R. W. Beers

“ They are the guiding-star of modern civilization. They are the basis, not only of our Government, but also of our social system, which is one of liberty and equal rights. They are the spring of all noble thoughts given forth to the world and all the splendid achievements. To be majestic and ennobling, thought must be unrestrained; to be praiseworthy, deeds must be uncontrolled. ”

“ Nevertheless, it tramples all freedom under foot. Its spirit is Tyranny. A greater despotism the world, perhaps, has never seen. That of the Persian king in ancient times, and that of the Czar of all the Russias over his serfs in more modern times, pale in comparison with the absolute despotism of the Mormon chieftain and his two councillors. The condition of society in Mormondom is that of bondage, utter and entire. The constituent elements of man are body, soul, and spirit; and these are all in slavery under the social system of the Mormons. ”

“ If the 30,000,000 of the colored race who within fifty years will inhabit the States of the South are to be a race of peasants, denied their practical and equal share in the Government by such processes as have prevailed in recent years, the republic itself cannot continue. The Russian ‘despotism tempered by assassination’ is quite as desirable as Republicanism tempered by both assassination and fraud. In the warfare with these things, the school and the Christian Church are to be our most potent instruments. They can accomplish more than any political party. ”

“ Let the Government only grant a half million of dollars, and school-houses can be built and equipped everywhere. And to what better use could the money be put? It will not cost as much to buy books and pay the salaries of competent teachers as it would to dig graves in a war of extermination, and a far better result would be effected, with no blood spilled and no tears shed except tears of gratitude; for instead of heaps of men and women unnecessarily slaughtered, we would have A REDEEMED PEOPLE—redeemed from slavery to liberty, redeemed from disloyalty to loyalty. ”

“ Legislators constantly passing to and from California find Salt Lake City a most attractive stopping-place. The Mormon hierarchy, sly, cunning, astute, to the last limit of human nature, is ever sharply on the lookout for these potent summer visitors. ‘Prophets’ and ‘apostles’ board every train of cars that enters Utah bearing an important traveller. The freedom of the city, the hospitality of the show ‘happy families,’ who are never taken by surprise on an off-day of misery, is lavished upon the ingenuous guest.... ”

“ A noble act of heroism that was—a stand for a righteous principle—a deed which should gain for them immortal fame, when we consider the real manhood it required for them to face such a powerful and tyrannical hierarchy. A noble fight it was on their part, but a losing fight; for they were at once expelled from the Church, branded with the stigma of apostates, their business was ruined, and they and their families were completely ostracized. That act of expulsion by the Mormon leaders is a clear proof of the fact that they are the bitter opponents of mental freedom. ”

“ The central thought running through all the discourses of the leaders is obedience to the priesthood, and the consequences of refusing to obey counsel. It matters not how absurd the doctrine may be, or how much it outrages common-sense, if it is the declaration of the inspired priesthood, it must be obeyed; and most of the people are so steeped in superstition and ignorance that they obey without question all orders from their chiefs, and even kiss the hand that rivets the chains that bind them. ”

“ To assert the contrary is to assume that law is inadequate to the protection of a community from overt acts, and that the barriers of religion and morality are insufficient for the protection of an overwhelming majority against the contaminating influence of a generally despised minority. We think we are warranted in making the statement that the people and authorities of Illinois are in great measure responsible for the development of a structure whose abnormal features, destined to sure decay in that State, were driven to deeper root by persecution and to free growth by exile. ”

“ I cannot see what right the United States has to intervene to destroy an immigration company, if it is legally conducted, simply because the religious sentiments of the Mormons are obnoxious to the people of the United States. If anything is settled in American national life, it is that no man shall be called to account for his religious opinions. ”

“ The adult Mormons will not go to hear the Christian missionaries, for they believe that all that is good in Christianity they have already in their own system. The only difference is that they have more; they have an enlarged and expanded Christianity. Consequently they think their system is vastly superior to the Christian’s. Mormon boys write “Come to Jesus” on the clean, white window-sills of Christian chapels, while their parents at home tell them that they know a hundredfold more truth than the Christians, whose whole creed, they say, begins and ends with this despised phrase. ”

“ We search that history in vain for a religious system that has stamped itself upon the faith and practice of men, operating upon them as a controlling power of comfort and hope, and organizing itself into their personal and social life by forms, usages, and modes of worship, and at the same time professedly based on the discoveries and authority of unaided human reason. ”

“ He, and he only, is fitted to become a worthy citizen of our nation who strives to be an independent thinker, and who follows no guide but his own conscientious sense of right and wrong; but he, and he only, is a good Mormon who obeys counsel without question or gainsaying. It is, therefore, the imperative duty of our Government to break up this slavery among the Mormons, and to do it as speedily as possible. ”

“ The abolition of the negro-slave traffic, the progressive obliteration of class distinctions and race distinctions in law, the liberty of combination among laborers, the extension of the franchise, the limitations of the powers of riches—in a word, all our modern popular movements are only recognitions of the principle that each individual man is born with the right to regulate his conduct and pursue his ends in his own way, provided that he does not abridge the equal rights of his fellow-men. ”

“ The only measure which has yet been enacted looking to the cure of the political evil in Utah was the disfranchisement of the polygamists by the Edmunds law of 1882; but although they have been disfranchised and rendered inelegible to office, they are only about 12,000—a very small fraction of the Mormons; and practically the old men, the Mormon leaders, who have controlled the affairs of Utah for thirty years, have simply abdicated in favor of their sons. Consequently the Territory is still under Mormon rule, and the priesthood have it in their iron grasp. ”

“ There is, in fact, no organization on earth, unless it be the Jesuit, that is so well fitted as the Mormon to interest and keep loyal the members, to combine their faculties and forces, and to move that combination with efficiency and power whithersoever one master-will dictates. It is a mighty, terrible, solid pyramid, with John Taylor and his two counsellors for its apex; the twelve apostles come next; then the seventy, the patriarchs, high-priests, elders, bishops, priests, teachers, and deacons; then, last of all, the women at the base. Every fourth man is an officer ”

“ Gardens sprang up as if by magic, fragrant with the most beautiful flowers of the New and the Old World, whose seeds had been brought from distant lands as souvenirs to the New Zion; broad streets were laid out, houses erected, and the busy hum of industries was heard in the marts of commerce. ”

“ Resolved, That we solemnly avow our belief in the doctrine of the patriarchal order of marriage—a doctrine which was revealed to and practised by God’s people in past ages, and is now re-established on earth by divine command of Him who is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever; a doctrine which, if lived up to and carried out under the direction of the precepts pertaining to it, and of the higher principles of our nature, would conduce to the long life, strength, and glory of the people practising it ”

“ The education of the South and the South-west is the great task of the statesmanship of to-day. There are a hundred million dollars lying in our National Treasury, and we do not know what to do with it. The nation should take some of it and undertake the work of public education in the Territories; for while there is some objection to national aid to education in the States, as a needless interference with State rights, yet there is no doubt as to the right of the National Government to appropriate money for educational purposes in the Territories, since they are under its immediate control. ”

“ Philosophies in abundance have been the products of such reason, but religious systems never. All the idolatries of antiquity claimed to be supernatural, and the same is true of all the forms of modern heathenism. Such is the assumed character of Mohammedanism and Mormonism.... The world never has had, and, judging by the past, never will have a religious system without this element. It does not want, and will not accept, a religion that claims for itself no higher basis than that of mere reason. ”

“ Even now, with only a small number of Gentiles in Utah, the Mormon leaders dare not command their followers to murder and assassinate as once they did; and polygamy would be more effectually overcome in that way than in any other.
But the policy which I here advocate must not be confounded with the let-alone policy which has been advocated by some, but which is a policy which no true lover of humanity, if he knows the enormity of the existing evils of the system, can hold for a moment. It was that policy which has caused the system to attain its present rank growth. ”

“ The evils in the Mormon system would long ago have been sunk out of sight but for its isolation from vital contact with truth. What the result of a battle between Truth and Error will be is known to all; but to conquer, Truth must be brought into close contact with Error. The trouble has been that Utah until quite recently has been hedged in by a Chinese wall of separation, so that Truth and Liberty have been shut out. The plan we advocate breaks down this Chinese wall entirely, and lets in the light of Truth and Liberty upon every Mormon soul. ”

“ If Congress has the right to dissolve an Emigrating Company and use its surplus property for educational purposes, then a Socialistic State Legislature would have the right to dissolve a railroad corporation, pay its debts, and take possession of its surplus for the common benefit; and this, surely, is a socialistic doctrine which the great majority of the American people are not yet prepared to accept. ”

“ It is that sentiment which has taken hold of the Mormon women and led them not only to submit in silence to what is entirely counter to their nature, but even to choose it and glory in it. Brigham Young told his people often that the world was rapidly hastening to a close, and there were multitudes of spirits waiting for honorable bodies. The Gentiles were corrupt, and the ethereal spirits were waiting anxiously for the favors of the Mormons. The women, he said, would be selfish if they could not endure the wandering affections of their husbands. ”

“ There was a carved marble font resting on twelve life-sized oxen in marble in the basement for baptism. In structure the temple resembled no other church edifice, but was remarkably unique and graceful in its proportions, particularly the front of it, with its six fluted columns, its carved Corinthian caps and broad piazza. The walls were of massive thickness. The architectural ornaments of the interior were “holy emblems,” and the spire upon the tower, which was 100 feet in height, was tipped with a gilt angel and his Gospel trump. ”

“ The people would have nothing whatever to do with their appointment—not even the Gentiles. That government would be thoroughly undemocratic both in form and substance; and even if it would truly represent the Gentile population, it would only represent a minority of citizens, and consequently would be undemocratic; for the fundamental doctrine of democracy is that the majority should rule the minority. As a proper substitute, then, for the present form of government in Utah, the Legislative Commission must be regarded as strikingly wanting. ”

“ Crimes against society do not cease to be crimes because they are religiously committed. Society can never take the criminal’s conscience, whether it be religious or otherwise, as a test or guide on this subject, and yet live under the regulation of law. Nevertheless, the Mormons do not agree with us in such views, and hold that every person who is convicted under the Edmunds law is a martyr to his religion. ”

“ It is with much hesitation that we call in question the constitutionality of an act which is fathered by so conscientious a constitutionalist as Senator Edmunds and carried by a large majority in so conservative a body as the United States Senate. From their standpoint, perhaps, it is constitutional; but from another standpoint it seems to be plainly unconstitutional. Congress is specifically prohibited from passing any law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The Mormon Church is a religious organization, no matter how false its religion may be. ”

“ The Government is responsible for the growth of this system within its domains, and it is in duty bound to eradicate its evils so far as it lies within its power; but thus far the root-evil of the system has not been recognized. All the efforts of the Government have been directed only against one of the branches—namely, polygamy. The real evil is slavery, and it seems to us that the same remedy we suggested for the solution of the Mormon Political Puzzle is the proper solution of the Mormon Social Puzzle. ”