To Editors of the Lewiston Journal:
The Deseret News of Salt Lake City, which is the official organ of the Mormon priesthood, in its issue of Aug. 6th, contains an editorial expressing its great satisfaction over the recent eulogistic article in the Journal, on the merits of the Mormons and their peculiar system, by the Journal's representative, Mr. L. C. Bateman.
Having lived in Utah for over twenty-five years, striving with other law-abiding citizens to establish here the same American ideas which are accepted as fundamental in the other states of the Union, I have had ample opportunity to study the Mormon system and its fruits. And I am prepared to say that, while I have never had anything but the utmost good will for the masses of the Mormon people, I am forced to join with other careful students in declaring that from a social, civil, and moral standpoint, no language is strong enough to set forth the evil fruits of the Mormon system.
Based on polygamy, how could the system be otherwise than rotten? Its central idea of government being that of priesthood rule, how could it be otherwise than anti-American? Having been founded and organized by a man as corrupt and immoral as the multiplied testimony of Joseph Smith's acquaintances and neighbors proves that he was, how could it be otherwise than mischievous and immoral in its tendencies and results? On the part of loyal Americans who have studied the Mormon system here on the ground for years, there is no difference of opinion about the inherent badness of the system and of its fruits, although many, unduly influenced by what they consider business policy, are reluctant to say much about it.
Some fifteen years ago, Mr. James Barclay, a member of the English Parliament, spent three days in Salt Lake City studying Mormonism. He surrendered himself to the control of the Mormon leaders. He was dined at the Amelia Palace, at that time the residence of the Mormon president, and attended other receptions in his honor at prominent Mormon residences. He saw everything through Mormon spectacles. When he went back to London, he published in the popular Nineteenth Century Magazine, a most glowing eulogy of the Mormon system. The Mormon leaders had been so successful with their hospitality scheme, that the Hon. Mr. Barclay had nothing but praise for those who were pushing forward their law-defying system of polygamy and nothing but condemnation for those who were trying to enforce the righteous laws of the land against it.
The Journal's representative seems to have seen things much as the Hon. Mr. Barclay. However, that may be, the Mormons have palmed off upon him, as they did on Mr. Barclay, those old yarns about their changing the barren desert of this valley into a blooming garden, and about "the persecutions" from which they have suffered in Utah. The first of these old chestnuts was laid on the shelf years ago here in the west, because there is no truth in it. There never was any barren desert in this valley, for it has always been one of the best-watered, most easily cultivated and productive valleys west of the Mississippi. The Mormons raised bountiful crops of grain the very first year of their arrival. The difficulty of securing a crop here in this fertile valley with its mild and equable climate, was very small in comparison with the difficulties encountered by the first settlers of New England along the bleak Atlantic shore. Furthermore, what a mercy it would have been to our whole country if Utah had remained unsettled for another twenty-five years, if then it could have been occupied by law-abiding Americans in sympathy with American civilization, such men as have built up the noble states of Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas.
The Journal's representative says: "But even here they were not safe from the persecutions of their enemies." That fictitious yarn has been worked off on many a foreigner. But we did not suppose it possible to catch an American newspaperman with such a bare hook as that. The Mormons had this territory almost exclusively to themselves for about twenty-five years, and did practically as they pleased from 1847 until 1882, when the first Edmunds Law called them to a halt. The terrible "persecutions" complained of consist simply in this and nothing more, namely, that the Mormons were asked, and after some thirty-five years were required, to obey just the same laws which all other people and other religious bodies have always obeyed in this country. But the Mormon leaders have left nothing undone to make the people under them believe, and all outsiders whom they could influence, that the enforcement of these righteous laws which are obeyed by the American people generally, was "persecution."
But here is another paragraph from the article under discussion, which shows that the Journal's correspondent was as completely imposed upon as was the Hon. Mr. Barclay. He says, as quoted by the Deseret News:
"The only charge that can be laid at their doors today is that they refuse to desert their wives that they married in good faith (!) And they are right. To turn these women out of doors to subsist at the hands of charity would be a vastly worse crime in the eyes of God and decent-minded men than to make the provision for them that they are now doing."
The law-breaking polygamists could not have stated their case more satisfactorily to themselves. But what is the matter with the Journal's representative? Of course, he knows that polygamy is an atrocious crime in this country, and has been so considered since our government was founded. Why, then, does he talk about committing the crime of polygamy "in good faith?" As well talk about committing the crime of bank robbing "in good faith." Indeed, it would not be difficult to show that bank-robbery, bad as it is, does less harm to society than polygamy.
Furthermore none of the opponents of polygamy have ever asked that plural wives should be "turned out of doors." Nobody has objected to having plural wives and their children kindly provided for by the men who placed them in their unlawful position. But the law-abiding citizens of Utah and the Federal Government also make a wide distinction between providing for these plural wives and their children, and providing these same plural wives with children. The whole difficulty grows out of the fact that the men who were living with plural wives before Utah became a State still persist in maintaining the old polygamous relations with these women, and that, too, in the face of the solemn pledges to the United States government that if granted amnesty and statehood they would forthwith abandon all polygamous relations of every kind. Over ten years have passed since amnesty was granted by the government on the above condition, and yet all over the State men are living in polygamy the same as before statehood. The president of the Mormon Church, with his five wives, encourages these law-breakers by his example, and then tries to belittle the offense by claiming that the number of men living in polygamy is quite small, not over 756. The Deseret News at first denied that there are any such cases, but was forced to admit that it was mistaken. It then tried to belittle the matter by claiming that there were only 1,543 such cases! Suppose someone should argue that Maine is a good moral State because it contains only 1,543 bank robbers! Of course the News naturally underestimates the number.
In the closing paragraph of the article in the Journal occurs the following statement: "Common justice and common honesty, however, require him (the writer) to say that aside from the one peculiar feature of polygamy, he fails to see wherein the Mormon religion, is not just as pure as the different forms to which we are accustomed in the East."
No one who is acquainted with the fundamental doctrines of Mormonism and with the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion would make any such sweeping and misleading statement as that.
Mormonism holds and teaches the heathen doctrine of polytheism, the doctrine of many gods. (Pratt's Key to Theology, Chap. vi.) It teaches that Adam is God "and the only God with whom we have to do." (Brigham Young in Journal of Discourses, Vol. I, page 50.) It makes belief in the alleged divine mission and authority of that most immoral and wicked man, Joseph Smith, a fundamental doctrine of its religious system. (Brigham Young in Millennial Star Vol. v, page 118.)
It teaches that the coarse and vulgar men who make up the Mormon priesthood must be obeyed by the people because they possess divine authority, and that those who reject the commands of this bogus priesthood reject God. (Elder Roberts' New Witness for God, page 187.)
It teaches that Jesus Christ, the Divine Savior of the world, was a polygamist, and many other horrible doctrines which are utterly repugnant to the pure and lofty morality of the Christian religion.
The Mormons have lived in five different states, namely, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa