THE MORMONS
In the westward overland migration the Salt Lake Valley Mormons played
an important part. These strange people had but recently taken up their
abode in the desert. That was a fortunate circumstance, as their
necessities forced them to render an aid to the migration that in better
days would probably have been refused.
The founder of the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith, Jr., came from a
commonplace family.
Apparently its members were ignorant and superstitious. They talked much
of hidden treasure and of supernatural means for its discovery. They
believed in omens, signs, and other superstitions. As a boy Joseph had
been shrewd enough and superstitious enough to play this trait up for
all it was worth. He had a magic peep-stone and a witch-hazel
divining-rod that he manipulated so skillfully as to cause other boys
and even older men to dig for him as he wished. He seemed to delight in
tricking his companions in various ways, by telling fortunes, reeling
off tall yarns, and posing as one possessed of occult knowledge.
According to Joseph's autobiography, the discovery of the Mormon Bible
happened in this wise: on the night of September 21, 1823, a vision fell
upon him; the angel Moroni appeared and directed him to a cave on the
hillside; in this cave he found some gold plates, on which were
inscribed strange characters, written in what Smith described as
"reformed Egyptian"; they were undecipherable except by the aid of a
pair of magic peep-stones named Urim and Thummim, delivered him for the
purpose by the angel at Palmyra; looking through the hole in these
peep-stones, he was able to interpret the gold plates. This was the
skeleton of the story embellished by later ornamentation in the way of
golden breastplates, two stones bright and shining, golden plates united
at the back by rings, the sword of Laban, square stone boxes, cemented
clasps, invisible blows, suggestions of Satan, and similar mummery born
from the quickened imagination of a zealot.
Smith succeeded in interesting one Harris to act as his amanuensis in
his interpretation of these books of Mormon. The future prophet sat
behind a screen with the supposed gold plates in his hat. He dictated
through the stones Urim and Thummim. With a keen imagination and natural
aptitude for the strikingly dramatic, he was able to present formally
his ritual, tabernacle, holy of holies, priesthood and tithings,
constitution and councils, blood atonement, anointment, twelve apostles,
miracles, his spiritual manifestations and revelations, all in
reminiscence of the religious tenets of many lands.
Such religious movements rise and fall at periodic intervals. Sometimes
they are never heard of outside the small communities of their birth; at
other times they arise to temporary nation-wide importance, but they are
unlucky either in leadership or environment and so perish. The Mormon
Church, however, was fortunate in all respects. Smith was in no manner a
successful leader, but he made a good prophet. He was strong physically,
was a great wrestler, and had an abundance of good nature; he was
personally popular with the type of citizen with whom he was thrown. He
could impress the ignorant mind with the reality of his revelations and
the potency of his claims. He could impress the more intelligent, but
half unscrupulous, half fanatical minds of the leaders with the power of
his idea and the opportunities offered for leadership.
Two men of the latter type were Parley P. Pratt and Sidney Rigdon. The
former was of the narrow, strong, fanatic type; the latter had the cool
constructive brain that gave point, direction, and consistency to the
Mormon system of theology. Had it not been for such leaders and others
like them, it is quite probable that the Smith movement would have been
lost like hundreds of others. That Smith himself lasted so long as the
head of the Church, with the powers and perquisites of that position,
can be explained by the fact that, either by accident or shrewd design,
his position before the unintelligent masses had been made impregnable.
If it was not true that Joseph Smith had received the golden plates from
an angel and had translated them--again with the assistance of an
angel--and had received from heaven the revelations vouchsafed from time
to time for the explicit guidance of the Church in moral, temporal, and
spiritual matters, then there was no Book of Mormon, no new revelation,
no Mormon Church. The dethronement of Smith meant that there could be
no successor to Smith, for there would be nothing to which to succeed.
The whole church structure must crumble with him.
The time was psychologically right. Occasionally a contagion of
religious need seems to sweep the country. People demand manifestations
and signs, and will flock to any who can promise them. To this class the
Book of Mormon, with its definite sort of mysticism, appealed strongly.
The promises of a new Zion were concrete; the power was centralized, so
that people who had heretofore been floundering in doubt felt they could
lean on authority, and shake off the personal responsibility that had
weighed them down. The Mormon communities grew fast, and soon began to
send out proselyting missionaries. England was especially a fruitful
field for these missionaries. The great manufacturing towns were then at
their worst, containing people desperately ignorant, superstitious, and
so deeply poverty-stricken that the mere idea of owning land of their
own seemed to them the height of affluence. Three years after the
arrival of the missionaries the general conference reported 4019
converts in England alone. These were good material in the hands of
strong, fanatical, or unscrupulous leaders. They were religious
enthusiasts, of course, who believed they were coming to a real city of
Zion. Most of them were in debt to the Church for the price of their
passage, and their expenses. They were dutiful in their acceptance of
miracles, signs, and revelations. The more intelligent among them
realized that, having come so far and invested in the enterprise their
all, it was essential that they accept wholly the discipline and
authority of the Church.
Before their final migration to Utah, the Mormons made three ill-fated
attempts to found the city of Zion, first in Ohio, then in western
Missouri, and finally, upon their expulsion from Missouri, at Nauvoo in
Illinois. In every case they both inspired and encountered opposition
and sometimes persecution. As the Mormons increased in power, they
became more self-sufficient and arrogant. They at first presumed to
dictate politically, and then actually began to consider themselves a
separate political entity. One of their earliest pieces of legislation,
under the act incorporating the city of Nauvoo, was an ordinance to
protect the inhabitants of the Mormon communities from all outside legal
processes. No writ for the arrest of any Mormon inhabitants of any
Mormon city could be executed until it had received the mayor's
approval. By way of a mild and adequate penalty, anyone violating this
ordinance was to be imprisoned for life with no power of pardon in the
governor without the mayor's consent.
Of course this was a welcome opportunity for the lawless and desperate
characters of the surrounding country. They became Mormon to a man.
Under the shield of Mormon protection they could steal and raid to their
heart's content. Land speculators also came into the Church, and bought
land in the expectation that New Zion property would largely rise.
Banking grew somewhat frantic. Complaints became so bitter that even the
higher church authorities were forced to take cognizance of the
practices. In 1840 Smith himself said: "We are no longer at war, and you
must stop stealing. When the right time comes, we will go in force and
take the whole State of Missouri. It belongs to us as our inheritance,
but I want no more petty stealing. A man that will steal petty articles
from his enemies will, when occasion offers, steal from his brethren
too. Now I command you that have stolen must steal no more."
At Nauvoo, on the eastern bank of the Mississippi, they built a really
pretentious and beautiful city, and all but completed a temple that was,
from every account, creditable. However, their arrogant relations with
their neighbors and the extreme isolation in which they held themselves
soon earned them the dislike and distrust of those about them. The
practice of polygamy had begun, although even to the rank and file of
the Mormons themselves the revelation commanding it was as yet unknown.
Still, rumors had leaked forth. The community, already severely shocked
in its economic sense, was only too ready to be shocked in its moral
sense, as is the usual course of human nature. The rather wild vagaries
of the converts, too, aroused distrust and disgust in the sober minds of
the western pioneers. At religious meetings converts would often arise
to talk in gibberish--utterly nonsensical gibberish. This was called a
"speaking with tongues," and could be translated by the speaker or a
bystander in any way he saw fit, without responsibility for the saying.
This was an easy way of calling a man names without standing behind it,
so to speak. The congregation saw visions, read messages on stones
picked up in the field--messages which disappeared as soon as
interpreted. They had fits in meetings, they chased balls of fire
through the fields, they saw wonderful lights in the air, in short they
went through all the hysterical vagaries formerly seen also in the
Methodist revivals under John Wesley.
Turbulence outside was accompanied by turbulence within. Schisms
occurred. Branches were broken off from the Church. The great temporal
power and wealth to which, owing to the obedience and docility of the
rank and file, the leaders had fallen practically sole heirs, had gone
to their heads. The Mormon Church gave every indication of breaking up
into disorganized smaller units, when fortunately for it the prophet
Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were killed by a mob. This martyrdom
consolidated the church body once more; and before disintegrating
influences could again exert themselves, the reins of power were seized
by the strong hand of a remarkable man, Brigham Young, who thrust aside
the logical successor, Joseph Smith's son.
Young was an uneducated man, but with a deep insight into human nature.
A shrewd practical ability and a rugged intelligence, combined with
absolute cold-blooded unscrupulousness in attaining his ends, were
qualities amply sufficient to put Young in the front rank of the class
of people who composed the Mormon Church. He early established a
hierarchy of sufficient powers so that always he was able to keep the
strong men of the Church loyal to the idea he represented. He paid them
well, both in actual property and in power that was dearer to them than
property. Furthermore, whether or not he originated polygamy, he not
only saw at once its uses in increasing the population of the new state
and in taking care of the extra women such fanatical religions always
attract, but also, more astutely, he realized that the doctrine of
polygamy would set his people apart from all other people, and probably
call down upon them the direct opposition of the Federal Government. A
feeling of persecution, opposition, and possible punishment were all
potent to segregate the Mormon Church from the rest of humanity and to
assure its coherence. Further, he understood thoroughly the results that
can be obtained by coöperation of even mediocre people under able
leadership. He placed his people apart by thoroughly impressing upon
their minds the idea of their superiority to the rest of the world. They
were the chosen people, hitherto scattered, but now at last gathered
together. His followers had just the degree of intelligence necessary to
accept leadership gracefully and to rejoice in a supposed superiority
because of a sense of previous inferiority.
This ductile material Brigham welded to his own forms. He was able to
assume consistently an appearance of uncouth ignorance in order to
retain his hold over his uncultivated flock. He delivered vituperative,
even obscene sermons, which may still be read in his collected works.
But he was able also on occasions, as when addressing agents of the
Federal Government or other outsiders whom he wished to impress, to
write direct and dignified English. He was resourceful in obtaining
control over the other strong men of his Church; but by his very success
he was blinded to due proportions. There can be little doubt that at one
time he thought he could defy the United States by force of arms. He
even maintained an organization called the Danites, sometimes called the
Destroying Angels, who carried out his decrees.[5]
[5: The Mormon Church has always denied the existence of any such
organization; but the weight of evidence is against the Church. In one
of his discourses, Young seems inadvertently to have admitted the
existence of the Danites. The organization dates from the sojourn of the
Mormons in Missouri. See Linn, _The Story of the Mormons_, pp. 189-192.]
Brigham could welcome graciously and leave a good impression upon
important visitors. He was not a good business man, however, and almost
every enterprise he directly undertook proved to be a complete or
partial failure. He did the most extraordinarily stupid things, as, for
instance, when he planned the so-called Cottonwood Canal, the mouth of
which was ten feet higher than its source! Nevertheless he had sense to
utilize the business ability of other men, and was a good accumulator of
properties. His estate at his death was valued at between two and three
million dollars. This was a pretty good saving for a pioneer who had
come into the wilderness without a cent of his own, who had always spent
lavishly, and who had supported a family of over twenty wives and fifty
children--all this without a salary as an officer. Tithes were brought
to him personally, and he rendered no accounting. He gave the strong men
of his hierarchy power and opportunity, played them against each other
to keep his own lead, and made holy any of their misdeeds which were not
directed against himself.
The early months of 1846 witnessed a third Mormon exodus. Driven out of
Illinois, these Latter-day Saints crossed the Mississippi in organized
bands, with Council Bluffs as their first objective. Through the winter
and spring some fifteen thousand Mormons with three thousand wagons
found their way from camp to camp, through snow, ice, and mud, over the
weary stretch of four hundred miles to the banks of the Missouri. The
epic of this westward migration is almost biblical. Hardship brought out
the heroic in many characters. Like true American pioneers, they adapted
themselves to circumstances with fortitude and skill. Linn says: "When a
halt occurred, a shoemaker might be seen looking for a stone to serve as
a lap-stone in his repair work, or a gunsmith mending a rifle, or a
weaver at a wheel or loom. The women learned that the jolting wagons
would churn their milk, and when a halt occurred it took them but a
short time to heat an oven hollowed out of the hillside, in which to
bake the bread already raised." Colonel Kane says that he saw a piece of
cloth, the wool for which was sheared, dyed, spun, and woven, during the
march.
After a winter of sickness and deprivation in camps along "Misery
Bottom," as they called the river flats, during which malaria carried
off hundreds, Brigham Young set out with a pioneer band of a hundred and
fifty to find a new Zion. Toward the end of July, this expedition by
design or chance entered Salt Lake Valley. At sight of the lake
glistening in the sun, "Each of us," wrote one of the party, "without
saying a word to the other, instinctively, as if by inspiration, raised
our hats from our heads, and then, swinging our hats, shouted, 'Hosannah
to God and the Lamb!'"
Meantime the first emigration from winter quarters was under way, and in
the following spring Young conducted a train of eight hundred wagons
across the plains to the great valley where a city of adobe and log
houses was already building. The new city was laid off into numbered
lots. The Presidency had charge of the distribution of these lots. You
may be sure they did not reserve the worst for their use, nor did they
place about themselves undesirable neighbors. Immediately after the
assignments had been made, various people began at once to speculate in
buying and selling according to the location. The spiritual power
immediately anathematized this. No one was permitted to trade over
property. Any sales were made on a basis of the first cost plus the
value of the improvement. A community admirable in almost every way was
improvised as though by magic. Among themselves the Mormons were sober,
industrious, God-fearing, peaceful. Their difficulties with the nation
were yet to come.
Throughout the year, 1848, the weather was propitious for ploughing and
sowing. Before the crops could be gathered, however, provisions ran so
low that the large community was in actual danger of starvation. Men
were reduced to eating skins of slaughtered animals, the raw hides from
the roofs of houses, and even a wild root dug by the miserable Ute
Indians. To cap the climax, when finally the crops ripened, they were
attacked by an army of crickets that threatened to destroy them utterly.
Prayers of desperation were miraculously answered by a flight of white
sea-gulls that destroyed the invader and saved the crop. Since then this
miracle has been many times repeated.
It was in August, 1849, that the first gold rush began. Some of
Brannan's company from California had already arrived with samples of
gold-dust. Brigham Young was too shrewd not to discourage all mining
desires on the part of his people, and he managed to hold them. The
Mormons never did indulge in gold-mining. But the samples served to
inflame the ardor of the immigrants from the east. Their one desire at
once became to lighten their loads so that they could get to the
diggings in the shortest possible time. Then the Mormons began to reap
their harvest. Animals worth only twenty-five or thirty dollars would
bring two hundred dollars in exchange for goods brought in by the
travelers. For a light wagon the immigrants did not hesitate to offer
three or four heavy ones, and sometimes a yoke of oxen to boot. Such
very desirable things to a new community as sheeting, or spades and
shovels, since the miners were overstocked, could be had for almost
nothing. Indeed, everything, except coffee and sugar, was about half the
wholesale rate in the East. The profit to the Mormons from this
migration was even greater in 1850. The gold-seeker sometimes paid as
high as a dollar a pound for flour; and, conversely, as many of the
wayfarers started out with heavy loads of mining machinery and
miscellaneous goods, as is the habit of the tenderfoot camper even unto
this day, they had to sell at the buyers' prices. Some of the
enterprising miners had even brought large amounts of goods for sale at
a hoped-for profit in California. At Salt Lake City, however, the
information was industriously circulated that shiploads of similar,
merchandise were on their way round the Horn, and consequently the
would-be traders often sacrificed their own stock.[6]
[6: Linn, _The Story of the Mormons_, 406.]
This friendly condition could not, of course, long obtain. Brigham
Young's policy of segregation was absolutely opposed to permanent
friendly relations. The immigrants on the other hand were violently
prejudiced against the Mormon faith. The valley of the Salt Lake seemed
to be just the psychological point for the breaking up into fragments of
the larger companies that had crossed the plains. The division of
property on these separations sometimes involved a considerable amount
of difficulty. The disputants often applied to the Mormon courts for
decision. Somebody was sure to become dissatisfied and to accuse the
courts of undue influence. Rebellion against the decision brought upon
them the full force of civil power. For contempt of court they were most
severely fined. The fields of the Mormons were imperfectly fenced; the
cattle of the immigrants were very numerous. Trespass cases brought
heavy remuneration, the value being so much greater for damages than in
the States that it often looked to the stranger like an injustice. A
protest would be taken before a bishop who charged costs for his
decision. An unreasonable prejudice against the Mormons often arose
from these causes. On the other hand there is no doubt that the
immigrants often had right on their side. Not only were the Mormons
human beings, with the usual qualities of love of gain and desire
to take advantage of their situation; but, further, they belonged
to a sect that fostered the belief that they were superior to the
rest of mankind, and that it was actually meritorious to "spoil the
Philistines."
Many gold-diggers who started out with a complete outfit finished their
journey almost on foot. Some five hundred of these people got together
later in California and compared notes. Finally they drew up a series of
affidavits to be sent back home. A petition was presented to Congress
charging that many immigrants had been murdered by the Mormons; that,
when members of the Mormon community became dissatisfied and tried to
leave, they were subdued and killed; that a two per cent tax on the
property was levied on those immigrants compelled to stay through the
winter; that justice was impossible to obtain in the Mormon courts; that
immigrants' mail was opened and destroyed; and that all Mormons were at
best treasonable in sentiment. Later the breach between the Mormons and
the Americans became more marked, until it culminated in the atrocious
Mountain Meadows massacre, which was probably only one of several
similar but lesser occurrences. These things, however, are outside of
our scope, as they occurred later in history. For the moment, it is only
necessary to note that it was extremely fortunate for the gold
immigrants, not only that the half-way station had been established by
the Mormons, but also that the necessities of the latter forced them to
adopt a friendly policy. By the time open enmity had come, the first of
the rush had passed and other routes had been well established.