Young soon had occasion to make practical use of the dictatorial power
that he had assumed. The character which those members of the flock
who had migrated from Missouri and Illinois had established among their
neighbors in those states was not changed simply by their removal to
a wilderness all by themselves. They had no longer the old excuse that
their misdeeds were reprisals on persecuting enemies, but this did not
save them from the temptation to exercise their natural propensities.
Again we shall take only the highest Mormon testimony on this subject.
One of the first sins for which Young openly reproved his congregation
was profane swearing. He brought this matter pointedly to their
attention in an address to the Conference of October 9, 1852, when
he said: "You Elders of Israel will go into the canyons, and curse and
swear--damn and curse your oxen, and swear by Him who created you. I
am telling the truth. Yes, you rip and curse and swear as bad as any
pirates ever did."*
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, p. 211.
Possibly the church authorities could have overlooked the swearing, but
a matter which gave them more distress was the insecurity of property.
This became so great an annoyance that Young spoke out plainly on the
subject, and he did not attempt to place the responsibility outside of
his own people. A few citations will illustrate this.
In an address in the Tabernacle on June 5, 1853, noticing complaints
about the stealing and rebranding of cattle, he said: "I will propose a
plan to stop the stealing of cattle in coming time, and it is this--let
those who have cattle on hand join in a company, and fence in about
fifty thousand acres of land, and so keep on fencing until all the
vacant land is substantially enclosed. Some persons will perhaps say, 'I
do not know how good or how high a fence it will be necessary to build
to keep thieves out.' I do not know either, except you build one
that will keep out the devil."* On another occasion, with a personal
grievance to air, he said in the Tabernacle: "I have gone to work and
made roads to get wood, and have not been able to get it. I have cut
it down and piled it up, and still have not got it. I wonder if anybody
else can say so. Have any of you piled up your wood, and, when you have
gone back, could not find it? Some stories could be told of this kind
that would make professional thieves ashamed."**
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, p. 252.
** Ibid., Vol. I, p. 213.
Young made no concealment of the fact that men high in the councils of
the church were among the peculators. In his discourse of June 15,
1856, he said: "I have proof ready to show that Bishops have taken in
thousands of pounds in weight of tithing which they have never reported
to the General Tithing Office. We have documents to show that Bishops
have taken in hundreds of bushels of wheat, and only a small portion of
it has come into the General Tithing Office. They stole it to let their
friends speculate upon."*
* Ibid., Vol. III, p. 342.
The new-comers from Europe also received his attention. Referring to
unkept promises of speedy repayment by assisted immigrants of advances
made to them, Young said, in 1855: "And what will they do when they get
here? Steal our wagons, and go off with them to Canada, and try to steal
the bake-kettles, frying-pans, tents, and wagon-covers; and will borrow
the oxen and run away with them, if you do not watch them closely. Do
they all do this? No, but many of them will try to do it."* And again,
a month later: "What previous characters some of you had in Wales, in
England, in Scotland, and perhaps in Ireland. Do not be scared if it
is proven against some one in the Bishop's court that you did steal the
poles from your neighbor's garden fence. If it is proven that you have
been to some person's wood pile and stolen wood, don't be frightened,
for if you will steal it must be made manifest." ** J. M. Grant was
quite as plain spoken. In an address in the bowery in Salt Lake City in
September, 1856, he declared that "you can scarcely find a place in this
city that is not full of filth and abominations."***
* Ibid., Vol. III, p. 3.
** Ibid., Vol. III, p. 49.
*** Ibid., Vol. IV, p. 51.
Young's denunciations were not quietly accepted, but protests and
threats were alike wasted upon him. Referring to complaints of some
of the flock that his denunciation was more than they could bear, he
replied, "But you have got to bear it, and, if you will not, make up
your minds to go to hell at once and have done with it." * On another
occasion he said, "You need, figuratively, to have it rain pitchforks,
tines downward, from this pulpit, Sunday after Sunday." On another
occasion, alluding to letters he had received, warning him against
attacking men's characters, he said, "When such epistles come to me, I
feel like saying, I ask no advice of you nor of all your clan this side
of hell."**
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. III, p. 49.
** Ibid, p. 50.
When mere denunciation did not reform his followers, Young became still
plainer in his language, and began to explain to them the latitude which
the church proposed to take in applying punishment. In a remarkable
sermon on October 6, 1855, on the "stealing, lying, deceiving,
wickedness, and covetousness" of the elders in Israel, he spoke as
follows:--
"Live on here, then, you poor miserable curses, until the time of
retribution, when your heads will have to be severed from your
bodies. Just let the Lord Almighty say, Lay judgment to the line and
righteousness to the plummet,* and the time of thieves is short in
this community. What do you suppose they would say in old Massachusetts
should they hear that the Latter-day Saints had received a revelation
or commandment to 'lay judgment to the line and righteousness to the
plummet'? What would they say in old Connecticut? They would raise a
universal howl of, 'How wicked the Mormons are. They are killing the
evil doers who are among them. Why, I hear that they kill the wicked
away up yonder in Utah.'... What do I care for the wrath of man? No more
than I do for the chickens that run in my door yard. I am here to teach
the ways of the Lord, and lead men to life everlasting; but if they have
not a mind to go there, I wish them to keep out of my path."**
* These words, from Isaiah xxviii. 17, are constantly used by
Young to denote the extreme punishment which the church might inflict on
any offender.
** Journal of Discourses, Vol. III, p. 50.
From this time Young and his closest associates seemed to make no
concealment of their intention to take the lives of any persons whom
they considered offenders. One or two more citations from his discourses
may be made to sustain this statement. On February 24, 1856, he
declared, "I am not afraid of all hell, nor of all the world, in laying
judgment to the line when the Lord says so."* In the following month he
told his congregation: "The time is coming when justice will be laid to
the line and righteousness to the plummet; when we shall take the old
broadsword and ask, Are you for God? And if you are not heartily on
the Lord's side, you will be hewn down."** Heber C. Kimball was equally
plain spoken. A year earlier he had said in the Tabernacle: "If a man
rebels, I will tell him of it, and if he resents a timely warning, HE IS
UNWISE.... I have never yet shed man's blood, and I pray to God that I
never may, unless it is actually necessary."*** Sultans and doges have
freely used assassination as a weapon, but it seems to have remained for
the Mormon church under Brigham Young to declare openly its intention
to make whatever it might call church apostasy subject to capital
punishment.
*Journal of Discourses, Vol. III, p. 241.
** Ibid., p. 266.
*** Ibid., pp, 163-164.
Out of the lawless condition of the Mormon flock, as we have thus seen
it pictured, and out of this radical view of the proper punishment of
offenders, resulted, in 1856, that remarkable movement still known in
Mormondon as "The Reformation "--a movement that has been characterized
by one writer as "a reign of lust and fanatical fury unequalled
since the Dark Ages," and by another as "a fanaticism at once blind,
dangerous, and terrible." During its continuance the religious zealot,
the amorous priest, the jealous lover, the man covetous of worldly
goods, and the framers of the church policy, from acknowledged Apostle
to secret Danite, all had their own way. "Were I counsel for a Mormon
on trial for a crime committed at the time under consideration, I should
plead wholesale insanity," said J. H. Beadle. It was during this period
that that system was perfected under which the life of no man,--or
company of men,--against whom the wrath of the church was directed, was
of any value; no household was safe from the lust of any aged elder;
no person once in the valley could leave it alive against the church's
consent.
The active agent in starting "The Reformation" was the inventor of
"blood atonement," Jedediah M. Grant.* That his censure of a Bishop and
his counsellors at Kayesville was the actual origin of the movement,
as has been stated,** cannot be accepted as proven, in view of the
preparation made for the era of blood, as indicated in the church
discourses. Lieutenant Gunnison, for whom the Mormons in later years
always asserted their friendship, writing concerning his observations as
early as 1852, said:--
* A correspondent of the New York Times at this date described
Grant as "a tall, thin, repulsive-looking man, of acute, vigorous
intellect, a thorough-paced scoundrel, and the most essential blackguard
in the pulpit. He was sometimes called Brigham's sledge hammer."
** "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 293.
"Witnesses are seldom put on oath in the lower courts, and there is
nothing known of the 'law's delay,' and the quibbles whereby the ends of
truth and justice may be defeated. But they have a criminal code called
'The Laws of the Lord,' which has been given by revelation and not
promulgated, the people not being able quite to bear it, or the
organization still too imperfect. It is to be put in force, however,
before long, and when in vogue, all grave crimes will be punished and
atoned for by cutting off the head of the offender. This regulation
arises from the fact that without shedding of blood there is no
remission."*
* "History of the Mormons," Book 1, Chapter X.
Gunnison's statement furnishes indisputable proof that this legal system
was so generally talked of some four years before it was put in force
that it came to the ears of a non-Mormon temporary resident.
After the condemnation of the Kayesville offenders and their rebaptism,
the next move was the appointment of missionaries to hold services
in every ward, and the sending out of what were really confessors,
appointed for every block, to inquire of all--young and old--concerning
the most intimate details of their lives. The printed catechism given
to these confessors was so indelicate that it was suppressed in later
years. These prying inquisitors found opportunity to gain information
for their superiors about any persons suspected of disloyalty, and one
use they made of their visitations was to urge the younger sisters to
be married to the older men, as a readier means of salvation than union
with men of their own age. That there was opposition to this espionage
is shown by some remarks of H. C. Kimball in the Tabernacle, in March,
1856, when he said: "I have heard some individuals saying that, if the
Bishops came into their houses and opened their cupboards, they would
split their heads open. THAT WOULD NOT BE A WISE OR SAFE OPERATION." *
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. III, p. 271.
Some of the information secured by the church confessional was
embarrassing to the leaders. At a meeting of male members in Social
Hall, Young, Grant, and others denounced the sinners in scathing terms,
Young ending his remarks by saying, "All you who have been guilty of
committing adultery, stand up." At once more than three-quarters of
those present arose.* For such confessors a way of repentance was
provided through rebaptism, but the secretly accused had no such avenue
opened to them.
* "A leading Bishop in Salt Lake City stated to the author that
Brigham was as much appalled at this sight as was Macbeth when he beheld
the woods of Birnam marching on to Dunsinane. A Bishop arose and asked
if there were not some misunderstanding among the brethren concerning
the question. He thought that perhaps the elders understood Brigham's
inquiry to apply to their conduct before they had thrown off the works
of the devil and embraced Mormonism; but upon Brigham reiterating that
it was the adultery committed since they had entered the church, the
brethren to a man still stood up:"--"Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 296.
One of the first victims of the reformers was H. J. Jarvis, a reputable
merchant of Salt Lake City. He was dragged over his counter one evening
and thrown into the street by men who then robbed his store and defiled
his household goods, giving him as the cause of the visitation the
explanation that he had spoken evil of the authorities, and had invited
Gentiles to supper. His two wives could not secure even a hearing from
Young in his behalf.* This, however, was a minor incident.
* "Rocky Mountain Saints;" p. 297.
That Young's rule should be objected to by some members of the church
was inevitable. There were men in the valley at that early day who
would rebel against such a dictatorship under any name; others--men of
means--who were alarmed by the declarations about property rights, and
others to whom the announcement concerning polygamy was repugnant.
When such persons gave expression to their discontent, they angered the
church officers; when they indicated their purpose to leave the valley,
they alarmed them. Anything like an exodus of the flock would
have broken up all of Young's plans, and have undone the scheme of
immigration that had cost so much time and money. Accordingly, when
this movement for "reform" began, the church let it be known that any
desertion of the flock would be considered the worst form of apostasy,
and that the deserter must take the consequences. To quote Brigham
Young's own words: "The moment a person decides to leave this people,
he is cut off from every object that is desirable for time and eternity.
Every possession and object of affection will be taken from those who
forsake the truth, and their identity and existence will eventually
cease."*
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. IV, p. 31.
The almost unbreakable hedge that surrounded the inhabitants of the
valley at this time, under the system of church espionage, has formed a
subject for the novelist, and has seemed to many persons, as described,
a probable exaggeration. But, while Young did not narrate in his
pulpit the tales of blood which his instructions gave rise to, there
is testimony concerning them which leaves no reasonable doubt of their
truthfulness.