I dismiss the religion with my profound respect; if it can comfort them,
I would not, if I could, disturb it. Coming to the social aspect of the
society, it is apparent that the great founder sought first to establish
equality among men, and then to draw from those equal ranks a special
class, who were permitted to practice polygamy and to whom special
privileges were accorded in their association with the consecrated
temples and the administration of mystic ordinances therein. The
polygamous group, or cult as it may be called, soon became the ruling
factor in the organization; and it may be observed that ever since the
founding of the church almost every man of prominence in the community
has belonged to this order. It was so in the time of the martyrs, Joseph
and Hyrum Smith, who were killed at Carthage jail in Illinois, and both
of whom were polygamists, although it was denied at the time. There were
living until recently, and perhaps there are living now, women who
testified that they were married in polygamy to one or the other of
these two men, Joseph having the larger number. It has been so ever
since and is so to-day that nearly every man of the governing class has
been or is a polygamist.
Brigham Young succeeded Joseph Smith, and he set up a kind of kingly
rulership, not unbecoming to a man of his vast empire-building power.
The Mormons have been taught to revere Joseph Smith as a direct prophet
from God. He saw the face of the All Father. He held communion with the
Son. The Holy Ghost was his constant companion. He settled every
question, however trivial, by revelation from Almighty God. But Brigham
was different. While claiming a divine right of leadership, he worked
out his great mission by palpable and material means. I do not know that
he ever pretended to have received a revelation from the time that he
left Nauvoo until he reached the shores of the Dead Sea, nor through all
the thirty years of his leadership there. He seemed to regard his people
as children who had to be led through their serious calamities by
holding out to them the glittering thought of divine guardianship. So
firmly did Brigham establish the social order in Utah that all of the
people were equal, except the governing body. This may be said to
consist of the president and his two counsellors, they three
constituting the first presidency; the twelve apostles; the presiding
bishopric, consisting of three men, the chief bishops of the church but
much lower in rank than the apostles; the seven presidents of seventies,
who are, under the apostles, the subordinate head of the missionary
service of the church; and the presiding patriarch. These altogether
constitute a body of twenty-six men. There are local authorities in the
different stakes of Zion, as they are called, corresponding to counties
in a State, but with these it is not necessary to deal.
Practically all of these men under Brigham Young were polygamists. They
constituted what one of their number once called the "elite class" of
the community. To attain this rank one usually had to show ability, and
attaining the rank he was quite certain to enter into or extend his
already existing plural-marriage relations. These rulers were looked
upon with great reverence. Brigham Young, besides being a prophet of
God, as they believed, had led them through the greatest march of the
ages. His nod became almost superhuman in its significance. His frown
was as terrible to them as the wrath of God. He upheld all the members
of the polygamistic and governing class by his favoritism toward them.
He supremely, and they subordinately, ruled the community as if they
were a king and a house of peers, with no house of commons. Not
elsewhere in the United States, and not in any foreign country where
civilization dwells, has there been such a complete mastery of man over
modern men. The subordinates and the mass would perform the slightest
will of Brigham Young. When he was not present the mass would perform
the will of any of the subordinates speaking in his name. Below this
privileged class stood the common mass. It had its various gradations of
title, but, with the exception of rare instances of personal power,
there was equality in the mass. For instance, as business was a part of
their system, the local religious authority in some remote part might be
the business subordinate of some other man of less ecclesiastical rank,
with the result that this peculiar intermingling kept them all
practically upon one level of social order; and the man who made adobes
under the hot sun of the desert through all the week might still be the
religious superior of the richest man in the local community, and they
met on terms of equality and friendship. Their children might
intermarry, the difference in wealth being countervailed by a difference
in ecclesiastical authority.
It was a strange social system, this, with Brigham Young and his coterie
of advisers, to the number of twenty-six, standing at the head,
self-perpetuating, the chief being able to select constantly to fill the
ranks as they might be depleted by death; and all these ruling over one
solid mass of equal caste who thought that the rulers were animated by
divine revelation, holding the right to govern in all things on earth
and with authority extending into heaven.
So firmly intrenched was their social system that when Brigham Young
passed away his various successors who came in time to his place by
accident of seniority of service found ample opportunity without
difficulty to perpetuate this system and to maintain their social
autocracy. As the matter has appeared so fully before the country, I
will not speak further of the method of succession, but will merely call
to your minds that after Brigham Young came John Taylor, then Wilford
Woodruff, then Lorenzo Snow, then Joseph F. Smith, the present ruler.
Under these several men the social autocracy has had its varying
fortunes, but at the present time it is probably at as high a point as
it ever reached under the original Joseph or under Brigham Young. The
president of the church, Joseph F. Smith, affects a regal state. His
home consists of a series of villas, rather handsome in design, and
surrounded by such ample grounds as to afford sufficient exclusiveness.
In addition to this he has an official residence of historic character
near to the office which he occupies as president. When he travels he is
usually accompanied by a train of friends, who are really servitors.
When he attends social functions he appears like a ruler among his
subjects. And in this respect I am not speaking of Mormon associations
alone, for there are many Gentiles in and out of Utah who seem to take
delight in paying this extraordinary deference.
If I have seemed to speak at length upon this mere social phase it has
not been without a definite purpose. I want you to know how this
religion, claiming to recognize and secure the equality of men,
immediately established and has maintained for the mass of its adherents
that social equality, but has elevated a class of its rulers to regal
authority and splendor. Understanding how the chief among them has the
dignity of a monarch in their social relations, you will better
understand the business and political autocracy which he has been able
to establish.
In all this social system each apostle has his great part. He is
inseparable from it. He wields now, as does a minister at court, such
part of the power as the monarch may permit him to enjoy, and it is his
hope and expectation that he will outlive those who are his seniors in
rank in order that he may become the ruler.
Therefore, if there be evil in this social relation as I have portrayed
it, every apostle is responsible for a part of that evil. They enjoy the
honors of the social class; they help to exert the tyranny over the
subjugated mass. Those of you who do me the honor to follow my remarks
will realize how close is the relation between the apostles and the
president, and that the apostle is a responsible part of the governing
power. While I may speak of the president of the church segregated from
his associates and as the monarch, it must be understood constantly that
he maintains his power by the support of the apostles, who keep the mass
in order and in subjugation to his will, expressed through them.