CHAPTER XXV.
The Mormonism Of To-Day 

Future Place of the Church in American History--Main Points of the Mormon Political Policy-- Unbroken Power of the Priesthood--Fidelity of the Younger Members--Extension of the Membership over Adjoining States--Mission Work at Home and Abroad--Decreased Foreign Membership--Effect of False Promises to Converts--The Settlements in Canada and Mexico --Polygamy still a Living Doctrine--Reasons for its Hold on the Church--Its Appeal to the Female Members--Importance of a Federal Constitutional Amendment forbidding Polygamous Marriages--Scope of the Mormon Political Ambition

    AN intelligent examination of the present status of the Mormon church can be made only after acquaintance with its past history, and the policy of the men who have given it its present doctrinal and political position. The Mormon power has ever in view objects rather than methods. It always keeps those objects in view, while at times adjusting methods to circumstances, as was the case in its latest treatment of the doctrine of polygamy. The casual visitor, making a tour of observation in Utah, and the would-be student of Mormon policies who satisfies himself with reading their books of doctrine instead of their early history, is certain to acquire little knowledge of the real Mormon character and the practical Mormon ambition, and if he writes on the subject he will contribute nothing more authentic than does Schouler in his "History of the United States" wherein he calls Joseph Smith "a careful organizer," and says that "it was a part of his creed to manage well the material concerns of his people, as they fed their flocks and raised their produce." Brigham Young's constant cry was that all the Mormons asked was to be left alone. Nothing suits the purposes of the heads of the church today better than the decrease of public attention attracted to their organization since the Woodruff manifesto concerning polygamy. In trying to arrive at a reasonable decision concerning their future place in American history, one must constantly bear in mind the arguments which they have to offer to religious enthusiasts, and the political and commercial power which they have already attained and which they are constantly strengthening.

    The growth of Utah in population since its settlement by the Mormons has been as follows, accepting the figures of the United States census: --

1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900

11,380 40,273 86,786 143,963 207,905 276,749

    The census of 1890 (the religious statistics of the census of 1900 are not yet available) shows that, of a total church membership of 128,115 in Utah, the Latter-Day Saints numbered 118,201.

    What may be called the Mormon political policy embraces these objects: to maintain the dictatorial power of the priesthood over the present church membership; to extend that membership over the adjoining states so as to acquire in the latter, first a balance of power, and later complete political control; to continue the work of proselyting throughout the United States and in foreign lands with a view to increasing the strength of the church at home by the immigration to Utah of the converts.

    That the power of the Mormon priesthood over their flock has never been more autocratic than it is to-day is the testimony of the best witnesses who may be cited. A natural reason for this may be found in the strength which always comes to a religious sect with age, if it survives the period of its infancy. We have seen that in the early days of the church its members apostatized in scores, intimate acquaintance with Smith and his associates soon disclosing to men of intelligence and property their real objects. But the church membership in and around Utah to-day is made up of the children and the grandchildren of men and women who remained steadfast in their faith. These younger generations are therefore influenced in their belief, not only by such appeals as what is taught to them makes to their reason, but by the fact that these teachings are the teachings which have been accepted by their ancestors. It is, therefore, vastly more difficult to convince a younger Mormon to-day that h is belief rests on a system of fraud than it was to enforce a similar argument on the minds of men and women who joined the Saints in Ohio or Illinois. We find, accordingly, that apostasies in Utah are of comparatively rare occurrence; that men of all classes accept orders to go on missions to all parts of the world without question; and that the tithings are paid with greater regularity than they have been since the days of Brigham Young.

    The extension of the membership of the Mormon church over the states and territories nearest to Utah has been carried on with intelligent zeal. The census of 1890 gives the following comparison of members of Latter-Day Saints churches and of "all bodies" in the states and territories named: --

Idaho Arizona Nevada Wyoming Colorado New Mexico

L. D. SAINTS 14,972 6,500 525 1,336 1,762 456

ALL BODIES 24,036 26,972 5,877 11,705 86,837 105,749

    The political influence of the Mormon church in all the states and territories adjacent to Utah is already great, amounting in some instances to practical dictation. It is not necessary that any body of voters should have the actual control of the politics of a state to insure to them the respect of political managers. The control of certain counties will insure to them the subserviency of the local politicians, who will speak a good word for them at the state capital, and the prospect that they will have greater influence in the future will be pressed upon the attention of the powers that be. We have seen how steadily the politicians of California at Washington stood by the Mormons in their earlier days, when they were seeking statehood and opposing any federal control of their affairs. The business reasons which influenced the Californians are a thousand times more effective to-day. The Cooperative Institution has a hold on the Eastern firms from which it buys goods, and every comme rcial traveller who visits Utah to sell the goods of his employers to Mormon merchants learns that a good word for his customers is always appreciated. The large corporations that are organized under the laws of Utah (and this includes the Union Pacific Railroad Company) are always in some way beholden to the Mormon legislative power. All this sufficiently indicates the measures quietly taken by the Mormon church to guard itself against any further federal interference.

    The mission work of the Mormon church has always been conducted with zeal and efficiency, and it is so continued to-day. The church authorities in Utah no longer give out definite statistics showing the number of missionaries in the field, and the number of converts brought to Utah from abroad. The number of missionaries at work in October, 1901, was stated to me by church officers at from fourteen hundred to nineteen hundred, the smaller number being insisted upon as correct by those who gave it. As nearly as could be ascertained, about one-half this force is employed in the United States and the rest abroad. The home field most industriously cultivated has been the rural districts of the Southern states, whose ignorant population, ever susceptible to "preaching" of any kind, and quite incapable of answering the Mormon interpretation of the Scriptures, is most easily lead to accept the Mormon views. When such people are offered an opportunity to improve their worldly condition, as they are told they may do in Utah, at the same time that they can save their souls, the bait is a tempting one. The number of m issionaries now at work in these Southern states is said to be much smaller than it was two years ago. Meanwhile the work of proselyting in the Eastern Atlantic states has become more active. The Mormons have their headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, and their missionaries make visits in all parts of Greater New York. They leave a great many tracts in private houses, explaining that they will make another call later, and doing so if they receive the least encouragement. They take great pains to reach servant girls with their literature and arguments, and the story has been published¹ of a Mormon missionary who secured employment as a butler, and made himself so efficient that his employer confided to him the engagement of all the house servants; in time the frequent changes which he made aroused suspicion, and an investigation disclosed the fact that he was a Mormon of good education, who used his position as head servant to perform effective proselyting work. By promise of a husband and a home of her own on her arrival in Utah, this man was said to have induced sixty girls to migrate from New York City to that state since he began his labors.

    ¹ New York Sun, January 27, 1901.

    The Mormons estimate the membership of their church throughout the world at a little over 300,000. The numbers of "souls" in the church abroad was thus reported for the year ending December 31, 1899, as published in the Millennial Star: --

Great Britain Scandinavia Germany Switzerland Netherlands

4,588 5,438 1,198 1,078 1,556

    These figures indicate a great falling off in the church constituency in Europe as compared with the year 1851, when the number of Mormons in Great Britain and Ireland was reported at more than thirty thousand. Many influences have contributed to decrease the membership of the church abroad and the number of converts which the church machinery has been able to bring to Utah. We have seen that the announcement of polygamy as a necessary belief of the church was a blow to the organization in Europe. The misrepresentation made to converts abroad to induce them to migrate to Utah, as illustrated in the earlier years of the church, has always been continued, and naturally many of the deceived immigrants have sent home accounts of their deception. A book could be filled with stories of the experiences of men and women who have gone to Utah, accepting the promises held out to them by the missionaries, -- such as productive farms, paying business enterprises; or remunerative employment, -- on ly to find their expectations disappointed, and themselves stranded in a country where they must perform the hardest labor in order to support themselves, if they had not the means with which to return home. The effect of such revelations has made some parts of Europe an unpleasant field for the visits of Mormon missionaries.

    The government at Washington, during the operation of the Perpetual Emigration Fund organization, realized the evil of the introduction of so many Mormon converts from abroad. On August 9, 1879, Secretary of State William M. Evarts sent out a circular to the diplomatic officers of the United States throughout the world, calling their attention to the fact that the organized shipment of immigrants intended to add to the number of law-defying polygamists in Utah was "a deliberate and systematic attempt to bring persons to the United States with the intent of violating their laws and committing crimes expressly punishable under the statute as penitentiary offences," and instructing them to call the attention of the governments to which they were accredited to this matter, in order that those governments might take such steps as were compatible with their laws and usages "to check the organization of these criminal enterprises by agents who are thus operating beyond the reach of the law of the United States, and to prevent the departure of those proposing to come hither as violators of the law by engaging in such criminal enterprises, by whomsoever instigated." President Cleveland, in his first message, recommended the passage of a law to prevent the importation of Mormons into the United States. The Edmunds-Tucker law contained a provision dissolving the Perpetual Emigration Company, and forbidding the Utah legislature to pass any law to bring persons into the territory. Mormon authorities have informed me that there has been no systematic immigration work since the prosecutions under the Edmunds law. But as it is conceded that the Mormons make practically no proselytes among then Gentile neighbors, they must still look largely to other fields for that increase of their number which they have in view.

    As a part of their system of colonizing the neighboring states and territories, they have made settlements in the Dominion of Canada and in Mexico. Their Canadian settlement is situated in Alberta. A report to the Superintendent of Immigration at Ottawa, dated December 30, 1899, stated that the Mormon colony there comprised 1700 souls, all coming from Utah; and that "they are a very progressive people, with good schools and churches." When they first made their settlement they gave a pledge to the Dominion government that they would refrain from the practice of polygamy while in that country. In 1889 the Department of the Interior at Ottawa was informed that the Mormons were not observing this pledge, but investigation convinced the department that this accusation was not true. However, in 1890, an amendment to the criminal law of the Dominion was enacted (clause 11, 53 Victoria, Chap. 37), making any person guilty of a misdemeanor, and liable to imprisonment for five years and a fine of $500, who practises any form of polygamy or spiritual marriage, or celebrates or assists in any such marriage ceremony.

    The Secretario de Fomento of Mexico, under date of May 4, 1901, informed me that the number of Mormon colonists in that country was then 2319, located in seven places in Chihuahua and Sonora. He added: "The laws of this country do not permit polygamy. The government has never encouraged the immigration of Mormons, only that of foreigners of good character, working people who may be useful to the republic. And in the contracts made for the establishment of those Mormon colonies it was stipulated that they should be formed only of foreigners embodying all the aforesaid conditions."

    No student of the question of polygamy, as a doctrine and practice of the Mormon church, can reach any other conclusion than that it is simply held in abeyance at the present time, with an expectation of a removal of the check now placed upon it. The impression, which undoubtedly prevails throughout other parts of the United States, that polygamy was finally abolished by the Woodruff manifesto and the terms of statehood, is founded on an ignorance of the compulsory character of the doctrine of polygamy, of the narrowness of President Woodruff's decree, and of the part which polygamous marriages have been given, by the church doctrinal teachings, in the plan of salvation. The sketch of the various steps leading up to the Woodruff manifesto shows that even that slight concession to public opinion was made, not because of any change of view by the church itself concerning polygamy, but simply to protect the church members from the loss of every privilege of citizenship. That manifesto di d not in anyway condemn the polygamous doctrine; it simply advised the Saints to submit to the United States law against polygamy, with the easily understood but unexpressed explanation that it was to their temporal advantage to do so. How strictly this advice has since been lived up to -- to what extent polygamous practices have since been continued in Utah -- it is not necessary, in a work of this kind, to try to ascertain. The most intelligent non-Mormon testimony obtainable in the territory must be discarded if we are to believe that polygamous relations have not been continued in many instances. This, too, would be only what might naturally be expected among a people who had so long been taught that plural marriages were a religious duty, and that the check to them was applied, not by their church authorities, but by an outside government, hostility to which had long been inculcated in them.

    It must be remembered that it is a part of the doctrine of polygamy that woman can enter heaven only as sealed to some devout member of the Mormon church "for time and eternity," and that the space around the earth is filled with spirits seeking some "tabernacles of clay" by means of which they may attain salvation. Through the teaching of this doctrine, which is accepted as explicitly by the membership of the Mormon church at large as is any doctrine by a Protestant denomination, the Mormon women believe that the salvation of their sex depends on "sealed" marriages, and that the more children they can bring into the world the more spirits they assist on the road to salvation. In the earlier days of the church, as Brigham Young himself testified, the bringing in of new wives into a family produced discord and heart-burnings, and many pictures have been drawn of the agony endured by a wife number one when her husband became a polygamist. All the testimony I can obtain in regard to the Mormonism of today shows that the Mormon women are now the most earnest advocates of polygamous marriages. Said one competent observer in Salt Lake City to me, "As the women of the South, during the war, were the rankest rebels, so the women of Mormondom are to-da y the most zealous advocates of polygamy."

    By precisely what steps the church may remove the existing prohibition of polygamous marriages I shall not attempt to decide. It is easy, however, to state the one enactment which would prevent the success of any such effort. This would be the adoption by Congress and ratification by the necessary number of states of a constitutional amendment making the practice of polygamy an offence under the federal law, and giving the federal courts jurisdiction to punish any violators of this law. The Mormon church recognizes this fact, and whenever such an amendment comes before Congress all its energies will be directed to prevent its ratification. Governor Wells's warning in his message vetoing the Utah Act of March, 1901, concerning prosecutions for adultery, that its enactment would be the signal for a general demand for the passage of a constitutional amendment against polygamy, showed how far the executive thought it necessary to go to prevent even the possibility of such an amendment. On e of the main reasons why the Mormons are so constantly increasing their numbers in the neighboring states is that they may secure the vote of those states against an anti-polygamy amendment. Whenever such an amendment is introduced at Washington it will be found that every Mormon influence -- political, mercantile, and railroad -- will be arrayed against it, and its passage is unlikely unless the church shall make some misstep which will again direct public attention to it in a hostile manner.

    The devout Mormon has no more doubt that his church will dominate this nation eventually than he has in the divine character of his prophet's revelations. Absurd as such a claim appears to all non-Mormon citizens, in these days when Mormonism has succeeded in turning public attention away from the sect, it is interesting to trace the church view of this matter, along with the impression which the Mormon power has made on some of its close observers. The early leaders made no concealment of their claim that Mormonism was to be a world religion. "What the world calls 'Mormonism' will rule every nation," said Orson Hyde. "God has decreed it, and his own right arm will accomplish it."² Brigham Young, in a sermon in the Tabernacle on February 15, 1856, told his people that their expulsion from Missouri was revealed to him in advance, as well as the course of their migrations, and he added: "Mark my words. Write them down. This people as a church and kingdom will go from the west to the east."

    ² Journal of Discourses, Vol. VII, pp. 48-53.

    Tullidge, whose works, it must be remembered, were submitted to church revision, in his "Life of Brigham Young" thus defines the Mormon view of the political mission of the head of the church:" He is simply an apostle of a republican nationality, manifold in its genius; or, in popular words, he is the chief apostle of state rights by divine appointment. He has the mission, he affirms, and has been endowed with inspiration to preach the gospel of a true democracy to the nation, as well as the gospel for the remission of sins, and he believes the United States will ultimately need his ministration in both respects.... They form not, therefore, a rival power as against the Union, but an apostolic ministry to it, and their political gospel is state rights and self-government. This is political Mormonism in a nutshell."³

    ³ p. 244.

    Tullidge further says in his "History of Salt Lake City" (writing in 1886): "The Mormons from the first have existed as a society, not as a sect. They have combined the two elements of organization -- the social and the religious. They are now a new society power in the world, and an entirety in themselves. They are indeed the only religious community in Christendom of modern birth."⁴

    ⁴ p. 387.

    Some of the closest observers of the Mormons in their earlier days took them very seriously. Thus Josiah Quincy, after visiting Joseph Smith at Nauvoo, wrote that it was "by no means impossible" that the answer to the question, "What historical American of the nineteenth century has exerted the most powerful influence upon the destiny of his countrymen," would not be, "Joseph Smith." Governor Ford of Illinois, who had to do officially with the Mormons during most of their stay in that state, afterward wrote concerning them: "The Christian world, which has hitherto regarded Mormonism with silent contempt, unhappily may yet have cause to fear its rapid increase. Modern society is full of material for such a religion.... It is to be feared that, in the course of a century, some gifted man like Paul, some splendid orator who will be able by his eloquence to attract crowds of the thousands who are ever ready to hear and be carried away by the sounding brass and tinkling cymbal of sparkling oratory, may command a hearing, may succeed in breathing a new life into this modern Mohammedanism, and make the name of the martyred Joseph ring as loud, and stir the souls of men as much, as the mighty name of Christ itself."⁵

    ⁵ Ford, "History of Illinois," p. 359.

    The close observers of Mormonism in Utah, who recognize its aims, but think that its days of greatest power are over, found this opinion on the fact that the church makes practically no converts among the neighboring Gentiles; and that the increasing mining and other business interests are gradually attracting a population of non-Mormons which the church can no longer offset by converts brought in from the East and from foreign lands. Special stress is laid on the future restriction on Mormon immigration that will be found in the lack of further government land which may be offered to immigrants, and in the discouraging stories sent home by immigrants who have been induced to move to Utah by the false representations of the missionaries. Unquestionably, if the Mormon church remains stationary as regards wealth and membership, it will be overshadowed by its surroundings. What it depends on to maintain its present status and to increase its power is the loyal devotion of the body of its adherents, and its skill in increasing their number in the states which now surround Utah, and eventually in other states.