New York tribune (daily) no. 8850

              THE MORMON DESPOTISM.
POLYGAMY AND THE PACIFIC RAILROAD.
HOW THE NEW HIGHWAY AFFECTS THE LATTER DAY SAINTS—THE "BULL'S EYE ARRANGE-MENT"—BRIGHAM YOUNG AND THE GENTILES—THE HORRORS OF LIFE IN UTAH.
SALT LAKE CITY, June 13.—How will the Pacific Railroad affect Mormonism? Simple as the ques-tion may appear in New-York or San Francisco, here the answer of every thoughtful, intelligent Gentile is, "It is impossible yet to tell." But it has given rise to one remarkable and interesting development in the history of the Saints. This is termed by the faithful, the "Coop-erative movement;" by unbelievers, the "Bull's-eye arrangement." Its object is, primarily, to keep Gentiles out of Mormon settlements, and, next, to retain the whole business of Utah in the hands of the Church. If it succeeds, the isolation necessary to the maintenance of Mormonism will, in great measure, be continued; if it fails, the prestige of Brigham, and the authority of the Church, in short, the whole system, will totter to its foundations.
HISTORY OF THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT.
The approach of the railroad was a God-send to the Mormons, by furnishing them with a market, and giving employment to their surplus labor. Yet its disadvantages and its dangers soon became apparent. Salt Lake City began rapidly to fill up with a hostile Gentile population, many of whom came to settle permanently and engage in trade. Their numbers became so great that last year an edict was issued forbidding the Saints to buy of Gentiles. This order was not, however, very strictly ob-served, ostensibly because it was difficult to tell the difference between a Mormon and a Gentile store, but really because the latter contained better wares at cheaper prices. The authorities then commanded the Saints to set over their stores a distinctive mark, and, last Fall, the business streets of Salt Lake City broke out into a glory of freshly-painted blue and gold signs, with device and legend running thus:
HOLINESS TO THE LORD.
(The All-Seeing Eye.)
ZION'S
CO-OPERATIVE
MERCANTILE INSTITUTION.
Sunday after Sunday, Brigham fulminated against Gentile traders, and apostles and elders, bishops and teachers caught up and reechoed his vehement denuncia-tions, but with only partial success. Mormon dealers were compelled to purchase goods of their richer and, more energetic competitors, and the Church seemed un-able to cope with the primary laws of trade. At this juncture, Brigham, with that shrewdness which has ever characterized him, had a revelation, and, at a Con-ference last April, it was announced that "Zion's Co-operative Institution" should exist in reality as well as in name. "We came to this valley for salvation," preached Brigham, with an audacious irony which is appreciated when we remember that he is one of the richest men on the continent; "we came to this valley to establish the Kingdom of God, and it is not right that some of us should grow rich by trading, while the majority of us remain poor. It is time to give to the people of God the profits upon the business they create-to give to each Saint all that he consumes at the lowest cost price."
And so the principal or parent cooperative association was organized, Brigham heading the list of subscriptions with $25,000, and every Saint coming down according to his means. Several of the principal Mormon merchants sold out to the institution; some of the Gentile traders; also succumbed to the pressure and took what was offered for their goods, and in a few days the parent association was in full blast, with one store for hardware, another for groceries, another for dry-goods, and so on. In every ward and settlement branch associations were organized, the people of the vicinity furnishing the capital in sums of $25 and upward. No stock is issued, no receipts are, given; the subscribers are merely credited with the amount of their subscriptions, and are frankly told that they cannot draw their money out again. Ultimately, Mormon trade, already flowing into the new chan-nels, will be entirely absorbed by co-operative insti-tutions.
A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD.
Disastrous as the new movement has been to Gentile merchants, Mormon traders have been the heaviest sufferers. A few of the principals sold out at good round prices, but the smaller traders can only get the cost price of their stocks, if that; and with business entirely broken up, must seek some new source of livelihood. A bitter feeling exists against Brigham and cooperation among these men, but to attempt to resist the Prophet's edict would be speedy and utter ruin. In the co-operative stores the women do most of the selling, the men confin-ing themselves to production. With the merchants, whose occupation is gone, Brigham appears to have little sym-pathy. Standing behind counters and measuring tape, he assures them, is no employment for men with muscles He advises them, if they have capital, to turn manufac-turers, if not, to turn farmers. Good as this counsel is it has not yet been generally followed. Many of the Mor-mon traders still keep open their stores. Not that they are doing a profitable business, but because they doubt the success of Brigham's experiment. No prohibition has yet been issued against trading with individual Mor-mons; but these traders are not allowed to draw off cus-tom from cooperative stores. I am told of one of them who offered calicoes at 15 cents per yard when the co-operative price was 18. He was quickly waited upon and. "counseled," under penalty of being cut off from the Church, to put up his calicoes to 18 cents. It is needless, to say that he "followed counsel" at once.
WILL IT SUCCEED?
Did no political or religious questions hang upon the success or failure of this co-operative movement, it would still be an experiment to be watched with interest. The Mormons are essaying co-operation upon a grander scale than has ever yet been attempted. And they have great advantages. A populous community, thoroughly organ-ized, and controlled by a single will, unlimited capital and an assured market-if co-operation upon such an ex-tensive basis is possible anywhere it must succeed here. Formidable as the opposition is, the Gentiles do not pro-pose tamely to abandon the contest. The great firm of Walker Bros., who have for years done the larger part of the Utah trade, have already marked down their goods to prices below those of the Association, and, it is reported intend to put a large stock in the market at New-York prices, thus inducing a constant struggle in the Mormon heart between loyalty to Brigham and pecuniary interest. This firm has been extensively preached against, but it is too deeply rooted to be easily driven away. Brigham has tried to buy them out, but they refuse his liberal offer, unless he also purchases at their own price everything they own in the Territory, which would require some-thing like a round half million.
RESIDENT GENTILES AND THEIR FEELING.
The attractions of the railroad towns and the efforts of the Mormons have largely reduced the Gentile popula-tion. According to the best estimates, the Gentiles and apostate Mormons in this city—men, women, and children, residents and visitors—do not number 800, while the population of the city is some 20,000. With the exception of a few miners and an occasional stage-driver, there are none but Mormons in the settle-ments, counting out Ogden, where some few traders and speculators yet remain. Of those here termed "Gentiles," a large number are Jews, who accept the name "Gentile" as opposed to "Mormon," and glory in it. They are for the most part “Californiaized" Jews, perhaps the best specimens of their race in the world. These people are perhaps the best Mormon haters in the country, regarding the system as a vulgar and impious parody on the ancient customs of their fathers. Mormon eloquence is lost upon them, and I don't think a Jewish convert has yet been made. It proves of no use to quote the example of Old Testament worthies to their descendants in Utah in justi-fication of polygamy. They will tell you that if Father Abraham were to come to this country with his four wives he ought to be hung, and that if the ancient Jews s were as wicked a people as the Mormons, they are "sorry the Philistines didn't clean them out." The Gentiles can-not fully retaliate upon the Mormons for their policy of non-intercourse. Few of them will enter a "bull's-eye store;" but for everything except merchandise they must pay their money to Mormons. The two principal hotels are both Mormon houses, and both poor enough; but it is doubtful if a proper site for a Gentile one could be obtained. It certainly could not from a Mormon. There is one Gentile restaurant, but its lodging accom-modations are not good enough to enable it to compete with the Mormon houses.
POLYGAMY.
Home, with its sweet and holy associations, is as foreign to a Mormon Bishop as to a Turkish Pacha. The Mormon idea of woman is not a whit higher than that of the Indian. The wives of an Elder, who live in one or more stone mansions in Salt Lake City, occupy precisely the same relation to him as do the squaw of Ute brave who, on the bluffs back of the city, huddle around a brush, wood fire, plaiting lariats, to their lord and master. In the dim, distant East, a seven-wived patriarch, dwelling his tents, amid his flocks and lords, may be well enough; but the same "much-married" gentleman, wearing broadcloth and a machine-made watch, and keeping hotel near the line of the great Pacific Railway, is ridiculously out of place. The constant policy of the Church has been to compel polygamy, and there is many a man in Utah who has to-day more wives than one, because he was made to feel that his position and in-fluence depended upon his obedience to "counsel" in this as in other matters. And no sooner does a man take a second wife than he is bound to Mormonism by hooks of steel. This is the position of the majority of the Mor-mon merchants, whose business has been ruined by Brigham's late edicts. Many of them would gladly close out and leave, were they not anchored to Utah and Mor-monism by polygamy.
BRIGHAM'S FAMILY.
The number of Brigham's living wives is eighteen, ex-clusive of those who are merely sealed to him for the next world. He has been credited with more than this, and it is now stated that he has less; hut I am informed on the best authority that a correct census of his house hold would show eighteen wives and forty-nine children. Among the latter are a bevy of as handsome young girls as can be found anywhere. These are, of course, in de-mand, and they are marrying off pretty fast. Sometimes he gives more than one of them to the same man, as for instance, to the Superintendent of the Western Union Telegraph Office, who has two of Brigham's daughters, and is doubly a son-in-law of the Prophet. It is said that the old gentleman has recently made it a rule that who-ever marries the last daughter of one of his wives, shall take the mother home also. This may account for the re-duced estimate of his wives, which has lately been given. One of the Mormon officials in Salt Lake City has for one of his wives his step-sister, the daughter of his own mother, while the marriage of a man to a mother and her daughter is by no means uncommon. An old Dane living near Ogden has for wives a mother and her three daugh-ters. According to the Mormon view, this is commenda-ble, as it keeps families together. A beautiful girl of eighteen or nineteen was pointed out to me on the street recently by one who knew her well. She was brought to this Territory when quite a child, by her mother, who embraced the Mormon faith in the West, came here and married all elder. The mother is an intelligent, educated woman, the daughter refined and accomplished, and knows something of the world, having made several trips to California, where she has relatives. Yet her step-father, in whose house she is living, is now urging her to marry him, and her own mother is backing up the suit, the arguments being that the marriage will prevent the separation of parent and child in this world, and secure to the latter eternal happiness in the next. The girl loves her mother, and but for the opposition of her relatives in California would no doubt have succumbed ere this to the pressure. In the country districts it is said women are really bought and sold like sheep. Two old fellows will make a bargain by which each agrees to become father-in-law and son-in-law to the other, or when there is only one daughter in the case a yoke of cattle or some other equivalent is given. This swapping is not confined to outlying settlements. A prominent Mormon in Salt Lake—a man of intelligence and education—told me that he only consented to let one of his daughters become a sixth wife at sixteen because he himself wanted a relative of; the suitor of the same age for his own fifth wife. He did not have the slightest shame in the confession, and seemed to think it a good joke.
A MORMON SLAVE.
Polygamy in its more brutal phases is but slavery of the worst description. Perhaps the following incident related to me by a gentleman of unimpeachable veracity, will give a more vivid idea of this than any generaliza-tions. Some months ago, the Rev. Mr. Foote, the Episco-pal minister here, employed a young German woman of eighteen or nineteen. She had come to Utah at an early age, and had become the fourth or fifth wife of a Dane over 60 years of age, in one of the Southern settle-ments. This old rascal worked her hard in the fields, treated her as a beast, and after a few months let her out as a cook to a camp of railroad graders. From the rail-road line she came to Salt Lake, and entered Mr. Foote's service, hoping to get rid of her husband. But she was not to escape so easily. In a short time her husband fol-lowed and demanded her return. She was terribly frightened, and refused to go. He attempted to break into Mr. Foote's house while the family was at church and take her by violence, but failed. Ultimately, how-ever, he had a private interview with her, and so terrified the poor girl that despite the assurances of Mr. Foote, and her utter loathing of the life before her, she de-clared that she must go—and went, though with many tears.
ITS DECAY.
But polygamy in Utah has undoubtedly seen its best—or, rather, its worst—days. The effect of the railroad is already evident, and the influence of Gentile opinion, even more than Gentile contact, is very slowly, but sure-ly doing its work. Newspapers, magazines, and books are now easily procurable, and prove, perhaps, the most powerful missionaries. Even the "trashiest" of yellow-covered novels are dangerous enemies to Mormonism. Occurrences like a recent one at Box-Elder, where a young girl who had been marked for the harem of Presi-dent Snow, ran off and married a Union Pacific Engineer, are becoming comparatively frequent.
A young and handsome woman who is now enjoying her honeymoon as the fourth wife of a Mormon dignitary, was pointed out to me in the theater the other evening. When she was a little child her mother became the wife of a Mormon leader, but she has had opportunities of seeing the world such as few Mormon girls enjoy. Her relatives in Boston are wealthy and refined, and she has made them several protracted visits. Yet, though naturally intelligent, educated, and accomplished, and knowing at least something of the outside world, she comes back here to enter a harem, and is now unblush-iugly wearing her orange blossoms. Too many wives may prove a serious embarrassment. A Mormon recent-ly came to a prominent Gentile by night, to ask advice. He was a fair sample of the middle ranks of the Church. When he adopted Mormonism he had already a wife; but since coming to Utah has taken another. The first was childless; by the second he has several children. He was now disgusted with Utah, and wished to return to his native place, where some property had been left him. The problem was how to escape without risk of the penitentiary. To accomplish this he had concocted a plan, as to the feasibility of which he wanted informa-tion. The "old female," as he called her, was to get a divorce, and then he was to marry the younger one legal-ly. The "old female" he had promised to take with him as a sort of "granny to the children," to whom she was much attached. He wanted to know whether this plan would work, and was informed that it might; but that he would run considerable risk of a coat of tar and feathers and a ride upon a rail in attempting to carry it out.
SALT LAKE AND THE JOURNEY HITHER.
Salt Lake City is beautiful at this time of the year—with its trees and rushing streams, with wide, quiet streets, and blooming gardens, and the grand white-capped mountains encircling all—an apple of gold in a picture of silver." It seems not unfit to be a very "City of the Saints." The whole country is a peculiar one, seeming but half made as yet, but giving the impression of great antiquity, carrying the imagination to the times beyond all history when mighty races lived, and fought, and sinned, and were cut off in their wickedness. The long, tedious journey toward the new promised land could not fail to remind the Mormon convert of the jour-neyings of God's chosen in the olden time, to give a fresh meaning and new application to the Biblical phrase-ology upon which Mormonism draws so much, and to dispose him to contentment and obedience in his new home. Now, the Mormon converts come on the railroad—easily, cheaply—and in as many days as it used to re-quire months. But the moral effect of the journey is lost. The locomotive and polygamy are incongruous associates. Thirty miles an hour, palace cars, and the lively though wicked railroad towns, do not dispose even the most ignorant minds to implicit belief in the mouth-piece of the Almighty. Had the matter been left to the Mormons, the railroad would never have been con-structed. Brigham is about to build one to Ogden, it is true, but he has accepted the inevitable, and will make the most of it. The railroad, however, has been already of immense benefit to the Mormons. It has caused the circulation of large sums of money among them, has prevented the ravages of grasshoppers from running up breadstuffs to famine prices, and has materially reduced, the cost of all imported articles—iron from forty to twenty cents a pound, and other things in proportion. These people have labored under very severe disad-vantages. Much of the land is very good, but then it all has to be irrigated. Lumber and fuel are very scarce. Timber has to be brought from the mountain tops down precipitous roads; and to get a load of wood requires three days' labor of a yoke of oxen. Iron has been a pre-cious metal, never seen in its raw form. Everything which could not be produced on the spot had to be brought in; wagons a thousand miles from the Missouri, or at nearest from Los Angelos, California, nearly 800 miles. It is no wonder that the masses are so miserably poor. They get enough to eat and to wear, such as it is; but for this miserable subsistence men, women, and chil-dren must work very hard. Nearly every family has its cow (herded in common) and its little patch of ground (forty acres is a large farm), where at least enough vege-tables home use can be raised. Beside their labors in the field, the women use the spinning-wheel and make the homespun for their husbands' wear. The houses for the most part are miserable cabins.
The bishops, however, are all rich. Brigham's wealth is something enormous. He owns property all over the territory, has a finger in every profitable enterprise, and is reputed to have also large investments in the East and in Europe. He is now buying much Salt Lake property, probably with the double idea of profiting by the rise consequent on the completion of the branch road, and preventing it from falling into Gentile hands. Of course, he gets some good bargains. By Mormonism the leaders grow rich on the toil of the superstitious masses. Brig-ham, himself, gets the lion's share, but the more intelli-gent who work with him also share in the plunder. Brigham, himself, tells his people that poverty is a crime; that if they are not rich it is their own fault, and that ho can make more money by sitting In his rocking-chair and thinking than they can by all their labor.
HOW NEW SETTLEMENTS ARE MADE.
Just now, the Mormons are making considerable mis-sionary effort in the Southern States, and are getting some converts, though they generally report the people as ready to hear, but slow to believe. The new settle-ments are made in the old way. A few weeks ago, Brigham picked out sixty young fellows, who were getting into the habit of associating with Gentiles, ordered them each to find a wife or two ("it is well to begin right," says Brigham), and to start for the far southern country, to make for themselves homes amid the sago brush. A fresh draft, too for this same region, has just been made, embracing a number of tradesmen who are comfortably fixed and doing a good business. They go uncomplainingly, and apparently with willing-ness, and will work at their trades or cultivate the soil, just as they are "counseled." Brigham Young, the center and soul of the system, wields a power which is something wonderful. That he is a man of extraordinary executive ability, with a profound knoweldge of human nature, his history amply shows; but it also shows him to be coarse, sensual, selfish, and cruel, ambitious of wealth and power, and sparing no means to secure them. He is not only a magnificent rascal, but a mean rascal, an arch hypocrite, an oppressor of the fatherless, a devourer of widows' substance. Many stories are told which illustrate this phase of his character. I take one which is notorious here. Some nine or ten years ago, a Mormon policeman was shot and killed in the discharge of his duty, leaving his single wife destitute, with several children to support. A subscription was made up for her, and Brigham was called upon. He answered that he would not subscribe money, but would buy her a home. The woman selected a little shanty and piece of ground offered for sale for $500, and Brigham bought it, but retained the deed. The widow, with her children, worked hard, improved the ground, and made a com-fortable home, and all the while (for she is a pleasing actress,) gave her services in Brigham's theater, getting, like nearly all the Mormon actors, nothing, while he was making large profits. When the property had become valuable, Brigham sent his agent to demand payment for asking not $500 but $5,000. The City Councils, though they had subscribed nothing all these years, passed an ordinance, giving the widow $2,000, with the private un-derstanding that the money was to be paid to Brigham, (on account of the house and lot. She has since managed by hard struggles to pay the greater pare of Brigham's demand, but heavy interest on the balance is charged against her, and whether she ever gets her little home, which her own and her children's labor has made valua-ble is very problematical. "The Lion of the Lord," for-sooth! The "were-wolf of the devil" would be a more appropriate title.
Brigham is said to be concentrating his wealth as fast; as possible, and to be growing more covetous and grasp-ing as he grows older. He is also said to enforce a more rigid economy in his household, Three of his youngest wives are all he really lives with as husband, the rest are little better than boarders. When distinguished strangers are present the poor old first wife is always brought out; and treated with great consideration; but at other times she is totally neglected.