John Hanson Beadle

“ Inevitably, then, the whole population will press harder on the means of subsistence, there will be less abundant nourishment, and a weakening of vitality among the poorest, and, in no long time, a marked increase of mortality among the children thus imperfectly nourished; for thus does inexorable Nature restore the balance with a stern justice untempered by mercy. That Utah polygamy causes more children to be born is unquestioned; whether it would result in a greater permanent increase of the population is very doubtful. ”

“ Stranger still, the system was, as to the objects aimed at, a perfect success: a whole community voluntarily abdicated each man his personal sovereignty, and were taken care of by their priestly advisers with a cruel kindness which the ordinary American need not hope to comprehend. Even the desire for independence died out. An original thought came to be regarded as a sin to be repented of, confessed, and put away. Each successive and abortive attempt at something better resulted in making the population still more submissive. ”

“ To treat it first in its purely economical aspects, I lay down the broad principle that, in this climate and on this soil, a polygamous community cannot get rich.
For, first, polygamy tends to the multiplication of the helpless, to make the proportion of consumers to producers unnaturally large. The political economist knows that the surplus year by year accumulated an the United States is small compared with the popular idea of it—rarely exceeding three per cent. This, funded and in turn made productive, measures the general increase of wealth. ”

“ Accordingly, we see that no polygamous people ever established a republic or even a remote approach to one; and that in Utah every kind of organization, for business or politics, is headed and managed by the priesthood. Without them it could not have been organized at all. Social cohesion is the one indispensable element in a republic: that a people may practise self-government it is necessary that an overwhelming majority should be able to trust each other, transact business, and regulate their conduct without any government at all. ”

“ Judging from the tone of much of the Eastern press, one might conclude that most thinkers regarded Utah as an exception to the rules which govern other human societies; as we read frequent energies on its people and their progress, coupled with innocent wonder that such institutions could have produced such results. It seems to be conceded by these writers that in one part of the world a whole people may be Asiatic in religion and social type, and European in energy and intellect; at the same time going forward in wealth and culture, and backward in intellectual and moral discernment. ”

“ There about one-fifth of the whole community are producers. One-half are children, one-half the remainder women (whom political economy does not consider as producers) , and a small proportion infirm and aged. Given freedom, monogamy, and natural conditions, this proportion will maintain itself with almost perfect constancy. There will always be a certain proportion of unmarried women. Families will average four or five children each, and the annual increase will be such as the productive capacity of the Commonwealth can carry, and leave a slight surplus to add to its funded wealth. ”

“ I heard men maintain with vehemence that Jesus Christ was a practical polygamist; that the Gentile world was to be utterly desolated before 1890, and the remnant submit to the Mormon priesthood; that a republican government was a rebellion against God, in that men sought to govern themselves without counsel of an inspired priesthood and a prophet divinely appointed; and that a man could not obtain honorable rank in heaven unless he had children on earth. ”

“ Whatever be the true theory, as things are now, it must be admitted that the family is the cement of the civil structure—the unit, so to speak, from which are successively built up the school-district, township, county, State, and nation—and that without the unit of organization the higher forms could not be evolved. Whatever, then, introduces an element of uncertainty into the family, weakens social cohesion and lessens the ability for organization. ”

“ It is fitting that I should here notice one powerful corrective to the natural tendency of polygamy in Utah--the non-Mormon population. It now numbers about 15,000, and includes at least four men to one woman. It is customary to divide the people of Utah into two classes, but it should be three: the Orthodox Saints, the "Hickory Mormons," or Liberals, and Gentiles. The second class consists mostly of the native young Mormons, born in the Church, but almost universally freethinkers; for Mormonism in a family never outlasts one generation. ”

“ I do not know of a man whose condition has been improved by polygamy, while I could name a score it has reduced to poverty. I cite a few cases within my knowledge, giving no names, but assuring the reader that they are well known to all old residents of Utah:
A has five wives, children by all, and a civil position which gives him $200 per month. In a monogamous community a permanent position of that kind would enable a man of business ability to accumulate wealth. To A with his five wives it is only what $40 per month would be to a monogamist. ”

“ It is often said by the Mormon preachers, and daily observation confirms it, that no people in the world keep their feelings and thoughts to themselves so well as the Mormons. Your host may be torn by internal torments, but you will' sit at his table many a day ere you discover it. This might be well enough, perhaps, but with it is closely connected an habitual deceit, which, of certain kinds, is all but universal in Utah. Its genesis is partly to be sought in polygamy. A man with more than one wife necessarily lives a lie, pretending an equal affection which he cannot possibly feel ”

“ The single man who follows some legitimate business is filling his place in an old community as well as the married man. He adds one to the producers. From this evil, if it is an evil, there can be no artificial remedy in an old society; it is to be borne as a necessary consequence of the constitution of Nature, and alleviated only by each individual's mental cultivation. This principle may also be modestly commended to those enthusiastic patriots who calculate our probable population in the year 1900. ”

“ There was such a dead calm upon the surface of society, and such a singular reticence among all classes, that only the most atrocious cases ever came to light—often those were not known or suspected until some of the parties had apostatized. ”

“ Now, introduce polygamy, apportion the single women, and possibly import a few more. Give every fifth man two wives and two sets of children, every tenth man three, and every fiftieth man from four to twenty—this is about the condition in Utah—and what then? In ten years, instead of one-fifth, only one sixth or seventh of the whole population will be producers; and the number of the helpless will be greater than the aggregate strength of the community can provide a proper surplus for. ”

“ From one to three thousand fresh converts arrived every year; those who could not submit at once and completely, slipped out of the Territory as soon as possible, and the residuary mass settled into a condition of unchanging homogeneity. That class of thinkers who maintain that government should take care of the people's business, finances, and morals, by prohibitory enactments as to foreign goods and native whiskey, would have been amazed to see how thoroughly Utah had carried out this policy. All the business of the people was regulated by the rulers ”

“ A rigid paternalism governed every detail of the social organism under the guise of what was called "counsel by the priesthood." There was counsel to sell and counsel to buy, to go abroad or remain at home, to build a house, open a farm, buy a cow, or take another wife. The remnants of individualism which the people had brought with them from their native lands seem to have completely died out as early as 1855. Natural selection of course operated powerfully in aid of this tendency, coupled with the isolated condition of the country. ”

“ To use an awkward commercial phrase, can a man with fifty children, reasonably certain to follow fifteen or twenty to the grave, afford to mourn the death of each one? More than one bishop has a considerable graveyard filled with his own dead. One is said to have seventeen children buried in one row—the longest grave not over four feet. One within my knowledge has thirty-two children living and nineteen dead. Whatever might be the result under happier circumstances, I can only say this of the Mormons: No people in my ken regard death so little, especially the death of young children. ”

“ I should not call that great wealth, for a man with a hundred and twenty children, grandchildren, and sons-in-law, hanging on his financial skirts. The assessed wealth of Utah does not exceed $28,000,000, of which it is known that the Gentile minority owns about one-half. This would leave the 90,000 Mormons no more than $140 each, a lower average, I believe, than in any other part of the United States. The question might well be raised in Congress, whether polygamy did not bring its own punishment to the men ”

“ Of course, new inventions, enabling each producer to get more of the necessaries of life from the same amount of labor, will have a similar effect to that of unappropriated natural wealth, and this enables some of the oldest countries to still maintain a slight increase. But, ultimately, these growing communities must reach a condition in which a very considerable part of the population will remain unmarried. ”

“ THE social anomaly of Utah is of interest not only to the politician and the philanthropist, but also to the scientific student of society, whose object is simply to find out how the thing works. Though not claiming to be a sociologist, I have had considerable opportunity to observe the operation of social forces among the Mormons, and in this article I wish to present some conclusions that I have formed relating chiefly to the economical aspect of the matter. ”

“ This in turn increases the dead loss set forth above; and thus polygamy causes the loss beyond recovery of a part of the productive energy of a people appreciably greater than is lost in monogamy. This it is, doubtless, which causes much of that large infant-mortality in Utah, which so many have noted, and which has often been mistakenly attributed to the purely physiological effects of polygamy. It is not that children are born with weaker constitutions, but that too many of them are born for the productive strength of the community to carry. ”

“ They argued earnestly and swore fluently in defense of their religion, quoted the Bible voluminously in favor of slavery and concubinage, and declaimed about the Prince of Peace, the way of salvation, and control of passion, till they were black in the face with anger. ”

“ Similarly, polygamy would add from 30,000 to 40,000 children per year to the population of Massachusetts, with no increase whatever in the number of producers. In eighteen years, at least 500,000 non-producers would be added to the Commonwealth. The first result would be, as the pressure slowly increased, that children would be withdrawn from school at an earlier age, and put to severer tasks, women would more and more be forced into the field and workshop, with still a decided increase of poverty. ”

“ The Orthodox may safely be set at 60,000, still more than one-half the whole population—men and women devoted to Brigham Young and the priesthood, and ready to go into polygamy or anything else at his bidding. The "Hickory Mormons" are about half as numerous; and in the various proportions of the sexes between these three classes is the most curious feature of Utah. The Liberals alone are in natural social conditions, men and women being about equal in numbers; while of the Orthodox there are probably five females to four males. ”

“ It is not the extravagance of women, the selfishness of men, nor yet the ambition of parents and the dissipation of contemporaneous society, that causes the decline. A decided majority of those men who remain single till late in life, or permanently, are among the most prudent and economical, often carrying both qualities to an extreme. ”

“ D is an apostle with five wives and a good family to each. Having always been more a missionary than trader, he is now actually an object of charity. It is openly charged, and not very strenuously denied, that one of his wives died of want; all the others either support themselves or are supported by their children, the old gentleman not being able to support even one family. So runs the list. Even Brigham Young, with all his opportunities, cannot be considered very wealthy. ”

“ Going daily or weekly from one wife to another, he must preserve a determined reticence as to all that passed with the first, or resort to deceit. The wife, too, has her reasons for concealment or prevarication ”

“ B is a man of uncommonly fine business abilities, and would anywhere in the States have long since been a millionaire. He has had five wives, and reared twenty children, besides having lost some by death. ”

“ Then a noticeable decline in the rate of increase will ensue; and such rate will decrease with almost constant regularity as the population increases. It will be manifest in three ways: people will marry later in life, successively larger numbers will remain unmarried, and the average number of children to each family will be less. The large number of unmarried women in Massachusetts, the considerably smaller number in Indiana, and the very small number in California, are thus seen to be legitimate results of the relative ages of those communities. ”

“ With this is to be connected another method in which polygamy prevents the accumulation of wealth. It tends to the dissipation of social energy. The father to more than one family cannot possibly he a father to either. No man can duplicate himself; and he who begins by having three families and three homes, ends by having none. To this must be added the constant fear, of late years in Utah, of interference by the Government ”

“ Whether this, continued through all the months of ante-natal growth, has a marked effect on the offspring, is a question for another branch of science; but certainly that or something else has affected the children of Utah. Deceit is a habit which easily extends from one thing to many, and the effects of this continual falsehood in polygamy are only evil and that continually. The polygamous nations are universally more deceitful in their social relations than the monogamous. ”