THE CITY OF THE HONEY-BEE.
Zion--Deseret--A City of Two Peoples--"Work" the watchword of
Mormonism--A few facts to the credit of the Saints--The text of the
Edmunds Bill--In the Mormon Tabernacle--The closing scene of the
Conference.
I HAVE described in my time many cities, both of the east and west; but
the City of the Saints puzzles me. It is the young rival of Mecca, the
Zion of the Mormons, the Latter-Day Jerusalem. It is also the City of
the Honey-bee, "Deseret," and the City of the Sunflower--an encampment
as of pastoral tribes, the tented capital of some Hyksos, "Shepherd
Kings"--the rural seat of a modern patriarchal democracy; the place
of the tabernacle of an ancient prophet-ruled Theocracy--the point
round which great future perplexities for America are gathering fast;
a political storm centre--"a land fresh, as it were, from the hands of
God;" a beautiful Goshen of tranquility in the midst of a troublous
Egypt--a city of mystery, that seems to the ignorant some Alamut or
"Vulture's Nest" of an Assassin sect; the eyrie of an "Old Man of
the Mountains:"--to the well-informed the Benares of a sternly pious
people; the templed city of an exacting God--a place of pilgrimage
in the land of promise, the home of the "Lion of Judah," and the
rallying-point in the last days of the Lost Tribes, the Lamanites, the
Red Indians--the capital of a Territory in which the people, though
"Americans," refuse to make haste to get rich; to dig out the gold and
silver which they know abounds in their mountains; to enter the world's
markets as competitors in the race of commerce--a people content with
solid comfort; that will not tolerate either a beggar or a millionaire
within their borders, but insist on a uniform standard of substantial
well-being, and devote all the surplus to "building up of Zion," to
the emigration of the foreign poor and the erection of splendid places
of ceremonial worship--a Territory in which the towns are all filled
thick with trees and the air is sweet with the fragrance of fruit and
flowers, and the voices of birds and bees as if the land was still
their wild birthright; in which meadows with herds of cattle and horses
are gradually overspreading deserts hitherto the wild pashalik of the
tyrant sage-brush--a land, alternately, of populous champaign and
of desolate sand waste, with, as its capital, a City of Two Peoples
between whom there is a bitterness of animosity, such as, in far-off
Persia, even Sunni and Shea hardly know.
Indeed, there are so many sides to Salt Lake City, and so much that
might be said of each, that I should perhaps have shirked this part of
my experiences altogether were I not conscious of possessing, at any
rate, one advantage over all my "Gentile" predecessors who have written
of this Mecca of the West. For it was my good fortune to be entertained
as a guest in the household of a prominent Mormon Apostle, a
polygamist, and in this way to have had opportunities for the frankest
conversation with many of the leading Mormons of the territory. My
candidly avowed antipathy to polygamy made no difference anywhere I
went, for they extended to me the same confidence that they would have
done to any Gentile who cared to know the real facts.
In the ordinary way, I should begin by describing the City itself.
But even then, so subtle is the charm of this place--Oriental in its
general appearance, English in its details--that I should hesitate to
attempt description. Its quaint disregard of that "fine appearance"
which makes your "live" towns so commonplace; its extravagance in
streets condoned by ample shade-trees; its sluices gurgling along by
the side-walks; its astonishing quiet; the simple, neighbourly life of
the citizens--all these, and much more combine to invest Salt Lake City
with the mystery that is in itself a charm.
Speaking merely as a traveller, and classifying the towns which I
have seen, I would place the Mormon Zion in the same genus as Benares
on the Ganges and Shikarpoor in Sinde, for it attracts the visitor
by interests that are in great part intellectual. The mind and eye
are captivated together. It is a fascination of the imagination as
well as of the senses. For the capital of Utah is not one of Nature's
favourites. She has hemmed it in with majestic mountains, but they
are barren and severe. She has spread the levels of a great lake, but
its waters are bitter, Marah. There is none of the tender grace of
English landscape, none of the fierce splendour of the tropics; and
yet, in spite of Nature, the valley is already beautiful, and in the
years to come may be another Palmyra. As yet, however, it is the day of
small things. Many of the houses are still of adobe, and they overlook
the trees planted to shade them. Wild flowers still grow alongside
the track of the tram-cars, and wild birds perch to whistle on the
telephone wires in the business thoroughfares.
But the future is full of promise, for the prosperity of the city is
based upon the most solid of all foundations, agricultural wealth, and
it is inhabited by a people whose religion is work. For it is a fact
about Mormonism which I have not yet seen insisted upon, that the first
duty it teaches is work, and that it inculcates industry as one of the
supreme virtues.
The result is that there are no pauper Mormons, for there are no idle
ones. In the daytime there are no loafers in the streets, for every man
is afield or at his work, and soon after nine at night the whole city
seems to be gone to bed. A few strangers of course are hanging about
the saloon doors, but the pervading stillness and the emptiness of the
streets is dispiriting to rowdyism, and so the Gentile damns the place
as being "dull." But the truth is that the Mormons are too busy during
the day for idleness to find companionship at night, and too sober in
their pleasures for gaslight vices to attract them.
As a natural corollary to this life of hard work, it follows that the
Mormons are in a large measure indifferent to the affairs of the world
outside themselves. Minding their own business keeps them from meddling
with that of others. They are, indeed, taught this from the pulpit.
For it is the regular formula of the Tabernacle that the people should
go about their daily work, attend to that, and leave everything else
alone. They are never to forget that they are "building up Zion," that
their day is coming in good time, but that meanwhile they must work
"and never bother about what other people may be doing." In this way
Salt Lake City has become a City of Two Peoples, and though Mormon and
Gentile may be stirred up together sometimes, they do not mingle any
more than oil and water.
There are no paupers among the Mormons, and 95 per cent of them live in
their own houses on their own land; there is no "caste" of priesthood,
such as the world supposes, inasmuch as every intelligent man is a
priest, and liable at any moment to be called upon to undertake the
duties of the priests of other churches--but without any pay.
Last winter there was a census taken of the Utah Penitentiary and the
Salt Lake City and county prisons with the following result:--In Salt
Lake City there are about 75 Mormons to 25 non-Mormons: in Salt Lake
county there are about 80 Mormons to 20 non-Mormons. Yet in the city
prison there were 29 convicts, all non-Mormons; in the county prison
there were 6 convicts all non-Mormons. The jailer stated that the
county convicts for the five years past were all anti-Mormons except
three!
In Utah the proportion of Mormons to all others is as 83 to 17. In the
Utah Penitentiary at the date of the census there were 51 prisoners,
only 5 of whom were Mormons, and 2 of the 5 were in prison for
polygamy, so that the 17 per cent "outsiders" had 46 convicts in the
penitentiary, while the 83 per cent. Mormons had but 5!
Out of the 200 saloon, billiard, bowling alley and pool-table keepers
not over a dozen even profess to be Mormons. All of the bagnios and
other disreputable concerns in the territory are run and sustained by
non-Mormons. Ninety-eight per cent of the gamblers in Utah are of the
same element. Ninety-five per cent of the Utah lawyers are Gentiles,
and 98 per cent of all the litigation there is of outside growth and
promotion. Of the 250 towns and villages in Utah, over 200 have no
"gaudy sepulchre of departed virtue," and these two hundred and odd
towns are almost exclusively Mormon in population. Of the suicides
committed in Utah ninety odd per cent are non-Mormon, and of the Utah
homicides and infanticides over 80 per cent are perpetrated by the 17
per cent of "outsiders."
The arrests made in Salt Lake City from January 1, 1881, to December 8,
1881, were classified as follows:--
Men..........................782
Women........................200
Boys..........................38
Total..................1020
Mormons--Men and boys........163
Mormons--Women.................6
Anti-Mormon--Men and boys....657
Anti-Mormon--Women...........194
Total..................1020
A number of the Mormon arrests were for chicken, cow, and water
trespass, petty larceny, &c. The arrests of non-Mormons were 80 per
cent for prostitution, gambling, exposing of person, drunkenness,
unlawful dram-selling, assault and battery, attempt to kill, &c.
Now, if the 75 per cent Mormon population of Salt Lake City were as
lawless and corrupt as the record shows the 25 per cent non-Mormons to
be, there would have been 2443 arrests made from their ranks during
the year 1881, instead of 169; while if the 25 per cent non-Mormon
population were as law-abiding and moral as the 75 per cent Mormons,
instead of 851 non-Mormon arrests during the year, there would have
been but 56!
These are the kind of statistics that non-Mormons in Salt Lake City
hate having published. But the world ought to know them, if only to
put to shame the so-called Christian community of Utah, that is never
tired of libelling, personally and even by name, the men and women whom
Mormons have learned to respect from a lifetime's experience of the
integrity of their conduct and the purity of their lives--the so-called
"Christian" community that is afraid to hear itself contrasted with
these same Mormons, lest the shocking balance of crime and immorality
against themselves should be publicly known. But there is no appeal
from these statistics. They are incontrovertible.
The time at which I arrived in Utah was a very critical one for the
Latter-Day Saints. The States, exasperated into activity by sectarian
agitation--and by the intrigues of a few Gentiles resident in Utah who
were financially interested in the transfer of the Territorial Treasury
from Mormon hands to their own--had just determined, once more, to
extirpate polygamy, and the final passage of the long-dreaded "Edmunds
Bill" had marked down Mormons as a proscribed people, and had indicted
the whole community for a common offence.
The following is the text of this remarkable bill:--
"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 5352 of
the Revised Statutes of the United States be, and the same is hereby,
amended so as to read as follows, namely:
"Every person who has a husband or wife living who, in a territory or
other place over which the United States have exclusive jurisdiction,
hereafter marries another, whether married or single, and any man who
hereafter simultaneously, or on the same day, marries more than one
woman, in a territory or other place over which the United States have
exclusive jurisdiction, is guilty of polygamy, and shall be punished
by a fine of not more than $500 and by imprisonment for a term of
not more than five years; but this section shall not extend to any
person by reason of any former marriage whose husband or wife by such
marriage shall have been absent for five successive years, and is not
known to such person to be living, and is believed by such person to
be dead, nor to any person by reason of any former marriage which
shall have been dissolved by a valid decree of a competent court, nor
to any person by reason of any former marriage which shall have been
pronounced void by a valid decree of a competent court, on the ground
of nullity of the marriage contract.
"SEC. 2--That the foregoing provisions shall not affect the prosecution
or punishment of any offence already committed against the section
amended by the first section of this act.
"SEC. 3--That if any male person, in a territory or other place over
which the United States have exclusive jurisdiction, hereafter cohabits
with more than one woman, he shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanour,
and on conviction thereof, shall be punished by a fine of not more than
$300, or by imprisonment for not more than six months, or by both said
punishments, in the discretion of the court.
"SEC. 4--That counts for any or all of the offences named in sections
one and two of this act may be joined in the same information or
indictment.
"SEC. 5--That in any prosecution for bigamy, polygamy, or unlawful
cohabitation, under any statute of the United States, it shall be
sufficient cause of challenge to any person drawn or summoned as a
juryman or talesman, first, that he is or has been living in the
practice of bigamy, polygamy or unlawful cohabitation with more than
one woman, or that he is or has been guilty of an offence punishable
by either of the foregoing sections, or by section 5352 of the
Revised Statutes of the United States, or the Act of July 1st, 1862,
entitled, 'An Act to punish and prevent the practice of polygamy in the
territories of the United States and other places, and disapproving and
annulling certain Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory
of Utah;' or second, that he believes it right for a man to have more
than one living and undivorced wife at the same time, or to live in
the practice of cohabiting with more than one woman; and any person
appearing or offered as a juror or talesman, and challenged on either
of the foregoing grounds, may be questioned on his oath as to the
existence of any such cause of challenge, and other evidence may be
introduced bearing upon the question raised by such challenge; and this
question shall be tried by the court. But as to the first ground of
challenge before mentioned, the person challenged shall not be bound
to answer if he shall say upon his oath that he declines on the ground
that his answer may tend to criminate himself; and if he shall answer
as to said first ground, his answer shall not be given in evidence in
any criminal prosecution against him for any offence named in sections
one or three of this Act; but if he declines to answer on any ground,
he shall be rejected as incompetent.
"SEC. 6--That the President is hereby authorized to grant amnesty to
such classes of offenders, guilty before the passage of this act of
bigamy, polygamy, or unlawful cohabitation, on such conditions and
under such limitations as he shall think proper; but no such amnesty
shall have effect unless the conditions thereof shall be complied with.
"SEC. 7--That the issue of bigamous or polygamous marriages, known as
Mormon marriages, in cases in which such marriages have been solemnized
according to the ceremonies of the Mormon sect, in any territory of
the United States, and such issue shall have been born before the 1st
January, A.D. 1883, are hereby legitimated.
"SEC. 8--That no polygamist, bigamist, or any person cohabiting with
more than one woman, and no woman cohabiting with any of the persons
described as aforesaid in this section, in any territory or other place
over which the United States have exclusive jurisdiction, shall be
entitled to vote at any election held in any such territory or other
place, or be eligible for election or appointment to or be entitled
to hold any office or place of public trust, honour, or emolument in,
under, or for any such territory or place, or under the United States.
"SEC. 9--That all the registration and election offices of every
description in the Territory of Utah are hereby declared vacant, and
each and every duty relating to the registration of voters, the conduct
of elections, the receiving or rejection of votes, and the canvassing
and returning of the same, and the issuing of certificates or other
evidence of election in said territory, shall, until other provision be
made by the Legislative Assembly of said territory as is hereinafter
by this section provided, be performed under the existing laws of the
United States and of said territory by proper persons, who shall be
appointed to execute such offices and perform such duties by a board of
five persons, to be appointed by the President, by and with the advice
and consent of the Senate, not more than three of whom shall be members
of one political party, a majority of whom shall be a quorum. The
canvass and return of all the votes at elections in said territory for
members of the Legislative Assembly thereof shall also be returned to
said board, which shall canvass all such returns and issue certificates
of election to those persons who, being eligible for such election,
shall appear to have been lawfully elected, which certificates shall be
the only evidence of the right of such persons to sit in such Assembly,
provided said board of five persons shall not exclude any persons
otherwise eligible to vote from the polls, on account of any opinion
such person may entertain on the subject of bigamy or polygamy; nor
shall they refuse to count any such vote on account of the opinion of
the person casting it on the subject of bigamy or polygamy; but each
house of such Assembly, after its organization, shall have power to
decide upon the elections and qualifications of its members."
The day also on which I arrived in Salt Lake City was itself a
memorable one, for it was the closing day of the fifty second annual
conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints--notable,
beyond other conferences, as a public expression of the opinions of
the leaders of the Mormon Church, at a crisis of great importance. The
whole hierarchy of Utah took part in the proceedings, and it was fitly
closed by an address from President Taylor himself, evoking such a
demonstration of fervid and yet dignified enthusiasm as I have never
seen equalled.
My telegram to the New York World on that occasion may still stand as
my description of the scene.
"Acquainted though I am with displays of Oriental fanaticism and
Western revivalism, I set this Mormon enthusiasm on one side as being
altogether of a different character, for it not only astonishes by its
fervour, but commands respect by its sincere sobriety. The congregation
of the Saints assembled in the Tabernacle, numbering, by my own careful
computation, eleven thousand odd, and composed in almost exactly
equal parts of the two sexes, reminded me of the Puritan gatherings
of the past as I imagined them, and of my personal experiences of the
Transvaal Boers as I know them. There was no rant, no affectation, no
straining after theatrical effect. The very simplicity of this great
gathering of country-folk was striking in the extreme, and significant
from first to last of a power that should hardly be trifled with by
sentimental legislation. I have read, I can assert, everything of
importance that has ever been written about the Mormons, but a single
glance at these thousands of hardy men fresh from their work at the
plough--at the rough vehicles they had come in, ranged along the street
leading to the Tabernacle, at their horses, with the mud of the fields
still upon them--convinced me that I knew nothing whatever of this
interesting people. Of the advice given at this Conference it is easy
to speak briefly, for all counselled alike. In his opening address,
President Taylor said,--
"'The antagonism we now experience here has always existed, but we have
also come out of our troubles strengthened. I say to you, be calm, for
the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth, and He will take care of us.'
"Every succeeding speaker repeated the same advice, and the outcome
of the five days' Conference may therefore be said to have been an
exhortation to the Saints 'to pay no attention whatever to outside
matters, but to live their religion, leave the direction of affairs to
their priesthood, and the result in the hands of God.'
"Bishops Sharp and Cluff challenged the Union to show more conspicuous
examples of loyalty than those that 'brighten the records of Utah;'
Bishop Hatch referred to a 'Revolutionary' ancestry; and Apostle
Brigham Young (a son of the late President) alluded to the advocacy
in certain quarters of warlike measures with which he was not himself
in sympathy. 'I am not,' he said, 'altogether belligerent, and am not
advocating warlike measures, but I do want to advocate our standing
true and steadfast all the time. If I am to be persecuted for living my
religion, why, I am to be persecuted. That is all. Dodging the issue
will not change it. I have read the bill passed to injure us, but am
satisfied that everything will come out all right, that the designs of
our enemies will be frustrated, and confusion will come upon them.'
Apostle Woodruff reminded the enemies of the Church that it 'costs a
great deal to shed the blood of God's people;' and Apostle Lorenzo Snow
said,--'I do not have any fear or trouble about fiery ordeals, but if
any do come we should all be ready for them.'
"These and other references to possible trouble seem to show that the
leaders of the Church consider the state of the public mind such as
to make these allusions necessary. But loyalty to the Constitution
was the text of every address, and even as regards the Edmunds Bill
itself, Apostle Lorenzo Snow said,--'There is something good in it,
for it legalizes every issue from plural marriages up to January 1,
1883. No person a few years ago could have ever expected such an act
of Congress. But it has passed, and been signed by the President.' The
expressions of the speakers with regard to polygamy were at times very
explicit. The President yesterday said,--'Some of our kind friends have
suggested that we cast our wives off, but our feelings are averse to
that. We are bound to them for time and eternity--we have covenanted
before high heaven to remain bound to them. And I declare, in the name
of Israel's God, that we will keep the covenant, and I ask all to say
to this Amen.' (Here, like the sound of a great sea-wave breaking in a
cave, a vast Amen arose from the concourse.) 'We may have to shelter
behind a hedge while the storm is passing over, but let us be true
to ourselves, our wives, our families, and our God, and all will be
well.' Again to-day he exhorted the Saints 'to keep within the law, but
at the same time to live their religion and be true to their wives,
and the principles Of their Church.' Several other speakers touched
upon the fact of plurality being an integral doctrine of Mormonism,
and not to be interfered with without committing an outrage against
their religion. Retaliation was never suggested, unless the advice
given to the congregation to make all their purchases at Mormon shops
may be accepted as a tendency towards Boycotting. But the Church was
exhorted to stand firm, to allow persecution to run its course, and
above all, to be 'manly in their fidelity to their wives.' Nor could
anything exceed the impressiveness of the response which the people
gave instantaneously to the appeal of their President for the support
of their voices. The great Tabernacle was filled with waves of sound as
the 'Amens' of the congregation burst out. The shout of men going into
battle was not more stirring than the closing words of this memorable
conference spoken as if by one vast voice: 'Hosannah! for the Lord God
Omnipotent reigneth; He is with us now and will be for ever. Amen!'"