In the year 1903, Mr. L. C. Bateman, one of the editors of the "Lewiston (Maine) Journal" visited Salt Lake City and other parts of Utah. He formed a favorable impression of the Mormon people, and their progress in all that makes for civilization. The result of his observations while in Utah Mr. Bateman published in his paper, the "Lewiston (Maine) Journal." This article attracted the attention of the Deseret News, which made some favorable comment upon its general fairness. Observing this, a non-Mormon resident of Salt Lake City wrote the "Journal," protesting against the letter published by its editorial staff correspondent, saying that such treatment of the "Mormon question" was harmful in that it gave encouragement to Mormonism. The communication of "M" was sent to this writer—who met Mr. Bateman, during his visit to Utah—with the request that he make answer to it, which he did under the title "A Brief Defense of the Mormon People," which was published in the "Journal." Of the success of this answer Mr. Bateman, the editor of the "Journal," wrote as follows:
LEWISTON, MAINE, Oct. 4, 1903.
My Dear Mr. Roberts:
Permit me to congratulate you on the magnificent and overwhelming reply that you made to my critic "M." from Salt Lake. It is one of the finest and most crushing things that we have printed for years. I could easily have replied to "M" myself, and made him an object of ridicule, but I thought it would be better to have the reply come from a Mormon. My original article neither endorsed nor condemned. I merely told facts and the truth as I saw them. And I personally am an agnostic. It is only from that class that you can get justice.
This article of yours will create a profound impression all over New England. It is so complete and conclusive that I anticipate nothing more from the "jaundiced" "M." I send you copy of Journal.
Yours cordially,
L. C. BATEMAN.
To Editors of the Lewiston Journal:
The Deseret News of Salt Lake City, which is the official organ of the Mormon priesthood, in its issue of Aug. 6th, contains an editorial expressing its great satisfaction over the recent eulogistic article in the Journal, on the merits of the Mormons and their peculiar system, by the Journal's representative, Mr. L. C. Bateman.
Having lived in Utah for over twenty-five years, striving with other law-abiding citizens to establish here the same American ideas which are accepted as fundamental in the other states of the Union, I have had ample opportunity to study the Mormon system and its fruits. And I am prepared to say that, while I have never had anything but the utmost good will for the masses of the Mormon people, I am forced to join with other careful students in declaring that from a social, civil, and moral standpoint, no language is strong enough to set forth the evil fruits of the Mormon system.
Based on polygamy, how could the system be otherwise than rotten? Its central idea of government being that of priesthood rule, how could it be otherwise than anti-American? Having been founded and organized by a man as corrupt and immoral as the multiplied testimony of Joseph Smith's acquaintances and neighbors proves that he was, how could it be otherwise than mischievous and immoral in its tendencies and results? On the part of loyal Americans who have studied the Mormon system here on the ground for years, there is no difference of opinion about the inherent badness of the system and of its fruits, although many, unduly influenced by what they consider business policy, are reluctant to say much about it.
Some fifteen years ago, Mr. James Barclay, a member of the English Parliament, spent three days in Salt Lake City studying Mormonism. He surrendered himself to the control of the Mormon leaders. He was dined at the Amelia Palace, at that time the residence of the Mormon president, and attended other receptions in his honor at prominent Mormon residences. He saw everything through Mormon spectacles. When he went back to London, he published in the popular Nineteenth Century Magazine, a most glowing eulogy of the Mormon system. The Mormon leaders had been so successful with their hospitality scheme, that the Hon. Mr. Barclay had nothing but praise for those who were pushing forward their law-defying system of polygamy and nothing but condemnation for those who were trying to enforce the righteous laws of the land against it.
The Journal's representative seems to have seen things much as the Hon. Mr. Barclay. However, that may be, the Mormons have palmed off upon him, as they did on Mr. Barclay, those old yarns about their changing the barren desert of this valley into a blooming garden, and about "the persecutions" from which they have suffered in Utah. The first of these old chestnuts was laid on the shelf years ago here in the west, because there is no truth in it. There never was any barren desert in this valley, for it has always been one of the best-watered, most easily cultivated and productive valleys west of the Mississippi. The Mormons raised bountiful crops of grain the very first year of their arrival. The difficulty of securing a crop here in this fertile valley with its mild and equable climate, was very small in comparison with the difficulties encountered by the first settlers of New England along the bleak Atlantic shore. Furthermore, what a mercy it would have been to our whole country if Utah had remained unsettled for another twenty-five years, if then it could have been occupied by law-abiding Americans in sympathy with American civilization, such men as have built up the noble states of Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas.
The Journal's representative says: "But even here they were not safe from the persecutions of their enemies." That fictitious yarn has been worked off on many a foreigner. But we did not suppose it possible to catch an American newspaperman with such a bare hook as that. The Mormons had this territory almost exclusively to themselves for about twenty-five years, and did practically as they pleased from 1847 until 1882, when the first Edmunds Law called them to a halt. The terrible "persecutions" complained of consist simply in this and nothing more, namely, that the Mormons were asked, and after some thirty-five years were required, to obey just the same laws which all other people and other religious bodies have always obeyed in this country. But the Mormon leaders have left nothing undone to make the people under them believe, and all outsiders whom they could influence, that the enforcement of these righteous laws which are obeyed by the American people generally, was "persecution."
But here is another paragraph from the article under discussion, which shows that the Journal's correspondent was as completely imposed upon as was the Hon. Mr. Barclay. He says, as quoted by the Deseret News:
"The only charge that can be laid at their doors today is that they refuse to desert their wives that they married in good faith (!) And they are right. To turn these women out of doors to subsist at the hands of charity would be a vastly worse crime in the eyes of God and decent-minded men than to make the provision for them that they are now doing."
The law-breaking polygamists could not have stated their case more satisfactorily to themselves. But what is the matter with the Journal's representative? Of course, he knows that polygamy is an atrocious crime in this country, and has been so considered since our government was founded. Why, then, does he talk about committing the crime of polygamy "in good faith?" As well talk about committing the crime of bank robbing "in good faith." Indeed, it would not be difficult to show that bank-robbery, bad as it is, does less harm to society than polygamy.
Furthermore none of the opponents of polygamy have ever asked that plural wives should be "turned out of doors." Nobody has objected to having plural wives and their children kindly provided for by the men who placed them in their unlawful position. But the law-abiding citizens of Utah and the Federal Government also make a wide distinction between providing for these plural wives and their children, and providing these same plural wives with children. The whole difficulty grows out of the fact that the men who were living with plural wives before Utah became a State still persist in maintaining the old polygamous relations with these women, and that, too, in the face of the solemn pledges to the United States government that if granted amnesty and statehood they would forthwith abandon all polygamous relations of every kind. Over ten years have passed since amnesty was granted by the government on the above condition, and yet all over the State men are living in polygamy the same as before statehood. The president of the Mormon Church, with his five wives, encourages these law-breakers by his example, and then tries to belittle the offense by claiming that the number of men living in polygamy is quite small, not over 756. The Deseret News at first denied that there are any such cases, but was forced to admit that it was mistaken. It then tried to belittle the matter by claiming that there were only 1,543 such cases! Suppose someone should argue that Maine is a good moral State because it contains only 1,543 bank robbers! Of course the News naturally underestimates the number.
In the closing paragraph of the article in the Journal occurs the following statement: "Common justice and common honesty, however, require him (the writer) to say that aside from the one peculiar feature of polygamy, he fails to see wherein the Mormon religion, is not just as pure as the different forms to which we are accustomed in the East."
No one who is acquainted with the fundamental doctrines of Mormonism and with the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion would make any such sweeping and misleading statement as that.
Mormonism holds and teaches the heathen doctrine of polytheism, the doctrine of many gods. (Pratt's Key to Theology, Chap. vi.) It teaches that Adam is God "and the only God with whom we have to do." (Brigham Young in Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, page 50.) It makes belief in the alleged divine mission and authority of that most immoral and wicked man, Joseph Smith, a fundamental doctrine of its religious system. (Brigham Young in Millennial Star Vol. v, page 118.)
It teaches that the coarse and vulgar men who make up the Mormon priesthood must be obeyed by the people because they possess divine authority, and that those who reject the commands of this bogus priesthood reject God. (Elder Roberts' New Witness for God, page 187.)
It teaches that Jesus Christ, the Divine Savior of the world, was a polygamist, and many other horrible doctrines which are utterly repugnant to the pure and lofty morality of the Christian religion.
The Mormons have lived in five different states, namely, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa and Utah. If their system is as pure morally and as patriotic as it is claimed to be, how does it happen that their sojourn in each of those states was characterized by continued and increasing conflict with the established government and laws of those states and of the United States, while the great Christian denominations lived in peace and harmony under those same laws? The Mormon Church will enjoy similar peace and harmony whenever its priesthood ceases to interfere with civil affairs, and sets the example of obeying the laws of the land as loyally as they have always been obeyed by the great Christian denominations generally.
M.
Salt Lake City, Aug. 19, 1903.
To Editors of Lewiston, Maine, Journal:—
An old Spanish proverb has it that "A lie will travel a league, while Truth is getting on his boots." Truth, however, has this advantage over his nimble-footed opponent, viz., his boots once on he runs and is not weary, he walks and faints not; and at the last he wins. The progress of Truth, in other words, is irresistible and overwhelming, and his triumph over falsehood is as inevitable as the decrees of fate.
In no instance in human experience are the above truths more clearly demonstrated than in the history of Mormonism. From the beginning of its existence falsehood in the form of misrepresentation and malicious slander has been in the field against it. Early and late and viciously the liars of this world have sought to overwhelm it as with a flood. Meantime, however, Truth has not been idle. Steadily and gloriously Mormonism and the people who have accepted it have lived down the misrepresentations of their traducers, and today stand proudly erect, unmoved by the efforts which falsehood has made to destroy them. This failure of falsehood to destroy the object at which it has levelled its heaviest ordnance is naturally aggravating to those who have employed it; and very naturally they show that annoyance. As an instance of this fact I refer to your Salt Lake correspondent "M," whose communication under the title "Eastern Eulogy of Mormons' System," appeared in your issue of September 6th. "M" is somewhat grieved, not to say indignant, that the Journal's representative, Mr. L. C. Bateman, should have spoken a word of praise for the Mormons and for what they have achieved by their faith, industry and frugality, and informs the Journal that what he calls Mr. Bateman's eulogistic article called forth an editorial in the Deseret News, the official organ of the Mormon priesthood, expressing great satisfaction on the appearance of the aforesaid article. But what's to be done? Men of intelligence come to Utah; they are cosmopolitan, they understand human affairs and human nature; and many of them—among them evidently your representative, whose article is the cause of "M's" displeasure—are men accustomed to collecting evidence, sifting it on the spot, and forming their own conclusions. They find that the facts they see and investigate do not warrant the misrepresentations they have heard concerning Mormonism and the Mormons. They say that in their communications to the press, in magazine articles, and sometimes in books. They are honest enough to tell the truth as they find it; and refuse to look at facts—the things which are—through the jaundiced eyes of a bigoted sectarian priest, or through the eyes of a disappointed, and very likely disgruntled, scurvy politician. Then they are abused by those to whose interests it is to keep up a false impression concerning Mormonism and the Mormons, or whose malice is gratified by misrepresenting them. Then it is charged that they have been imposed upon by representations of "the wily Mormon leaders;" or they have been "wined and dined," and hoodwinked; or else they have sold their talents to the Mormon "priesthood for money." Only let a man, whatever his intelligence or character, or national standing, from President Eliot of Harvard to your representative—only let him pursue his investigations of Mormonism and Mormons beyond the lurid tales of hack drivers, bent on gratifying the morbid love in human nature for the unusual and the horrible; or let him push his inquiry beyond sectarian interpretation of the Mormon faith, and sectarian misrepresentation of the Mormon people, and he is doomed to be catalogued as a weak dupe, or a paid agent of the Mormon Church.
But however annoying it may be to Mormon traducers, the day is gone by when their fulminations can be accepted as sober truth. Mormonism is no longer isolated from the world. It is in daily contact with the great stream of travel which crosses the continent, in which stream is to be found some of the first and greatest characters of our own country and of the world; not merely the seekers of pleasure, or the restless curious; but educators, literati, public lecturers, editors, scientists, and statesmen. Attracted by the wonderful things they have heard of Utah and the Mormons, they stop to inquire, they meet with unexpected conditions, with facts undreamed of, they investigate, are convinced that the world has been misled in the impressions it has formed concerning the Mormon faith and the Mormon people; and thus they become witnesses against the traducers of that maligned people. Our traducers may not like this, but it is true. They have made lies their refuge, and under falsehood have they hid themselves; but their bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it, and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it. This much in general. Now to be more specific; and especially to cover in the evidence I quote the silly attempt of your Salt Lake correspondent "M" to deny credit to the Mormons for having redeemed a desert and given a wilderness to civilization.
Your correspondent refers to the credit accorded the Mormons for this as "an old chestnut" which has been laid on the shelf years ago here in the West, because there is no truth in it! "There never was any barren desert," he says, "in this valley, for it has always been one of the best watered, most easily cultivated and productive valleys west of the Mississippi!" It is rather an unfortunate circumstance that a man who claims to have been a careful student of Mormonism and who has lived for over twenty-five years in Utah, should include in his criticism of the Journal's representative's article an untruth so palpable, a falsehood so easy of refutation, a statement which so bluntly comes in contact with the common knowledge of all the people of the United States. How the Salt Lake Valley was regarded by the pioneers who came into it in 1847 may be learned from the following quotation from their utterances:
"My mother was heart-broken because there were no trees to be seen. I do not remember a tree that could be called a tree." Statement of Clara Decker Young, one of the women of the first pioneer company. (Bancroft's History of Utah, page 261.)
"The ground was so dry that they found it necessary to irrigate it before plowing, some plows having been broken." (Ibid.)
Their first impressions of the valley, Lorenzo Young says, were most disheartening. But for the two or three cottonwood trees, not a green thing was in sight. And Brigham speaks almost pathetically of the destruction of the willows and wild roses growing on the banks of City Creek, destroyed because the channels must be changed, and leaving nothing to vary the scenery but rugged mountains, the sage brush and the sunflower. The ground was covered with millions of black crickets which the Indians were harvesting for their winter food. (Ibid, page 262.)
"When we arrived in this valley we found it a barren desert, and a barren desert it was. We saw no mark of the white man. We found a few naked Indians who would eat a pint of roasted crickets for their dinner." (Statement of Wilford Woodruff, "Utah Pioneers," page 24.)
The late Apostle Erastus Snow, who, with Orson Pratt, was the first man of the pioneers to enter the valley, in a discourse during the celebration of the thirty-third anniversary of the entrance of the pioneers into the Salt Lake valley, says:
"And when the Pioneers found it [this valley], it was well nigh purified by the lapse of time and the desolation of ages, and the wickedness of its ancient inhabitants was well nigh obliterated, though the curse of barrenness and desolation still existed. I remarked yesterday, on looking at the decorations of this building, that to make the work complete that part which so truthfully represents this desert land in 1847, the sagebrush and the other growth of the desert should be sprinkled with black crickets, and, perched in some prominent position, some gulls looking down eagerly upon them; which would remind us of those early days when the Pioneers and early settlers grappled with the difficulties of the desert land; when the untamed savage was scarcely an enemy or a hindrance in our pathway compared with the destructive winged insects, the crickets and grasshoppers which would come in myriads to devour the tender crops. For the first two seasons it seemed as though the crickets and grasshoppers would consume every green thing, and after they had commenced their depredations to such an extent that to all human appearance the last vestige of the products of the field and garden would be eaten up, large flocks of gulls came to the relief of the farmer, lighting down upon the fields and covering them as with a white sheet, and they fell to devouring the insects. When they had filled and gorged their stomachs, they would vomit them up and then fill themselves again, and again vomit, and thus they ate and devoured until the fields were cleared of those destructive insects, and the crops saved. * * * * Many doubted, as to whether we could subsist our colonies in this country at all, and whether grain would mature. James Bridger, the well-known mountaineer, who had inter-married with the Snakes [Indians], and had a trading post which still bears his name, Fort Bridger, when he met President Brigham Young at the Pioneer camp on the Big Sandy, about the last of June, and learned our destination to be the valley of the Great Salt Lake, he gave us a general outline and description of this country over which he had roamed with the Indians in his hunting and trapping excursions, and expressed grave doubts whether corn could be produced at all in these mountains, he having made experiments in many places with a few seeds, which had failed to mature. So sanguine was he that it could not be done that he proffered to give a thousand dollars for the first ear of corn raised in the valley of the Great Salt Lake, or the valley of the Utah outlet, as he termed it, meaning the valley between Utah lake and Salt Lake. President Young replied to him, 'Wait a little and we will show you.'" (The Utah Pioneers, pages 41-43.)
Nor is the fact of Salt Lake valley's desolation witnessed by the testimony of Mormons alone. Howard Stansbury, Captain of the Corps of Topographical Engineers, U.S. Army, in 1852, says:
"One of the most unpleasant characteristics of the whole country, is the entire absence of trees from the landscape. The weary traveller plods along, exposed to the full blaze of one eternal sunshine, day after day, and week after week, his eye resting upon naught but interminable plains, bold and naked hills, or bold and rugged mountains; the shady grove, the babbling brook, the dense and solemn forest are things unknown here; and should he by chance light upon some solitary cotton-wood, or pitch his tent amid some stunted willows, the opportunity is hailed with joy, as one of unusual good fortune. The studding, therefore, of this beautiful city [referring to Salt Lake City] with noble trees, will render it, by contrast with the surrounding regions, a second 'Diamond of the Desert.'" (Stansbury's Report, page 129.)
Again, Lieutenant J. W. Gunnison of the Topographical Engineers, writing in 1853, said:
"It [the Salt Lake Valley] is isolated from habitable grounds; having inhospitable tracts to the North and South, and the untimbered slope of the Rocky Mountains, nearly a thousand miles wide, on the east, and nearly a thousand miles of arid salt deserts on the west, broken up by frequent ridges of sterile mountains. The Great Basin is * * * over four thousand feet above the ocean. * * * It is a desert in character. * * * In the interior, fresh water becomes scarce, for these hills do not collect sufficient snow in winter * * * * to water the plains; and the consequence follows that these tracts are parched and arid, and frequently so impregnated with alkali as to make them unfit for vegetable life. * * * The land around Salt Lake is flat, and rises imperceptibly on the south and west, * * * and is a soft and sandy barren, irreclaimable for agricultural purposes. On the north the tract is narrow, and the springs bursting out near the surface of the water, the grounds cannot be irrigated." ("The Mormons," by J. W. Gunnison, pages 14, 15, 16.)
These descriptions of Utah. Valley warrant Utah's Historian, Bishop Orson F. Whitney, in giving the splendid pen picture he writes of the valley on the arrival of the Pioneers, in saying:
"It was no Garden of Hesperides upon which the Pioneers gazed that memorable morning of July 24, 1847. Aside from its scenic splendor, which was indeed glorious, magnificent, there was little to invite and much to repel in the prospect presented to their view. A broad and barren plain, hemmed in by mountains, blistering in the rays of the midsummer sun. No waving fields, no swaying forests, no verdant meadows to rest and refresh the weary eye, but on all sides a seemingly interminable waste of sagebrush, bespangled with sunflowers—the paradise of the lizard, the cricket and the rattle snake. Less than half way across the baked and burning valley, dividing it in twain—as if the vast bowl, in the intense heat of the Master Potter's fires, in process of formation had cracked asunder—a narrow river, turbid and shallow, from south to north in many a serpentine curve, sweeps on its sinuous way. Beyond, a broad lake, the river's goal, dotted with mountain islands; its briny waters shimmering in the sunlight like a silver shield. From the mountains, snow-capped, seamy and craggy, lifting their kingly heads to be crowned by the golden sun, flow limpid, laughing streams, cold and crystal clear, leaping, dashing, foaming, flashing, from rock to glen, from peak to plain. But the fresh canyon streams are far and few, and the arid waste they water, glistening with beds of salt and soda pools of deadly alkali, scarcely allowing them to reach the river, but midway well nigh swallows and absorbs them in the thirsty sands. These, the oak-brush, the squaw-berry, and other scant growths, with here and there a tree casting its lone shadow on hill or in valley; a wire-grass swamp, a few acres of withered bunch-grass, and the lazily waving willows and wild-rose bushes, fringing the distant streams, the only green thing visible. Silence and desolation reign. A silence unbroken, save by the cricket's ceaseless chirp, the roar of the mountain torrent or the whir and twitter of the passing bird. A desolation of centuries, where earth seems heaven-forsaken, where Hermit Nature, watching, waiting, weeps and worships God amid eternal solitudes." (History of Utah, Vol. I., pages 325-6.)
The Mormons whom your Salt Lake Correspondent admits had the territory of Utah almost exclusively to themselves for about twenty-five years, converted the desert wilderness described in the foregoing quotations into a fruitful land, and redeemed it from savagery to civilization. By the creation of an irrigation system they demonstrated that the desert lands of the intermountain region could be converted into fruitful fields, and thus became Pioneers, not alone of Utah, but of the entire intermountain region, and became founders of modern irrigation farming, which now is developing into a great national movement, that looks to the reclamation of an extent of country beside which the extent of ancient empires becomes insignificant; and happy millions will yet partake of the blessings first disclosed as possible by the example in irrigation set by the Mormon people. And all such silly falsehoods and misrepresentations as those uttered by your jaundice-minded correspondent, can never rob them of the high honor accorded them by the nation for the part they have performed in so great and notable and far reaching enterprises.
Your correspondent represents himself as having lived in Utah for over twenty-five years; and also as having had ample opportunity to study the "Mormon system" and its fruits, and then says:
"I am forced to join with other careful students in declaring that from a social, civil and moral standpoint, no language is strong enough to set forth the evil fruits of the "Mormon system." Based on polygamy, how could the system be otherwise than rotten? Its central idea of government being that of priesthood rule, how could it be otherwise than anti-American? Having been founded and organized by a man as corrupt and immoral as the multiplied statements of Joseph Smith's acquaintances and neighbors prove that he was, how could it be otherwise than mischievous and immoral in its tendencies and results?"
Really, after thinking of a man living in Utah for twenty-five years with exceptional opportunities to study the "Mormon system," one becomes quite disheartened when he witnesses such an exhibition of stupidity in apprehending, or a willingness to misrepresent as is exhibited in the foregoing quotation. First, if your correspondent had intelligence to understand the most simple proposition, he never would have made the statement that Mormonism is based on polygamy. Mormonism existed ten years and had spread through nearly all the states of the American Union, into Canada and Great Britain, before plural marriage was ever introduced into the Church. And notwithstanding that under the requirements of the laws of the land, the Church has discontinued the authorization of plural marriages, Mormonism still survives—much to the chagrin of such characters as your correspondent, and the Mormon Church was never more alive or prosperous than it is today. The doctrine of the rightfulness of plural marriage is in every sense but an incident in the "Mormon system" rather than a basic principle. Salvation in the Mormon religion is not made to depend upon a plurality of wives. On the contrary it teaches that either man or woman can be saved without marriage at all. That those in monogamous marriage relations may be saved, but it also is a fact that it has taught that men with a plurality of wives, if they have taken them under the sanction of God's law—a law which existed in the days of the Bible patriarchs as well as in these last days by special dispensation through Joseph Smith—may also be saved. Mormonism does teach, however, that marriage is essential to man's exaltation and progress in his saved condition, and that special blessings doubtless attended those who entered into plural marriage relations within the conditions and limitations referred to a moment since, but to regard plural marriages as the basis of Mormonism is not only ridiculous but an absolute misrepresentation of our faith.
Equally absurd and untrue is your correspondent's second implied charge, viz., that the central idea of Mormon government is priesthood rule, therefore "how could it be otherwise than anti-American?" The gentleman leaves us in the mists here. What does he mean? Is it anti-American to have priesthood rule in an ecclesiastical institution—in a Church? What kind of rule would he have but that of a priesthood rule in such organizations? If it is anti-American to have priesthood rule in a church organization, then every church in the land is anti-American. But if the gentleman protests that this is not what he meant, but that he meant priesthood rule in civil government, then I must say to him that there is no ecclesiastical institution in all our land that in its doctrines more clearly recognizes the separation of the Church from the State than does the Mormon Church. In proof of which I quote on that head the following from an authoritative work on the doctrine of the Mormon Church:
"We believe that religion is instituted of God, and that men are amenable to him, and to him only, for the exercise of it, unless their religious opinions prompt them to infringe upon the rights and liberties of others; but we do not believe that human law has a right to interfere in prescribing rules of worship to bind the consciences of men, nor dictate forms for public or private devotion; that the civil magistrate should restrain crime, but never control conscience; should punish guilt, but never suppress the freedom of the soul. * * * * We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government, whereby one religious society is fostered, and another proscribed in its spiritual privileges, and the individual rights of its members as citizens, denied." (Doctrine and Covenants, Section 134.)
Again, in a revelation given as early as 1831, the Lord said to the Church:
"Behold, the laws which ye have received from my hand are the laws of the Church, and in this light ye shall hold them forth."
That is, the revelations received were given for the government of the Church, not for the laws of the state; to instruct the saints in their religious duties and privileges, not to interfere with them in the exercise of their civil rights, nor to dictate to them in their political actions. This doctrine has been affirmed over and over again by the present officials of the Mormon Church. And as for the exercise of "priesthood rule" in practice in political affairs, in all good conscience and form both observation and experience: I can say that there is less of it chargeable to the Mormon Church officials than to ministers of any other denominations whatsoever in our land. And no other people of our land have suffered so much from mingling religious influence in political affairs, as have the Mormon people. Nearly every Legislative enactment, either state or national, has been the direct result of the exercise of sectarian ministerial influence upon legislators, state and national, as also have been nearly all the acts of mob violence perpetrated against the same people which resulted in their expulsion from Missouri and Illinois.
Your correspondent says that the multiplied statements of Joseph Smith's acquaintances and neighbors prove that he was was immoral and corrupt, and that since Mormonism has such an origin he wants to know "how it could be otherwise than mischievous and immoral in its tendencies and results." Your correspondent here assumes that Joseph Smith was immoral and corrupt, and hence his system can be none other than mischievous and evil in its tendencies. "But," it will be said, "his premise rests upon the alleged testimony of Joseph Smith's acquaintances and neighbors." What acquaintances and neighbors? Of course if you eliminate from this list all those who knew Joseph Smith best, his friends and followers, who so far believed in him and his honor and integrity as a man and prophet of God that they sacrificed their own good name, together with property and all earthly prospects in accepting the doctrine he taught, and then rely alone for a description of his character upon the testimony of his persecutors and revilers led on by bigoted priests who hounded him through fourteen years of his troubled life, until they succeeded in bringing about his murder in cold blood at Carthage, Illinois, why, of course; I suppose that such testimony could be said to prove that he was immoral and corrupt. But under such methods of proving things how would the immaculate life and character of the Son of God himself stand before the world? Jesus would be proved to be a wine-bibber, an associate of sinners and publicans, one who went about the country in the companionship of women of questionable character, an imposter who was so in league with Satan that he cast out devils by the power of Beelzebub, an agitator disturbing the peace, a leader of seditions, a perverter of laws and customs, and who at the last was fittingly crucified between two thieves after being condemned under due forms of law, and who attracted to him a following that could be regarded as the off-scourings of despised Galilee, and who were so vile as to steal his dead body from the tomb by night, and then put in circulation the story that he had risen bodily from the dead! From such a basis as this, all of which can be established "by the multiplied testimony" of the Savior's "acquaintances and neighbors," we could, with your correspondent exclaim, "how could the system" emanating from such a founder "be otherwise than mischievous and immoral in its tendencies and results?"
It would be easy to prove that from the beginning of Mormonism until now there are many men of wide reputation, men of national repute and high character, who have testified of the purity of life and honorable conduct of Joseph Smith and the general honesty and high moral character of his following. But it is impossible to quote such testimony because of the necessary limits of this communication, and it is not necessary because the premise from which your correspondent starts is utterly untenable and foolish.
Your correspondent scoffs at the idea that Mormons married their plural wives in good faith, and that it would now be a crime to abandon them, and declares that your representative could as well have talked about "committing the crime of bank robbing in good faith." The gentleman rushes a little too quickly to his conclusion. Things he puts in comparison are altogether unlike. It is a truth to begin with that the Mormon people accepted the doctrine of plural marriage as a revelation and commandment from God; and they did marry their wives under what they considered divine sanction, in good faith, believing that they were protected in the practice of a religious principle by the constitution of their country, which specifically prohibited the passage of laws "respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Furthermore, this doctrine was sanctioned by the practice of the Bible patriarchs, whom the Son of God himself upheld in his teaching as the very favorites of heaven, whom God had made his own especial witnesses of the truths he would teach mankind. It was well on to half a century before the Supreme Court of the United States had finally decided at all points the constitutionality of the several acts of Congress against the exercise of this religious doctrine of the Latter-day Saints, during which time a whole generation had lived in the practice of it, believing absolutely in its righteousness, in its divinity in fact, and it is not difficult to understand how men under such circumstances married their wives in good faith.
Moreover, when this matter was finally settled by the adoption of our State Constitution, the enabling act passed by Congress only demanded on this subject of polygamy that the constitutional convention should provide by ordinance "irrevocably without the consent of the United States and the people of said state, * * * * that no inhabitant of said state should be molested in person or property on account of his or her mode of religious worship: provided that polygamous or plural marriages are forever prohibited." It will be observed that there is no demand made in this for the abandonment of plural marriage relations already established under the Mormon doctrine of plural marriage. Nothing is required on that head, but that for the future there shall be a prohibition of "polygamous marriages." The action of the constitutional convention was in harmony with this demand of the people of the United States, and the ordinance in our state constitution was adopted in such form and spirit that while future polygamous or plural marriages, were forever prohibited, it contemplated leaving undisturbed the already existing plural marriage relations. Under these circumstances I do not hesitate to say that for Mormon men to abandon the wives they had taken in good faith, who had been induced to accept that relationship under religious persuasion and conviction, would be both cowardly and criminal in the eyes of God and all good and respectable men.
Your correspondent undertakes to make much of the fact that
"The Mormons have lived in five different states. * * * * If their system is as pure morally and as patriotic as it is claimed to be, how does it happen that their sojourn in each of these states was characterized by continued and increased conflict with the established government and laws of these states and of the United States while the great Christian denominations live in peace and harmony under those same laws?"
The gentleman would have shown better judgement than to have propounded such a question as that. The Latter-day Saints suffered persecution in both New York and Ohio, they were driven several times from their homes in Missouri, and finally driven in a body—some twelve thousand in number—from that state into Illinois, and later between twenty and thirty thousand of them were driven from the state of Illinois. The gentleman should remember that this all happened before plural marriage was practiced in the Church [except in Nauvoo, where, in the last years of his life, it was introduced by the prophet, but it was known but by a few, and was neither the cause of his martyrdom nor of the subsequent expulsion of his people]; and Mormons may defy not only your correspondent but the whole world to instance any case where they were persecuted or driven from their homes or murdered (as scores of them were) for violation of the laws of the land in those states. And there is yet to arise within these states or in the United States, however much he may despise the Mormons and their faith, an apologist who is bold enough to undertake the justification of those states in their treatment of the Mormons, save only, perhaps, your correspondent, and he only by cowardly imputation and innuendo.
Salt Lake City, Utah, Sept. 26, 1903.
This is a question frequently asked, but I do not remember that an answer has been ever before put in print. It would be easy to record the names of the ministers and the Christian sects to which they belonged who began the agitation in Missouri which resulted in such disgraceful scenes of mob-violence, robbery and murder, and the final expulsion of from twelve to fifteen thousand people from their homes and the state. It would only be a matter of time and space to set down the names of the ministers and the sects they represented, who began and continued that abominable campaign of slander and falsehood which terminated in the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and the expulsion of more than twenty thousand Latter-day Saints from the confines of the United States. But is it worth while? Is it not enough to say that so-called ministers of the gospel quite generally took the leading part in this opposition. They headed bands of men who burned the homes of our people; they sat on drumhead militia court-martials to try Joseph Smith, and condemned him to be shot in the public square at Far West; it was a sectarian minister who led the mob that murdered Joseph and Hyrum Smith at Carthage prison; it was a somewhat noted preacher who led the mob forces against Nauvoo and expelled the aged, the weak and helpless from that city after the great bulk of the Mormon people had departed into the western wilderness in search of new homes. So we might continue all down the line of our experience. The mobbings in the southern states have quite generally been led by so-called ministers of the gospel; as also all the unfriendly agitation in Utah and elsewhere. But it isn't worth while to dwell too long in our thought on these matters, or to take them too seriously. God has a reward that will be ample for all those who have suffered martyrdom in his cause, and those who have assailed it he doubtless will remember in his own time and way, and we need not wish them any harm, and we do not. If we could affect them in any way it would be to mitigate their difficulties. For a man to carry with him through eternity the recollection of an injustice he has inflicted upon the innocent; to be compelled always to remember a murder committed, must of itself be a terrible punishment. So I say if we could affect the persecutors of the Saints in any way it would be to mitigate their sufferings, not to increase them. We will try not to remember the wrongs of Missouri; and will try to forget the fate of Nauvoo. We will remember only that in those troublous days there were noble men, and women too, who befriended our people and who did what they could to make light their burdens and ease their sorrows—God bless them!
Which of the Sects Have Opposed Mormonism Most.
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, Aug. 8, 1903.
DEAR SIR:—Your letter of the 21st ult., addressed to President Joseph F. Smith and Counselors, asking "which one of the religious societies has opposed the faith and doctrine of the Church the most," etc., has been handed to me by President Smith, with a request that I answer your questions.
In the first place I call your attention to the fact that it is not a matter of astonishment or of any great amount of anxiety to us that the churches of this world oppose the Church of Christ. It has become a matter of course from our point of view, and really under the circumstances we do not see how it could be otherwise, for the first word of the Lord to Joseph Smith was to the effect that the churches of the world were all wrong, that is, in error; that their professors of religion drew near to the Lord with their lips while their hearts were far from him; that they taught for doctrine the commandments of men, and Joseph Smith was commanded to join none of them, for God did not acknowledge them as his Church or kingdom. After such a declaration the good will of sectarian Christendom was naturally out of the question, yet, of course, the truth had to be told. The theological rubbish that had accumulated for ages had to be swept away that the rocks of truth might be made bare for the erection of that structure, the Temple of God—the Church of Christ.
As to which of the several churches has been most opposed to the faith and doctrines of the Church it would be difficult to say definitely, except to say that up to the present time the Catholic Church has not manifested any hostility' in any way as an organization. A few individual Catholic prelates have had their fling at us, but I think they have not passed resolutions against our organization, chiefly for the reason, as I think, that we have done but little work as yet in Catholic countries; and then, too, it is quite possible that the Catholic clergy count us as one among the many protestant sects, and think us no worse than the rest of what they consider the "separated brethren." As for the Protestant brood, you may take the Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Campbellites, and Josephites as the most active of our opponents, judging from the fulminations they reel off against us in the form of resolutions and petitions to Congress asking that we be "suppressed" or "crushed." It would be difficult to say which of these is the most opposed. I think I am safe in saying they are all about equally bitter, but thank the Lord there is no proportion between their bitterness and their power to do us injury. The rest of the Protestant sects give us but little trouble, at least in any formal way, and the opposition expressed in frantic resolutions by those I have named merely serve to make matters interesting and keep Mormonism well to the fore in public attention; and as for "annoyance"—well, it is hardly worth while being annoyed. Have you not read the golden words, "We can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth?" and that other saying, equally comforting to those who are called upon to face the wrath of men for the kingdom of heaven's sake, "Surely the wrath of men shall praise thee; the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain?" So we are very comfortable, thank you, and not worried and not "annoyed" and not hurt by the opposition of men. We have the truth and rejoice in it, and intend to make it known just as far as it is possible for us to proclaim it. In our view those who oppose it, pass resolutions against our faith and ourselves, are but God's advertising agents, to present to the attention of the world the thing which he has planted in the earth; and we amuse ourselves sometimes by thinking what a surprised lot of fellows those sanctimonious divines who "resolute" against us with such vigor will be when they wake up and discover that they have helped instead of hindered God's work; but as for being "annoyed"—pshaw!
Very truly yours.
B. H. ROBERTS.
* * * * * * * * * *
Looking through an old scrap book the other day, I found in it a clipping from the "Newark (New Jersey) News," containing a letter from Salt Lake City, by J. Martin Miller, which describes in a very admirable way the attitude of a Jewish Rabbi and a Catholic Bishop toward the Mormon people, and as their attitude is one of fairness I take pleasure in recording the evidence of it here. Mr. Miller's letter to the "Newark News" was written about two months before my letter to Mr. Holcomb—in June, 1903:
"I found a very prominent former Newarker, in the person of Rabbi Louis G. Reynolds, of the Synagogue B'nai Israel here [in Salt Lake City]. He was rabbi of the Oheb Shalom Synagogue, Newark, from 1892 to 1896."
"There is a Jewish population of about 500 in Salt Lake City," said Rabbi Reynolds? "Aside from that particular feature of their creed, polygamy, I think the Mormons are a very good people. Everything indicates that polygamy is dying out and that the Church means to obey the law. Aside from polygamy, I am of the opinion that in morals the Mormons will average higher than the Gentiles who live here. The records show that the Mormons furnish a very small quota of the vice of the city. As a rule, they are a temperate people. 'If Senator Smoot is unseated, would the influence of the Mormons in the state and the nation be diminished?' I inquired. 'Not in the least; it would make them feel their persecution more than now and cause them to have less faith in the fairness of the government. They know the government cannot be fooled to any great extent and that polygamy must go. Now that the tendency on the part of the Mormons is to abandon polygamy, the purposes of the government in making better Americans of the Mormon people than they are now will be better subserved by allowing the influential men among the Mormons to help the government bring about the desired end. I say this with Senator Smoot in mind, and in view of the believed fact among every class in Utah that he is not a polygamist. He is one of the most level-headed business men in Utah, and is exceedingly popular with all classes. Polygamy was deeply rooted. The people for the most part were born in it. Why humiliate these innocent victims by persecuting them unnecessarily when they show an inclination to rid themselves and the county of the blot? The United States is a conciliatory and humane government. I was born in Russia and can appreciate this government. It is the kind of a government that begets loyalty in its subjects. Will these erring Children of Utah, who in all probability are not now contracting any new polygamous marriages, be better citizens if they are hounded and misrepresented by agitators, or if they are fairly but firmly dealt with by the government and given a reasonable chance to prove their good intentions and their good citizenship? There is a very strong element throughout the county that takes absolutely no stock in this ecclesiastical warfare that is being made from Salt Lake City against the Mormons. It has been plainly demonstrated very recently in the case of one minister here who carried on a bitter crusade, that was worse than a waste of energy, that such methods are re-active in the extreme."
"That veteran old priest, Bishop Scanlan, who has charge of all of Utah and the eastern half of Nevada for the Catholic church, has visited every remote corner of Utah during the 30 years he has been here. 'I have found the Mormon people a gentle and kindly disposed people. I have never been insulted once. I have been obliged to visit places where there are no hotels and wherever I have stopped at private houses the people have always felt offended if I offered to pay them for the keep of myself and my horse.' 'Have you ever felt the need of a revolver?' I asked. 'I never owned one in my life.' Pointing up to the crucifix, the bishop said: 'That is the only weapon I have ever carried. The Catholic church has 10,000 communicants in Utah at the present time.' I do not see your name, bishop, on protests and other papers that some of the ministers here are active in circulating. 'No, I never join in anything of that kind. My mission here is not to make war among the Mormon people, or any other people, but rather to be the bearer of the message of peace and good will toward all men. If there is any law to be enforced, I leave that for my government to do."