THE MORMONS OF TO-DAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12070, 13 September 1902, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE MORMONS OF TO-DAY.

STILL POLYGAMOUS AND STILL A

POWER FOR EVIL, To those who have imagined that the creed of Mormonism is extinct or harmless Mr. Linn's "The Story of the Mormons" (Macmillan) will come as something of a surprise. For, far from the Church of the Prophets Joseph Smith and Brigham Young being moribund or innocuous, it is shown by Mr. Linn to be more powerful than ever politically, to be dominated by a spirit of rigid discipline, to be steadily increasing in numbers, and still secretly to be practising polygamy.

In the present year a Mormon, Heber M. Wells, the son of the man who commanded the armed forces of the Mormon Church in the dark days upon which Mr. Linn throws so lurid a light, is Governor of the State of Utah. The Legislature of that State is controlled and dominated by the Mormons, and "the political influence of the Mormon Church in all the States and territories adjacent to Utah is already great, amounting in some instances to practical dictation/' In Idaho, Arizona, and Wyoming the "Lat-ter-Day Saints." as they call themselves, pull the stlings to which the parly managers dance, and " the prospect that they will have great influence in the future will be readily pressed upon the powers that be. By the Co-operative Institution, which does most of the trading in Utah, the Church is able to influence Eastern business men, while it has also a secret grip upon so powerful a corporation as the Union Pacific Railroad, on the board of which sits a Mormon. MISSION WORK. Nor has it by any means abandoned its mission work: — " The number of missionaries at work in October, 1901, was stated to me by Church officers at from 1400 to 1900. . ." . The work of proselytising in the Eastern Atlantic States has become more active. The Mormons have their headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, and their missionaries make visits in all parts of Greater New York. . . They take great pains to reach servant girls with their literature and arguments, and the story lias been published of a .Mormon missionary who secured employment as a butler, and made himself so efficient that his employer confided to him the engagement of all the. house servants. . . By promise of husbands and homes of their own on arrival ir, Utah this man' was said to have induced sixty girls to migrate from New York city to that State since he began his labours." Oh the other hand, the Church is much less powerful in' Europe and England than it was fifty years ago. But it is unquestionably a dangerous influence in Utah, where it is now strongly entrenched behind the bulwarks afforded by the American Constitution. It even aspires ultimately "to dominate the United States," and it is always on the watch and using all its occult efforts to remove or annul the prohibition of polygamy passed by Congress in 1382. In 1889the*Church, which controls all elections in Utah, returned a polygamist to Congress —a man. too. who ma.de no secret of the fact : in 1901 the Utah Legislature passed a Bill forbidding prosecutions for adultery, which was vetoed by Governor Wells, not on the ground that it Mas a wicked measure, but because " it would be a signal for general demand for a Constitutional amendment directed solely against certain conditions (polygamy) here." THE WOMEN I'AVOT"B I'OI.YCAMV. Polygamy, in fact, is only in abeyance till the Church shall be politically strong enough to get, rid of prohibition. " Polygamous relations have been continued." says the author, "in many instances." and by a supreme irony the women of Utah are fanatically attached to the doctrine, of the plurality of wives. Bui the Mormons have been astute enough to divert all attention from their proceedings. Prosecutions lor polygamy have ceased, because no Utah jury will find a verdict of guilty. The jury system is used to shelter the criminals.'' No darker story has ever been unfolded in print than that which Mr. Linn tells of the rise and progress of the Church. Its peculiar feature lay m this, that it was at once a religion and a business society, dominated by tin iron despotism, and enforcing discipline within its tanks by a secret murder organisation, which would shrink from no crime, however heinous.

In its first beginnings Mormonism was based upon the supposed revelations of heaven to Joseph Smith, who seems to have been one of the basest 'and most, dangerous scoundrels known to history. The members of his Church stole, forged notes, coined false money, murdered their opponents, and kept a gigantic receivers' institution, until even the lawless West rebelled against them, half in hatred and half in fear. Among the distinctive features of their morning church service was a, call for the restoration of stolen property ! THK MAM,".AT ill UTAH. Alter fierce engagements and entente.-, in 1 lii; last of which Joseph Smith was murdered, they were in succession driven from county after county and .State after State, and forced to retire in 1315 to the then far remote territory of Utah, under the guidance of that genial scoundrel Brigham Voting Here they established a community which has supplied material for the novelist, and which may best be described as a gigantic mantrap. No one was allowed to leave it without Brigham Young's permission, and woe to the person who incurred his wrath. Here for a period of fifteen years or more the Church defied all laws, and at times waged open war on the United States. The. practices of its members were revolting, and convincing evidence of the worst of than, human sacrifice, is produced by My. Linn. This was the horrible rite known as " Blood atonement." Mew and women were killed, and, in the words of Brigham Young, " their blood was spilled on the ground as a smoking incense to the Almighty.'' Thus the wife of an elder committed what was—in Utah society—a trifling offence:

" She was told she could not reach ' the circle of the gods and goddesses' unless her blood was shed, and she consented to accept 'he punishment. Seating herself, therefore, on her husband's knee .... he drew ■a knife across her throat. 'That kind and loving husband still lives near Salt Lake City and preaches occasionally with great zeal,' "-

r.VAVKXUKO T.] t'EHKItS. No man was safe in this terrible community among the polygamists and secret assassins. There were on an average twenty unavenged murders a year in a quite small population, the victims being mostly individuals who had displeased Brigbam Young. (July one man is known to have escaped from Utah against Young's will, and he got away because he took to the mountains where the aimed men who went it! pursuit could not follow him. The "Destroying Angels/' or "Danites." the secret organisation which executed Young's dark deeds, were turned loose on any who tried to leave the fold, and nothing more would be heard of the fugitive. .So daring were the Mormons that they even outraged a United State.? Governor in the most horrible vnv.

But the worst 'of all their crimes was the killing in cold blood of at least .120 emigrants from Arkansas in 1857. Something is known of this because the agent who com" milted the crime was, nearly twenty years later, surrendered by the Church, and after making a, complete confession shot for the deed. The massacre was effected with the aid of Indians under a flag of truce, by the basest treachery, and under the approval" direction of a Mormon bishop. "The women and larger children (of the emigrants) walked ahead, then came the men in single file, an armed Mormon walking by the side of each Arkansan. When: they had advanced far enough to bring the women and children into the midst of a company of Indians .... the word 'Do your duly,' was given. As these words' were spoken each Mormon turned and shot the Arkansan who was walking by- his side, and Indians and other Mormons attacked the women and children who were walking ahead. s

Mr Linn s work is the first adequate, impartial, and complete account of an extraordinary society, the survival of which to our day is not the. least remarkable fact to the modern observer.