THE COMMOTION IN UTAH.
The Courts at Work—The Soldiers Riot-ing—The Governor and the General Commanding the United States Troops Lock Horns—Churches Building—Times Develop-ing—Good Times Coming, &c. &c., &c.
SALT LAKE CITY, October 2,
When Utah was a ''thousand miles from every-where," and could only be reached by the slow, tedious, and expensive journeying of ox-team and mule-flesh, the edicts of Brigham Young were read in the States with the interest of an imperial ukase, and the moving of the ''brethren " was scanned as carefully as the marching of armies; but thanks to the great iron highway that spans the continent, and to her sister institution—the telegraph—Utah is no longer a terror at home nor a cause of uneasi-ness abroad. As the plain, blunt soldier at the head of the Union army remarked very recently to your correspondent, on his trip to the Pacific: "We had a good deal of anxiety about Utah years ago, but it is now all over; we can come and see you now whenever we want to !"
The former interest in Utah is rapidly giving place to a grander and a nobler sentiment to-day—ad-miration. The student beholds her travelling from the crude existence of life in the wilderness to a prosperity in civilization that promises to eclipse in wealth, social order, and harmony the most favored of the Rocky Mountain States and Territories. Her present commotions are but the natural precedence of change; and though words may sound harshly and threaten strife, the revolution will accomplish its task, it is to be hoped, without the shedding of blood, but should fatality ordain it otherwise, the struggle will be short and progress will be the sooner crowned with victory. The wonderful tenacity with which Brigham Young and those immediately around him cling to the past, is nothing more than what history has re-corded a thousand times before. His position is perfectly natural. He has reigned in his presiden-tial chair and swayed a sceptre more potential than ever did czar or kaiser, and none have ever dared to question or say, "Why doest thou ?" His reign has been the most remarkable blending of the temporal and the spiritual that was ever written in history. At one and the same moment he made his debut in the Rocky Mountains as God's vicegerent by revelation, and Governor of the Territory of Utah by the grace of Millard Fillmore. Here he had everything that the most am-bitious reformer could have desired to de-velop his theories for rejuvenating the world and ushering in the millennium. A people willingly prostrate at his feet, ready to execute and to develop whatever lay within the ability of human agency. Over a score of years his opportunities have continued, and at the closing of a life already into threescore years and ten, he hears around him the murmured
JUDGMENT OF FAILURE.
He has accomplished successfully but one thing that is undisputed—personal aggrandizement. In the language of his conventicle, "the Lord has blessed him, has greatly multiplied wives unto him, children by the score, flocks, herds, houses, and lands, and all these has the Lord given unto his servant Brigham." But the day of reckoning has come, and it is astonishing with what rapidity the Saints are developing into Gentiles and forgetting the ways of ''the priest-hood. Only twelve months ago not a soul had dared to speak in open hostility to the powers that be. The Utah Magazine had for months before that been groping its way and feeling the temper of the prophet on the development of the mineral re-sources of the Territory, and a half-written idea of the possibility of Brigham being sometimes wrong, and not all the time very right, struggled into the columns of that paper; but the carefulness with which the hinting was conducted revealed the dread of a possible storm. This was only twelve months ago, and to-day the war is open and above-board. The dissidents go for him with a bold-ness and pertinacity that mean victory and no surrender. That the man of unques-tioned authority should feel indignant at any change that threatens a division of his authority is natural enough; that he should regard as impiety the challenging of his infallibility is but the indignity of all Popedom; that he should see his kingdom weakening and not be alarmed would make him false to his kind. By nature, he is the very person-ification of a blending of
NICHOLAS AND RICHLIEU.
He has all the cunning of the latter, and the des-potism of the former, without the education of the one or the pride of birth of the other. He is a crudely manufactured theocratic-monarch. His position and himself blended are sui-generis—he is without illustration and compeer on the page of history. The epitaph that will adorn his tomb will be a relic for humanity.
THE COURTS.
It has been the misfortune of this Territory to be cursed with some Federal officers without character and brains, and especially among the judiciary, where both were more demanded—if choice there should be in any of them. The present bench com-prises, fortunately, men of another class, and with the recent accession to their number of Judge McKean from your city, as the Chief-Justice of the Territory, there is a prospect of an undivided Su-preme Court. Judge McKean's debut on the bench has been hailed by all parties as exceedingly fortu-nate, for never did we have such matters of moment to bring before the courts. Matters that have been in contest since the organization of the Territory, twenty years ago, have now to be settled.
The courts have hitherto declared themselves in-competent to deal with questions that affected lead-ing Mormons so long as the Territorial Marshal was a Mormon and the Grand Jury was summoned from among the Mormons by him. There is an Attorney-General, also, for the Territory, elected by the Mor-mon Legislature, and between them the courts have declared themselves incompetent. Judge McKean has already decided in favor of the United States Marshal being the proper executive officer of the United States Courts, in Territorial matters as well as in mattes directly pertinent to the United States. He now holds under advisement his decision on the question that has been discussed this week between the Mormon Ter-ritorial Attorney-General and the United States At-torney-General for the Territory. Should the Chief-Justice decide in favor of the latter, then the courts can proceed to business, and reach whom they may, high up on the Mormon ladder as well as on the low-est round.
The principal provisions of the Cullom bill, per-taining to matters of court, were plain and specific on these points, in order to reach the violators of the anti-polygamic law of 1862; but that act failing to pass the last Congress, the courts here now be-lieve the present statutes sufficient to deal with the business, and so they proceed.
AFTER THE CITY POLICE.
Three or four weeks ago the city police demolished the wholesale liquor store of a German, under the plea that he had not paid his license. The warrant stated that the said German had sold a bottle of liquor, valued at $1; and without further investigation than the statement and oath of a policemen, Jeter Clinton issued an order for the destruction of the property, and on that alone the City Marshal, the Captain of Police and seventeen police and special police demolished and wantonly destroyed property to the value of over $22,000.
Clinton is the very embodiment of ignorance and impudence, and in spite of the remonstrances of the people, he is preserved in his situation for the dirty work he can do and the unprincipled villany he can conceal. By the time this reaches you he and his accomplices will be in court, and there is nothing but corruption than can prevent the whole gang of them from being taxed on a civil suit with three times the amount of the property destroyed, and a lengthy residence in the Penitentiary for the wanton and malicious destruction of property and for riot on a criminal suit. A dozen men hold this city In terror, and the day of dealing with them has come. It is now the question shall citizens of the United States peaceably pursue legitimate avoca-tions here, or shall they fly before the fanatical tyranny that fights for the mastery ?
GOVERNOR SHAEFFER AND GENERAL DE TROBIAND.
The gentleman who fills the gubernatorial chair of Utah at the present time is unfortunately far gone in consumption, and but badly prepared for a fight with any one. He is, however, a brave man, and where duty points he leads the way. The chief Mormons have treated his predecessors with the coolest indifference, and sought, wherever they could use them, to parade them as ornamental figureheads. By the organic act, organizing the Territory, the Governor is nominated the com-mander-in-chief of the militia, and annually should, by legislative enactment, see that they mustered and drilled, and were ready for service. Before Brigham Young descended from the gubernatorial chair in 1857, the legislature foreseeing the breeze arising in the East, that sent an army here to escort a new governor in the fall of that year, made pro-vision for the organization of the militia under the designation of the Nauvoo Legion, and appointed Daniel H. Wells its Lieutenant-General. This Wells is counsellor to Brigham Young. From that day to this, now thirteen years, no Governor of Utah has ever been acknowl-edged commander-in-chief of the militia. In their messages to the Legislature nearly every one of the Governors drew the attention of that body to the rights of the Executive; but with a singular and con-venient deafness they never heard the Governor's re-commendations, and never reported on those portions of the messages. This has continued without change. Governor Shaeffer gave early notice of his deter-mination to be Governor de facto as well as de jure, and when the season had arrived for Lieutenant-General Wells to order the musters throughout the country no notice was taken of the actual Governor. He might be a figure-head if he pleased, but more than that was out of the programme. Governor Schaeffer, however, returns from California, whither he had been in search of health, and seeing the preparations, immediately, by proclamation, forbade the musters.
General De Trobiand, who commands the United States troops at Camp Douglas, had the honor of dining with Brigham Young and some of his wives. With the gallantry of his nation, he could do no less than be charmed in the society of the favorite wife, and after partaking of the courtesies of the prophet, he could see nothing less than a polite gentilhomme. Flattered by this cheap compliment, he became the open defender of the institution. He saw no very grand difference between Brigham Young keeping wives, and other men keeping mistresses. If any difference, he thought that the former was the better. In this style he has spoken in town and in his camp, to the very great disgust of his own offi-cers, and everybody has voted him a good-natured old woman.
De Trobiand's offensive talk drew upon him some very severe strictures, and smarting under the lash of some ladies' tongues, he has but illy concealed the rancor in his bosom. Last week the Governor ad-dressed to him a note about some rioting of soldiers at Provo, and in the heat of his temper he rushes into print and goes heavily after the Governor, to the great enjoyment of Brigham Young and the Mormon press. The Governor would doubtless have done better to have learned what De Trobiand had done or not done, before giving a copy to the papers to allay the excitement; but the Gen-eral seized the opportunity to attack him in the vilest manner, and by the basest insinuations, hint-ing that the Governor was the head of a clique of political tricksters. This is a beautiful picture for the Mormon chiefs to gloat over.
GENERAL ITEMS.
The Episcopalians are erecting a beautiful church here, from funds, I believe, furnished principally by Christians in New York and Brooklyn. It will be an ornament to the city, The dissenters from Brig-ham Young are also building a fine large lecture-room within a block of the new church. The Metho-dists are trying to purchase land for the same object. Thus the city, that was but a short time since in-habited only by saints, is becoming a resting-place and a place of worship for everyone else who has the grit to dare.
The mines are developing great wealth in the mountains. Utah ore is now lying in large quan-tities in Newark, N. J., is also in San Francisco, and on the way to Wales. Smelting works are being built here, and mills are being erected all over the country. The honest miner is our coming man, and everybody is pleased with his debut—all but Brig-ham's crowd—they would sooner see a regiment of parsons than a dozen miners. They know that with the development of wealth, it is good-by to priestcraft.
