An intelligent examination of the present status of the Mormon church
can be made only after acquaintance with its past history, and the
policy of the men who have given it its present doctrinal and political
position. The Mormon power has ever in view objects rather than methods.
It always keeps those objects in view, while at times adjusting methods
to circumstances, as was the case in its latest treatment of the
doctrine of polygamy. The casual visitor, making a tour of observation
in Utah, and the would-be student of Mormon policies who satisfies
himself with reading their books of doctrine instead of their early
history, is certain to acquire little knowledge of the real Mormon
character and the practical Mormon ambition, and if he writes on the
subject he will contribute nothing more authentic than does Schouler
in his "History of the United States" wherein he calls Joseph Smith "a
careful organizer," and says that "it was a part of his creed to manage
well the material concerns of his people, as they fed their flocks and
raised their produce." Brigham Young's constant cry was that all the
Mormons asked was to be left alone. Nothing suits the purposes of the
heads of the church today better than the decrease of public attention
attracted to their organization since the Woodruff manifesto concerning
polygamy. In trying to arrive at a reasonable decision concerning their
future place in American history, one must constantly bear in mind the
arguments which they have to offer to religious enthusiasts, and the
political and commercial power which they have already attained and
which they are constantly strengthening.
The growth of Utah in population since its settlement by the Mormons has
been as follows, accepting the figures of the United States census:--
1850 11,380
1860 40,273
1870 86,786
1880 143,963
1890 207,905
1900 276,749
The census of 1890 (the religious statistics of the census of 1900 are
not yet available) shows that, of a total church membership of 128,115
in Utah, the Latter-Day Saints numbered 118,201.
What may be called the Mormon political policy embraces these objects:
to maintain the dictatorial power of the priesthood over the present
church membership; to extend that membership over the adjoining states
so as to acquire in the latter, first a balance of power, and later
complete political control; to continue the work of proselyting
throughout the United States and in foreign lands with a view to
increasing the strength of the church at home by the immigration to Utah
of the converts.
That the power of the Mormon priesthood over their flock has never been
more autocratic than it is to-day is the testimony of the best witnesses
who may be cited. A natural reason for this may be found in the strength
which always comes to a religious sect with age, if it survives the
period of its infancy. We have seen that in the early days of the church
its members apostatized in scores, intimate acquaintance with Smith and
his associates soon disclosing to men of intelligence and property their
real objects. But the church membership in and around Utah to-day is
made up of the children and the grandchildren of men and women who
remained steadfast in their faith. These younger generations are
therefore influenced in their belief, not only by such appeals as what
is taught to them makes to their reason, but by the fact that these
teachings are the teachings which have been accepted by their ancestors.
It is, therefore, vastly more difficult to convince a younger Mormon
to-day that his belief rests on a system of fraud than it was to enforce
a similar argument on the minds of men and women who joined the Saints
in Ohio or Illinois. We find, accordingly, that apostasies in Utah are
of comparatively rare occurrence; that men of all classes accept orders
to go on missions to all parts of the world without question; and that
the tithings are paid with greater regularity than they have been since
the days of Brigham Young.
The extension of the membership of the Mormon church over the states and
territories nearest to Utah has been carried on with intelligent
zeal. The census of 1890 gives the following comparison of members
of Latter-Day Saints churches and of "all bodies" in the states and
territories named:--
******* L.D. SAINTS **** ALL BODIES ***
Idaho******* 14,972 **** 24,036
Arizona***** 6,500 **** 26,972
Nevada****** 525 **** 5,877
Wyoming***** 1,336 **** 11,705
Colorado**** 1,762 **** 86,837
New Mexico** 456 **** 105,749
The political influence of the Mormon church in all the states and
territories adjacent to Utah is already great, amounting in some
instances to practical dictation. It is not necessary that any body
of voters should have the actual control of the politics of a state to
insure to them the respect of political managers. The control of certain
counties will insure to them the subserviency of the local politicians,
who will speak a good word for them at the state capital, and the
prospect that they will have greater influence in the future will be
pressed upon the attention of the powers that be. We have seen how
steadily the politicians of California at Washington stood by the
Mormons in their earlier days, when they were seeking statehood and
opposing any federal control of their affairs. The business reasons
which influenced the Californians are a thousand times more effective
to-day. The Cooperative Institution has a hold on the Eastern firms from
which it buys goods, and every commercial traveller who visits Utah to
sell the goods of his employers to Mormon merchants learns that a good
word for his customers is always appreciated. The large corporations
that are organized under the laws of Utah (and this includes the Union
Pacific Railroad Company) are always in some way beholden to the Mormon
legislative power. All this sufficiently indicates the measures quietly
taken by the Mormon church to guard itself against any further federal
interference.
The mission work of the Mormon church has always been conducted
with zeal and efficiency, and it is so continued to-day. The church
authorities in Utah no longer give out definite statistics showing the
number of missionaries in the field, and the number of converts brought
to Utah from abroad. The number of missionaries at work in October,
1901, was stated to me by church officers at from fourteen hundred to
nineteen hundred, the smaller number being insisted upon as correct by
those who gave it. As nearly as could be ascertained, about one-half
this force is employed in the United States and the rest abroad. The
home field most industriously cultivated has been the rural districts of
the Southern states, whose ignorant population, ever susceptible to
"preaching" of any kind, and quite incapable of answering the Mormon
interpretation of the Scriptures, is most easily lead to accept the
Mormon views. When such people are offered an opportunity to improve
their worldly condition, as they are told they may do in Utah, at the
same time that they can save their souls, the bait is a tempting one.
The number of missionaries now at work in these Southern states is said
to be much smaller than it was two years ago. Meanwhile the work of
proselyting in the Eastern Atlantic states has become more active. The
Mormons have their headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, and their
missionaries make visits in all parts of Greater New York. They leave a
great many tracts in private houses, explaining that they will make
another call later, and doing so if they receive the least
encouragement. They take great pains to reach servant girls with their
literature and arguments, and the story has been published* of a Mormon
missionary who secured employment as a butler, and made himself so
efficient that his employer confided to him the engagement of all the
house servants; in time the frequent changes which he made aroused
suspicion, and an investigation disclosed the fact that he was a Mormon
of good education, who used his position as head servant to perform
effective proselyting work. By promise of a husband and a home of her
own on her arrival in Utah, this man was said to have induced sixty
girls to migrate from New York City to that state since he began his
labors.
* New York Sun, January 27, 1901.
The Mormons estimate the membership of their church throughout the world
at a little over 300,000. The numbers of "souls" in the church abroad
was thus reported for the year ending December 31, 1899, as published in
the Millennial Star:--
Great Britain
4,588
Scandinavia
5,438
Germany
1,198
Switzerland
1,078
Netherlands
1,556
These figures indicate a great falling off in the church constituency
in Europe as compared with the year 1851, when the number of Mormons
in Great Britain and Ireland was reported at more than thirty thousand.
Many influences have contributed to decrease the membership of the
church abroad and the number of converts which the church machinery
has been able to bring to Utah. We have seen that the announcement
of polygamy as a necessary belief of the church was a blow to the
organization in Europe. The misrepresentation made to converts abroad to
induce them to migrate to Utah, as illustrated in the earlier years
of the church, has always been continued, and naturally many of the
deceived immigrants have sent home accounts of their deception. A book
could be filled with stories of the experiences of men and women who
have gone to Utah, accepting the promises held out to them by the
missionaries,--such as productive farms, paying business enterprises; or
remunerative employment,--only to find their expectations disappointed,
and themselves stranded in a country where they must perform the hardest
labor in order to support themselves, if they had not the means with
which to return home. The effect of such revelations has made some parts
of Europe an unpleasant field for the visits of Mormon missionaries.
The government at Washington, during the operation of the Perpetual
Emigration Fund organization, realized the evil of the introduction of
so many Mormon converts from abroad. On August 9, 1879, Secretary of
State William M. Evarts sent out a circular to the diplomatic officers
of the United States throughout the world, calling their attention to
the fact that the organized shipment of immigrants intended to add to
the number of law-defying polygamists in Utah was "a deliberate and
systematic attempt to bring persons to the United States with the intent
of violating their laws and committing crimes expressly punishable under
the statute as penitentiary offences," and instructing them to call
the attention of the governments to which they were accredited to this
matter, in order that those governments might take such steps as were
compatible with their laws and usages "to check the organization of
these criminal enterprises by agents who are thus operating beyond the
reach of the law of the United States, and to prevent the departure of
those proposing to come hither as violators of the law by engaging
in such criminal enterprises, by whomsoever instigated." President
Cleveland, in his first message, recommended the passage of a law
to prevent the importation of Mormons into the United States. The
Edmunds-Tucker law contained a provision dissolving the Perpetual
Emigration Company, and forbidding the Utah legislature to pass any law
to bring persons into the territory. Mormon authorities have informed
me that there has been no systematic immigration work since the
prosecutions under the Edmunds law. But as it is conceded that the
Mormons make practically no proselytes among then Gentile neighbors,
they must still look largely to other fields for that increase of their
number which they have in view.
As a part of their system of colonizing the neighboring states and
territories, they have made settlements in the Dominion of Canada and
in Mexico. Their Canadian settlement is situated in Alberta. A report
to the Superintendent of Immigration at Ottawa, dated December 30, 1899,
stated that the Mormon colony there comprised 1700 souls, all coming
from Utah; and that "they are a very progressive people, with good
schools and churches." When they first made their settlement they gave
a pledge to the Dominion government that they would refrain from the
practice of polygamy while in that country. In 1889 the Department of
the Interior at Ottawa was informed that the Mormons were not observing
this pledge, but investigation convinced the department that this
accusation was not true. However, in 1890, an amendment to the criminal
law of the Dominion was enacted (clause 11, 53 Victoria, Chap. 37),
making any person guilty of a misdemeanor, and liable to imprisonment
for five years and a fine of $500, who practises any form of polygamy
or spiritual marriage, or celebrates or assists in any such marriage
ceremony.
The Secretario de Fomento of Mexico, under date of May 4, 1901, informed
me that the number of Mormon colonists in that country was then 2319,
located in seven places in Chihuahua and Sonora. He added: "The laws of
this country do not permit polygamy. The government has never encouraged
the immigration of Mormons, only that of foreigners of good character,
working people who may be useful to the republic. And in the contracts
made for the establishment of those Mormon colonies it was stipulated
that they should be formed only of foreigners embodying all the
aforesaid conditions."
No student of the question of polygamy, as a doctrine and practice of
the Mormon church, can reach any other conclusion than that it is simply
held in abeyance at the present time, with an expectation of a removal
of the check now placed upon it. The impression, which undoubtedly
prevails throughout other parts of the United States, that polygamy was
finally abolished by the Woodruff manifesto and the terms of statehood,
is founded on an ignorance of the compulsory character of the doctrine
of polygamy, of the narrowness of President Woodruff's decree, and
of the part which polygamous marriages have been given, by the church
doctrinal teachings, in the plan of salvation. The sketch of the various
steps leading up to the Woodruff manifesto shows that even that slight
concession to public opinion was made, not because of any change of
view by the church itself concerning polygamy, but simply to protect
the church members from the loss of every privilege of citizenship. That
manifesto did not in any way condemn the polygamous doctrine; it simply
advised the Saints to submit to the United States law against polygamy,
with the easily understood but unexpressed explanation that it was to
their temporal advantage to do so. How strictly this advice has since
been lived up to--to what extent polygamous practices have since been
continued in Utah--it is not necessary, in a work of this kind, to try
to ascertain. The most intelligent non-Mormon testimony obtainable in
the territory must be discarded if we are to believe that polygamous
relations have not been continued in many instances. This, too, would
be only what might naturally be expected among a people who had so long
been taught that plural marriages were a religious duty, and that the
check to them was applied, not by their church authorities, but by an
outside government, hostility to which had long been inculcated in them.
It must be remembered that it is a part of the doctrine of polygamy
that woman can enter heaven only as sealed to some devout member of the
Mormon church "for time and eternity," and that the space around the
earth is filled with spirits seeking some "tabernacles of clay" by
means of which they may attain salvation. Through the teaching of this
doctrine, which is accepted as explicitly by the membership of the
Mormon church at large as is any doctrine by a Protestant denomination,
the Mormon women believe that the salvation of their sex depends on
"sealed" marriages, and that the more children they can bring into the
world the more spirits they assist on the road to salvation. In the
earlier days of the church, as Brigham Young himself testified,
the bringing in of new wives into a family produced discord and
heartburnings, and many pictures have been drawn of the agony endured
by a wife number one when her husband became a polygamist. All the
testimony I can obtain in regard to the Mormonism of today shows that
the Mormon women are now the most earnest advocates of polygamous
marriages. Said one competent observer in Salt Lake City to me, "As
the women of the South, during the war, were the rankest rebels, so the
women of Mormondom are to-day the most zealous advocates of polygamy."
By precisely what steps the church may remove the existing prohibition
of polygamous marriages I shall not attempt to decide. It is easy,
however, to state the one enactment which would prevent the success of
any such effort. This would be the adoption by Congress and ratification
by the necessary number of states of a constitutional amendment making
the practice of polygamy an offence under the federal law, and giving
the federal courts jurisdiction to punish any violators of this law. The
Mormon church recognizes this fact, and whenever such an amendment
comes before Congress all its energies will be directed to prevent its
ratification. Governor Wells's warning in his message vetoing the Utah
Act of March, 1901, concerning prosecutions for adultery, that its
enactment would be the signal for a general demand for the passage of a
constitutional amendment against polygamy, showed how far the executive
thought it necessary to go to prevent even the possibility of such an
amendment. One of the main reasons why the Mormons are so constantly
increasing their numbers in the neighboring states is that they may
secure the vote of those states against an anti-polygamy amendment.
Whenever such an amendment is introduced at Washington it will be found
that every Mormon influence--political, mercantile, and railroad--will
be arrayed against it, and its passage is unlikely unless the church
shall make some misstep which will again direct public attention to it
in a hostile manner.
The devout Mormon has no more doubt that his church will dominate this
nation eventually than he has in the divine character of his prophet's
revelations. Absurd as such a claim appears to all non-Mormon citizens,
in these days when Mormonism has succeeded in turning public attention
away from the sect, it is interesting to trace the church view of this
matter, along with the impression which the Mormon power has made on
some of its close observers. The early leaders made no concealment of
their claim that Mormonism was to be a world religion. "What the world
calls 'Mormonism' will rule every nation," said Orson Hyde. "God has
decreed it, and his own right arm will accomplish it."* Brigham Young,
in a sermon in the Tabernacle on February 15, 1856, told his people that
their expulsion from Missouri was revealed to him in advance, as well as
the course of their migrations, and he added: "Mark my words. Write them
down. This people as a church and kingdom will go from the west to the
east."
* Journal of Discourses, Vol. VII, pp. 48-53.
Tullidge, whose works, it must be remembered, were submitted to church
revision, in his "Life of Brigham Young" thus defines the Mormon view
of the political mission of the head of the church: "He is simply an
apostle of a republican nationality, manifold in its genius; or,
in popular words, he is the chief apostle of state rights by divine
appointment. He has the mission, he affirms, and has been endowed with
inspiration to preach the gospel of a true democracy to the nation, as
well as the gospel for the remission of sins, and he believes the United
States will ultimately need his ministration in both respects....
They form not, therefore, a rival power as against the Union, but an
apostolic ministry to it, and their political gospel is state rights and
self-government. This is political Mormonism in a nutshell."*
* p. 244.
Tullidge further says in his "History of Salt Lake City" (writing in
1886): "The Mormons from the first have existed as a society, not as a
sect. They have combined the two elements of organization--the social
and the religious. They are now a new society power in the world, and an
entirety in themselves. They are indeed the only religious community in
Christendom of modern birth."*
* p. 387.
Some of the closest observers of the Mormons in their earlier days took
them very seriously. Thus Josiah Quincy, after visiting Joseph Smith at
Nauvoo, wrote that it was "by no means impossible" that the answer to
the question, "What historical American of the nineteenth century has
exerted the most powerful influence upon the destiny of his countrymen,"
would not be, "Joseph Smith." Governor Ford of Illinois, who had to do
officially with the Mormons during most of their stay in that state,
afterward wrote concerning them: "The Christian world, which has
hitherto regarded Mormonism with silent contempt, unhappily may yet have
cause to fear its rapid increase. Modern society is full of material for
such a religion.... It is to be feared that, in the course of a century,
some gifted man like Paul, some splendid orator who will be able by his
eloquence to attract crowds of the thousands who are ever ready to hear
and be carried away by the sounding brass and tinkling cymbal of
sparkling oratory, may command a hearing, may succeed in breathing a new
life into this modern Mohammedanism, and make the name of the martyred
Joseph ring as loud, and stir the souls of men as much, as the mighty
name of Christ itself."*
* Ford, "History of Illinois," p. 359.
The close observers of Mormonism in Utah, who recognize its aims, but
think that its days of greatest power are over, found this opinion
on the fact that the church makes practically no converts among the
neighboring Gentiles; and that the increasing mining and other business
interests are gradually attracting a population of non-Mormons which
the church can no longer offset by converts brought in from the East and
from foreign lands. Special stress is laid on the future restriction on
Mormon immigration that will be found in the lack of further government
land which may be offered to immigrants, and in the discouraging stories
sent home by immigrants who have been induced to move to Utah by the
false representations of the missionaries. Unquestionably, if the Mormon
church remains stationary as regards wealth and membership, it will be
overshadowed by its surroundings. What it depends on to maintain its
present status and to increase its power is the loyal devotion of the
body of its adherents, and its skill in increasing their number in the
states which now surround Utah, and eventually in other states.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Story of the Mormons, by William Alexander Linn