THE MORMON EXODUS.
The "Head of the Church" Preparing for a "New Departure"—Arizona the Future Canaan-Twenty Thousand Saints the Advance-Brigham's Resignation of Secular Offices—The Prophet's Successors-Reasons for his Voluntary Abdication—Photograph of the Fleeing Prophet—Light for the Gentiles—An Administration View of Mormon Affairs, Etc., Etc.
[Salt Lake City (April 9) Special Despatch to the New York Herald.]
An effort to obtain an interview with Brigham Young this afternoon, in obedience to orders from the Herald, was ineffectual. Your correspondent called at 4 o'clock at the Lion House and sent in his creden-tials. Brigham's private secretary, McKenzie, re-ceived the request and card with the air of the Grand Chamberlain of an Emperor, and neglected to show the most ordinary courtesy. On calling at 5, by re-quest, your correspondent was informed that Presiden Young had no further information to give the public. All that was to be done had been done and was published. Young had resigned the Presidencies of the Deseret Bank and Zion's Co-operative Institution; but he had no intention of resigning as President of the Church, to which he had been re-elected yesterday. Like the Veiled Prophet, he could not be seen, and after another effort to get a hearing your correspond-ent left the awful shades of the Lion House without seeing the lion. From other sources, probably as reliable, he ascertains that Brigham h as retired from the bank, Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution, and Trustee in Trustship, to avert the coming storm which he foresees. The appointment of a lot of figureheads, mere creatures of Young, to his place, relieves him of all responsibility, but does not affect his income. He will continue to reap the harvest, while others labor and assume the responsibility.
BRIGHAM'S WANING STRENGTH.
The late conference exhibited the waning strength of President Young. The change of base is shadowed forth by the anxiety to perfect the Arizona mission, which offers a new asylum for the leaders. Brigham's health is tolerably good, but he is preparing to turn over authority to his sons. The Spring Conference of the Mormons, at which these changes were made, met on Sunday and closed last night. On Sunday af-ternoon there were over fifteen thousand Saints in the Tabernacle—a large attendance. Brigham Young dis-courses twice daily. Business is lively. There are 20,000 visitors in the city. Brigham Young resigns all posi-tions—even Trustee in Trust for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Young lately returned from exploring the south. He says he found the land of Enoch. The truth is, preparations have been made for a Mormon exodus. A large number will leave in a few days, with Brigham Young at their head, for the San Fran mountain country, Arizona. The old man has lost his grip and seeks a new field, with greater power and new property. This will advance the Mormon problem towards being solved. Some Mormons will remain to close out the business. Then all will go to the Arizona deserts.
RESIGNATION OF IMPORTANT TRUSTS.
Brigham Young in the Tabernacle yesterday, before 14,000 people, formally resigned everything, except leader of the Mormon Church. or Lion of the Lord. He said he was going so far south that the telegraph would not reach him. A number of prominent churchmen were sent on missions to Europe and the islands in the Pacific. New offices were created and filled. The vacancy occasioned by the resigna-tion as Trustee in Trust of the Church was filled by the election of Geo. A. Smith, with twelve assist-ants, who are already chosen in the persons of Bishop John Sharp, two of Brigham's own nephews, Bishop Elisha F. Sheets, two of the Smith family, Elder George Thatcher, his son-in-law; Elder John Van Cott, one of his recent fathers- in-law; his busi-ness agent, Elder Amos M. Musser: Elder James Freeze, Elder Frederick T. Mitchell and Bishop Thomas Taylor. He has also changed the whole fea-ture of the ruling priesthood, and has added five new councillors to his own quorum of the priesthood in the person of the Apostles Lorenzo Snow, Brigham Young. Jr., John W. Young, Albert Carrington and George Q. Cameron. This makes two new quorums of priesthood which Brigham, in spite of all prece-dent, has created to perfect now and succeed him when he dies.
THE NEW ORDER OF THINGS.
In this new order Brigham is to be the symbol of the one God. His seven councillers are above the twelve Apostles, and are paralleled with the seven presiding spirits of the seven dispensations of the world's history—Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Jesus and Joseph Smith. By this cunning and unlooked for device he sends into oblivion the Apostles Orson Hyde, Orson Pratt and John Taylor, who would undoubtedly have scram-bled for Brigham's place and contested the ap-pointment of either Brigham Young, Jr., or George Q. Cannon at his death. By this coup d'etat Brigham has overwhelmed his old associates, the quorum of Apostles and left them powerless. Brigham never gave a dollar's bond while he was Trustee in Trust; but he now demands that George A. Smith, whom he has elected to that office, shall qualify in bonds of $25,000, and each of his twelve as-sistants in $10,000. He claims to dictate to the whole of the Church and the new organizations while he lives. He says he will take 20,000 of the Mormons with him down into Arizona and there end his days. The remainder of his life is to be devoted to building railroads in that country and to preaching to the In-dians. He has within the last few months estab-lished the nucleus of this colony in the finest portion of Arizona, near the San Francisco Mountains, directly on the line of the Southern Paci-fic Railroad, and only one hundred and seventy-five miles from Mexico. He has called a special Confer-ence of the Saints for the first Saturday and Sunday in May, at which the old quorum of the Twelve Apostels will be again filled up and new men placed in the vacancies created by the elevation of Snow, Carrington, Brigham Young, Jr., and Cannon. The whole movement is doubtless to secure the succession of his son by making place for the younger apostle ri-val and overwhelming the older apostles, who would have burst up the whole Church in their fight for the supremacy. The claim to religion and revelation in this revolution is nowhere seen, and the people are getting their eyes open.
BRIGHAM PHOTOGRAPHED.
[From the New York Herald, April 10.]
Brigham Young has ever been an enigma to the "Gentile" world, and his voluntary abdication on Tuesday of the highest positions of financial trust among his people will bewilder outside unbelievers more than ever; but to the student there is in Brig-ham's present movement a purpose perfectly consis-tent with the character and antecedents of the man. There is no one man in history that can be named to whom Brigham may be compared by way of illustra-tion, and no man was ever less understood outside of the small circle of his daily associates than is Brigham Young to-day in Utah. Without any disrespect to either the living or the dead, the Prophet of the Rocky Mountains may be said to combine pre-eminently in his person the distinguishing traits of three represen-tative men—Mohammed, Richelieu and Grant. He has all the visionary fanaticism, the "Koran or the sword” enthnsiam of the Arabian prophet; the subtle diplomatic, foxy disposition of the French Cardinal-Premier, and the self-will and unyielding character of the present occupant of the chair of Washington. Add to these the comic peculiarities of Tabernacle Talmage and the brow-beating eloquence of George Francis Train, and the "make up" of Brigham Young, the Mormon prophet, is complete.
LEGISLATIVE MANIPULALION.
At the last session of the Utah Legislature a statute was carefully framed changing "Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution" into a company of "Limited Liability," and by that measure the moneyed men who had been forced into association with the Prophet were held responsible only for the amount of their own subscribed stock. The dissenting Mormons had for the last three years threatened to make Brigham account for the millions he has controlled as "Trus-tee in Trust," and they only awaited the settlement of the jury question that was before the Supreme Court of the United States, in order to take measures to reach that end. To forestall this that same Legisla-ture passed a bill annulling, after one year from the date of their action, all indebtedness in Utah which had not either been settled by note or was in adju-dication before the Courts. On the 16th of last February this bill came into effect, and Brigham Young was then no longer accountable for the twenty or thirty millions which he has lavished upon his family and his personal estate during that same num-ber of years past. Brigham has been preparing for this coup d'etat during the last three years, and to that end his representatives in Congress were ever ready to "loan" to a needy official in the depart-ments, or to "tide over" an M. C. with a "retainer" for legal service, in order to keep back Congressional action. But the culminating shrewdness of the Prophet's manipulation was exhibited in the ready endorsement which he obtained from the present "Gentile" Governor of the Territory, who, on the last clay of the Utah Legislature, signed hastily all Brigham's bills, and on the next day wrote to President Grant imploring his influence with Congress to veto the bills that he, as Governor, had just signed. Before his representative (Cannon) and his delegate (Hooper) left Washington, at the close of the session, they expressed themselves strongly sus-picions of the purposes of President Grant. They believed that he intended to attempt the suppression of polygamy, and they knew that to this Brigham would never consent. Cannon is an enthusiast, and expressed his conviction that the Mormon deity would help the Prophet through all his troubles with the "modern Pharaoh." Hooper, a man of more mature years and more experienced in Congressional busi-ness, thought that "Brother Young had better get out of the way."
THE PROPHET'S POLITICAL COUNSELLOR.
Gen. Thos. L. Kane, of Pennsylvania, who has been Brigham's political counsellor for many years, passed the last winter with the prophet in Southern Utah, and advised him to concede to the demands of the age and abandon polygamy, but he would only con-sent to "get out of the way," and if pursued by the Government would cross the borders into Mexico. This is the whole matter in a nut-shell. Brigham is an arrant coward, and in this his latest move he is only preparing the way for his own safety, regardless of the loss of commercial credit which his finan-cial followers must sustain. At first reading, the telegrams would seem to announce that Brigham had surrendered all presiding author-ity in the Church, but this he has not done, nor anything like it. He has only shuffled out of his own personal and legal responsibilities in mat-ters of business. He is desirous that such men as Hooper, Eldredge and Jennings should stand before the public as the chief of the Mormon businessmen, upon whom all the financial responsibility of the schemes which Brigham has inaugurated would rest, while he himself escapes. He places the Apostle George A. Smith as "Trustee in Trust," but asso-ciates with him seven others to share the responsibil-ities of the position and quietly to supervise his ac-tions. But Brigham still retains for himself the imperial sway—the Presidency of the Church, which he will never relinquish until his dying day, and then it will pass into the hands of Brigham Young, Jr.
VISIONARY PHANTOMS.
Viewing the present actions of this wilv autocrat of the Rocky Mountains in the light of his past life there is reason for congratulation that he has been brought to realize that his reign of terror is drawing to a close, and that the probabilities are that he will live long enough, even in a few short months, to see that his foolish scheme for founding a "kingdom" is but another of the visionary phantoms that have so frequently disturbed the peace of society, in other ages as well as the present, and which must of neces-sity pass away before the inevitable march of civil-ization. The poor, believing, toiling people of Utah should now begin to realize how much they have been duped in the name of religion, and how they have been used to build up a "codfish aristocracy" under the shadow of Brigham's wing. The very men who have been called to the responsible positions named in the telegrams are for the most part utterly devoid of faith in Brigham, and are associated with him only on account of their wealth and social position.
VIEWS OF THE ADMINISTRATION.
[Washington (April 9) Special Despatch to the New York Herald.]
The resignation of Brigham as Trustee of the Mor-mon Church has attracted, as it would naturally be expected, the attention of the prominent officials in Washington, for there is not a question to-day before the Government superior to the Mormon question. Brigham has been regarded by those in authority here as the spinal column of the Mormon Church, and, if he has abdicated in earnest, the mainstay of the polyga-mous institutions, it is believed, has been broken. With the conviction that Brigham’s exodus from Utah would weaken the Church and its orthodox followers, your correspondent called on the President to-day to ascertain from him what he thought of the Mormon question now and the probable resignation of Brigham Young, and what effect this course would have on the policy of the Government in its treatment of the Utah question. The following was given as the views of the Administration, with no reservation as to their publication: So long as the people of Utah are quiet and law-abiding they will not be disturbed, but that the Administration will feel bound to uphold the au-thority of the Governments and its Court in that Ter-ritory. If any conflict should occur between the Territorial and the United States Courts—what con-flict might arise need not be anticipated at this time-it is enough to know that the slightest interference will be promptly checked. The peaceful relations evisting between the Government and the people of Utah can only be affected by their own acts. If they obey the laws there is nothing for the Govern-ment to do, or that the Government proposes to do, in respect to them. The only thing the Government has desired Congress to do was to take away the authority given by their Territorial law to interfere with the selection of jurors, and make provision for their selection so as not to leave that power in the hands of the Mormons for jurors. The decision of the Su-preme Court sustains their claim, and of course it must be respected. At present the United States Courts are comparatively powerless; they are doing little or nothing in cases of a criminal nature, and not near so much in civil cases as if the jurors could be satisfactorily selected. No serious question other than this exists, and unless a conflict occurs between the Courts there is noth-ing changed in the attitude of the Government tow-ard Utah. As before stated, if it becomes neces-sary to employ military force, to uphold the Courts, or enforce the laws, it will be done. Respecting the resignation of Brigham Young, there had been noth-ing officially received from the Federal officers at Salt Lake City. That he will leave the Territory, there is reasonable ground for doubt; but whether he goes or remains, it would appear that that change in Mormon institutions will be made which has so frequently been urged should be made to make the Mormons a part of the American body politic. If Brigham Young has absolutely resigned his authority and con-trol of the Church, it would be reasonable to presume that there will be a more liberal spirit difused among the Mormons.
