leon r. ewing.
"they are slaves who fear to speak
for the fallen and the weak;
they are slaves who dare not be,
in the right with two or three."
introduction
it is difficult for a fair-minded person to realize how hard it is to find space in leading newspapers and magazines for words of defense when expressed in favor of an unpopular people. their columns are open to attacks, but seldom do we find one blessed with sufficient independence of mind to present the unpopular side to the public. the lady from ohio who is the author of the following manuscript is not the first to discover this. this manuscript was rejected by "modern culture," "current history," "the arena," "the forum," "the world's work," "munsey's," "harper's monthly," "mcclure's," and "the worlds today." it was then sent to ben e. rich of atlanta, georgia, accompanied by a letter, from which we quote as follows:
"your name has within the last year or two come to me as that of a representative of the mormon people, and i therefore take the liberty of calling your attention to a matter that will doubtless interest you. upon more than one occasion i have sojourned in the state of utah for a considerable length of time, and have had abundant opportunities of judging your people from more than one standpoint. i have met them in both city and country, in their homes (polygamous and otherwise), and in their business. i have met them socially in many ways, and have mingled with them when they have met in exercise of their religious faith. when first thrown among them, i knew of nothing that would cause me to be predisposed in their favor, having read many things derogatory to their character as american citizens, and to their virtue and purity in social and family relations. i endeavored, however, to judge them on their own merits and not on opinions advanced by other people. as a result, i found much to admire and little to condemn. above everything else, i found them sincere and honest, and learned to know that the mistakes and blunders of individuals were of the head and not of the heart. i have come to regard many of them as my friends, and will always feel an interest in the people as a whole. i have, however, been much annoyed by the scurrilous articles that have of late been written about them, and have often had in my mind to take up the cudgel in their defense. as to the truth of many of the adverse stories that have been told in the past, i am in no position to judge, {192} but of the untruth of the more recent ones, i am sure. looking at the past in the light of the present, i am inclined to the belief that those earlier stories contain much fiction, and some have been absolutely disproved.
"a particularly objectionable article having not long ago come to my notice, i wrote in protest to the magazine publishing it. the editor in a personal reply requested me to write him what i knew personally about the subject under discussion. i thereupon decided to offer him for publication something in the nature of a response to the previous article, thus showing the mormon people as i knew them to be. the magazine in question ("modern culture," now consolidated with "current history"), after having kept them manuscript several weeks, at last returned it with a curt refusal. upon my demanding an explanation and asking if the objection lay in either diction or lack of style in composition, i received from the editor a personal assurance, that the objection lay only in the unsuitableness of the subject. i afterwards offered it to one magazine after another, always with the same result. i persevered, however, each failure making me more than ever aware of the difficulty of presenting the truth of a matter so long surrounded by prejudice, but receiving the manuscript back again with the same regularity with which i sent it. i will add that but one publication, "the world's work," offered me a reasonable excuse, and some of them have since solicited articles on different subjects from my pen. "the world's work" presented a very fair exposition of the social system, upon which much of utah's prosperity is founded, in the issue of the month previous to that in which i offered mine. thinking the matter over, i am more than ever anxious that in some way, the true conditions prevailing in utah shall come to the notice of the american people, deeming it a simple justice due them. i have therefore taken the liberty of thus arousing your interest in that which i would fain call the "rejected manuscript," and of submitting it to you, with the request that, if agreeable to you, it may in some way be brought before the people."
with the opening remarks in this introduction, and the quotation we make from the author's letter, we give to the public the "rejected manuscript" without further comment.
a rejected manuscript.
utah and salt lake city! how many are the tales which have been told us of this unique city and its queer inhabitants. they have been represented to us as a people, "deep, dark and mysterious;" a people to be avoided as one would the fallen angels. a people promulgating a religion aimed at the very foundation of civilization, and undermining its holiest and purest institutions. we have been solemnly informed that once within the clutches of its religious fanatics, escape would be well nigh impossible. statements which might be applicable to a description of thibet, are even now in print, {193} and quite recently, "horrible" stories of persecution in which the misguided and degraded "mormons," having first torn down and trampled upon the american flag, resorted to the flinging of mud, as well as sticks and stones, at the devoted head of its sole defender. until within a few years, utah figured as the "darkest africa" of this our free and happy union. but the tourist has at last, with admirable bravery, invaded its forbidden precincts, overrun its quiet villages, crowded the quaint streets of its cities, and laid bare the awful secret of its hidden mystery.
alas, it is but as a "tale that is told," it is even as the "big dark" of our childish fears, which only needed investigation to prove its utter nothingness. we find after all, only a kindly people, busily engaged, for the most part, in overcoming an unproductive soil, and putting themselves in a way to use to advantage and profit, the splendid resources with which nature and their own thrift have bountifully provided them. broad and fertile valleys now smile back at us, where unfruitful wastes once frowned, and prosperous cities and towns give evidence of true western enterprise; and the people—they are not so very much unlike other people. one might exclaim, with a fair tourist whose itinerary last summer, gave her a day or two in salt lake city—"well, i don't see any one who looks like a mormon!" what could she have been expecting? there is a tradition among the people in question, that horns have ceased to decorate their brows, and that even the rudest of them are quite harmless.
apropos of salt lake city; as all roads once led to rome, so also are there very few western-bound tourists, who do not find themselves, at some stage of their wanderings, guests within its gates. they come from everywhere, and their expectations are varied. they go in great crowds to the tabernacle organ recitals, where a matchless instrument is touched by a master hand, while ten thousand can be comfortably seated beneath its pillarless dome, and lose not one vibration. ah! how can one describe a scene so inspiring? the vast audience spell-bound, entranced, forgetful alike of time and place, deaf to all else save the voice of the wonderful organ, bearing to them great waves of melody, now glorious and triumphant in the tannhauser and william tell, now low and wailing in il trovatore. now it is the lost chord and now the angels' chorus, lacking only articulation to make it human. and so we listen and marvel, and make good resolutions, and the music grows soft and faint, and far away, and ceases; and we find ourselves in a silence that is intense, vainly striving {194} to catch one more harmonious whisper. it is all over. we are glad, if we may, to take the hand of the organist, and then we go streaming out into the sunshine, and the great, bustling, workaday world claims us once more. we go our various ways feeling the better for this happy hour, snatched out of the glowing heart of the busy day, and resolve to go again if time permits. and all this is free. free as the air we breathe, and the grass we tread upon, twice a week throughout the year, save only the winter months. really, for semi-barbarians, this is doing very well. when we see this great tabernacle filled on a sabbath afternoon and hear the charm of five hundred voices added to that of the organ, and listen to the straightforward addresses of several unsalaried "saints," our thoughts go back to the half empty churches of the east, and we feel that we have come upon at least one mystery. whatever are the doctrines mormonism teaches, its votaries seem to be earnest and do not look like a priest-ridden people. in their family life they are extremely hospitable, and he is fortunate indeed who is admitted as a guest within their homes. we are charmed by their hearty welcome, and the unostentatious kindness that is showered upon us.
socially, nothing comes amiss with them that can be classed under the head of innocent amusements; and so the great dancing pavilion and the bathing beach at saltair are thronged daily and nightly throughout the season. saltair! there is nothing to equal it. one thousand couples can dance upon its polished floor, while the soft breezes from over the great salt lake cool the flushed cheek and stimulate the most lagging appetite; or, we join the bathers and go for a dip in its briny water. refreshed and invigorated, we rest upon the broad balconies and watch the sun in a "sea of crimson and purple and gold" as it sinks behind the mountains, which are really islands, set like gems, in the bosom of the great lake. later, we find ourselves-wondering if famed italian and venetian moons can give us any clearer light, and how their radiance can flood a night more delicious than this. the strains of "home, sweet home," in the closing waltz, and the thinned-out ranks of the dancers, warn us that the last train for the city is due, and sixteen miles might prove wearisome, however bright the moonlight. saltair is upon every one's lips. no visitor misses it, unless compelled by an adverse fate; and we find ourselves drawn back again and again, each time more charmed than the last. like the mountains, it attracts and fascinates—the mountains, which rear their misty outlines in the blue distance, and beckon and mock us. five miles away {195} they appear as tantalizingly close; indeed, we might run over to the base of one, by way of a constitutional before breakfast. we discover, alas! that "distance lends enchantment." we are left in no possible doubt that there is a distance. the main street of the city apparently runs directly into them, and city creek canon, from whose clear stream its thirsty thousands drink, is reached by only a short drive. salt lake is truly a mountain-girt city, and its founders must have resembled them in strength of purpose and steadfast effort. to have reclaimed the desert and, in part, peopled a state, is no small achievement.
the mormons foster education and educational institutions. "the glory of god is intelligence," they tell us, and intelligence for women as well as for men. women, in the mormon estimate, occupies a very high position, both in church and state. you are surprised? you thought her subjected to all sorts of humiliating treatment, and that polygamy held her hopelessly in subjection? ah! why not let polygamy rest as the dead issue that it really is? why be always dragging it out and dangling its supposed horrors in the face of every advancement! its practice was limited to but three per cent of those who believed in it as a principle; but even though an "angel in heaven" should declare the truth in the matter prejudice would stop its ears and refuse to hear. why fill our minds with the blood-curdling tales of yellow back literature, when all the riches of the master minds of bygone centuries are at our disposal? why not show to those whom we considered deluded a manner of living that will win them to us? let us hear no more of the divorce courts and the brothel, before we cast the first stone at our brothers. divorce is practically unknown among the mormons, and when we assail salt lake city for morals we must remember that half her population is "gentile," and that for the last twelve years the head of her city government has been drawn from that source.
in forming an impartial estimate of a people, we choose for our consideration neither the class that is designated as the upper stratum, nor those whose worldly possessions place them it the bottom, but go rather to the great middle class, those who hold a position between the two extremes. the mormons profess to have no upper and no lower classes. they aim to meet on common ground, whatever their worldly inheritance may be. their young men are called upon to give two or three years, and oftentimes more, of their life to the spreading of the gospel as they believe and teach it; and rich {196} and poor, they go cheerfully, away from home and friends, amid unfriendly strangers, without other recompense than the consciousness of a duty performed. these are the much talked about and much dreaded missionaries, against whose "pernicious" influences we are warned. considering the fact that these same elders are in many cases beardless youths, is it not strange that contact with them is so feared, and discussions looked upon as so dangerous? surely christianity in all the nineteen hundred years that have elapsed since its establishment, has given us sufficient knowledge with which to defend ourselves. why then all this flurry? are we to be forced to believe ourselves on the weaker side? but, you say they are such "smooth fellows." true, but is the smoothness to be all on one side? let us mass our forces and meet them on even ground, and who knows whose may be the victory?
we have all been told of the shield, over the appearance of which, in ancient times, two warriors quarreled, only to discover at the last that it presented an entirely different side to each. is there not a possibility that, after all has been said and done, we may find there are also two sides to the mormon question? history, we say, points with unerring finger to bloody deeds and insubordination. in one long procession they pass before us, "mountain meadow massacre," "danite raids," "bloody atonement," political intrigues and gross depravity. they have been called a blot upon our western civilization, and today the map of utah is presented with a huge octopus disfiguring its fair proportions, and whose tentacles reach out into adjoining states. we have surely told you how unreliable are the stories told us of early pioneer days beyond the mississippi, and how fabulous are legends which come to us of its early settlers. we have not considered how large a part the prejudice, which always follows a religious belief that deviates even in the least from what is known as orthodox, has played in the lurid tales with which our too eager ears have been regaled. we have fallen into the same error for which we censure the ancient knights; we have neglected to look upon the other side of the shield. what sad tales of persecution and long suffering we find here. tragedies as sad as any in reformation days. from kirtland to nauvoo, and across the trackless prairie they were driven, their weary way marked by the graves of those whose physical strength was not sufficient, until they reached at last what, to them, was a promised land, the valley of the great salt lake. desolate and unpromising as it was, they have made it blossom {197} as the rose. to quote a recent descriptive work, "by industry as remarkable as it was well directed, the desert was converted into an oasis, and the bare earth, with its poverty of sands and sage brush, was made to cover its nakedness with the green vestures of an almost unexampled fecundity."
how much truth there is in all that is urged against them, and how mistaken we may be as to their motives and the underlying principles which dominate their rough and rugged exterior, those of us who are enough interested must determine for ourselves. strange, is it not, that we hear so little mention of the horrors of haun's mill, and so few detailed accounts of the mid-winter expulsion from nauvoo? general thomas l. kane, of philadelphia, visited their deserted city soon after their enemies had driven them away, and in a lecture delivered on the subject before the historical society of pennsylvania, used these words:
"dreadful, indeed, was the suffering of these forsaken beings; bowed and cramped by cold and sunburn, alternating as each weary day and night dragged on, they were almost all of them, the crippled victims of disease. they were there because they had no homes, nor hospitals, nor poorhouse, nor friends to offer them any. they could not satisfy the feeble cravings of their sick; they had not bread to quiet the fractious hunger-cries of their children. mothers and babes, daughters and grandparents, all of them alike were bivouacked in tatters, wanting even covering to comfort those whom the sick shivers of fever were searching to the marrow. these were mormons, famishing in lee county, iowa, in the fourth week of the month of september, in the year of our lord, 1846. the city—it was nauvoo, illinois. the mormons were the owners of that city and the smiling country around. and those who had stopped their plows, who had silenced their hammers, their axes, their shuttles, and their workshop wheels; those who had put out their fires and eaten their food, spoiled their orchards and trampled under foot their thousands of acres of unharvested bread—these were the keepers of their dwellings, the carousers in their temples, whose drunken riot insulted the ears of their dying."
they had the added agony of camping on the snow covered ground without shelter, in plain sight of their confiscated possessions and desolated hearthstones. another writer thus describes the awful scene:
"out into the trackless american wilds, into an indian country, the 'mormons' wended their way, weary and destitute, for more than fifteen hundred miles, their pathway being marked by the graves of their dead. the history of their privations and suffering is harrowing in the extreme. the {198} lives of not less than a thousand of their number were sacrificed in the relentless persecutions connected with the exodus from illinois."
need we be surprised that a feeble protest was raised against the too zealous enforcement of laws framed to this very end, or that a sense of injustice should be the result of such vigorous treatment?
we hear nothing nowadays of the battalion furnished by the mormon refugees, for the defense of the flag in california and mexico, at a time, too, when every able-bodied man was needed for defense against hostile indians, hunger and all the other dangers attendant upon pioneer travel. in answer to this demand, brigham young said:
"you shall have your battalion, captain allen; and if there are not young men enough, we will take the old men, and if they are not enough, we will take the women."
in three days the force was mustered and ready to march. and again to the assembled people:
"i say unto you, magnify the laws. there is no law in the united states, or in the constitution, but i am ready to make honorable."
here is the message which came over the wires when amid the turmoil of the first years of the civil war, the overland telegraph line was completed:
"utah has not seceded, but is firm for the constitution and laws of our once happy country, and is warmly interested in such useful enterprises as the one so far completed."
a similar demonstration of patriotism and love of progress took place when the first iron horse, over the union pacific, came puffing into the territory:
"utah bids you welcome. hail to the great national highway."
and this from their articles of faith:
"we believe in being subjects to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates; in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law."
these do not sound like the utterances of a people, jealously guarding from the intrusion of civilization, a region in which they might entrench themselves, and defy the advancement of law, order and christianity. as our luxurious pullman bears us swiftly and comfortably over the rolling prairie, do we ever give a thought to the patient, downtrodden ones {199} who marked out the path for us? those who, in the words of one of their own poets:
"as armed with mighty faith, no foe could vaunt,
no powers appall, no pending danger daunt."
and what of the mountain meadow massacre and the danite band? the daring perpetrator of the former outrage was willingly given over to the just retribution which awaited him, arid the existence of the "avenging angels" as an organization under the direction and receiving the sanction of mormon leaders, was long ago exploded as the fabrication of an over-excited and too active imagination. we can find no more substantial foundation remaining to it than that which underlies any other myth or tradition. "let the dead past bury its dead." let us take the mormon people as we find them today and try to discover in them a little good rather than wholesale evil. let us commend them for the benefit, however small, that they have bestowed upon their day and generation, and cover with the mantle of charity, if enough of that priceless commodity be left in the world, the unintentional evil they may have done, and the mistakes they may have made. the wrong doing of individuals should not be visited upon the heads of the entire community, and narrow, personal prejudices should not be allowed to warp our good judgment.
this is an age of wide research and broad acquirements, and we will not find our mormon countrymen very far behind in the race for all that broadens and enlightens. they have their own poets, their own artists and their own musicians. you can find them represented in the universities and in the studios, and in the conservatories of music of more than one foreign city, as well as in those of our own fair land. wherever education and culture congregate, you will find a colony of them; and they are not unknown in the scientific and the professional world; neither are they lacking in manufacturers and financiers. the great tabernacle organ (second to none in the country) is presided over by one of their own young musicians, and the baton is wielded by one of their own faith, over the tabernacle choir, which has more than once earned the wonder and applause of california audiences. it is a mormon girl, granddaughter of one of mormonism's great leaders, who has recently made her debut, and taken by storm one eastern city after another, charming them alike by her personality and her ability; and whose marvelous voice a conservative boston paper has likened to that of patti. an exploring {200} party, sent out by a mormon institution of learning, has only just returned after having penetrated with infinite hardship, privation and determination, deeply into the forbidden wilds of south africa, endeavoring to give to the world of science and research information that is valuable and rare.
one of the remarkable things about the mormons is, that they are a travelled people. as we meet them and converse with them, we wonder at the various phases of human life with which they seem to be familiar, and the ease with which many of them are able to settle, for themselves, many vexed social problems. but they are either extremely modest, or foreign sojourn has become so ordinary a thing with them, that they attach no unusual significance to it; for it is only upon questioning them, or after having known them some time, that the secret of it is made known.
ah, yes, we say, travel is a good schoolmaster, and we broaden and deepen under its discipline. but there are many kinds of travelers; the mere globe trotter, hastening from one capital to another, seeing much, but perceiving little, and resembling the woman who was asked by a friend what most impressed her in one of germany's tourist-infested cities. after due consideration she replied, "well, i think of all the things i remember with most delight, the very best were the delicious frankfort sausages." "ye gods and little fishes!" frankfort sausages, indeed! if she was an american we renounce all claim to her. he who would reap lasting benefit must be possessed of the "seeing eye," and know the meaning of insight as well as sight. but if travel alone can do so much for us, of how much greater value the sojourner under many skies, and amid various manners and customs, gleaning a little here and a little there, and adding daily to our lore of people and things. not alone is this true of the mormon man, but in a great measure true also of the woman. they have extended their itinerary to the islands of the sea, and countries oriental. they have practically belted the globe, and gathered from the rich treasures of its world-old storehouses, that which centuries have been amassing; and they bring it all and lay it at the feet of their well-beloved home land. for they are proud of their country, proud of the flag she flies and intensely proud of their lovely "deseret." they are proud of their heroic men and women, brave daughters of the desert, tried and true, who laid the foundations upon which they are engaged in building a superstructure that will do lasting honor to those who suffered so much in establishing it.
{201} a great incentive for the acquisition of knowledge is given to the advocate of mormonism by the belief that no advancement made in this life will go as naught when death overtakes him. he will go on progressing throughout the countless ages of eternity, without the power of sin to retard his efforts, and with all the vast recourses of celestial lore to accelerate his speed. he accounts for different degrees of intelligence observed in individuals in this life, by his theory of pre-existence, in which some had attained a greater advancement than had others. he does not deny salvation to any of the human race, and believes that no erring soul will be forever lost. he hopes for all his dead a chance for glorification equal to his own; and in the beautiful temples scattered over utah, he unselfishly does for them, what is to him a work of redemption. the largest and most beautiful of them all is visible to the visitor to salt lake city, standing in the midst of the city. its white and glistening towers, supporting the gilded statue of the mormon angel "moroni," come into sight long before the outlines of any other architecture. built of native granite, at an outlay of nearly three million dollars, forty years were given to its construction and embellishment.
in all justice to these people, let us say, "we admire you for the progress you have made, the stern determination you have shown, and while we may not agree with you in your religious tenets, we recognize you as brother americans and co-patriots, under a flag and constitution which is broad enough to shelter all creeds and all true men. we believe you when you say that plural marriage is a thing of the past, and we think the better of you for honoring ties already formed." so will we prove ourselves possessed of christian toleration for those who dare dispute our pet theories, and place ourselves in a way to do a tardy justice. "we believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. if there is anything virtuous, lovely or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things." (articles of faith.) truly, if utah and her people were one-half as bad as she has been painted, she would deserve a fate ten times more dreadful than any that her enemies have as yet devised for her. a just god could do no less than cause the thunderbolts of his wrath to fall upon her and consume her, that the earth might be purified of her polluting influence. but how different from the awful picture do we really find her!
