Chattanooga, Tenn., Dec. 25, 1899.
Rev. (?) J. Whitcomb Brougher, Chattanooga, Tenn.
My Dear Sir:—Your second installment of abuse, falsehood and misrepresentation, called "Is Mormonism Anti-Christian," I see, by theNewsof Jan. 1, was duly delivered, as per previous announcement. As some well-meaning people might take your performance in earnest, I hope you will take it ingood part if I make a brief reply before the incident is closed. I am glad that this is a country of free speech, free thought, and religious liberty, even though narrow-minded religious bigots cannot comprehend this basic principle of our heaven-born government, and sometimes abuse it. American history tells us that during the revolutionary days of America's struggle for independence the British once had Gen. Marion and his little band of struggling patriots surrounded; that the British, in order to tantalize the starving patriots, fired wheat from their cannon into the American camp, and as I have authentic evidence of having descended from one of those hungry defenders of the flag, and also that I have proof, beyond truthful contradiction, that my progenitor was once a member of George Washington's body guard, I trust you will have no serious objections to my calling myself an American by birth, and entitled to a small portion of the freedom of speech and thought guaranteed to Americans by our constitution. Should there be any objections upon the possible ground that your progenitors possibly have been on the other side of that fight, I pray you to let family feuds, for this occasion at least, be buried. No people on earth love liberty and true Americanism more than my people, and no people realize to a greater extent that the favorite weapons brought against truth are, generally, ridicule and billingsgate; and in a vain attempt to successfully answer my former letter you liberally employed this unsavory method with the hope of laughing the case out of court. We have not been accustomed to throwing mud in order to bolster up our cause, but in this case, if I should stoop to a little ridicule, avoiding slush, I hope you and the public will pardon me. I understand from parties who witnessed your performance last Sunday night, that the recital of your little piece would have done much credit to a Punch and Judy show; but, shorn of its stagey effects and set in cold type, without even a moving picture accompaniment, I hope that I may be forgiven if I do not fully appreciate the force of your masterful (?) logic. I have no doubt that the thinking people of this city can, without any assistance, distinguish between inflated sophistic bombast, and logic; but a little airing and brushing always takes away the mold, removes the rubbish and gives things a more healthful appearance. Now, as the physician said to his patient, "just hold still, and I will not insert the knife deeper than is absolutely necessary."
You claim to be a true representative of the meek and lowly Master, who said He "came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." You are loud in condemning "us" assinners; yet you said, in your letter to the News, announcing your attack upon me and my faith, that you were not here to convert the Latter-day Saints, that the work was not worth the candle. How very Christ-like! What a humble follower of the Lamb, and how faithfully you endeavor to follow the example of the Master, who said there was more joy in heaven over one sinner who repenteth than over ninety and nine that needed no repentance; but pardon me—I had forgotten that we are now living in modern times, and are told by such eminent divines as yourself that the Bible does not mean what it says.
In the same letter, mentioned above, you also declare you are not here for the purpose of proselyting, which means, of course, that you do not intend to waste your time by calling anyone to repentance. In view of this, may I ask, is your mission here simply to love Jesus for $1,800 per year, and not for a blessed cent less? Great man! Paul told Timothy that the time would come when they would heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and I suppose it becomes necessary, in order that these words might be fulfilled, for some one to be engaged in tickling ears, even though it becomes rather expensive. Of course I understand that the march of progression changes things, and perhaps this doctrine of Christ, that "the physician is not for the whole but for the sick," has evolved as completely as the Golden Rule, for we now have it, at least to a very large extent, "Do others or they will do you, and do it first." The theory is just the same as it used to be, but it is only, as you say, "symbolic or a figure of speech," the practical part having been done away with—"we have no need of thee."
Through force of habit (we presume), in your brief note to theNewsyou again charged us with creeping into houses and leading captive silly women, laden with sins, etc. Knowing it impossible to furnish proof, you hide behind the miserable subterfuge that you have only time to sound the key of warning. Our challenge still holds good that you cannot point to a single instance.
You think it a shame and a disgrace that Chattanooga is the headquarters for our missionary work in the south, and no doubt if the solid element of this community, as you assert, thought likewise, you would favor and advocate burning us at the stake. However, as you are a newcomer here, I feel that you are excusable, in a measure, for this rash and un-American statement. We know, as well as you, like our Master and the Former Day Saints, we are not popular, and we can also take consolation that in the world's historynon-conformists to popular opinion have always been placed in the selfsame category. For a good many years, over twenty, we have had our headquarters here, and it is strange that, before your advent, the good people of this city did not discover that we were a disgrace and a detriment to this city. During the time we have been located here we have been associated, in a business way, with not a few representative men of Chattanooga, and believe we enjoy their confidence as being honest, paying our bills, etc., and have heard no complaints of any of them missing their wives or daughters, or of any charge being lodged against any of our representatives of conduct unbecoming true ladies or gentlemen. Our expenditures in this city amount to something like $25,000 per year, and I may be excused for mentioning this item, in that you mentioned money on Sunday night in various ways. I wish briefly to explain this, knowing full well your ambition to misjudge and misrepresent us in this, as in other matters. We have laboring in this mission about 500 Elders, sometimes more and sometimes a little less, and in coming here they are called from the plow, the smithy, the work-bench, the machine shop, the counting room, the mine, and the various avocations of life. Some of them leave lucrative position, worth to them, in some instances, one or two thousand dollars per year, or more, while others again are the sons of poor widows and men of humble circumstances financially, but all willing to battle for the Gospel. Now, these men leave their homes, all that is dear to a human, and come among strangers, unto them, a strange land, to preach an unpopular doctrine; to be hated and despised, sometimes brutally treated, because of their convictions, traveling without purse or scrip, and depending upon God to raise up friends to give them a place to sleep and something to eat. These men give their time to the church free of charge, and pay their own expenses, such as clothing, railroad fare, literature, etc., necessary to carry on their work.
When an Elder arrives in this city he is assigned to his field of labor, and remains in the field usually from two to three years; when, in the course of his labors, it is necessary for him to have books, tracts, clothing, and other supplies, he sends here for us to send him these needed articles, while the money to pay for the same, if the Elder is unable to bear the expense himself, is forwarded here by relatives and friends, or in some cases by brothers and sisters in the church at his home. This explains how we dispose of money in this city.
Some of our Elders have been shot to death by mobs, somehave been cruelly beaten, while others have died in the harness of natural causes.
Could you do as these men do for your religion?
Could you stand to be held up to the derision of the world, leave a comfortable home and work without a salary, derided by such men as yourself, and your mother charged with being worse than a harlot; all for the love of the Master's cause?
Some of our Elders now in the field were with the rough riders in the late war with Spain, others were with the Utah batteries in the Philippines, and some of them returned home about the time the call to arms was sounded, in just enough time to discard their Prince Albert coats and don the uniform of Uncle Sam.
Is this disloyalty? Could you do as much for your religion and your country?
We try to mind our own business, and if the good people of this city or any other place do not care to come out and hear me or any other Mormon Elder preach, that is their business. All I ask is fair play and nothing more. Giving the people an opportunity to hear the Gospel is a large part of the mission of a servant of God, and when it has been preached in all the world for a witness, then shall the end come, then will it be said, as it was said once before by our Master, "how oft would I have gathered you, but ye would not." I remember, too, that Jesus said: "Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat; while straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."
Christ also said that people would kill His disciples and think they were doing God's service, and that all who would follow Him must needs suffer persecution. Are you persecuted? Is it right to look for the true Church of Christ in popularity? When a church becomes popular and persecution ceases, one of the promises of our Savior ceases to be fulfilled, for persecution is one of the marks by which we are to know the true church, says the Bible. Don't you think it is time to begin to look for the cause of the trouble? What do you really sacrifice for the cause of the Master?
You misunderstand me when you try to make believe that I claim my arguments are new. They are old, very old, and are the same as those used by Paul and Peter. I hope you will not misrepresent me on that point again. They may not be Christian, in the accepted use of the term today, but,according to Scripture, they were accepted as Christian over 1,800 years ago.
I did not think I hit so hard when I asked for a chance to give my side of the story before your congregation; I have always been taught to hear both sides before passing judgment, and perhaps it might not be amiss to say here that it is somewhat of a custom among my people to loan, as you would put it, preachers of other denominations their churches, congregations, and a choir to sing for them. There would be no objection even to the Rev. Dr. Talmage, so lovingly quoted by you, preaching in our great Tabernacle at Salt Lake City, if he desired to do so, and be furnished with a congregation numbering thousands and a choir of 500 voices to sing for him. I thought your superior (?) Christianity would make you as fair and generous as the despised Mormons, but I see I overestimated you. Our large Tabernacle at Salt Lake City seats from ten to twelve thousand, our organ is second largest in the world, and our choir, as I stated above, consists of 500 voices.
We think our singers are of the best, as they were given the second prize at the world's fair (the first prize being carried off by the famous Welsh singers). No minister of good character has ever been denied a hearing in that building, and among the many who have occupied our famous pulpit I mention the following prominent churchmen, representing various denominations:
Bishop Kingsley, of Ohio. Rev. A. N. Fisher, of Nevada. Dr. Tiffany, of Iowa. Dr. Allen, of Wyoming. Rev. Hiram McKee, of Missouri. Dr. J. H. Vincent, of New York. Gen. Booth, of the Salvation Army, London. Mr. D. L. Moody. Dr. Reiner, of New York.
Bishop Kingsley, of Ohio. Rev. A. N. Fisher, of Nevada. Dr. Tiffany, of Iowa. Dr. Allen, of Wyoming. Rev. Hiram McKee, of Missouri. Dr. J. H. Vincent, of New York. Gen. Booth, of the Salvation Army, London. Mr. D. L. Moody. Dr. Reiner, of New York.
Perhaps these eminent divines would have been refused a hearing had the Mormon people been as narrow and contracted as some of their enemies.
When you advise your congregation not to go to hear us, is it not good proof that you are afraid to have your people find out the truth about us and learn the true nature of our faith?
As expected, you made no effort to expose the principles we teach from reason and the Scripture; you claim it would take a lifetime to expose the errors of Mormonism. Well,now, Brother, don't you think you are a little bit inconsistent? Did you not speak before you thought? Just think what would be accomplished if you could only prove Mormonism to be false. We are informed by our enemies, and they preach it to the people, that the very existence of our government and free institutions is threatened by this Mormon octopus, and often has it been pointed out, by preachers and politicians, that we already control four or five states, almost a sufficient number of senators to give us a balance of power in the United States senate. Then the Rev. T. C. Iliff, and other of our enemies, who are proselyting in Utah, say if it were not for our leaders we would be good people; and that it is our priestcraft that makes us bad; fully admitting that they think we have a soul to save. Don't you think you could afford to try and call us to repentance? Is it not worth the candle? Inasmuch as Dr. Iliff was in this city a few months back, lecturing on Mormonism, soliciting donations, is it not possible that some of Chattanooga's good people gave of their means to be used in converting us "heathens," and no doubt we were considered "worth the candle?" Would it not be well worth a man's life to prove Mormonism false, if it would save the nation from going to pieces and be the means of saving some 300,000 or 400,000 or more souls for Jesus? Ministers all over the country are crying that thousands are being won over to the Mormon faith every year, and would it not be worth the candle to check this mighty stream of human souls, which, as you say, "are going to certain destruction?"
As to Joseph Smith, you rehashed the same old stuff, which I have already answered, but I should have thought you would have remembered to tell the people, in your eagerness to be fair, what such men as Josiah Quincy, George Bancroft, the historian, and other prominent and well known men say. In another column we have taken pains to give a few sayings in our favor from men of undoubted veracity, but as they are not clippings from your style of authors perhaps they will not suit you.
However, they will go to show that there are two sides to this question, as well as every other question.
On the Book of Mormon you manufacture another Spaulding story with a hope of covering your defeat on this point, but we want to say to you here that the manuscript of Oberlin college is the very manuscript of which it was falsely said years ago furnished the inspiration for the Book of Mormon, and as President Fairchild said in his affidavit and accountof the manuscript published in the New York World, the opponents of Mormonism will have to look elsewhere for an explanation of the Book of Mormon.
You admitted to two of our young men who called on you a few days ago, that you had never read anything about us except from our enemies. Solomon says he that judgeth a matter before he heareth it is not wise. How Solomon-like you are.
You felt very badly because I did not break the law, so you could prosecute me for teaching polygamy, didn't you? You remind me of a booby, who, in playing with his big brother, cried out, "Ma, he won't let me hit him." Solomon and David both sinned, we admit, but you took special pains not to tell the audience "when" they transgressed. But then this was necessary in order to keep your "clay brick" logic from going to pieces. Does the fact that God has a body, parts and passions, debar Him from being an intelligent being, omnipresent, etc.? The glory of God is intelligence, and He, being a real live God, and not a nonentity, would His materiality prohibit Him from controlling the intelligences for the just governing of His children and the universe? Let us look at your syllogism. "A brick is made of clay, a man is made of clay, therefore a man is a brick." Now let us construct one from the Bible, taking care to have our premises correct. "All sons are in the image of their fathers, Jesus was a Son, therefore He was in the 'express' image of His Father." Now, Brother Brougher, what was the image of His Father? Jesus had a body of flesh and bones—can you explain or ridicule it away? If the words "God is a spirit" mean that He has neither body, parts or passions, then are we to dispense with our body, parts and passions in order to worship Him in "spirit" and in truth? When you find some quotation in the Bible that suits your idea, you seem to be willing to take the words literally. If the symbolical or figurative parts of the Bible are so plain, why is there such a wide difference of opinion, among the learned even, as to its teachings? I remember that Peter declared that "no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation." I do not mention this by way of belittling your great knowledge of interpretation and for calling me a fool for taking the book literally, but speak of it that the public might know how ignorant and how very little Peter really knew about how to read the Bible.
You say Mark 16: 16 is spurious, to justify yourself in not believing baptism to be essential to salvation, don't you?"Only believe and you shall be saved;" you may just as well say to the farmer, "only believe in planting and your crop will grow." But let us see where your declaration "that this part of the Bible is spurious" leads us. There are other passages of Scripture which say baptism is essential to salvation. Are they also spurious? John 3: 5 reports Jesus saying to Nicodemus, "except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." Matthew says, 3: 13-15, that it was necessary for our Savior to be baptized in order to fulfill all righteousness. Jesus also says, Matt. 28, in giving the Apostles their commissions to go to teach all nations, baptizing them that believe; and Paul also enumerates in Heb. 6 that baptism is a doctrine of Christ. We are told that it was necessary for Paul to be baptized, likewise the jailor, the people at Ephesus, the people at Samaria, the eunuch, and even a man as just as was Cornelius could not escape, and according to St. Luke, "some rejected the counsel of God against themselves, not being baptized." According to the practice generally in vogue, is it not about time for a revision of the Bible, that the offending parts may be cast out? Ought you not to use your potent influence to accomplish this end, as I contended in my former letter? You charge me falsely with misquoting Mark 16: 16, because I placed within the quotation an interpolation in brackets, and if this is misquoting I surely had no intention of doing so. Any school boy would have known that the words in brackets were mine. You say the passage does not mean what my interpolation indicated, but you failed to point out what it did mean. Look at it again, even if it is spurious and of no consequence. The words "belief" and "baptism" are placed on even terms by our Savior, and there is no other conclusion but that the believer must be baptized (unless it is one of your figures of speech). This being true, the unbeliever very naturally would not be baptized and be damned, as Christ says, in consequence of unbelief and nonconformity to this ordinance. Really, brother, over whose "shop" should the sign "All kinds of turning and twisting done here" be placed? I am perfectly willing to leave that to an intelligent public. You entertained your congregation last Sunday evening by relating to them a pretty fable about a jackass, who was in the woods braying. It was nicely related and caused much laughter and mirth; and no one could become offended by a jackass story; therefore, kindly allow me the same privilege, Brother Brougher, as I also have a jackass story.
"Once upon a time" there was a jackass who imagined hewas preaching the same Gospel that was taught many hundreds of years ago; he stood before a large, fashionable congregation of people and started to bray. He opened his mouth and said: "Oh, money, oh, money, thy praises I'll sing; thou art my Savior, my God and my King; 'tis for thee that I preach, 'tis for thee that I pray, and make a collection twice each Sabbath day. Money's my creed, and I won't pray without it, the heavens are closed against those who doubt it This is the essence of popular religion, come regular to church and be plucked like a pigeon. I'll have carriages, horses, servants and all, I'm not going to foot it like Peter and Paul; neither, like John, feed on locusts and honey, so out with your purse and down with your money. I gather my knowledge from wisdom's great tree, and the whole of my trinity is D. D. and C.; dimes, dollars and cents are all that I crave, from the first step on earth to the brink of the grave. In the cold earth I may soon be laid low, to sleep with the just, that have gone long ago; I shall slumber in peace till the great resurrection, and be first on my legs to make a collection." Then he blessed the contribution boxes and the show closed.
Now, dear brother, don't you think that my jackass story equals yours, and contains a better moral? I am sure it is just as funny; so now we are even, on jackass stories, anyhow.
We see how careful the nations of the earth are in throwing their protecting arms around the principle of authority; how careful they are that all representatives acknowledged by them are endowed with proper authority from their respective governments. In this nation of ours no man has the right to initiate a foreigner into the government unless he be endowed with authority, beyond the question of a doubt; the government would undoubtedly punish any man who might read of a commission given to others, and then take the authority unto himself to initiate foreigners into the government of the United States.
We see the same careful protection thrown around the principle of authority throughout the different states of the union; throughout the different counties of the state, and throughout all the different cities of the various counties. All will admit that without this strict attention to authority, there would be no law, no order and no protection. Out of all known governments the great government of God, according to our opinion, is the only one that treats the principle of authority in a careless and reckless manner. Anciently a prophet of God, through the principle of revelation, called Aaron to the ministry; at a later period, an Apostle of JesusChrist said that no man was to take this honor unto himself save he be called of God, as was Aaron. Yet men of our day will read where men were commissioned by Jesus Christ eighteen hundred years ago, with authority to initiate foreigners into the great government of God, and by virtue of that authority, given to others, they take the honor unto themselves; while declaring that the great God has sealed up the system of revelation; and through the heavens, as you say, being as brass above our heads, no man can be called, as was Aaron. In the face of all this, any man purchasing a Bible, which contains that commission once given to others, imagines he is called of God to preach the Gospel; and the result is we are living in a babel of confusion; God says "He is not the author of confusion."
Of course I realize these words of mine will have no weight upon you, but they may be read by some fair-minded, thinking man, who may stop, ponder and investigate.
By innuendo you advocated mob violence in your sermon last Sunday night. Do you think it was becoming to a man who professes to be a representative of the meek and lowly One whose mission was peace on earth and good will to man? In carefully looking over the history of this Mission for a number of years back and noting the number of mobbings to which our Elders have been subjected, and the number is not small, we find by careful comparison that 90 per cent of the mobbings have been led in person or inspired by so-called Christian ministers.
Do you think you were serving God on the Sabbath when you so nearly sanctioned brute force against a people who have never harmed you or any of the good people of Chattanooga? Do you really believe that such a course will make you popular with the liberty-loving and law-abiding population of your new home? Think over the matter carefully and perhaps you will admit you over-reached yourself a little.
You took for your text, "Answer a fool according to his folly." In closing allow me to respectfully present you with the words of our Master, "He who calleth his brother a fool is in danger of hell fire."
Respectfully,
Ben E. Rich.
The Mormon People, Their Industry, Education and Morals—What is Thought of These People by a Non-Mormon of Many Years' Residence Among Them.
Lecture by Charles Ellis, a Non-Mormon.
No cause has so often led to strife as bigotry of religious devotees. In no name has hate so largely gathered harvest of death as in that of God. No prophet ever proclaimed a new word of the Infinite who was not met with abuse. Many of the noblest men who have stood God-tongued on earth have received not only vilification, but martyrdom. Not one of them has escaped the cry of "infidel, atheist, impostor." Even Jesus was crucified as a malefactor. His simple religion of love for God and to man was lost in a cobra-filled jungle of theology. For more than 1800 years Christianity has not been the religion of Christ. The Christianity that boasts of having civilized the world is a mass of dogmatic bran that makes poor bread of life—intellectually a bran-mash for hidebound bigots who send all but a "predestined and foreordained" baker's dozen to eternal torment because they will not take the medicine. It has been itself partially civilized by the natural development of the human mind, but is still much like that "white sepulchre," fair to see, but full of lying dogmas, hypocrisy and sham.
Into this cloaca of pretence, the Mormons say God sent Joseph Smith to destroy its rot with the quicklime of a new revelation from heaven of priesthood, prophecy and providence. The Lord God Omnipotent, so the story runs, came to this youth and informed him that the Gospel of Jesus had been lost to the world through the wickedness of men; that the religions of the present were a sham, that the churches were all wrong, and that the true Gospel would be restored for the salvation of mankind through him.
It is not surprising that Mormonism met with obloquy from its birth. It would have been marvelous had not that obloquy become violence when the "new dispensation" showed adegree of success that roused the fears of the evangelical churches, out of which converts to the new sect were taken. The Mormon missionaries of those early years believed the "fullness of time" had come, and that "the Lord" was speedily to appear, sweep false Christianity from the earth and establish His own kingdom. They believed it their duty to cry aloud, to warn the nations. The boldness of the proclamation that all churches were without recognition in the sight of God, and the only true Gospel was this "new dispensation," was enough to arouse an opposition that has never wholly ceased and is now raging more fiercely than ever. The rapid growth of the new old faith embittered the sects and carried them to the shedding of innocent blood, for many of the early Mormons suffered martyrdom for their faith. Yet the blood of martyrs is still the seed of the church.
It is immaterial here whether Mormonism was born of God or of man. I am not discussing its origin. No matter what its source, it was sure to meet opposition. Had it come with such pomp that the world could have beheld angelic heralds, it would have been denounced as vile. It has been so with the founders of all religions. The prophets are always stoned, The Buddha was accused of consorting with courtesans. Jesus' enemies said harlots were His chosen companions. Mahomet was the called slave of an ambitious mistress. Garrison and Phillips were denounced as infidels and atheists. Joseph Smith was branded a fraud and lecher.
But as time rolls away from the days when an agitator lived, hatred of him is forgotten and he is remembered in the results of his agitation. The Buddha preceded Jesus many centuries and has a following today of 400,000,000. Jesus is buried beneath a mountain of dogma, but 300,000,000 are seeking eternal life in His name. Mahomet came 700 years later and his people number 170,000,000. Only sixty-nine years ago came Joseph Smith, and his following is already half a million. Give Mormonism 1,200 years, as Mohammedanism has had, or 1,900 years, as Christianity has had, and what was said of its founder will be forgotten, but his following may then compare satisfactorily with what the older faiths accomplished.
Had Joseph Smith never declared himself a polygamist he would have been killed. The sects were too fanatical in the wild west to permit so active a rival to exist. Had the Mormons remained east of the Missouri, Brigham Young would have been killed and the church would have been destroyedby wholesale massacre. It was only their isolation among the mountains that saved Mormonism and the Mormons from annihilation. Even that would not have saved them had they not increased so rapidly by conversions and immigration that before their enemies realized their growth they had become too strong to be removed. They have survived the hate that carried off their leader at Nauvoo. They have proved themselves sublime stayers. They have nobly earned the right to the home they have made in "the great American desert," and they are entitled to full liberty of conscience to practice their religion, as well as to the same protection the nation gives to all other churches.
If people must follow some leader in the name of God it makes little difference what his name, when or whence he came, as far as the national government is concerned. As long as his followers are honest, industrious, virtuous and progressive they will advance from existing to better conditions, whether they follow Moses, Jesus, Mahomet, Calvin or Joseph, and our government, guaranteeing rights of conscience to all, cannot dictate what their religion shall be. No matter what Joseph Smith may have been, the people of the United States should not allow themselves to be governed, by what was said against him, in their judgment of the Mormon and Mormonism, as they are now.
If history is reliable many of the popes were steeped in crime, yet we do not condemn the Catholic church of today by that history. Protestantism has done many cruel things in red-handed fanatical rage, but we do not now hold it responsible for crimes of its past. The daily press frequently tells of crimes committed by ministers of the Gospel, but we do not condemn the class for the misdeeds of some of its members. Neither should we condemn the Mormons and Mormonism of today for what their enemies said of them forty, fifty or sixty years ago. Put Joseph Smith down, then, as one of the men who have started new systems of religion, and judge him now by the results of his system, as we judge all others.
Many of the Jews are grand people, notwithstanding some of their leaders ages ago were bad. There are many excellent men and women in the churches, notwithstanding the fact that Christianity has drenched the earth in blood. Mohammedanism has done a great work among its people,notwithstanding all Christendom looks upon its founder as an impostor. Tried thus, what can be said of the Mormons and Mormonism?
It would be manifestly unfair to judge either Mormons or Mormonism by that stormy career which preceded the hegira to Utah. Mormonism had no opportunity to show its merits in a country where its enemies gave it little time to act save in self-defense. It was aggressive in its denunciation of existing churches as ungodly frauds and they attacked it with violence, kept it acting on the defensive, forced it from place to place, and finally drove it out of the United States. Having at last found a spot a thousand miles from a "Christian" and subject only to the possible encroachments of Indian tribes, less barbarous than eastern Christians had been towards them, the Mormons and Mormonism were, for the first time in their history, in a condition to show what the people and their religion were.
When Brigham Young and his band of searchers for the new Holy Land entered the valley of the Great Salt Lake there was no white man there to give them a welcome, and therefore no alleged Christian present to disturb their hope. They had traveled far and fared hard. As they emerged from a rugged canyon the magnificent valley before them was the most inviting spot they had seen, and the leader chose it at once as their future home. Along the mountain streams, that ran gurgling through the valley to lose themselves in the saltest sea upon the earth, there was pasturage for the cattle, but for the men, exiles from so-called Christian civilization, there was nothing save an opportunity to gird their loins, forget their hunger and compel the stubborn glebe to yield them food.
When the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth Bay they met such a welcome of dreary desolation as the Mormons received in the Salt Lake Valley. As the Pilgrims crossed the Atlantic to find a land where they could practice their religion, so had the Mormons crossed the plains of the continent. But they must live. In all this wide mountain land no furrow had been turned. It was mid-summer and the wanderers had little to carry them through the approaching winter. They must close with the opportunity and stake all on the hazard. They put in crops and the seed baked in the hot earth or the frostcame before anything could mature. They made huts to shelter themselves against the winter, built a wall to guard against Indian attacks (or was it the Christians they had fled from at Nauvoo) and pulled through until spring came, and then they went out upon the foothills and dug the roots of the sago lily for food. They planted and watered and saw their seed spring and saw crickets come down upon the green spots, like Missouri and Illinois Christians, and devour their hope. They fought crickets, made irrigating ditches, cleared off sage, increased their fields, smothered grasshoppers, praised the Lord and grew until, in five years, the valley had become a hive of busy human bees, not a drone among them all, and hundreds of baby bees crawling about the open doors of humble homes in which patient, plodding, hopeful, prayerful women were the grandest heroes of all. But the people crowded in so rapidly that for a dozen years or more all were harassed by hard want. Luxuries there were none. It was one long, ceaseless struggle to live. Women who came then as little girls have pictured to me the cheerless years of their young lives here when all were poor.
What sustained those people in that long ordeal? Faith, the strongest power in all the world. Their religion was an enthusiasm. To them "God" was a living presence. He had "called" them. He had led them forth from persecution. He would remain their friend and they must succeed. Without that faith they would never have come—having it they could not fail. But to my mind a very important adjunct was the pluck that has made the white race superior to obstacles and the master spirits of the world. When we consider what the Mormons underwent to achieve success here their constancy and heroism deserve sublimest commendation, and they who will not concede this because the Mormons will not send them to congress or subscribe their creeds are not true Americans—have never known the meaning and the glory of our "religious freedom."
We honor the Pilgrims for their heroism in crossing the ocean and founding a home in the forest of the new world. Why? Not because of their religion. They were bigots and sometimes murderers. They tortured, killed, or banished men and women who would not accept their theology. We may despise their religion, but we must honor their courage and be thankful for their success. Without them we neverwould have had our government, the light of the world and the hope of mankind. But their base of supplies in Europe was nearer to them, more accessible, than were the stores from which the early Mormons could draw. The Pilgrims had means; the Mormons had none. When driven from Nauvoo many of them were so destitute that agents were sent through the east soliciting aid to save the people from starvation, and one of these agents was Lorenzo Snow, now President of the Mormon Church. Hundreds of the famished refugees died, in 1846, along the malaria-poisoned bottoms of the Missouri river.
From robbery, murder and exile in Missouri and Illinois to success and independence in Utah, the history of the Mormons is a record of privation, hardship and endurance unequalled since the days of the Moors in Spain, the Huguenots in France, and the Protestants in Holland, when murder sought to exterminate all heresy in the name of the Catholic church for the glory of God. It was the same spirit in the Protestant heart that sought the destruction of Mormonism. But no religion can be wholly bad or lacking in points of great merit that could produce the magnificent results that have sprung from the Mormon occupation of Utah.
Briefly, now, let us see what the Mormons did in Utah through the years when they were nearly the entire population and while the industries and the progress were almost wholly their own.
In 1880, thirty-two years after the arrival of the Mormons in Utah, they had 9,452 farms, the average size being twenty-seven acres. The population of the territory was then 143,963, of which 115,000 were Mormons, 99 per cent of whom were living in homes of their own. To bring this land into productive farms there had to be done an inconceivable amount of work that was not directly productive. The land was covered with sagebrush and other wild shrubs and grasses that made it as hard to clear as swamp land in the east. In addition to clearing the land it had to be lined with ditches to carry water to the growing crops. On those 9,452 farms there were several thousand miles of ditching. All of this work was dead capital. It was the "plant" of the farmers and was put in solely by the toil of a people who never knew when it was "sundown." But it was done and the farms were yielding great crops of small grain, corn, potatoes—all thevegetables of garden and field, and the fruits—apples, pears, plums, apricots, peaches, grapes, berries—everything that the climate would sustain. Live stock had risen from zero to millions in the shade of the mountain. There were herds of sheep, cattle and horses, and the great American lard producer was not wanting. Home manufactories were prosperous at several points. Stores were in evidence everywhere. "Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution" was the center of a magnificent trade at Salt Lake, extending throughout the territory. Temples had been built or were under construction at four points in the territory. Meeting houses had been erected in every direction. Academies were being started in Salt Lake, Logan and Provo. The people were united and persistent in their determination to succeed, and under the guiding will of Brigham Young this most remarkable effort of colonization had been quietly carried forward in spite of the continual harassment of the people by government officials, goaded by the anti-Mormon ministers of the east. In thirty-two years the exiled Mormons had become too strong to be despoiled again, and all that time this alleged destroyer of the American home, polygamy, was being practiced, and thousands of the most intelligent, honest, virtuous and industrious men and women of the state today were the offspring of such marriage relations. Why do not the Mormon haters of today attempt to destroy the force of this fact? Because they know that they would fail.
A common charge against the Mormons for years, and revived now, was that they were ignorant, illiterate and had no use for schools save to teach their theological dogmas. But in 1870, only twenty-three years after the first Mormon immigration, the percentage of school attendance in Utah was higher than in Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts. In 1881 the school population of Utah, from 6 to 18 years of age, was 43,353 and the average daily attendance was 44 per cent. There were then 395 schools in Utah. In 1888 the commissioner of schools, a government official, reports 344 school districts and 460 public schools in Utah. The school population was 54,943, of which 47,371 were Mormons. The number of scholars enrolled was 32,988, of which 30,721 were Mormons. The value of district school property was $542,755, and the amount paid for teachers in the public schools for the year ending June 30, 1888, was $293,085. Yet theanti-Mormon still screeches his old cry that those were Mormon schools.
Let us see. The school commissioner referred to was not only a United States official, but he was also a non-Mormon. Yet he reported that the 460 public schools of Utah were "non-sectarian." Then he enumerated eighty-nine denominational schools, of which only four were Mormon. The text books used in the schools, a list of which was given, set at rest the charge that Mormons were opposed to education; and the average of education of those who were trained in them is proof that they were not theological schools. According to the United States census for 1880 the percentage of persons in Utah of 10 years and upward who could not read was five. In Rhode Island at the same time it was seven, and in the United States at large thirteen. The average illiteracy in Mormon Utah, thirty-two years after its settlement by people absolutely without means and obliged to toil early and late to find a mere subsistence, was less than in twenty states and territories in the union.
The growth of schools in Utah is full of evidence that the Mormons were the friends of education. Remember that for years there was no money in Utah, yet the people built houses in which they lived, as well as hundreds of meeting houses. The first meeting houses were "boweries"—posts set in the ground, a flat roof of poles shingled with bushes cut in foliage. I have seen several of these old places of worship. But as soon as practicable every ecclesiastical "ward" had its "dobe" meeting house, which was also school house. But "Utah's best crop" would soon overflow any ordinary Mormon meeting house and more school room would become necessary. On Sunday the bishops of a ward would say:
"My brothers and sisters, we need more school room in this ward. What will you do to provide it?"
"I will give a team ten days."
"I will give a thousand 'dobes.'"
"I will give two weeks' work."
"I will give twenty bushels of wheat."
Thus it would go, and the school room would come as a labor of love and without the passing of a dollar. Today there are no people in the nation so eager to learn as are many of the young Mormons whom I have met in my travels about Utah. The State University, the public schools, all schools are full. The Mormon Church has its special schools, as other sects have in Utah, and their theology has its place in the studies, but the Mormons have no desire to introduceMormon theology into the public schools and are opposed to the introduction of any other theology, as of course they should be.
In 1876 there were thirteen counties in Utah without saloon, brewery, gambling house, brothel, lawyer, doctor, beggar, parson or politician, and the population was exclusively Mormon.
In the winter of 1881-2 there were fifty-one prisoners in the Utah penitentiary. Only five were Mormons, and yet the Mormon population of the territory exceeded that of the anti-Mormon 500 per cent. From 1877 to 1882 the jail of Salt Lake county received only three Mormons. In 1881 there were 1,020 arrests in Salt Lake City, of which 103 were Mormon men and boys and six Mormon women; 657 non-Mormon men and 194 non-Mormon women. In 1882 the number of arrests in the same city was 1,561, of which 188 were Mormons and 1,373 non-Mormons. In that year there were sixty-six barrooms in the city, and sixty of them were kept by non-Mormons. There were fifteen billiard and bowling rooms and seven gambling houses, all kept by non-Mormons.
The above, as well as the following statistics, are taken from "The Palantic," published by A. M. Musser from the Utah penitentiary records for the year ending June 30, 1884. Mr. Musser showed that, with the population of Utah 83 per cent Mormon and the non-Mormon population only 17 per cent, there were thirteen Mormon and seventy-eight non-Mormon prisoners—a difference of 600 per cent in favor of the Mormons. Add to this the difference in percentage of population, and we have over 1,000 to one in favor of Mormon morality as compared with that of the non-Mormon population of that period.
It should be understood that the above statement is not intended to characterize the whole non-Mormon population. All through the Utah years there have been non-Mormons here who were the most exemplary people. They came in to stay, to engage in business, to make homes. They have never engaged in the local disputes. They have never been anti-Mormons. Because they would not join the raid against the people they were for years sneered at as "jack-Mormons." The criminal element referred to in these statistics as "non-Mormons," it is safe to say, should have been put down as "anti-Mormons."
When the first edition of this pamphlet was issued theanti-Mormon paper of the city and several anti-Mormon parsons of Utah and Canada undertook to answer these statistics by claiming that the Mormons referred to were all "Latter-day Saints," while none of the "non-Mormons" were "Christians." For answer I will say that the record shows that of the seventy-eight "non-Mormons" in the Utah penitentiary and referred to above, forty-five were members of Christian churches. To show that this class of Utah non-Mormons were not worse than Christians generally, I refer to statistics furnished the Deseret News recently by Ephraim Ainsworth.
In 1889 Ohio had 942 convicts in penitentiary—826 of them belonged to Christian churches. In 1893 Canada had 11,810 convicts—Catholics, 4,395; Church of England, 3,621; Methodists, 1,624; Presbyterians, 1,495; other sects, 698; Atheists, none. In 1896 the Kansas penitentiary had 343 Methodists, 41 Presbyterians, 61 Campbellites, other sects 12. In 1896 the Michigan state reformatory had as inmates 226 Methodists, 84 Baptists, 31 Episcopalians, 28 Congregationalists, 18 United Brethren, 229 Catholics, 65 Presbyterians. From the Tennessee state prison, no date given, is reported 873 convicts—870 Christians and three who would not state their religion. Thirty years ago a Unitarian minister named Hatch made a careful investigation of criminal statistics of the United States and Territories and published the statement that 7 per cent of male convicts in the penitentiaries of the country were ministers. Utah has had her full share of them in the last thirty years, though she has kindly permitted them to run away, making no attempt to capture them, save in the case of a parson who killed his victim, cut her body up and attempted to burn it. A reward was offered for him, but he is probably sending heretics to hell yet for Christ's sake. It is said "there are none righteous, no, not one;" that is, we all "live in glass houses" perhaps.
If the faces of children are an index to the morals and self-control of parents, many Mormons have only to point to their offspring to prove their own general purity. Indeed, it would be difficult to find finer types of manhood and womanhood that are to be seen among the Mormons, and this applies as well to polygamous as to monogamous offspring.
Right here, at the risk of being misunderstood, I want to say a word about Mormon polygamy. It was not established for the gratification of "lust," as has been so often averred, but was, I think, a conscientious effort to improve humanity by stirpiculture. It was the only considerable effort ever somade among civilized people. I think it would have been better to have given it a scientific instead of a theological basis. In the country at large monogamous marriage has long been degenerating. With its degradation society must sink to conditions that must eventually, if not arrested, destroy our civilization. Religion may insure humanity against fabled fire after death, but it cannot breed out defects of will and taints of blood. Nobility of person, life, character is born, not made by creeds. Humanity can never be Godlike or fit for "the kingdom" until it is bred up from its sometimes lower than "beastly" level. Mormon polygamy was the beginning of such an effort. It has been killed by ignorant prejudice. But soon or late the world will see the infinite need of wisdom and science in the production and development of children, and then it will be understood that the marriage system must be reconstructed. Mormon polygamy was not the "beastly" thing a nation of adulterers called it. It grew out of the belief that life is eternal, that there can be no marrying in the future life; that women not married here can never marry, but must be the servants of those who were married on earth for all time here and hereafter. It grew out of the belief that woman gains her "exaltation" in the kingdom with her husband, and he in part through the excellence of his family. It was the Mormon women who wanted polygamy. But no woman would enter that relation through "lust." She could only enter it by conquering her passions, and in doing that she prepared herself to become a divine mother. It is only when women can learn to do this and compel men to respect their rights in gestation, as all other female mammals do their mates, that mankind can be saved from—itself. I am not advocating Mormon polygamy, but the physical improvement of humanity as the natural and also the scientific basis of mental and moral improvement. Sometime this great truth will receive the recognition denied it now.
I come back now and say that, taking polygamy and all into careful consideration, the morals of the Mormon people have always been as good as the best in the nation, and through the thirty-two years when the population of Utah was almost wholly Mormon and "this people" had not come under the influence of those who wanted saloons, brothels and dance halls opened to tempt young Mormons, their morals were infinitely superior to anything to be found in the rag-tag-and-bobtail element that for years existed on thewestern frontier and found in Utah the only oasis of the mountains.
Had the Mormons been Methodists the praises sung over their success in Utah would have been heard around the world. But if they had been Methodists they would not have been driven out of the United States. Had they been bogus Christians they would have been too busy sending other people to hell to have ever thought of colonizing on a barren desert 1,000 miles from heretics. The sublime industry and heroic achievements of the Mormons among the mountains of the west have been studiously ignored and viciously misrepresented, not because of any real or suspected immorality or menace to "the American home," but simply and solely because they were heretics to other sects. Anti-Mormonism never did and does not now care for polygamy—it hates the Mormon Church. A mean, whiskey-guzzling government official in Utah once said to me: "Damn 'em, all 'e rights 'e Morm's hez is t' pay taxes! 'Fthey don' like that I'm gitout!" That was for years the anti-Mormon spirit in Salt Lake City. The struggle was to get control and tax the Mormons out. That, too, was done largely. That is, many of the poorer Mormons were forced to leave their homes in the city on account of increased taxation levied by anti-Mormon officials. That old spirit is now revived by this new crusade, not because of polygamy but because the Mormons were compelled to take the power to levy taxes out of the hands of their enemies.
A popular impression has been craftily created by the anti-Mormons of Utah that its priesthood and polygamy are the cause of all hostility to Mormonism. The shallowness of the pretense is easily seen when you consider that the most vicious of anti-Mormons accept the Bible as the infallible word and will of God. Yet the Bible teaches priesthood and polygamy. Hence priesthood and polygamy cannot be the secret of anti-Mormonism. The Protestants have been trying for a century to get God into our national constitution and to make Jesus Christ the ruler of the nation. Catholics and Protestants outnumber Mormons a thousand to one. As long as they believe in theocracy they cannot quarrel with the Mormons for holding the same belief. But if they were afraid the Mormons might get into the kingdom ahead of them they would become jealous, and jealousy is the womb of hate. The evangelical churches fought Mormonism from its appearance, not because of polygamy and priesthood, for there was neitherpriesthood nor polygamy in it then, but because it was a more enticing faith than their own. Mormonism was running smoothly and growing rapidly without original sin, total depravity and eternal torment as its steady theological diet. Therefore, it was infidelity. Therefore, it must be destroyed. Advocates of the undying worm, the lake of fire and the endless roast drove the Mormons out of the United States. When they made the Utah desert a prosperous land, adventurers crowded in to make speculation and riot among them, but found them united against invaders. That was put down against them. Yet a people driven into exile five times would be idiotic not to unite for their own protection, and, as soon as possible, prepare themselves to refuse to be driven again. When their old enemies learned what advancement the Mormons had made in Utah they came to send them to perdition again, but it was too late. Then they raised the outcry against polygamy. That brought in the aid of congress, the destruction of the incorporated church and the confiscation of church property, but did not crush Mormonism. A thousand polygamists went to the penitentiary, and still Mormonism would not collapse. The Mormons did not hanker after salvation from a hot spell in another life. They were too busy. They had hell enough here. There was no brimstone in their conception of the hereafter. A few might falter, but the mass stood by their faith, submitted as best they could to the insolence of their enemies, waiting upon the Lord to rescue them. Then came the scheme to disfranchise them. Disfranchisement was the culmination of forty years of effort to conquer the Mormons. If this calamity should fall the people would be at the mercy of unscrupulous legislators who would practice the sentiment of him who said all the rights the Mormons had were to "pay taxes" or "git out." Before this danger the leader yielded and declared that to save the people from ruin he would take no more plural wives (he was then about 90) himself and would advise his people to do likewise. That was in September, 1800. Two weeks later the church, in conference, accepted the advice of its president that polygamous marriages should cease.
Then it was seen that the Mormons would not abandon their homes—that their persecutors should not grow rich upon property the fleeing Saints must sacrifice. They had conquered by yielding, and there was no other scheme to be sprung upon them. Those who hoped to crush Mormonism were forced to accept the situation. The old political statusdisappeared and Mormons and Gentiles came together as democrats or republicans, each party seeking to gain control of available public offices. Men who had for years studied how they might throw increased difficulties upon the Mormons were tumbling over each other in their eagerness to reach the Mormon leaders, to profess their profound esteem and to make known their willingness to aid the Latter Day Saints by accepting office at their hands. The new love was touching, but it was sincere? We shall see. The Mormons were rejoiced to find at last an atmosphere of at least seeming peace about them, and gladly gave their old enemies the offices they desired. The offices secured, the men who were going to "boom Utah" proceeded to a recklessness of "improvement" that increased public debt and taxes to an alarming degree. The Mormons disliked to protest; they could not "grin," so they bore it with long, sober faces. Then statehood was secured and the Mormons began to elect their own more cautious men. The new lovers, chiefly office seekers, scented defeat. The old snarl appeared. Startled politicians appealed to willing ministers who needed funds sadly—and the old outcry against the Mormons and polygamy was revived in 1898.
What basis is there for this renewed fight against the Mormons? When Wilford Woodruff declared that he would advise the people to cease plural marriages, and when his advice was accepted by vote of the church, there were men living in Utah who were already in polygamy. Most of them were old men, but there were young and middle-aged men who had more than one wife. All through the government fight against polygamy these men had lived with their wives as far as they could in secrecy. Would they be likely to abandon their wives when peace had been received?
To the Mormons, marriage is one of the most sacred of their ordinances. It is solemnized by a priest in the name of God. It is "sealed" in heaven also and is to continue forever. The true Mormon cannot ignore the claims of his plural wife without being false to his vows and his God. No manifesto of Wilford Woodruff, no vote of conference, could annul a plural marriage or engage that any Mormon should cease to care for his plural wives. This fact was as well known by every non-Mormon in Utah in 1890 as it is today. It was understood by every gentile politician, by everyrepresentative of the government, by every minister in Utah, that polygamists had been all along secretly living with their polygamous wives. All knew that this would continue, yet all agreed that no further notice should be taken of the matter and polygamy should be left to die its natural death. That understanding reached, no further effort was made to arrest "cohabs." Polygamists lived openly with their wives and, as was expected, children were here and there born—in one instance, at least, we have heard of "twins." So matters stood from the close of 1890 for seven years. In 1897 we had a semi-centennial celebration of the arrival of the pioneer Mormons. In that "jubilee" Mormons and non-Mormons all joined heartily, including the ministers who have since become rabid anti-Mormons; including also the editor of the anti-Mormon paper who was so harmonious then that he delivered an address when the Brigham Young statue was unveiled, who was so inspired by the holy ghost or some other spirit (he is more familiar with other spirits) as to declare in his paper that the Mormons had founded the "new civilization." Yet at that very moment he and all non-Mormons in Utah knew that those who were in polygamy when "the manifesto" was issued, in 1890, had been living openly with their wives for seven years and that children were being born in some of the families. No objection was made, I repeat, until the Mormons, to stay the increase of public debt, began to fill important public offices with prudent men of their faith. There is no evidence that the church had anything to do with this. It was the work of men who owned property, and were anxious to protect it. That this is true is seen in subsequent political action. A majority of the Mormons are democrats. The democrats were rapidly getting control of the state. In the municipal election of Salt Lake last November the republicans elected their ticket over a known democratic majority of voters. Why? Because the republicans ran their canvass on the line of the anti-Mormon elections of a decade ago—the gentile democrat voted the republican ticket. That is, while the Mormons have kept the compact made when the people divided on national party lines, in 1891, the others have largely broken it and we have now the democratic and republican parties with the republican party working as an anti-Mormon party largely. The excitement in Washington over the fact that the republican Utah postmasters at Provo and Logan have been all along in the same boat with democratic Roberts is amusing because of the frantic efforts of men to show that they did not know that those men wereold polygamists and had been living with their wives since the "manifesto" of 1890. Of course they knew it. No man could have lived in Utah since 1890 without knowing it. From 1890 until statehood came United States district attorney and marshal for Utah knew it, and yet so generally was it understood that the old condition was to be left to die of old age that those officers made almost no effort to disturb "cohabs." The postmasters in Provo and Logan were chosen because they were influential republicans, and their wives did not count—then. The anxiety over them now is that this excitement will defeat the hope of the republicans to carry Utah in 1900, and when this whole matter is analyzed it is found that the anti-Mormon agitators of Utah, with one exception, are republicans, and the exception is a democrat who, having most earnestly defended the Mormons ten years, was not recognized by them when they were distributing political offices. The Catholics in Utah are democrats and they have taken no part in this crusade. But the evangelical ministers and sects are republicans. The ministers have worked hard for 25 years to "save" the Mormons and yet have never "saved" one who was in good standing in his own church. When polygamy was given up, eastern interests in Utah missions fell, funds went low and the wolf was howling in the back yard. The politicians who had lived for years on salaries as government officers or later in state or city offices were in the same "fix"—they had to raise hell or starve—they did the first and, if I am not much mistaken, will do the second also or—"git out."
To make clear the subsequent action of the chief factor in the new crusade it is necessary to call attention to what is known as "the amnesty." By act of congress polygamous Mormons were disfranchised. When peace was declared these men wanted their disability removed. A well-meaning but not sagacious Mormon took it upon himself to secure that result. He went for advice to the man who had tried for years to obtain the disfranchisement of all Mormons. That person seems to have expected such a visit. He advised a petition to the President of the United States for amnesty. The unsuspecting Mormon swallowed the hook and asked his adviser to write such a petition. It was, perhaps, already written. The adviser, swearing he would never consent, consented and the petition was produced. It was carried at once to President Woodruff, lying sick at home. The sick man, unable to evenread the petition, signed it. With his name attached it was taken to the Apostles and all signed. The petition went to Washington, and, after much unavoidable delay, was granted. But the course of the writer of the petition, in the new crusade, his continual use of his petition against the Mormons, might possibly be taken as evidence that he was shrewdly forging a weapon that he might use against his quondam friends if his love for them should grow cold, or if his ambition were not satisfied. That is, it was well known here that when statehood should come to Utah The-man-who-wrote-the-petition would be a candidate in the first state legislature for the office of United States senator. It was necessary, therefore, to have a republican legislature. To that end the writer of the petition exerted himself to defeat the democratic party in the election of 1895. The democrats were frothing over a suspicion that prominent Mormon church officials were secretly aiding the republicans. Democrats were crying bad faith on the part of the church. The-man-who-wrote-the-petition defended the church officers and charged the democrats with intent "to give Utah a black eye;" with a desire "to keep immigrants from coming here;" with "the awakening of unworthy suspicions against us all;" with trying "to alarm the country;" with committing "an outrage." A few days before election, in 1895, The-man-who-wrote-the-petition, the man who, for more than a year, has found nothing too scurrilous to publish against the Mormons, the man who expected to be elected to the senate in January, 1896, said:
"There is not a man, woman or child in Utah who for one moment thinks there is any agreement or thought of restoring polygamy, or that it could be possible even if such a thought was in the mind of a few bigots."—Salt Lake Tribune, October 19, 1895.
"There is going to be no revival of polygamy; there is going to be no return to church rule." (The same, Oct. 22, 1895.)
The legislature was republican, but The-man-who-wrote-the-petition was "not in it." In the race for senatorship he was shut out in first heat. That straw of ingratitude broke the candidate's editorial back and he seems to have waited for an opportunity to use his petition. The Deseret News says he was paid for it at the time it was written, or, perhaps, concocted, but the action of the legislature was a deadly frost and the bloom of his young love for the Mormon church was killed.
In 1897, the Mormons, aided and abetted by many of the most influential non-Mormons, made a non-partisan effort to secure much needed municipal reforms. The movement was largely successful, but was hotly denounced by the office seekers of the republican and democratic parties as a "trick" of the church to restore political control over its people. In Salt Lake City the feeling was bitter and an attempt was made to resurrect the anti-Mormon "liberal" party. Failing in that, the excited politicians appealed to the clergy. A Presbyterian paper in Salt Lake began the publication of sundry articles running back into early Mormon literature, culling the crudities, slips and discrepancies to be found therein and using them to condemn the Mormons and Mormonism of today—a course that would be paralleled by attacking the Presbyterians of the present with the fanaticism, folly and worse of "no papacy" days. This publication was scattered over the country and started up the smouldering non-Mormon fire. The smoke encouraged the clergy in Utah to believe that there actually might be something in their sensational talk about polygamy. Then they got together in the summer of 1898 and adopted a series of resolutions declaring that plural marriages are still being contracted, that the Mormons control the state, injure the public schools, and that old Mormon Utah is on deck again. A few weeks later came the state democratic convention to nominate candidates and B. H. Roberts was nominated for congress. He was one of the men who were in polygamy when plural marriage was stopped. From the day of Roberts' nomination the writer of that petition found his opportunity and from then until now has not ceased to vilify the Mormons. He insisted that the election of Roberts would create a storm and then created it himself—a very common trick of false prophets. He revelled in his petition. That is, he sprung the trap he himself had set. I think he was trying to force the Mormon church to declare for the election of the republican ticket, for there was to be another election of a senator in 1899.
In addition to his use of the petition he reprinted the testimony of President Woodruff before a Master of Chancery and tried to prove that the manifesto of 1890 prohibited cohabitation among those then in polygamy. He knew that the president of the church could not annul a marriage. He knew that the hearing was held preliminary to a decree restoring whatremained of the escheated church property. He knew that property was worth millions of dollars and the church needed it. There was not an attorney engaged in that hearing who did not want the church to get back its property. There was not a non-Mormon in Utah then mean enough to wish that the church might not get it. But there must be a record to the effect that polygamy had been given up. So President Woodruff consented to say that he included "cohabs" in his manifesto. At that time the editor of the Salt Lake Tribune was friendly, as I have shown, and although it now seeks to brand President Woodruff as a liar it said then that the manifesto "went only to the point of plural marriages," and added "we believe that the rule laid down has been as sacredly kept by this people as it would have been done by any other people; that the Mormons and Gentiles have a right to say that the change amounts to a transfiguration." The measureless infamy of the disappointed office seeker now seeking to pile odium upon the honored dead will be a fitting monument to his malodorous memory in Utah for years to come; and if our good old friend did stretch the truth to save that property it was a lie like that of Hugo's nun, the recording angel dropped a tear upon the slate and rubbed it out.
All this insanity of excitement through the country over alleged polygamous marriages has been created by a few men who are now laughing over their success in fooling the people. They have hunted these mountain states over—have imported special aid from New York—have declared that plural marriages are being contracted, and yet have not been able to find one case. Defeated in that they have arrested several men for "unlawful cohabitation" and advertised that as proof of polygamous marriages.
Avowing, with maledictions upon it, that polygamy is the "twin-relic of barbarism" and must die, they yet will not let it die, but drag it from its senile sleep, enhorse and caparison it like a waxen image of some old Catholic saint and lead it in triumphal procession through the land to excite the clamor of women gone hysterical through brooding in nightly loneliness over the clandestine amours of their monogamous husbands with other women more charming than themselves!
If polygamy were permitted to die a natural death the evangelical churches would lose their last foothold against the rising tide of Mormonism. It is not polygamy that disturbs them, but the steady growth of the Mormon church. Right or wrong, there is a current running to the Mormon church withincreasing volume and velocity. The Mormon church and faith have been a boon to hundreds of thousands as poor as were those who heard Jesus gladly. It is today nearer to being a successful effort to inaugurate the Brotherhood of Man than anything ever tried.
I want to say that what is here presented does not err from truth and was not written with either knowledge or consent of any member of the Mormon church. It stands upon my personal knowledge. I am not a member of any church, and view all sects philosophically. I cannot perceive that any religion has been of divine origin, in the theological sense of the terms. To my mind they are all human, very human, in their origin. But, conceding to all the rights of intellectual liberty I claim for myself, I question not the right of the people to any religion that satisfies them. In so far as creeds and dogmas impose upon credulity, I claim the right to protest. Thus I have long protested against Calvanism in all its varieties as a wholly unjustifiable cruelty forced upon humanity through its ignorance and fear. I gladly admit that theology, like everything else, is subject to the progressive influence of the ages, and realize that the God of Calvin is not as mean as he was 400 years ago—has been much improved in the last 100 years under our free government and public education. I cheerfully concede that all theologians mean to be honest in the dogmas they create, and I believe that all churches sincerely endeavor to hold their people to defined standards of moral life. But I lay this against them—that they would have men and women practice moral living, not for itself, but to secure a definite reward after we have ceased to live here, a reward called "salvation" from threatened ills and horrors that exist only in the excited imagination of ignorance and superstition. It is childish—it is the mother bribing her boy with bread and jam, or frightening him with threats of "the bad man."
You see, then, that I am one of that class of persons called by all the professors of all the thousand and one varieties of so-called Christianity "an infidel." It is the easiest thing in the world to call people by opprobrious names, as the history of these unpopular Mormons makes manifest. In fact, no new thought appears that is not infidelity to some older one—no new issue that is not maligned by the satisfied believer in some old one. The term "infidel," as applied to persons who think for themselves, do their own business with the Infinite, anddecline proffered rewards based on fear of God, is one of merit rather than reproach. Jesus was the great infidel of his time—crucified for truth derided by the prevailing orthodoxy of his day.