MORMONS WRONGED BY A SENSATIONAL PRESS.

Unfortunately the religious and political adventurers in Utah can succeed in their designs the more readily because the agents sending out the Associate Press dispatches to the entire press of the country are in sympathy with these parties or controlled by them; so that all information going out to the country at large from that source is generally distorted to the disparagement of the "Mormons."

In addition to this, it will be remembered that the American Press is nothing if not sensational. This is true in a general sense, it is doubly so in relation to the "Mormon Question." Ever ready to pander to the prejudice of the populace, and finding the "Mormon" people the victims of popular hate and without political influence, the American Press has recklessly traduced the character of as noble a community as ever graced God's earth. Every sensational rumor derogatory to their character has been seized upon with avidity and published without reserve, while the correction of the mis-statements or the vindication of their character has seldom struggled through the columns of the press to the public eye. The people of America, and other countries, too, have taken everything for granted that has been said against the "Mormon" people, no matter how absurd it is, or how unreliable the source from whence it came. Very few men have had the fairness to investigate "Mormonism" for themselves, or inquire into the character of the "Mormon" people.

Respecting the misrepresentation of the "Mormon" people and the source from whence the public has drawn its views and fed its prejudices, I introduce the testimony of Mr. Phil. Robinson, an English journalist and correspondent of note, and a traveler of world wide experience; and who is at present the editor of the Court and Society Review, published in London. Mr. Robinson went to Utah in 1882, where he remained for three months. He visited nearly every town and village in the Territory, and saw the people at their firesides and at work in their fields, as well as in their public meetings—in fact he saw them in all the relations of life—and on the subject of their misrepresentation, he says:

"Whence have the public derived their opinions about it [meaning Mormonism]? From anti-Mormons only. I have ransacked the literature of the subject, yet I really could not tell any one where to go for an impartial book about it later in date than Burton's "City of the Saints" published in 1862. There is not, to my knowledge, a single Gentile work before the public that is not utterly unreliable from its distortion of facts. How can anyone have respect for literature or the men who, without knowing anything of the lives of Mormons, stigmatize them as profane, adulterous and drunken? These men write of the squalid poverty of the Mormons, of their obscene brutality, of their unceasing treason towards the United States, of their blasphemous repudiation of the Bible, without one particle of information on the subject, except such as they gather from the books and writings of men whom they ought to know are utterly unworthy of credit, or from the verbal calumnies of apostates; and what the evidence of apostates is worth history has long ago told us * * * I am now stating facts; and I, who have lived among the Mormons and with them, can assure my readers that every day of my residence increased my regret at the misrepresentation these people have suffered" ("Sinners and Saints," Roberts and Sons, Boston).

TESTIMONY OF NON-MORMON WITNESSES.

I here introduce the testimony of a number of non-"Mormon" witnesses to the character of the "Mormon" people and their religion.

First, I refer to the article by Mr. Barclay, M. P., published in the Nineteenth Century, January, 1884:

"Mormon home-steads have a tidier appearance than is usual in the West, and the general air of comfort and prosperity which prevails is the best evidence of the persevering, industrious habits of the people...There is nothing peculiar in the Mormon creed to account for the great influence which Mormonism exercises among its followers.
"The success of Mormonism and its steady progress must therefore be due either to the manner in which Mormons carry into practice the religion they profess, or to its organization. In my opinion the results are due to two influences. First, there is no religious caste or class. From the president downwards, the office-bearers of the Church are selected by the voice of the Mormon community; they require no special qualification, and no one receives any salary or other emolument; the missionaries dispatched to all parts of the world do not receive even traveling expenses. And, in the second place, Mormonism interests itself as much in the temporal as in the spiritual concerns of its members: Church and State are, in short, identical.
"The Mormon community is an enlarged family, bound together by privileges and duties, one principal duty being to care for the helpless and the needy. At the same time, every individual has full freedom of action. There is no compulsion on any Mormon beyond the public opinion of his fellows, and none is possible. Apostasy even does not appear to be attended with serious consequences to the apostate's material interests. Some of the largest merchants in Salt Lake City have apostatized from the Church, and although the population of Utah is about nine-tenths Mormon, their business seems to prosper as before....
"In morality, as far as shown by statistics, the Mormons greatly excel the Gentiles in their midst, and the general population of the States. In the winter of 1881, a census was taken of the prisoners in Utah, with the following result:—In the City prison were twenty-nine convicts, and in the County prison six convicts, all non-Mormons. In the penitentiary, out of fifty-one prisoners only five were Mormons, two of whom were for polygamy; and of 125 prisoners in the lock-ups, eleven were Mormons, some for polygamy.
"The arrests in Salt Lake City, from the 1st of January to the 8th of December, 1881, were classified as follows:

Mormons: Non-Mormons:

Men and boys 163 Men and boys 657

Women 6 Women 194

Total 169 Total 851

"Of the population of Salt Lake City, about 75 per cent. is Mormon, and 25 per cent. non-Mormon. Of the suicides in Utah, 90 per cent., and of the homicides and infanticides 80 per cent., are committed by the 17 per cent. of non-Mormons. . . . .
"The Mormons, as a people, are tolerant, temperate, peaceable, and industrious. Temperance is in some cases carried to the extreme of abstinence from alcohol of all kinds, tobacco, and tea. Before the Federal Government exercised so much authority as now, drinking saloons and other establishments of vice were prohibited; and, although a few professing Mormons keep drinking saloons, they are held in disgrace....
"Certain it is that, whatever the causes may be, there is among the Latter-day Saints a mutual feeling of helpfulness and trust, and whatever the Gentiles may say, the sentiments towards the heads of the community are respect, confidence, and I might say affection. I had the pleasure of traveling for some days in the company of a Mormon Elder, a gentleman of great ability, intelligence and courtesy, and I was much struck by the evident cordiality of his reception by his co-religionists, as well as by his genuine kindness, without any tinge of condescension towards his humbler brethren. There was on both sides an evident feeling of perfect equality combined with respect and affection. It is the same with the President. So far as I observed and could learn, President Taylor is regarded with greater respect by the Mormons than is the President of the United States by its citizens, and at the same time his office is open to all, and he is prepared to hear what the humblest Mormon has to say."

Mormons:		Non-Mormons:
Men and boys	163	Men and boys	657
Women	6	Women	194
Total	169	Total	851

Again I turn to the testimony of Mr. Robinson:

"I have seen and spoken to and lived with Mormon men and women of every class, and never in my life, in any Christian country, have I come in contact with more consistent piety, sobriety and neighborly charity. I say this deliberately, without a particle of odious sanctimony, these folks are in their words and actions as Christian as ever I thought to see men and women . . . The Mormons are a peasant people, with many of the faults if peasant life, but with many of the best human virtues as well....The demeanor of the women in Utah, as compared with Brightan or Washington, is modesty itself; and the children are just such healthy, vigorous, pretty children as one sees in the country or by the sea-side in England...... Utah-born girls, the offspring of plural wives, have figures that would make Paris envious; and they carry themselves with almost oriental dignity. There is nothing, so far as I have seen, in the manners of Salt Lake City to make me suspect the existence of that licentiousness of which so much has been written, but a great deal on the contrary to convince me of a perfectly exceptional reserve and self-respect. It is only a blockhead that could mistake the natural gayety of the country for any other than it is. I know, too, from medical assurance, that Utah has the practical argument of healthy nurseries to oppose to the theories of those who attack its domestic relations on physiological grounds. . .. A healthier and more stalwart community I have never seen; while among the women I saw many refined faces, and remarked that robust health seemed the rule....
"Mutual charity is one of the bonds of Mormon union. It is published officially that the bishops of every ward are to see there are no persons going hungry.' What a contrast to turn from this text of universal charity to the infinite meanness of those who can write of the whole community of Mormons as 'the villainous spawn of polygamy!' . . . Instead of the Mormons being as a class profane, they are as a class singularly sober in their language, and indeed in this respect resemble the Quakers.
"The payment of the tithings is as nearly voluntary as the collection of a revenue necessary for carrying on a government can possibly be allowed to be... It is not true that the Church interferes with the domestic relations of the people. When I remember what classes of people their men and women are chiefly drawn from, and the utter poverty in which most of them arrive, I cannot in sincerity do otherwise than admire and respect the system which has fused such unpromising material of so many nationalities into one homogeneous whole."—Sinners and Saints."

Bishop D. S. Tuttle, for years an Episcopal clergyman in Salt Lake City, an opponent of "Mormonism," but an honorable one, in a lecture on "Mormonism," delivered in New York and published in the New York Sun, says:

"In Salt Lake City alone there are 17,000 Latter-day Saints. Now, who are they? I will tell you, and I think, that after I have concluded, you will look on them more favorably than you have been accustomed to do. Springing from the centre of your own State (N.Y.) in 1830, they drifted slowly westward until they finally rested in the Basin of the Great Salt Lake. I know that the people of the east have obtained the most unfavorable opinion of them, and have judged them unjustly. They have many traits that are worthy of admiration, and they believe with fervent faith that their religion is a direct revelation from God. We of the east are accustomed to look upon the Mormons as either a licentious arrogant or rebellious mob, bent only on defying the United States Government and deriding the faith of the Christians. This is not so. I know them to be honest, faithful, prayerful workers, and earnest in their faith that heaven will bless the Church of Latter-day Saints. Another strong and admirable feature in the Mormon religion is the tenacious and efficient organization. They follow with the greatest care all the forms of the old church."

I next quote from the contribution of the Rev. John C. Kimball of Hartford, Connecticut, U. S. A., to The Index, published in Boston, Mass., 1884. After introducing the testimony of a number of writers to the general good character of the "Mormon" people, he says:

"Still stronger is the evidence derived from official statistics as to their intelligence and virtue. In Salt Lake City, in 1881, the published reports show that the arrests for crime were fourteen times as many among the Gentiles, in proportion to their number, as among the Mormons; and taking the Territory as a whole, the Gentile population furnished forty-six convicts in the penitentiary, where the Mormon population, number for number, furnished one! According to the United States census, Massachusetts has four times as many convicts to the same population as Utah; four and a half times as many idiots and insane, and nine times as many paupers. Utah in school attendance, according to the same authority [the United States census for 1880], is ahead of Massachusetts; and with all that has been said about the ignorance of its people and its immense foreign immigration, its proportion of people that cannot read and write is put down as less than that of New England. And still more striking, the women there instead of being kept in ignorance and subjection, are educated in the same studies and to the same extent as the boys and men, are equally fitted to earn their own living out in the world and to maintain an independent career."

Captain Burton, of the British army, published in 1862, a book on the "Mormon" people and faith called the City of the Saints. He says:

"Mormonism is emphatically the faith of the poor. . . I cannot help thinking that morally and spiritually as well as physically its proteges gain by their transfer from Europe to Utah. . . . In point of more morality, the Mormon community is perhaps purer than any other of equal numbers. . . . The penalties against chastity, morality and decency are exceptionally severe. . . . I was much pleased with their religious tolerance. The Mormons are certainly the least fanatical of our faiths, owning like the Hindus, that every man should walk his own way, while claiming for themselves superiority in belief and practice."

Testimony of like character and of equal respectability could be adduced without limit, but we think sufficient is here set down to convince people disposed in the least degree to be fair-minded, however prejudiced they may previously, have been, that the reckless charges of crime and immorality made against the Latter-day Saints in Utah by their enemies, are wickedly false, and have been invented to deceive. I ask you again to cast your eye over the statements presented to you, and consider the character of the men who make them. They are not the statements of the occasional tourist of a day, but the conclusions of men of thought and travel and education, who visited Utah for the express purpose of becoming acquainted with the strange faith, and, to the world, the still stranger people.