer were born in Salt Lake City, and appeared upon the stage for the first time at the Salt Lake Theatre. Yes, it is an interesting and historic playhouse, and I hope that when it burns up, as I have no doubt it ultimately will, no audience will be present, for I think that it will go like tinder. And although I still bemoan the money which I spent to see there, a maudlin entertainment called "The Honeymoon Express," direct from that home of banal vulgarities, the New York Winter Garden, I cannot quite bring myself to hope that when the Salt Lake Theatre burns, the man who wrote "The Honeymoon Express," the manager who produced it, and the company which played it, will be rehearsing there. For all their sins, I should not like to see them burned, though as to being roasted—well, that is a different thing.
Whatever may be one's opinion of the matrimonial industry of Brigham Young, the visitor to Salt Lake City will not dispute that the late leader of the Mormons knew, far better than most men of his day, how a townshould be laid out. The blocks of Salt Lake City are rectangular; the lots are large, the streets wide and admirably paved with asphalt, almost all the houses are low, and stand in their own green grounds, and perhaps the most characteristic note of all is given by the poplars and box elders which grow everywhere, not only in the city, but throughout the valley.
Besides my preconceptions as to the city, I arrived in Salt Lake City with certain preconceptions as to Mormons. I expected them to be radically different, somehow, from all other people I had met. I anticipated finding them deceitful and evasive: furtive people, wandering in devious ways and disappearing into mysterious houses, at dead of night. I wanted to see them, I wanted to talk with them, but I wondered, nervously, whether one might speak to them about themselves and their religion, and more especially, whether one might use the words "Mormon" and "polygamy" without giving offense.
It was not without misgivings, therefore, that my companion and I went to keep an appointment with Joseph F. Smith, head of the Mormon Church—or, to give it its official title, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We found the President, with several high officials of the church, in his office at the Lion House—the large adobe building in which, as I have said, formerly resided the rank and file of Brigham Young's wives; although Amelia lived by herself, in the so called "Amelia Palace," across the street.Mr. Smith is a tall, dignified man who comes far from looking his full seventy-six years. The nose upon which he wears his gold rimmed spectacles is the dominant feature of his face, being one of those great, strong, mountainous, indomitable noses. His eyes are dark, large and keen, and he wears a flowing gray beard and dresses in a black frock-coat. He and the men around him looked like a group of strong, prosperous, dogmatically religious New Englanders, such as one might find at a directors' meeting in the back room of some very solid old bank in Maine or Massachusetts. Clearly they were executives and men of wealth. As for religion, had I not known that they were Mormons, I should have judged them to be either Baptists, Methodists or Presbyterians.
The occasion did not prove to be a gay one. I tried to explain to the Mormons that I was writing impressions of my travels and that I had desired to meet them because, in Salt Lake City, the Mormons seemed to supply the greatest interest.
But even after I had explained my mission, a frigid air prevailed, and I felt that here, at least, I would get but scant material. Their attitude perplexed me. I could not believe they were embarrassed, although I knew that I was.
Then presently the mystery was cleared up, for President Smith launched out upon a statement of his opinion regarding "Collier's Weekly"—the paper in which many of these chapters first appeared—and I became suddenlyand painfully aware that I was being mistaken for a muckraker.
The President's opinion of "Collier's" was more frank than flattering, and though one or two of the other Mormons, who seemed to understand our aims, tried to smooth matters over in the interests of harmony, he would not be mollified, but insisted vigorously that "Collier's" had printed outrageous lies about him. This was all news to me, for, as it happened, I had not read the articles to which he referred, and for which, as a representative of "Collier's," I was now, apparently, being held responsible. I explained that to the President of the Church, whereupon he simmered down somewhat, but I think he still regarded my companion and me with suspicion, and was glad to see us go.
Thus did we suffer for the sins of Sarah Comstock.
It may not seem necessary to add that the subject of polygamy was not mentioned in that conversation.
In thinking over our encounter with these leading Mormons I could not feel surprised, for all that I have read about this sect has been in the nature of attacks. Mark Twain tells about what was called a "Destroying Angel" of the Mormon Church, stating that, "as I understand it, they are Latter Day Saints who are set apart by the Church to conduct permanent disappearances of obnoxious citizens." He characterizes the one he met as "a loud, profane, offensive old blackguard." But Mormon Destroying Angels are things of the past, as, I believe, are Mormon visions of Empire, and Mormon aggressions of all kinds. Another book, Harry Leon Wilson's novel, "The Lions of the Lord," was not calculated to soothe the Mormon sensibilities, and of the numerous articles in magazines and newspapers which I have read—most of them with regard to polygamy—I recall none that has not dealt with them severely.
Now, remembering that whatever we may believe, the Mormons believe devoutly in their religion, what must be their point of view about all this? Their story is not different from any other in that it has two sides. If they did commit aggressions in the early days, which seems to have been the case, they were also the victims of persecution from the very start, and it is difficult to determine, at this late day, whether they, or those who made their lives in the East unbearable, were most at fault.
According to Mormon history the church had its very beginnings in religious dissension. It is recounted by the Mormons that Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the church (he was the uncle of the present President), attended revival meetings in Manchester, Vermont, and was so confused by the differences of opinion and the ill-feeling between different sects that he prayed to the Lord to tell him which was the true religion. In regard to this, Smith wrote that after his prayer, "a mysterious power of darkness overcame me. I could not speak and I felt myself in the grasp of an unseen personage of darkness. My soul went up in an unuttered prayer for deliverance, and as I was about despairing, the gloomrolled away and I saw a pillar of light descending from heaven, approaching me."
Smith then tells of a vision of a Glorious Being, who informed him that none of the warring religious sects had the right version. Then: "The light vanished, the personages withdrew and recovering myself, I found myself lying on my back gazing up into heaven."
Apropos of this, and of other similar visions which Smith said he had, it is interesting to note that there is a theory, founded upon a considerable investigation, that Smith was an epileptic.
After his first vision Smith had others, and according to the Mormon belief, he finally had revealed to him the Hill Cumorah (twenty-five miles southwest of Rochester, N. Y.) where he ultimately found, with the aid of the Angel Moroni, the gold plates containing the Book of Mormon, together with the Urim and Thummim, the stone spectacles through which he read the plates and translated them. After making his translation, Smith returned the plates to the angel, but before doing so, showed them to eight witnesses who certified to having seen them.
As time went on Smith had more visions until at last the Mormon Church was organized in 1830. Revelations continued. The church grew. Branches were established in various places, but according to their history, the Mormons were persecuted by members of other religious sects and driven from place to place. For a time they were in Kirtland, Ohio. Later they went toJackson County, Mo., but their houses were burned and they were driven on again. In 1838 "the Lord made known to him (Smith) that Adam had dwelt in America, and that the Garden of Eden was located in Jackson County, Mo." For a time they were in Nauvoo, Ill., where it seems their political activities got them into trouble, and at last Joseph Smith and his brother Hiram were shot and killed by a mob, at Carthage, Ill. That was in 1844. There were then 10,000 Mormons, over whom Brigham Young became the leading power. Soon after this the westward movement began. They established various settlements in Iowa, and in 1847 Young and his pioneer band of 143 men, 3 women and 2 children, entered the valley of Salt Lake, where they immediately set up tents and cabins and began to plow and plant, and where they started what the Mormons say was the first irrigation system in the United States.
Certainly there were good engineers among them. Their early buildings show it—especially the famous Tabernacle in the great square they own at the center of the city. The vast arched roof of the Tabernacle is supported by wooden beams which were lashed together, no nails having been used. This building is not beautiful, but is very interesting. It contains among other things a large pipe organ which was, in its day, probably the finest in this country, although there are better organs elsewhere, now. The Mormon Trails are also recognized in the West as the best trails, with the lowest levels, and there are many other evidences of unusualengineering and mechanical skill on the part of the early settlers, including a curious wooden odometer (now in the museum at Salt Lake City) which worked in connection with the wheel of a prairie schooner, and which was marvelously accurate.
The revelation as to the practice of polygamy was made to Brigham Young, and was promulgated in Utah in 1852, soon becoming a subject of contention between the Mormons and the Government. The practice was finally suspended by a manifesto issued by President Wilford Woodruff, in 1890, and the "History of the Church," written by Edward H. Anderson, declares that "a plurality of wives is now neither taught nor practised."
Speaking of polygamy I was informed by Prof. Levi Edgar Young, a nephew of Brigham Young, a Harvard graduate and an authority on Mormon History, that not over 3 per cent. of men claiming membership in the Mormon Church ever had practised it. These figures surprised me, as I had imagined polygamy to be the rule, rather than the exception. Professor Young, however, assured me that a great many leading Mormons had refused from the first to accept the practice.
It must be remembered that the day of Brigham Young was not this day. He was a powerful, far-seeing and very able man, and it does seem probable that he had the idea of founding an Empire in the West. However the discovery of gold in '48, flooded the West with settlers and brought a preponderance of "gentiles" (as the Mormons call those who are not members of their church) into all that country, making the realization of Young's dream impossible. What the Mormon Church needed, in those early times, was increase—more men to do its work, more women to bear children—and viewed entirely from a practical standpoint, polygamy was a practice calculated to bring about this end. I met, in Salt Lake City men whose fathers had married anywhere from five or six to a dozen wives, and so far as sturdiness goes, I may say that I am convinced that plural marriages brought about no deterioration in the stock.
I am informed that the membership of the church, to-day, is between 500,000 and 600,000, and that less than 1 per cent. of the Mormon families are at present polygamous. It is not denied that some few polygamous marriages have been performed since the issuance of the manifesto against the practice, but these have been secret marriages without the sanction of the church, and priests who have performed such marriages have, when detected, been excommunicated.
I was told in Salt Lake City that, in the cases of some of the older Mormons, who had plural wives long before the manifesto, there was little doubt that polygamy was still being practised. Some of these men are the highest in the church, and it was explained to me that, having married their wives in good faith, they proposed to carry out what they regard as their obligations to those wives. However, these are old men, and withthe rise of another generation there can be little doubt that these last remnants of polygamy will have been finally stamped out.
The modern young Mormon man or woman seems to be a perfectly normal human being with a normal point of view concerning marriage. Furthermore, the Mormons believe in education. The school buildings scattered everywhere throughout the valley are very fine, and I was informed that 80 per cent. of the whole tax income of the State of Utah was expended upon education, and that in educational percentages Utah compares favorably with Massachusetts.
What effect a broad education might have upon succeeding generations of Mormons it is difficult to say. From a literary point of view, the Book of Mormon will not bear close scrutiny. Mark Twain described it accurately when he said, in "Roughing It":
The book seems to be merely a prosy detail of imaginary history, with the Old Testament for a model; followed by a tedious plagiarism of the New Testament. The author labored to give his words and phrases the quaint old-fashioned sound and structure of our King James's translation of the Scriptures; and the result is a mongrel—half modern glibness and half ancient simplicity and gravity. The latter is awkward and constrained; the former natural, but grotesque by contrast. Whenever he found his speech growing too modern—which was about every sentence or two—he ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as "exceeding sore," "and it came to pass," etc., and made things satisfactory again.... The Mormon Bible is rather stupid and tiresome to read, but there is nothing vicious in its teachings. Its code of morals is unobjectionable—it is "smouched" from the New Testament and no credit given.
The book seems to be merely a prosy detail of imaginary history, with the Old Testament for a model; followed by a tedious plagiarism of the New Testament. The author labored to give his words and phrases the quaint old-fashioned sound and structure of our King James's translation of the Scriptures; and the result is a mongrel—half modern glibness and half ancient simplicity and gravity. The latter is awkward and constrained; the former natural, but grotesque by contrast. Whenever he found his speech growing too modern—which was about every sentence or two—he ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as "exceeding sore," "and it came to pass," etc., and made things satisfactory again.... The Mormon Bible is rather stupid and tiresome to read, but there is nothing vicious in its teachings. Its code of morals is unobjectionable—it is "smouched" from the New Testament and no credit given.
We were invited to meet the President of the Mormon Church and some members of his family at the Beehive House, his official residenceWe were invited to meet the President of the Mormon Church and some members of his family at the Beehive House, his official residence
Certainly there is no need to prove that education is death on dogma. That fact has been proving itself as scientific research has come more and more into play upon various dogmatic creeds. I was told, however, that the Mormon Church schools were liberal; that instead of restricting knowledge to conform to the teachings of the church, the church was showing a tendency to adapt itself to meet new conditions.
If it is doing that it is cleverer than some other churches.
Before going to Salt Lake City I had heard that the Mormons were in complete control of politics and business in the State of Utah, and that it was their practice to discriminate against "gentiles," making it impossible for them to be successful there. I asked a great many citizens of Salt Lake City about this, and all the evidence indicated that such rumors are without foundation, and that, of recent years, Mormons and "gentiles" have worked harmoniously together, socially and in business. The Mormons have a strong political machine and pull together much as the Roman Catholics do, but the idea that they dominate everything in Salt Lake City seems to be a mistaken one. Time and again I was assured of this by both Mormons and "gentiles," and an officer of the Commercial Club went so far as to draw up figures, supporting the statement, as follows:
Of the city's fourteen banks and trust companies, nine are not under Mormon control; of five department stores, four are non-Mormon; all skyscrapers except one are owned by "gentiles"; likewise four-fifths of the best residence property. Furthermore, neither the citygovernment nor the public utilities are run by Mormons, nor are the Mayor and the President of the Board of Education members of that church.
This is not to say that Mormon business interests are not enormous, but only that there has been exaggeration on these points, as on many others concerning this sect. The heads of the church are big business men, and President Smith is, among other things, a director of the Union Pacific Railroad Company.
Among other well-informed men with whom I talked upon this subject was the city-editor of a leading newspaper.
"I am not a Mormon," he said, "although my wife is one. You may draw your own conclusions as to the Mormon attitude when I tell you that the paper on which I work is controlled by them, yet that, as it happens just now, I haven't a Mormon reporter on my staff. Here and there there may be some old hard-shell Mormon who won't employ any one that isn't a member of the church, but cases of that kind are as rare among Mormons as among other religious sects."
Every business man with whom I talked seemed anxious to impress me with this fact, that I might pass it on in print.
"For heaven's sake," said one impassioned citizen, "tell people that we raise something out here besides Mormons and hell!"
One of the most level-headed men I met in Salt LakeCity was a Mormon, though not orthodox. His position with regard to the church was precisely the same as that of a man who has been brought up in any other church, but who, as he grows older, cannot accept the creed in its entirety. His attitude as to the Mormon Bible was one of honest doubt. In short, he was an agnostic, and as such talked interestingly.
"Of course," he said, "out here we are as used to the Mormon religion and to the idea that some men have a number of wives, as you are to the idea that men have only one wife. It doesn't seem strange to us. I can't adjust my mind to the fact that it is strange, and I only become conscious of it when I go to other parts of the country and find that, when people know I'm a Mormon, they become very curious, and want me to tell them all about the Mormons and polygamy.
"Now, in trying to understand the Mormons, the first thing to remember is that they are human beings, with the same set of virtues and failings and feelings as other human beings. There are some who are dogmatically religious; some with whom marriage—even plural marriage—is just as pure and spiritual a thing as it is with any other people in the world. On the other hand, some Mormons, like some members of other sects, have doubtless had lusts. The family life of some Mormons is very beautiful, and as smoking, drinking and other dissipations are forbidden, orthodox Mormon men lead very clean lives. In this they are upheld by our women, for many Mormon women will not marry a man excepting in our Temple, and no man who has broken the rules of the church may be married there.
"Among the younger generation of Mormons you will see the same general line of characteristics as among young people anywhere. Some of them grow up into strict Mormons, while others—particularly some of the sons of rich Mormons—are what you might call 'sports.' Human nature is no different in Utah than elsewhere.
"My father had several wives and I had a great number of brothers and sisters. We didn't live like one big family, and the half-brothers and half-sisters did not feel towards each other as real brothers and sisters do. When my father was a very old man he married a young wife, and we felt about it just as any other sons and daughters would at seeing their father do such a thing. We felt it was a mistake, and that it was not just to us, for father had not many more years to live, and it appeared that on his death we might have his young wife and her family to look after.
"My views are such that in bringing up my own children I have not had them baptized as Mormons at the age of eight, according to the custom of the church. This has grieved my people, but I cannot help it. I am bringing my children up to fear God and lead clean lives, but I do not think I have the right to force them into any church, and I propose to leave the matter of joining or not joining to their own discretion, later on."
Another Mormon, this one orthodox, and a cultivated man, told me he thought that in most cases the old polygamous marriages were entered into with a spirit of real religious fervor.
"My father married two wives," he said. "He loved my mother, who was his first wife, very dearly, and they are as fine and contented a couple as you ever saw. But when the revelation as to polygamy was made, father took a second wife because he believed it to be his duty to do so."
"How did your mother feel about it?" I asked.
"I have no doubt," said he, "that it hurt mother terribly, but she was submissive because she believed it was right. And later, when the manifesto against polygamy was issued, it hurt father's second wife, when he had to give her up, for he had two children by her. However, he obeyed implicitly the law of the church, supporting his second wife and her children, but living with my mother."
Later this gentleman took me to call at the home of this old couple. The husband, more than eighty years of age, was a professional man with a degree from a large eastern university. He was a gentleman of the old school, very fine, dignified, and gracious, and there was an air about him which somehow made me think of a sturdy, straight old tree. As for his wife she was one of the two most adorable old ladies I have ever met.
Very simply she told me of the early days. Herparents had been well-to-do Pennsylvania Dutch and had left a prosperous home in the East and come out to the West, not to better themselves, but because of their religion. (One should always remember that, in thinking of the Mormons: whatever may have been the rights and wrongs of their religion, they have believed in it and suffered for it.) She, herself, was born in 1847, in a prairie schooner, on the banks of the Missouri River, and in that vehicle she was carried across the plains and through the passes, to where Salt Lake City was then in the first year of its settlement. Some families were still living in tents when she was a little girl, but log cabins were springing up. Behind her house, I was shown, later, the cabin—now used as a lumber shed—in which she dwelt as a child.
Fancy the fascination that there was in hearing that old lady tell, in her simple way, the story of the early Mormon settlement. For all her gentleness and the low voice in which she spoke, the tale was an epic in which she herself had figured. She was not merely the daughter of a pioneer, and the wife of one; she was a pioneer herself. She had seen it all, from the beginning. How much she had seen, how much she had endured, how much she had known of happiness and sorrow! And now, in her old age, she had a nature like a distillation made of everything there is in life, and whatever bitterness there may have been in life for her had gone, and left her altogether lovable and altogether sweet.
I did not wish to leave her house, and when I did, and when she said she hoped that I would come again, I was conscious of a lump in my throat. I do not expect you to understand it, for I do not, quite, myself. But there it was—that kind of lump which, once in a long time, will rise up in one's throat when one sees a very lovely, very happy child.
When our friend Professor Young asked us whether we had met President Joseph F. Smith, we told him of our unfortunate encounter with that gentleman, in the Lion House, a day or two before. This information led to activities on the part of the Professor, which in turn led to our being invited, on the day of our departure, to meet the President and some members of his family at the Beehive House—the official residence of the head of the church.
The Beehive House is a large old-fashioned mansion with the kind of pillared front so often seen in the architecture of the South. Its furnishings are, like the house itself, old-fashioned, homelike, and unostentatious.
I have forgotten who let us in, but I have no recollection of a maid, and I rather think the door was opened by the President himself. At all events we had no sooner entered than we met him, in the hall. His manner had changed. He was most hospitable, and walked through several rooms with us, showing us some plaster casts and paintings, the work of Mormon artists. Most
The Lion House—a large adobe building in which formerly resided the rank and file of Brigham Young's wivesThe Lion House—a large adobe building in which formerly resided the rank and file of Brigham Young's wives
of the paintings were extremely ordinary, but the work of one young sculptor was remarkable, and as the story of him is remarkable as well, I wish to mention him here.
He is a boy named Arvard Fairbanks, a grandson of Mormon pioneers, on both sides, and he is not yet twenty years of age. At twelve he started modeling animals from life. At thirteen he took a scholarship in the Art Students' League, in New York, and exhibited at the National Academy of Design. At fourteen he took another scholarship and also got an art school into trouble with the sometimes rather silly Gerry Society, for permitting a child to model from the nude. Work done by this boy at the age of fifteen is nothing short of amazing. I have never seen such finished things from the hand of a youth. His subjects—Indians, buffalo, pumas, etc.—show splendid observation and understanding, and are full of the feeling of the West. And if the West is not very proud of him some day, I shall be surprised.
After showing us these things, and talking upon general subjects for a time, the President went to the foot of the stairs and called:
"Mamma!"
Whereupon a woman's voice answered, from above, and a moment later Mrs. Smith—one of the Mrs. Smiths—appeared. She was most cordial and kindly—a pleasant, motherly sort of woman who made you feel that she was always in good spirits.
After we had enjoyed a pleasant little talk with her, one of her sons and his wife came in: he a strong young farmer, she pretty, plump and rosy. They had with them their little girl, who played about upon the floor. Later appeared President Penrose (there are several Presidents in the Mormon Church, but President Smith is the leader) who has red cheeks and brown hair in spite of the fact that he is eighty-two years old, and considerably married.
Here in the midst of this intimate family group I kept wishing that, in some way, the matter of polygamy might be mentioned. By this time I had heard so many Mormons talk about it freely that I understood the topic was not taboo; still, in the presence of Mrs. Smith I hardly knew how to begin, or indeed, whether it was tactful to begin—although I had been informed in advance that I might ask questions.
But how to ask? I couldn't very well say to this pleasant lady: "How do you like being one of five or six wives, and how do you think the others like it?" And as for: "How do you like being married?" that hardly expressed the question that was in my mind—besides which, it was plainly evident that the lady was entirely content with her lot.
It did not seem proper to inquire of my hostess: "How can you be content?" That much my social instinct told me. What, then, could I ask?
At last the baby granddaughter gave me a happythought. "Certainly," I said to myself, "it cannot be bad form to make polite inquiries about the family of any gentleman."
I tried to think how I might best ask the President the question. "Have you any children?" would not do, because there was his son, right in the room, and other sons and daughters had been referred to in the course of conversation. Finally, as time was getting short, I determined to put it bluntly.
"How many children and grandchildren have you?" I asked President Smith.
He was not in the least annoyed by the inquiry; only a little bit perplexed.
"Let's see," he answered ruminatively, fingering his long beard, and looking at the ceiling. "I don't remember exactly—but over a hundred."
"Why!" put in Mrs. Smith, proudly, "you have a lot over a hundred." Then, to me, she explained: "I am the mother of eleven, and I have had thirty-two grandchildren in the last twelve years. There is forty-three, right there."
"Oh, you surely have a hundred and ten, father," said young Smith.
"Perhaps, perhaps," returned the modern Abraham, contentedly.
"I beat you, though!" laughed President Penrose.
"I don't know about that," interposed young Smith,sticking up for the family. "If father would count up I think you'd find he was ahead."
"How many have you?" President Smith inquired of his coadjutor.
President Penrose rubbed his hands and beamed with satisfaction.
"A hundred and twenty-odd," he said.
After that there was no gainsaying him. He was supreme. Even Mrs. Smith admitted it.
"Yes," she said, smiling and shaking a playful finger at him, "you're ahead just now; but remember, you're older than we are. You just give us time!"
As our train crossed the Great Salt Lake the farther shores were glistening in a golden haze, half real, half mirage, like the shores of Pæstum as you see them from the monastery at Amalfi on a sunny day. Beyond the lake a portion of the desert was glazed with a curious thin film of water—evidently overflow—in which the forms of stony hills at the margin of the waste were reflected so clearly that the eye could not determine the exact point of meeting between cliff and plain. Farther out in the desert there was no water, and as we left the hills behind, the world became a great white arid reach, flat as only moist sand can be flat, and tragic in its desolation. For a time nothing, literally, was visible but sky and desert, save for a line of telegraph poles, rising forlornly beside the right-of-way.
I found the desert impressive, but my companion, whose luncheon had not agreed with him, declared that it was not up to specifications.
"Any one who is familiar with Frederick Remington's drawings," he said, "knows that there must be skeletons and buffalo skulls stuck around on deserts."
I was about to explain that the Western Pacific was a new railroad and that probably they had not yet found time to do their landscape gardening along the line, when, far ahead, I caught sight of a dark dot on the sand. I kept my eye on it. As our train overtook it, it began to assume form, and at last I saw that it was actually a prairie schooner. Presently we passed it. It was moving slowly along, a few hundred yards from the track. The horses were walking; their heads were down and they looked tired. The man who was driving was the only human being visible; he was hunched over, and when the train went by, he never so much as turned his head.
The picture was perfect. Even my companion admitted that, and ceased to demand skulls and skeletons. And when, two or three hours later, after having crossed the desert and worked our way into the hills, we saw a full-fledged cowboy on a pinto pony, we felt that the Western Pacific railroad was complete in its theatrical accessories.
The cowboy did his best to give us Western color. When he saw the train coming, he spurred up his pony, and waving a lasso, set out in pursuit of an innocent old milch cow, which was grazing near-by. That she was no range animal was evident. Her sleek condition and her calm demeanor showed that she was fully accustomed to the refined surroundings of the stable. As he came at her she gazed in horrified amazement, quite as some fat, dignified old lady might gaze at a bad littleboy, running at her with a pea-shooter. Then, in bovine alarm, she turned and lumbered heavily away. The cowboy charged and cut her off, waving his rope and yelling. However, no capture was made. As soon as the train had passed the cowboy desisted, and poor old bossy was allowed to settle down again to comfortable grazing.
After a good dinner in one of those admirable dining cars one always finds on western roads, and a good smoke, my companion and I were ready for bed. But as we were about to retire, a fellow-passenger with whom we had been talking, asked, "Aren't you going to sit up for Elko?"
"What is there at Elko?" inquired my companion, with a yawn.
"Oh," said the other, "there's a little of the local color of Nevada there. You had better wait."
"I don't believe we'll be able to see anything," I put in, glancing out at the black night.
"It is something you couldn't see by daylight," said the stranger.
That made us curious, so we sat up.
As the train slowed for Elko, and we went to get our overcoats, we observed that one passenger, a woman, was making ready to get off. We had noticed her during the day—a stalwart woman of thirty-three or four, perhaps, who, we judged, had once been very handsome, though she now looked faded. Her hair was a dull red, and her complexion was of that milkywhiteness which so often accompanies red hair. Her eyes were green, cold and expressionless, and her mouth, though well formed, sagged at the corners, giving her a discontented and rather hard look. I remember that we wondered what manner of woman she was, and that we could not decide.
The train stopped, and with our acquaintance of the car, my companion and I alighted. It was a long train, and our sleeper, which was near the rear, came to a standstill some distance short of the station building, so that the part of the platform to which we stepped was without light. Beyond the station we saw several buildings looming like black shadows, but that was all; we could make out nothing of the town.
"I don't see much here," I remarked to the man who had suggested sitting up.
"Come on," he said, moving back through the blackness, towards the end of the train.
As I turned to follow him I saw the red-haired woman step down from the car and hand her suitcase to a man who had been awaiting her; they stood for a moment in conversation; as I moved away I heard their low voices.
Reaching the last car our guide descended to the track and crossed to the other side. We followed. My first glimpse of what lay beyond gave me the impression that a large railroad yard was spread out before me, its myriad switch-lights glowing red through the black night. But as my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I saw that here was not a maze of tracks, but a maze of houses, and that the lights were not those of switches, but of windows and front doors: night signs of the traffic to which the houses were dedicated.