"If we were not on the defensive in this case," observed President Taylor, when presenting the above facts, "I would say nothing about these things; but it ill-becomes men who have ten criminals to our one, to come here as our reformers, and try to disfranchise men who are ten times as good as they are. These are facts that are not of my own getting up. They come from the public records and can be verified by the prison and other statistics."
In order to still further explode the defense made by those whom these facts placed in so unenviable a position, viz: that the scum of society from the eastern states had floated out here to the west, and consequently the Gentile population in Utah was not representative of Gentile communities elsewhere, he collected a number of statements from the sermons and writings of leading ministers and writers from various parts of the Union, on the subject of infanticide, foeticide and kindred crimes, that told a sad tale of sexual immorality, which every year, according to the authors he quoted, was growing worse and worse—something too much of this:
Handle it carefully,
Deal with it gently,
Speak of it tenderly,
Poor justice is blind!
The Stakes of Zion located in Arizona suffered quite as much from this judicial crusade as those living in Utah, and they were further away from the chief pastors of the flock, and hence greater perplexity and excitement. On learning of this, President Taylor determined to visit them, learn the true situation of their affairs and counsel them as the Lord should give him wisdom.
Accordingly a party of brethren was made up including his second counselor, Joseph F. Smith, and also Apostles Moses Thatcher and Francis M. Lyman, Bishop John Sharp and others. They were joined in the south also by Apostle Erastus Snow.
The party left Salt Lake City on the 3rd of January, 1885, by the Union Pacific Railway to Denver, thence to Albuquerque, in New Mexico, thence to the settlements of the Saints in Apache County, Arizona, in the vicinity of Winslow.
President Taylor went to St. David, in the extreme south-east corner of Arizona, near Benson, where he met with the Presidents of the four Stakes in that Territory; Jesse N. Smith, Christopher Layton, Alexander F. McDonald and Lot Smith. He found the Saints in a lamentable condition. They had been set upon in the most ruthless manner by their enemies. Nearly all the forms of law had been abandoned in dealing with them, and outrages had been heaped upon them, under the pretext of executing the law, that were well nigh unendurable. Those who had been convicted and sentenced had been shipped off to Detroit, a distance of two thousand miles, notwithstanding there was a good available prison at Yuma, within the Territory.
Under these circumstances President Taylor thought it better for the brethren to evade the law; and in order that those who were being hunted might find a temporary place of refuge, he sent two parties down into Mexico to find suitable place for the settlement of those who had to flee from this unhallowed persecution.
During the absence of these parties, he visited with a portion of his party Guaymas, on the Gulf of California, in the state of Sonora, Mexico. On the return trip he stopped off at Hermosillo, the capital of the state of Sonora, where he and his party were received at the residence of Governor Torres, with distinguished consideration.
Returning to Benson he met with the brethren sent in search of a place of refuge, and decided in his capacity as Trustee-in-Trust of the Church to assist in purchasing a place which had been selected by Christopher Layton, just over the line in the state of Sonora.