brigham young at home:—we visit the prophet and his wives.
shortly after our arrival in salt lake city we visited president young, who received us very graciously and appointed an early day for us to dine with him.
on that occasion he invited some of the apostles and leading men to meet us at his table, and we passed an exceedingly pleasant evening. the prophet made himself very affable; talked with us about our missionary life and other subjects of personal and general interest; and expressed a high opinion of the energy and ability which my husband had displayed. his wives, too,—whom i found, as far as i could judge from such a casual acquaintance, to be amiable and kind-hearted ladies,—made every effort to render our visit agreeable.
i was much pleased with the manner and appearance of brigham young, and felt greatly reassured; for he did not seem to me like a man who would preach and practise such things as i had heard of him while i was in london. this i was glad to see, for it encouraged me to think that, perhaps, after all, matters might not be so bad as i had anticipated. we were, in fact, very kindly received in salt lake city by every one with whom we came in contact; for having been missionaries for so many years, we were, of course, well known by name, and had a wide circle of acquaintances among the chief elders and emigrants.
fifteen years have, of course, worked a great change in the appearance of brigham young; but though he is now nearly seventy-three years of age, he is still a portly-looking—i might almost say handsome man. his good looks are not of the poetic or romantic kind at all; he is very common-place and practical in his appearance, but long and habitual exercise of despotic authority has stamped itself upon his features, and is seen even in the way he carries himself: he might without[164] any stretch of the imagination be mistaken for a retired sea-captain.
when i first knew him, in appearance he was little over fifty years of age, was of medium height, well built, upright, and, as i just stated, had the air of one accustomed to be obeyed. his hair was light,—sandy, i suppose i ought to call it,—with eyes to match; and the expression of his countenance was pleasant and manly. i, of course, regarded him from a woman’s stand-point; but there were others who were accustomed to study physiognomy, and they detected—or thought they detected—in the cold expression of his eye and the stern, hard lines of his lips, evidences of cruelty, selfishness, and dogged determination which, it is only fair to say, i myself never saw.
the lines on his face have deepened of late years, as what little of gentleness his heart ever knew has died out within him; but still he presents the appearance of a man who would afford a deep study to the observer of human nature. in early life he had to work hard for a living, and according to his own statement he had a rough time of it. he was, by trade, a painter and glazier, and has frequently said in public that in those times he was glad to work for “six bits” a day, and to keep his hands busy from morning to night to get even that. whether or not the privations of early years fostered in him that avaricious and grasping spirit which of late years has been so conspicuous in him, i cannot say, but it is certain that it cropped out very early in his career as a saint. an old nauvoo missionary,—a mormon of the mormons once, but now, alas! a “vile apostate” as brigham would politely call him,—once told me that when the prophet joseph smith sent the apostle young on mission, a good deal of discontent was shown that the said apostle did not account properly for the collections and tithings which passed through his hands. brother joseph who was then “the church” suggested in a pleasant way—for the prophet smith was a big, jovial fellow, six feet two or three inches in height, and withal somewhat of a humorist—that the said apostle brigham would appear in his eyes a better saint if he displayed a little less love for filthy lucre. thereupon the apostle, like somebody else who shall be nameless, quoted scripture, and reminded the prophet that moses had said, “thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn.” “true, brother brigham,” said joseph, “but moses did not say the ox was to eat up all the corn.” brother brigham made no reply, but is said to have “sulked” for two or three days.
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i have often heard intelligent gentiles remark, “well, brigham young may be a wicked man and an impostor, but there must be a great deal of talent in him, to manage those people for so many years.”
from this opinion i altogether dissent; and those who know brigham best, think with me, though many of them would not dare to say so. i do not think brigham young a wicked man or an impostor in the sense in which those words are ordinarily used; but experience, and a careful study of his life and doings, have convinced me that he is certainly not a great man or a man of genius in any sense of the word. there can be no doubt that he has been guilty of many and great crimes, but i believe that in the early part of his career he was so blinded by fanaticism that those crimes appeared to him actually virtues:—the force of habit and the daily associations of his life have so completely taken from him all sense of right and wrong; while the devotion of his people has made the idea that he could possibly do the slightest wrong so utterly inconceivable to him and to them, that his perceptions of justice, truth, honour, honesty, and upright dealing are as utterly stultified as they ever were in the mind of the wildest savage who prowled among the cliffs and ca?ons of the rocky mountains.
people think that brigham young attained to his present position by the exercise of ability, such as has been displayed, only on a greater scale, by all those men who, not being born to power, nor having it thrust upon them, have by the force of their genius seized it and held it—unlawfully it might be, but, nevertheless, with talent and moral energy.
of the prophet’s moral character, the less said the better. he has been remorseless and cruel in his enmities, and he has connived at and even suggested, if nothing more, some of the most atrocious crimes that have ever been perpetrated on the face of the earth. in business matters, in the payment of money—to use a popular phrase—his word is as good as his bond, but in the accumulation of wealth he has evinced an amount of dishonesty which can scarcely be credited. brigham always meets his obligations, and pays his debts, and gets a lawful receipt:—the prophetic business could not otherwise be carried on; but the way in which he has obtained his wealth would put to the blush the most dishonest member of any “ring” in new york, or elsewhere. when he attended his first conference, he says he had to borrow certain masculine garments and a pair of boots before he could put in an[166] appearance. now it would be difficult to estimate the value of his property. he has taken up large tracts of land all over the territory, he has the uncontrolled and unquestioned command of all the tithing and contributions of the saints, and from gifts and confiscations, and innumerable other sources, his revenue pours in. it was once rumoured that he had eighteen or twenty millions of dollars in the bank of england; but brigham said that the report was not true. “the church,” he added, had a little money invested abroad. the difference between “the church” and the individual brigham young has yet to be determined.
in the year 1852 the “prophet of the lord” found that he had borrowed an inconveniently large sum from the funds of the church. he is “trustee in trust” and, of course, legally responsible; but he never renders an account of his stewardship, and no one ever asks him for it. his sense of honesty was, however, so strong that he resolved to have his account balanced, and he went down to the tithing-office for that purpose. there he found that his indebtedness amounted to two hundred thousand dollars, and he proceeded to pay it after his own fashion: the clerk was instructed to place to his credit the same amount “for services rendered.” in 1867, he owed very nearly one million dollars, which he had borrowed from the same fund, and he balanced his account in the same way. his contract for the pacific railroad is said to have yielded him a quarter of a million, and his other contracts and mining speculations, purchases and thefts of lands, houses, &c., have been very profitable. the expenses of such a family as brother brigham’s must be something enormous, but the contributions which by honest and dishonest means he has levied have been so large that he must still be one of the wealthiest men in the states.
brigham is not a generous man. he has given occasionally, as for instance at the time of the chicago fire, when he presented a thousand dollars for the sufferers, but even then his motive was evident—the affairs of “deseret” were under discussion in congress. without the certainty of a profitable return, brigham never gave a cent. the story of his sordid avarice and his contemptible meanness in the accumulation of money would fill a volume.
morally and physically the prophet is a great coward. when he and other church leaders were arrested a year or two ago, charged with the very gravest crimes, the effect upon the prophet was most distressing. he had solemnly sworn[167] in the tabernacle that he would shoot the man who attempted to arrest him; but when judge mckean opened court and placed him under arrest, he swallowed his threats and played the coward’s part. before this the world has seen wretches who were notorious for their cruelty and tyranny, and who were also remarkable for their cowardice. for many years he has imitated royalty and has had a strong body-guard to keep watch and ward around his person every night. no man has less cause to apprehend personal violence than brother brigham, but the voice of conscience, which, as the poet says, makes cowards of us all, suggests his fears.
