MORMONDOM.
We had been presented at court, and favorably received; asked to call
again; admitted to State secrets of the presidency. From this moment our
position in the city was secured. Mormon seats in the theater were
placed at our disposal; the director of immigration, the presiding
bishop, Colonel Hunter--a grim, weather-beaten Indian fighter--and his
coadjutors, carried us off to see the reception of the bull-train at the
Elephant Corral; we were offered a team to take us to the Lake, which we
refused only because we had already accepted the loan of one from a
Gentile merchant; presents of peaches, and invitations to lunch, dinner,
and supper, came pouring in upon us from all sides. In a single morning
we were visited by four of the apostles and nine other leading members
of the church. Ecclesiastical dignitaries sat upon our single chair and
wash-hand-stand; and one bed groaned under the weight of George A.
Smith, “church historian,” while the other bore Æsop‘s load--the peaches
he had brought. These growers of fruit from standard trees think but
small things of our English wall-fruit, “baked on one side and frozen on
the other,” as they say. There is a mellowness about the Mormon peaches
that would drive our gardeners to despair.
One of our callers was Captain Hooper, the Utah delegate to Congress. He
is an adept at the Western plan of getting out of a fix by telling you a
story. When we laughingly alluded to his lack of wives, and the
absurdity of a monogamist representing Utah, he said that the people at
Washington all believed that Utah had sent them a polygamist. There is a
rule that no one with the entry shall take more than one lady to the
White House receptions. A member of Congress was urged by three ladies
to take them with him. He, as men do, said, “The thing is
impossible”--and did it. Presenting himself with the bevy at the door,
the usher stopped him: “Can‘t pass; only one friend admitted with each
member.” “Suppose, sir, that I‘m the delegate from Utah Territory?” said
the Congressman. “Oh, pass in, sir--pass in,” was the instant answer of
the usher. The story reminds me of poor Browne‘s “family” ticket to his
lecture at Salt Lake City: “Admit the bearer and _one_ wife.” Hooper is
said to be under pressure at this moment on the question of polygamy,
for he is a favorite with the prophet, who cannot, however, with
consistency promote him to office in the church on account of a saying
of his own: “A man with one wife is of less account before God than a
man with no wives at all.”
Our best opportunity of judging of the Mormon ladies was at the theater,
which we attended regularly, sitting now in Elder Stenhouse‘s “family”
seats, now with General Wells. Here we saw all the wives of the leading
churchmen of the city; in their houses, we saw only those they chose to
show us: in no case but that of the Clawson family did we meet in
society all the wives. We noticed at once that the leading ladies were
all alike--full of taste, full of sense, but full, at the same time, of
a kind of unconscious melancholy. Everywhere, as you looked round the
house, you met the sad eye which I had seen but once before--among the
Shakers at New Lebanon. The women here, knowing no other state, seem to
think themselves as happy as the day is long: their eye alone is there
to show the Gentile that they are, if the expression may be allowed,
unhappy without knowing it. That these Mormon women love their religion
and reverence its priests is but a consequence of its being “their
religion”--the system in the midst of which they have been brought up.
Which of us is there who does not set up some idol in his heart round
which he weaves all that he has of poetry and devotion in his character?
Art, hero-worship, patriotism are forms of this great tendency. That the
Mormon girls, who are educated as highly as those of any country in the
world--who, like all American girls, are allowed to wander where they
please--who are certain of protection in any of the fifty Gentile
houses in the city, and absolutely safe in Camp Douglas at the distance
of two miles from the city-wall--all consent deliberately to enter on
polygamy--shows clearly enough that they can, as a rule, have no dislike
to it beyond such a feeling as public opinion will speedily overcome.
Discussion of the institution of plural marriage in Salt Lake City is
fruitless; all that can be done is to observe. In assaulting the Mormon
citadel, you strike against the air. “Polygamy degrades the women,” you
begin. “Morally or socially?” says the Mormon. “Socially.” “Granted,” is
the reply, “and that is a most desirable consummation. By socially
lowering, it morally raises the woman. It makes her a servant, but it
makes her pure and good.”
It is always well to remember that if we have one argument against
polygamy which from our Gentile point of view is unanswerable, it is not
necessary that we should rack our brains for others. All our modern
experience is favorable to ranking woman as man‘s equal; polygamy
assumes that she shall be his servant--loving, faithful, cheerful,
willing, but still a servant.
The opposite poles upon the women question are Utah polygamy and Kansas
female suffrage.