The Story of the Mormons:

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* "Across the Continent," p. 106.

** As another illustration of the value of observations by such
transient students may be cited the following, from Sir Charles
Wentworth Dilke's "Greater Britain," Vol. I, p. 148: "Brigham's
deeds have been those of a sincere man. His bitterest opponents
cannot dispute the fact that, in 1844, when Nauvoo was about to
be deserted owing to attacks by a ruffianly mob, Brigham Young
rushed to the front and took command. To be a Mormon leader was
then to be the leader of an outcast people, with a price set on
his head, in a Missouri country in which almost every man who
was not a Mormon was by profession an assassin."

The Eastern visitors soon learned, however, how little intention
the Mormon leaders had to be cajoled out of polygamy. Before Mr.
Bowles's book was published, he had to add a supplement, in
which he explained that "since our visit to Utah in June, the
leaders among the Mormons have repudiated their professions of
loyalty to the government, and denied any disposition to yield
the issue of polygamy." Tullidge sneers at Colfax "for
entertaining for a while the pretty plan" of having the Mormons
give up polygamy as the Missourians did slavery. The Deseret
News, soon after the Colfax party left the territory, expressed
the real Mormon view on this subject, saying: "As a people we
view every revelation from the Lord as sacred. Polygamy was none
of our seeking. It came to us from Heaven, and we recognized it,
and still do, the voice of Him whose right it is not only to
teach us, but to dictate and teach all men . . . . They
[Gentiles] talk of revelations given, and of receiving counter
revelations to forbid what has been commanded, as if man was the
sole author, originator, and designer of them . . . . Do they
wish to brand a whole people with the foul stigma of hypocrisy,
who, from their leaders to the last converts that have made the
dreary journey to these mountain wilds for their faith, have
proved their honesty of purpose and deep sincerity of faith by
the most sublime sacrifices? Either that is the issue of their
reasoning, or they imagine that we serve and worship the most
accommodating Deity ever dreamed of in the wildest vagaries of
the most savage polytheist."

This was a perfectly consistent statement of the Mormon position,
a simple elaboration of Young's declaration that, to give up
belief in Smith as a prophet, and in his "revelations," would be
to give up their faith. Just as truly, any later "revelation,"
repealing the one concerning polygamy, must be either a pretence
or a temporary expedient, in orthodox Mormon eyes. The Mormons
date the active crusade of the government against polygamy from
the return of the Colfax party to the East, holding that this
question did not enter into the early differences between them
and the government.*

* Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City," p. 358.

In the year following Colfax's visit, there occurred in Utah two
murders which attracted wide notice, and which called attention
once more to the insecurity of the life of any man against whom
the finger of the church was crooked. The first victim was O. N.
Brassfield, a non-Mormon, who had the temerity to marry, on
March 20, 1866, the second polygamous wife of a Mormon while the
husband was in Europe on a mission. As he was entering his house
in Salt Lake City, on the third day of the following month, he
was shot dead. An order that had been given to disband the
volunteer troops still remaining in the territory was
countermanded from Washington, and General Sherman, then
commander of that department, telegraphed to Young that he hoped
to hear of no more murders of Gentiles in Utah, intimating that,
if he did, it would be easy to reenlist some of the recently
discharged volunteers and march them through the territory.

The second victim was Dr. J. King Robinson, a young man who had
come to Utah as assistant surgeon of the California volunteers,
married the daughter of a Mormon whose widow and daughters had
left the church, and taken possession of the land on which were
some well-known warm springs, with the intention of establishing
there a sanitarium. The city authorities at once set up a claim
to the warm springs property, a building Dr. Robinson had
erected there was burned, and, as he became aggressive in
asserting his legal rights, he was called out one night,
ostensibly to set a broken leg, knocked down, and shot dead. The
audacity of this crime startled even the Mormons, and the
opinion has been expressed that nothing more serious than a
beating had been intended. There was an inquest before a city
alderman, at which some non-Mormon lawyers and judges Titus and
McCurdy were asked to assist. The chief feature of this hearing
was the summing up by Ex-Governor J. B. Weller, of California,
in which he denounced such murders, asked if there was not an
organized influence which prevented the punishment of their
perpetrators, and confessed that the prosecution had not been
permitted "to lift the veil, and show the perpetrators of this
horrible murder." *

* Text in "Rocky Mountain Saints," Appendix I.

General W. B. Hazen, in his report of February, 1867, said of
these victims: *There is no doubt of their murder from Mormon
church influences, although I do not believe by direct command.
Principles are taught in their churches which would lead to such
murders. I have earnestly to recommend that a list be made of
the Mormon leaders, according to their importance, excepting
Brigham Young, and that the President of the United States
require the commanding officer at Camp Douglas to arrest and
send to the state's prison at Jefferson City, Mo., beginning at
the head of the list, man for man hereafter killed as these men
were, to be held until the real perpetrators of the deed, with
evidence for their conviction, be given up. I believe Young for
the present necessary for us there" *

* Mis. House Doc. No. 75, 2d Session, 39th Congress.

Had this policy been adopted, Mormon prisoners would soon have
started East, for very soon afterward three other murders of the
same character occurred, although the victims were not so
prominent.* Chief Justice Titus incurred the hatred of the
Mormons by determined, if futile, efforts to bring offenders in
such cases to justice, and to show their feeling they sent him a
nightgown ten feet long, at the hands of a negro.

* See note 70, p. 628, Bancroft's "History of Utah." When, in
July, 1869, a delegation from Illinois, that included Senator
Trumbull, Governor Oglesby, Editor Medill of the Chicago
Tribune, and many members of the Chicago Board of Trade, visited
Salt Lake City, they were welcomed by and affiliated with the
Gentile element;* and when, in the following October, Vice
President Colfax paid a second visit to the city, he declined the
courtesies tendered to him by the city officers.** He made an
address from the portico of the Townsend House, of which
polygamy was the principle feature, and was soon afterward drawn
into a newspaper discussion of the subject with John Taylor.

* In an interview between Young and Senator Trumbull during this
visit (reported in the Alta California), the following
conversation took place:--"Young--We can take care of ourselves.
Cumming was good enough in his way, for you know he was simply
Governor of the Territory, while I was and am Governor of the
people."

"Senator Trumbull--Mr. Young, may I say to the President that you
intend to observe the laws under the constitution?"

"Young-Well-yes--we intend to."

"Senator Trumbull--But may I say to him that you will do so?"

"Young--Yes, yes; so far as the laws are just, certainly."

** "Mr. Colfax politely refused to accept the proffered
courtesies of the city. Brigham was reported to have uttered
abusive language in the Tabernacle towards the Government and
Congress, and to have charged the President and Vice President
with being drunkards. One of the Aldermen who waited upon Mr.
Colfax to tender to him the hospitality of the city could only
say that he did not hear Brigham say so."--"Rocky Mountain
Saints," p. 638.

CHAPTER XX. Gentile Irruption And Mormon Schism

The end of the complete seclusion of the Mormon settlement in
Utah from the rest of the country--complete except so far as it
was interrupted by the passage through the territory of the
California emigration--dates from the establishment of Camp
Floyd, and the breaking up of that camp and the disposal of its
accumulation of supplies, which gave the first big impetus to
mercantile traffic in Utah.* Young was ever jealous of the
mercantile power, so openly jealous that, as Tullidge puts it,
"to become a merchant was to antagonize the church and her
policies, so that it was almost illegitimate for Mormon men of
enterprising character to enter into mercantile pursuits." This
policy naturally increased the business of non-Mormons who
established themselves in the city, and their prosperity
directed the attention of the church authorities to them, and
the pulpit orators hurled anathemas at those who traded with
them. Thus Young, in a discourse, on March 28, 1858, urging the
people to use home-made material, said: "Let the calicoes lie on
the shelves and rot. I would rather build buildings every day
and burn them down at night, than have traders here communing
with our enemies outside, and keeping up a hell all the time, and
raising devils to keep it going. They brought their hell with
them. We can have enough of our own without their help."** A
system of espionage, by means of the city police, was kept on
the stores of non-Mormons, until it required courage for a
Mormon to make a purchase in one of these establishments. To
trade with an apostate Mormon was, of course, a still greater
offence.

* "The community had become utterly destitute of almost
everything necessary to their social comfort. The people were
poorly clad, and rarely ever saw anything on their tables but
what was prepared from flour, corn, beet-molasses, and the
vegetables and fruits of their gardens. . . . It was at Camp
Floyd, indeed, where the principal Utah merchants and business
men of the second decade of our history may be said to have laid
the foundation of their fortunes, among whom were the Walker
Brothers."--Tullidge, "History of Salt Lake City," pp. 246-247.

** Journal of Discourses, Vol. VII, p. 45.

Among the mercantile houses that became strong after the
establishment of Camp Floyd was that of Walker Brothers. There
were four of them, Englishmen, who had come over with their
mother, and shared in the privations of the early Utah
settlement. Possessed of practical business talent and
independence of thought, they rebelled against Young's
dictatorial rule and the varied trammels by which their business
was restricted. Without openly apostatizing, they insisted on a
measure of independence. One manifestation of this was a refusal
to contribute one-tenth of their income as a tithe for the
expenditure of which no account was rendered. One year, when
asked for their tithe, they gave the Bishop of their ward a
check for $500 as "a contribution to the poor." When this form of
contribution was reported to Young, he refused to accept it, and
sent the brothers word that he would cut them off from the
church unless they paid their tithe in the regular way. Their
reply was to tear up the check and defy Young.

The natural result followed. Brigham and his lieutenants waged an
open war on these merchants, denouncing them in the Tabernacle,
and keeping policemen before their doors. The Walkers, on their
part, kept on offering good wares at reasonable prices, and thus
retained the custom of as many Mormons as dared trade with them
openly, or could slip in undiscovered. Even the expedient of
placing a sign bearing an "all-seeing eye" and the words
"Holiness to the Lord" over every Mormon trader's door did not
steer away from other doors the Mormon customers who delighted
in bargains. But the church power was too great for any one firm
to fight. Not only was a business man's capital in danger in
those times, when the church was opposed to him, but his life
was not safe. Stenhouse draws this picture of the condition of
affairs in 1866:--"After the assassination of Dr. Robinson, fears
of violence were not unnatural, and many men who had never
before carried arms buckled on their revolvers. Highly
respectable men in Salt Lake City forsook the sidewalks after
dusk, and, as they repaired to their residences, traversed the
middle of the public street, carrying their revolvers in their
hands.

With such a feeling of uneasiness, nearly all the non-Mormon
merchants joined in a letter to Brigham Young, offering, if the
church would purchase their goods and estates at twentyfive per
cent less than their valuation, they would leave the Territory.
Brigham answered them cavalierly that he had not asked them to
come into the Territory, did not ask them to leave it, and that
they might stay as long as they pleased.

"It was clear that Brigham felt himself master of the situation,
and the merchants had to bide their time, and await the coming
change that was anticipated from the completion of the Pacific
Railroad. As the great iron way approached the mountains, and
every day gave greater evidence of its being finished at a much
earlier period than was at first anticipated, the hope of what
it would accomplish nerved the discontented to struggle with the
passing day." *

* "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 625.

The Mormon historian incorporates these two last paragraphs in
his book, and says: "Here is at once described the Gentile and
apostate view of the situation in those times, and, confined as
it is to the salient point, no lengthy special argument in favor
of President Young's policies could more clearly justify his
mercantile cooperative movement. IT WAS THE MOMENT OF LIFE OR
DEATH TO THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE CHURCH . . . . The
organization of Z. C. M. I. at that crisis saved the temporal
supremacy of the Mormon commonwealth."* It was to meet outside
competition with a force which would be invincible that Young
conceived the idea of Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution,
which was incorporated in 1869, with Young as president. In
carrying out this idea no opposing interest, whether inside the
church or out of it, received the slightest consideration. "The
universal dominance of the head of the church is admitted," says
Tullidge, "and in 1868, before the opening of the Utah mines and
the existence of a mixed population, there was no commercial
escape from the necessities of a combination."**

* Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City," p. 385.

** Cooperation is as much a cardinal and essential doctrine of
the Mormon church as baptism for the remission of
sin."--Tullidge, "History of Salt Lake City."

Young is said to have received the idea of the big Cooperative
enterprise from a small trader who asked permission to establish
a mercantile system on the Cooperative plan, of moderate
dimensions, throughout the territory. He gave it definite shape
at a meeting of merchants in October, 1868, which was followed by

a circular explaining the scheme to the people. A preamble
asserted "the impolicy of leaving the trade and commerce of this
territory to be conducted by strangers." The constitution of the
concern provided for a capital of $3,000,000 in $100 shares.
Young's original idea was to have all the merchants pool their
stocks, those who found no places in the new establishment to go
into some other business,--farming for instance,-- renting their
stores as they could. Of course this meant financial ruin to the
unprovided for, and the opposition was strong. But Young was not
to be turned from the object he had in view. One man told
Stenhouse that when he reported to Young that a certain merchant
would be ruined by the scheme, and would not only be unable to
pay his debts, but would lose his homestead, Young's reply was
that the man had no business to get into debt, and that "if he
loses his property it serves him right." Tullidge, in an article
in Harpers Magazine for September, 1871 (written when he was at
odds with Young), said, "The Mormon merchants were publicly told
that all who refused to join the cooperation should be left out
in the cold; and against the two most popular of them the Lion
of the Lord roared, 'If Henry Lawrence don't mind what's he's
about I'll send him on a mission, and W. S. Godbe I'll cut off
from the church."'

After the organization of the concern in 1869 some of the leading
Mormon merchants in Salt Lake City sold their goods to it on
favorable terms, knowing that the prices of their stock would go
down when the opening of the railroad lowered freight rates. The
Z. C. M. I. was started as a wholesale and retail concern, and
Young recommended that ward stores be opened throughout the city
which should buy their goods of the Institution. Local
cooperative stores were also organized throughout the territory,
each of which was under pressure to make its purchases of the
central concern. Branches were afterward established at Ogden,
at Logan, and at Soda Springs, Idaho, and a large business was
built up and is still continued.* The effect of this new
competition on the non-Mormon establishments was, of course,
very serious. Walker Brothers' sales, for instance, dropped
$5000 or $6000 a month, and only the opportunity to divert their
capital profitably to mining saved them and others from immediate
ruin.

Bancroft says that in 1883 the total sales of the Institution
exceeded $4,000,000, and a half yearly dividend of five per cent
was paid in October of that year, and there was a reserve fund
of about $125,000; he placed the sales of the Ogden branch, in
1883, at about $800,000, and of the Logan branch at about
$600,000. The thirty-second annual statement of the Institution,
dated April 5,1901, contains the following figures: Capital
stock, $1,077,144.89; reserve, $362,898.95; undivided profits,
$179,042.88; cash receipts, February 1 to December 31, 1900,
$3,457,624.44, sales for the same period, $3,489.571 .84. The
branch houses named is this report are at Ogden City and Provo,
Utah, and at Idaho Falls, Idaho.

But at this time an influence was preparing to make itself felt
in Utah which was a more powerful opponent of Brigham Young's
authority than any he had yet encountered. This influence took
shape in what was known as the "New Movement," and also as "The
Reformation." Its original leaders were W. S. Godbe and E. L. T.
Harrison. Godbe was an Englishman, who saw a good deal of the
world as a sailor, embraced the Mormon faith in his own country
when seventeen years of age, and walked most of the way from New
York to Salt Lake City in 1851. He became prominent in the
Mormon capital as a merchant, making the trip over the plains
twenty-four times between 1851 and 1859. Harrison was an
architect by profession, a classical scholar, and a writer of no
mean ability.

With these men were soon associated Eli B. Kelsey, a leading
elder in the Mormon church, a president of Seventies, and a
prominent worker in the English missions; H. W. Lawrence, a
wealthy merchant who was a Bishop's counsellor; Amasa M. Lyman,
who had been one of the Twelve Apostles and was acknowledged to
be one of the most eloquent preachers in the church; W. H.
Sherman, a prominent elder and a man of literary ability, who
many years later went back to the church; T. B. H. Stenhouse, a
Scotchman by birth, who was converted to Mormonism in 1846, and
took a prominent part in missionary work in Europe, for three
years holding the position of president of the Swiss and Italian
missions; he emigrated to this country with his wife and
children in 1855, practically penniless, and supported himself
for a time in New York City as a newspaper writer; in Salt Lake
City he married a second wife by Young's direction, and one of
his daughters by his first wife married Brigham's eldest son.
Stenhouse did not win the confidence of either Mormons or
non-Mormons in the course of his career, but his book, "The
Rocky Mountain Saints," contains much valuable information.
Active with these men in the "New Movement" was Edward W.
Tullidge, an elder and one of the Seventy, and a man of great
literary ability. In later years Tullidge, while not openly
associating himself with the Mormon church, wrote the "History
of Salt Lake City" which the church accepts, a "Life of Brigham
Young," which could not have been more fulsome if written by the
most devout Mormon, and a "Life of Joseph the Prophet," which is
a valueless expurgated edition of Joseph's autobiography which
ran through the Millennial Star.

The "New Movement" was assisted by the advent of non-Mormons to
the territory, by Young's arbitrary methods in starting his
cooperative scheme, by the approaching completion of the Pacific
Railroad, and, in a measure, by the organization of the
Reorganized Church under the leadership of the prophet Joseph
Smith's eldest son. Two elders of that church, who went to Salt
Lake City in 1863, were refused permission to preach in the
Tabernacle, but did effective work by house-to-house
visitations, and there were said to be more than three hundred
of the "Josephites," as they were called, in Salt Lake City in
1864.*

* "Persecution followed, as they claimed; and in early summer
about one-half of the Josephites in Salt Lake City started
eastward, so great being the excitement that General Connor
ordered a strong escort to accompany them as far as Greene
River. To those who remained, protection was also afforded by the
authorities."--Bancroft, "History of Utah," p. 645.

Harrison and Tullidge had begun the publication of a magazine
called the Peep o' Day at Camp Douglas, but it was a financial
failure. Then Godbe and Harrison started the Utah Magazine, of
which Harrison was editor. This, too, was only a drain on their
purses. Accordingly, some time in the year 1868, giving it over
to the care of Tullidge, they set out on a trip to New York by
stage. Both were in doubt on many points regarding their church;
both were of that mental make-up which is susceptible to
"revelations" and "callings"; by the time they reached New York
they realized that they were "on the road to apostasy."

Long discussions of the situation took place between them, and
the outcome was characteristic of men who had been influenced by
such teachings as those of the Mormons. Kneeling down in their
room, they prayed earnestly, and as they did so "a voice spoke
to them." For three weeks, while Godbe transacted his mercantile
business, his friend prepared questions on religion and
philosophy, "and in the evening, by appointment, 'a band of
spirits' came to them and held converse with them, as friends
would speak with friends. One by one the questions prepared by
Mr. Harrison were read, and Mr. Godbe and Mr. Harrison, with
pencil and paper, took down the answers as they heard them given
by the spirits."* The instruction which they thus received was
Delphic in its clearness--that which was true in Mormonism
should be preserved and the rest should be rejected.

* "Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 631.

When they returned to Utah they took Elder Eli B. Kelsey, Elder
H. W. Lawrence, a man of wealth, and Stenhouse into their
confidence, and it was decided to wage open warfare on Young's
despotism, using the Utah Magazine as their mouthpiece. Without
attacking Young personally, or the fundamental Mormon beliefs,
the magazine disputed Young's doctrine that the world . was
degenerating to ruin, held up the really "great characters" the
world has known, that Young might be contrasted with them, and
discussed the probabilities of honest errors in religious
beliefs. When the Mormon leaders read in the magazine such
doctrine as that, "There is one false error which possesses the
minds of some in this, that God Almighty intended the priesthood
to do our thinking," they realized that they had a contest on
their hands. Young got into trouble with the laboring men at
this time. He had contracts for building a part of the Pacific
Railroad, which were sublet at a profit. An attempt by him to
bring about a reduction of wages gave the magazine an
opportunity to plead the laborers' cause which it gladly
embraced.*

* Harpers Magazine, Vol. XLIII, p. 605.

In the summer of 1869 Alexander and David Hyrum Smith, sons of
the prophet, visited Salt Lake City in the interest of the
Reorganized Church. Many of Young's followers still looked on
the sons of the prophet as their father's rightful successor to
the leadership of the Church, as Young at Nauvoo had promised
that Joseph III should be. But these sons now found that, even to
be acknowledged as members of Brigham's fold, they must accept
baptism at the hands of one of his elders, and acknowledge the
"revelation" concerning polygamy as coming from God. They had
not come with that intent. But they called on Young and
discussed with him the injection of polygamy into the church
doctrines. Young finally told them that they possessed, not the
spirit of their father, but of their mother Emma, whom Young
characterized as "a liar, yes, the damnedest liar that lived,"
declaring that she tried to poison the prophet * He refused to
them the use of the Tabernacle, but they spoke in private houses
and, through the influence of the Walker brothers, secured
Independence Hall. The Brighamites, using a son of Hyrum Smith
as their mouthpiece,** took pains that a goodly number of
polygamists should attend the Independence Hall meetings, and
interruptions of the speakers turned the gatherings into
something like personal wrangles.