The Mormon State
Brigham Young. By Susan Young Gates. (Jarrolds. The Kingdom of St. James. By Milo M. Quaife. (Milford. 18s.)
FILIAL piety has always been an obstacle to appreciation of history, especially when, as in the present ease, previous his- torians have put piety on the defensive. Mrs. Gates's life of her father, founded on many unpublished documents and a personal knowledge now almost unique, is the most satisfactory yet written. It is free from the recrimination which mars most Mormon apologetics, and Mrs. Gates has a sense of humour and freshness of style which make one ready to condone her complete disregard of chronology. But, while replying at great-length to the more sensational of the charges which have been brought against Mormons in general and Brigham Young in particular, she ignores others which were of far greater weight to the States in which the Mormons first settled. It is no doubt true, as she says, that the assassination of Joseph Smith, the founder of this Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was due to a gross breach of faith on the part of the civil authorities of Illinois. But it is only fair to add, as she does not, that Smith, as Mayor of Nauvoo, had tyrannized over a non-Mormon minority, and that the people of Illinois, like the people of Missouri before them and the Federal Govern- ment after, had reason to fear the extension of a Church which claimed secular authority and used it, sometimes before it had been conceded, with an intolerance rarely equalled in modern times. In like manner, Mrs. Gates, when telling of the foundation of Utah, makes no mention of the constant flow of men and money which the astute leader had assured by his insistence on uninterrupted missionary-work in Europe.
No limitations, however, could destroy the interest of the story - of Mormon migration, a movement whose character and achievements can only be matched in the later migration of the Doukhobors, a set with whom, it may be noted in passing, the Mormons had many things in common. The Saints who set out from Illinois in search of the promised land "- in the midst -of the Rocky Mountains " which Joseph Smith had seen in a vision were pioneers, but pioneers of a character very different from that of any of those who had preceded them. They were not poor—like the Quakers in England, they flourished wherever they went—and they were organized in those semi-military forMations which had been one of the main causes of concern to their Gentile neighbours.' But they had to travel hundreds of miles across country for the most part still uncharted ; the Indians they encountered were often hostile, and the white men always so ; and their destination was known only to the leader. When at last they arrived in sight of Great Salt Lake it seemed to them, as it seems to the modern traveller, the most barren and inhospitable of lands. But they set to work with characteristic energy, which was directed by Brigham Young along what have since become typically American lines.
Following Brigham Young's advice, the Indians were made peaceable by feeding rather than fighting." The land was developed by irrigation—an art in which the Mormons were pioneers. And a city was laid out on the now familiar rectan- gular plan. In spite of constant attacks from passing " forty- niners," following the trail which the Mormons had blazed, disputes with the Federal Government, and discord within-the Church, work was begun on the Temple, schools were founded, and a University was established. As in the early days of other churches, the arts were cultivated, and music, dancing, and the drama were introduced to a country where they had previously been unknown. Passing travellers leave us the best possible accounts of the Mormons at this time. They were industrious, clean living, and, in all but their relations with other white men, exemplary citizens. But with the steady drive westward the problem of relations between the Mormon State and the. Federal Government could not be left un- settled. There followed a period of war (in which at one time armed forces were within striking distance of each other), due to obstinacy on the one side and the most grievous want of tact on the other. But in the end a compromise was effected, thanks largely to the diplomatic skill of Brigham Young. United States suzerainty was recognized, polygamy was forbidden by a later Mormon leader, and to-day Mormons are welcomed everywhere in their country.
" The Kingdom of St. James," the State within a State established by James Strang on the shores of Lake Michigan, was in all respects a microcosm of the larger Mormon State established in Utah. James Strang was one of the many dis- contented Mormons who seceded from the Church after the death of the Prophet Joseph. Professing to have discovered " the plates of the ancient records," he led a number of his followers to the Beaver Islands, where the township of St. James was established and where Strang himself was crowned ", King." So long as there was nothing but political op- posi- tion to be fought, the kingdom prospered, for the dissident Mormons were as adept as the orthodox in their manipulation of electoral machinery. But the introduction of polygamy aroused stropg feeling among the righteous citizens, and the attempt to prohibit the sale of whisky to the Indians gave offence to the lawless fishermen of the islands. " King" James was assassinated, and his kingdom ended with a mass deportation which the historians of -Michigan still regard as the blackest page in the history of their State. Mr. Quaife has told his story lucidly and, well, and with a reverence for, the beliefs of others which his publishers would have done well to emulate. " An entertaining' historical narrative " is hardly a fitting title for a work of serious research.
Previous page
