There are two classes of men in Utah who are interested in defaming
the character of the "Mormon" people. These are the religious and
political adventurers who have drifted into the Territory. The former
went there professedly to convert the "Mormons" from the error of their
way; but not being successful in getting sufficient converts from
the "Mormon" Church to establish congregations that could pay their
salaries, they have ever been dependent upon the people of the Eastern
States for their support and means with which to build churches. They
soon discovered that the amount of means they could raise depended upon
the strength of the feeling they could incite in the minds of their
supporters in the Eastern States. The more licentious and blood-thirsty
the "Mormon" community was represented to be, the greater Christian
heroes were these ministers considered, and therefore the more readily
were "ducats" poured into their laps to carry on this spiritual war,
against the supposed man of sin situated in the Rocky Mountains.
Granting a few honorable exceptions, these professed ministers of
Christ have invented and retailed the most abominable falsehoods
respecting the Latter-day Saints, well knowing that the prejudice
existing against the "Mormon" religion would so blind the eyes and
close the ears of the people that it would be next to impossible for
their calumnies and misrepresentations to be exposed. And if now and
then their base purposes were brought for a moment to the light, and
some few of their falsehoods contradicted, the effect could only be
momentary, and the exploded sensational reports of "Mormon" atrocities
would be supplanted by ten thousand others more horrible but equally
baseless.
The political adventurers, alluded to in the above, are men who have
come into the Territory principally by being appointed to the Federal
offices within the gift of the President of the United States. It must
be understood that a Territory in the American Government occupies
much the same relationship to that government that a crown colony
does to the imperial government of Great Britain; and the President
appoints the Governor, Secretary, the District judges, the Marshal,
Commissioners, {176} and indirectly a number of other officers in the
Territory. It has been the policy of the chief executives of the nation
in the past to reward their supporters, or the supporters of their
political friends in the respective states with appointments to these
positions; and to satisfy popular clamor raised by religious opponents,
men with avowed hatred of "Mormonism" have usually been sought to fill
these Federal offices. Another fact bearing on the character of these
appointees must be taken into consideration; and that is, as a general
thing, men who will consent to accept an appointment to positions in
the Territories are fifth or sixth rate politicians, whose political
prospects where they are known have dwindled to a forlorn hope. No man
who has an opportunity of succeeding in political or business life
in his own state will consent to abandon his prospects and life long
associations for a temporary position in a Territory where, from the
very nature of things, he can never hope for a hearty support of the
people among whom he thrusts his unwelcome presence. Why? Because he
is not of them. He is not their choice for the position; he is not
responsible to the community for the manner in which he discharges his
official duties--a condition of affairs that is absolutely incompatible
with the existence of harmony between the administrator of the laws and
the community they effect, in a country where the people are educated
to the idea that "Governments derive their just powers from the consent
of the governed."
I find these two points relative to political and ecclesiastical
adventurers sustained by the testimony of James W. Barclay, a member
of the British Parliament, who visited Utah in 1883, and published
the results of his observations in the January No., 1884, of the
_Nineteenth Century_. The _Century_ is a monthly magazine published in
London. He says:
"I apprehend that the animosity of Mormonism is principally due
to the efforts of the host of hungry office-seekers who would
find lucrative posts in Utah were the Mormons disfranchised,
and by the missionaries from the Eastern States who come to
turn the Mormons from the error of their ways, and whose income
depends on the strength of the feelings they can excite in their
supporters. Utah is still a Territory, and, as such, its Governor,
Lieutenant-Governor and Marshal, and other officials of the Federal
Government, are nominated by the President of the United States,
and are of course non-Mormons; but the municipal and other local
officials are elected by the Mormons.
If the Mormons could be disfranchised in a body, 500 lucrative
posts in Utah would be open to Gentile office-seekers. According to
the legislature which might be adopted, the offices would be filled
{177} either by the President of the United States or by the small
minority of Gentiles in Utah."