THE CHARACTER OF THE MORMON PEOPLE.  
BY ELDER B. H. ROBERTS.
 
INTRODUCTION.
 
In the ancient City of Rome, at the time that St. Paul went there on an appeal to Caesar's judgment seat, about the year 62 A.D., the followers of Christ were denominated, "That sect which is everywhere spoken against." And as it was with the Christians then, so it is with the "Mormons" now. Everything that is wicked or damnable was once charged upon the Christians. Even the just historian Tacitus was so far deceived by the wicked misrepresentations of their enemies, as to speak of them as "a set of people who were holden in abhorrence for their crimes, and called by the vulgar 'Christians.'" He also says—speaking of them as a body—"They were criminals, and deserving the severest punishment." The same writer calls their religion a "pernicious superstition." Indeed, we may say to the opponents of "Mormonism," however skilful they may be in the use of calumny or the distortion of facts, it would be difficult for them to charge upon the "Mormons" more heinous crimes than were charged upon primitive Christians. It was commonly reported of them that in the celebration of the Eucharist they were in the habit of slaying a male child, whose flesh they ate, and whose blood they drank in remembrance of the body and blood of the founder of their religion. In short, they were held to be the enemies of mankind, the disturbers of social customs, and a standing menace to all governments; while their religion was looked upon as the sum of villainy and absurdity. In the same light the "Mormons" are regarded to-day. But perhaps I shall be pardoned for suggesting that it is just possible that the world is as much mistaken respecting the character and religion of the "Mormons" now, as it formerly was respecting the "Christians" and their religion.
 
No prejudice is so cruel as that growing out of religious controversy. At any rate, we know that the most cruel wars {174} have risen through a determination to resist religious innovations, or efforts to reform religious systems. While the acts of inhuman cruelty, which most disgrace our race, have been perpetrated in vain endeavors to suppress what have been considered heresies, and silence their advocates. In short, the most unrelenting hatred, the most lasting prejudices have grown out of differences in religious opinions. The Messiah, doubtless, was guided as much by His knowledge of human nature as He was by inspiration when He exclaimed:
 
"Think not that I have come to bring peace upon earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household" (Matt. x, 34-36).
 
It is because "Mormonism" involves a religious controversy that the prejudices against it are so deep seated, and the misrepresentation of its devotees so persistent.
 
Joseph Smith, in his youth, announced a new revelation from God; and as the Christian world had been, and are, taught that no more revelation is to be given, that the Bible contains all that God ever did, and all that He ever will reveal to man, the proclamation that God had again spoken aroused the ire of the religious teachers of that day, and when, in spite of their efforts to stay its progress, they saw the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints increasing in numbers and influence, these pseudo religious teachers sought to overwhelm with falsehood, misrepresentation and slander what they could not overcome with reason and fairness. And the absurd, childish stories then invented by religious opponents of "Mormonism" they still rehashed with variations to suit ever shifting conditions, the mass constantly growing as fast as new falsehoods or distorted facts can be marshalled into service.
 
On this point I quote the following from the New York World of recent date. The World is one of the leading journals of America, and, in giving an epitome of the history and faith of the "Mormons," it said:
 
"In matters of dogma there was little or nothing in its creed to distinguish it from any other orthodox sect, but its possession of an alleged addition to the Bible and the austerity and severity of the code of morals inculcated drew to it immediately a large following. The same spirit of intolerance which in Massachusetts slit the ears of Quakers and banished Baptists under pain of death, blazed forth as fiercely as in the days of Athanasius and Arius. The pulpit rang with denunciations of the new sect, every calumny that could be invented was {175} invented and believed, and the Mormons were driven from place to place, robbed, beaten, imprisoned and murdered, exactly as the founders of every other Christian sect were persecuted."
 
THE CAUSE OF MISREPRESENTATION.
 
There are two classes of men in Utah who are interested in defaming the character of the "Mormon" people. These are the religious and political adventurers who have drifted into the Territory. The former went there professedly to convert the "Mormons" from the error of their way; but not being successful in getting sufficient converts from the "Mormon" Church to establish congregations that could pay their salaries, they have ever been dependent upon the people of the Eastern States for their support and means with which to build churches. They soon discovered that the amount of means they could raise depended upon the strength of the feeling they could incite in the minds of their supporters in the Eastern States. The more licentious and blood-thirsty the "Mormon" community was represented to be, the greater Christian heroes were these ministers considered, and therefore the more readily were "ducats" poured into their laps to carry on this spiritual war, against the supposed man of sin situated in the Rocky Mountains. Granting a few honorable exceptions, these professed ministers of Christ have invented and retailed the most abominable falsehoods respecting the Latter-day Saints, well knowing that the prejudice existing against the "Mormon" religion would so blind the eyes and close the ears of the people that it would be next to impossible for their calumnies and misrepresentations to be exposed. And if now and then their base purposes were brought for a moment to the light, and some few of their falsehoods contradicted, the effect could only be momentary, and the exploded sensational reports of "Mormon" atrocities would be supplanted by ten thousand others more horrible but equally baseless.
 
The political adventurers, alluded to in the above, are men who have come into the Territory principally by being appointed to the Federal offices within the gift of the President of the United States. It must be understood that a Territory in the American Government occupies much the same relationship to that government that a crown colony does to the imperial government of Great Britain; and the President appoints the Governor, Secretary, the District judges, the Marshal, Commissioners, {176} and indirectly a number of other officers in the Territory. It has been the policy of the chief executives of the nation in the past to reward their supporters, or the supporters of their political friends in the respective states with appointments to these positions; and to satisfy popular clamor raised by religious opponents, men with avowed hatred of "Mormonism" have usually been sought to fill these Federal offices. Another fact bearing on the character of these appointees must be taken into consideration; and that is, as a general thing, men who will consent to accept an appointment to positions in the Territories are fifth or sixth rate politicians, whose political prospects where they are known have dwindled to a forlorn hope. No man who has an opportunity of succeeding in political or business life in his own state will consent to abandon his prospects and life long associations for a temporary position in a Territory where, from the very nature of things, he can never hope for a hearty support of the people among whom he thrusts his unwelcome presence. Why? Because he is not of them. He is not their choice for the position; he is not responsible to the community for the manner in which he discharges his official duties—a condition of affairs that is absolutely incompatible with the existence of harmony between the administrator of the laws and the community they effect, in a country where the people are educated to the idea that "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed."
 
I find these two points relative to political and ecclesiastical adventurers sustained by the testimony of James W. Barclay, a member of the British Parliament, who visited Utah in 1883, and published the results of his observations in the January No., 1884, of the Nineteenth Century. The Century is a monthly magazine published in London. He says:
 
"I apprehend that the animosity of Mormonism is principally due to the efforts of the host of hungry office-seekers who would find lucrative posts in Utah were the Mormons disfranchised, and by the missionaries from the Eastern States who come to turn the Mormons from the error of their ways, and whose income depends on the strength of the feelings they can excite in their supporters. Utah is still a Territory, and, as such, its Governor, Lieutenant-Governor and Marshal, and other officials of the Federal Government, are nominated by the President of the United States, and are of course non-Mormons; but the municipal and other local officials are elected by the Mormons.
 
If the Mormons could be disfranchised in a body, 500 lucrative posts in Utah would be open to Gentile office-seekers. According to the legislature which might be adopted, the offices would be filled {177} either by the President of the United States or by the small minority of Gentiles in Utah."
 
MORMONS WRONGED BY A SENSATIONAL PRESS.
 
Unfortunately the religious and political adventurers in Utah can succeed in their designs the more readily because the agents sending out the Associate Press dispatches to the entire press of the country are in sympathy with these parties or controlled by them; so that all information going out to the country at large from that source is generally distorted to the disparagement of the "Mormons."
 
In addition to this, it will be remembered that the American Press is nothing if not sensational. This is true in a general sense, it is doubly so in relation to the "Mormon Question." Ever ready to pander to the prejudice of the populace, and finding the "Mormon" people the victims of popular hate and without political influence, the American Press has recklessly traduced the character of as noble a community as ever graced God's earth. Every sensational rumor derogatory to their character has been seized upon with avidity and published without reserve, while the correction of the mis-statements or the vindication of their character has seldom struggled through the columns of the press to the public eye. The people of America, and other countries, too, have taken everything for granted that has been said against the "Mormon" people, no matter how absurd it is, or how unreliable the source from whence it came. Very few men have had the fairness to investigate "Mormonism" for themselves, or inquire into the character of the "Mormon" people.
 
Respecting the misrepresentation of the "Mormon" people and the source from whence the public has drawn its views and fed its prejudices, I introduce the testimony of Mr. Phil. Robinson, an English journalist and correspondent of note, and a traveler of world wide experience; and who is at present the editor of the Court and Society Review, published in London. Mr. Robinson went to Utah in 1882, where he remained for three months. He visited nearly every town and village in the Territory, and saw the people at their firesides and at work in their fields, as well as in their public meetings—in fact he saw them in all the relations of life—and on the subject of their misrepresentation, he says:
 
"Whence have the public derived their opinions about it [meaning {178} Mormonism]? From anti-Mormons only. I have ransacked the literature of the subject, yet I really could not tell any one where to go for an impartial book about it later in date than Burton's "City of the Saints" published in 1862. There is not, to my knowledge, a single Gentile work before the public that is not utterly unreliable from its distortion of facts. How can anyone have respect for literature or the men who, without knowing anything of the lives of Mormons, stigmatize them as profane, adulterous and drunken? These men write of the squalid poverty of the Mormons, of their obscene brutality, of their unceasing treason towards the United States, of their blasphemous repudiation of the Bible, without one particle of information on the subject, except such as they gather from the books and writings of men whom they ought to know are utterly unworthy of credit, or from the verbal calumnies of apostates; and what the evidence of apostates is worth history has long ago told us * * * I am now stating facts; and I, who have lived among the Mormons and with them, can assure my readers that every day of my residence increased my regret at the misrepresentation these people have suffered" ("Sinners and Saints," Roberts and Sons, Boston).
 
TESTIMONY OF NON-MORMON WITNESSES.
 
I here introduce the testimony of a number of non-"Mormon" witnesses to the character of the "Mormon" people and their religion.
 
First, I refer to the article by Mr. Barclay, M. P., published in the Nineteenth Century, January, 1884:
 
"Mormon home-steads have a tidier appearance than is usual in the West, and the general air of comfort and prosperity which prevails is the best evidence of the persevering, industrious habits of the people...There is nothing peculiar in the Mormon creed to account for the great influence which Mormonism exercises among its followers.
 
"The success of Mormonism and its steady progress must therefore be due either to the manner in which Mormons carry into practice the religion they profess, or to its organization. In my opinion the results are due to two influences. First, there is no religious caste or class. From the president downwards, the office-bearers of the Church are selected by the voice of the Mormon community; they require no special qualification, and no one receives any salary or other emolument; the missionaries dispatched to all parts of the world do not receive even traveling expenses. And, in the second place, Mormonism interests itself as much in the temporal as in the spiritual concerns of its members: Church and State are, in short, identical.
 
"The Mormon community is an enlarged family, bound together by privileges and duties, one principal duty being to care for the helpless and the needy. At the same time, every individual has full freedom of action. There is no compulsion on any Mormon beyond the public opinion of his fellows, and none is possible. Apostasy {179} even does not appear to be attended with serious consequences to the apostate's material interests. Some of the largest merchants in Salt Lake City have apostatized from the Church, and although the population of Utah is about nine-tenths Mormon, their business seems to prosper as before....
 
"In morality, as far as shown by statistics, the Mormons greatly excel the Gentiles in their midst, and the general population of the States. In the winter of 1881, a census was taken of the prisoners in Utah, with the following result:—In the City prison were twenty-nine convicts, and in the County prison six convicts, all non-Mormons. In the penitentiary, out of fifty-one prisoners only five were Mormons, two of whom were for polygamy; and of 125 prisoners in the lock-ups, eleven were Mormons, some for polygamy.
 
"The arrests in Salt Lake City, from the 1st of January to the 8th of December, 1881, were classified as follows:
 
Mormons: Non-Mormons:
Men and boys 163 Men and boys 657
Women 6 Women 194
Total 169 Total 851
"Of the population of Salt Lake City, about 75 per cent. is Mormon, and 25 per cent. non-Mormon. Of the suicides in Utah, 90 per cent., and of the homicides and infanticides 80 per cent., are committed by the 17 per cent. of non-Mormons. . . . .
 
"The Mormons, as a people, are tolerant, temperate, peaceable, and industrious. Temperance is in some cases carried to the extreme of abstinence from alcohol of all kinds, tobacco, and tea. Before the Federal Government exercised so much authority as now, drinking saloons and other establishments of vice were prohibited; and, although a few professing Mormons keep drinking saloons, they are held in disgrace....
 
"Certain it is that, whatever the causes may be, there is among the Latter-day Saints a mutual feeling of helpfulness and trust, and whatever the Gentiles may say, the sentiments towards the heads of the community are respect, confidence, and I might say affection. I had the pleasure of traveling for some days in the company of a Mormon Elder, a gentleman of great ability, intelligence and courtesy, and I was much struck by the evident cordiality of his reception by his co-religionists, as well as by his genuine kindness, without any tinge of condescension towards his humbler brethren. There was on both sides an evident feeling of perfect equality combined with respect and affection. It is the same with the President. So far as I observed and could learn, President Taylor is regarded with greater respect by the Mormons than is the President of the United States by its citizens, and at the same time his office is open to all, and he is prepared to hear what the humblest Mormon has to say."
 
Again I turn to the testimony of Mr. Robinson:
 
"I have seen and spoken to and lived with Mormon men and women of every class, and never in my life, in any Christian country, {180} have I come in contact with more consistent piety, sobriety and neighborly charity. I say this deliberately, without a particle of odious sanctimony, these folks are in their words and actions as Christian as ever I thought to see men and women . . . The Mormons are a peasant people, with many of the faults if peasant life, but with many of the best human virtues as well....The demeanor of the women in Utah, as compared with Brightan or Washington, is modesty itself; and the children are just such healthy, vigorous, pretty children as one sees in the country or by the sea-side in England...... Utah-born girls, the offspring of plural wives, have figures that would make Paris envious; and they carry themselves with almost oriental dignity. There is nothing, so far as I have seen, in the manners of Salt Lake City to make me suspect the existence of that licentiousness of which so much has been written, but a great deal on the contrary to convince me of a perfectly exceptional reserve and self-respect. It is only a blockhead that could mistake the natural gayety of the country for any other than it is. I know, too, from medical assurance, that Utah has the practical argument of healthy nurseries to oppose to the theories of those who attack its domestic relations on physiological grounds. . .. A healthier and more stalwart community I have never seen; while among the women I saw many refined faces, and remarked that robust health seemed the rule....
 
"Mutual charity is one of the bonds of Mormon union. It is published officially that the bishops of every ward are to see there are no persons going hungry.' What a contrast to turn from this text of universal charity to the infinite meanness of those who can write of the whole community of Mormons as 'the villainous spawn of polygamy!' . . . Instead of the Mormons being as a class profane, they are as a class singularly sober in their language, and indeed in this respect resemble the Quakers.
 
"The payment of the tithings is as nearly voluntary as the collection of a revenue necessary for carrying on a government can possibly be allowed to be... It is not true that the Church interferes with the domestic relations of the people. When I remember what classes of people their men and women are chiefly drawn from, and the utter poverty in which most of them arrive, I cannot in sincerity do otherwise than admire and respect the system which has fused such unpromising material of so many nationalities into one homogeneous whole."—Sinners and Saints."
 
Bishop D. S. Tuttle, for years an Episcopal clergyman in Salt Lake City, an opponent of "Mormonism," but an honorable one, in a lecture on "Mormonism," delivered in New York and published in the New York Sun, says:
 
"In Salt Lake City alone there are 17,000 Latter-day Saints. Now, who are they? I will tell you, and I think, that after I have concluded, you will look on them more favorably than you have been accustomed to do. Springing from the centre of your own State (N.Y.) in 1830, they drifted slowly westward until they finally rested in the Basin of the Great Salt Lake. I know that the people of the east have obtained the most unfavorable opinion of them, and have judged them unjustly. They have many traits that are worthy of admiration, {181} and they believe with fervent faith that their religion is a direct revelation from God. We of the east are accustomed to look upon the Mormons as either a licentious arrogant or rebellious mob, bent only on defying the United States Government and deriding the faith of the Christians. This is not so. I know them to be honest, faithful, prayerful workers, and earnest in their faith that heaven will bless the Church of Latter-day Saints. Another strong and admirable feature in the Mormon religion is the tenacious and efficient organization. They follow with the greatest care all the forms of the old church."
 
I next quote from the contribution of the Rev. John C. Kimball of Hartford, Connecticut, U. S. A., to The Index, published in Boston, Mass., 1884. After introducing the testimony of a number of writers to the general good character of the "Mormon" people, he says:
 
"Still stronger is the evidence derived from official statistics as to their intelligence and virtue. In Salt Lake City, in 1881, the published reports show that the arrests for crime were fourteen times as many among the Gentiles, in proportion to their number, as among the Mormons; and taking the Territory as a whole, the Gentile population furnished forty-six convicts in the penitentiary, where the Mormon population, number for number, furnished one! According to the United States census, Massachusetts has four times as many convicts to the same population as Utah; four and a half times as many idiots and insane, and nine times as many............