But how should any of the great number of people throughout our land who read the missionary magazine where that statement occurred know that he had not been in Utah, and that the statement was false?
Then the writer, knowing of another great historian Bancroft, Mr. H. H. Bancroft, the Pacific coast historian, made the same inquiry of him, and received the following reply:
“San Francisco, February 15, 1886.
“Rev. R. W. Beers.
“My dear Sir: In answer to your letter of the 8th inst., I would say that the Mormons never asked me to insert anything in my history of Utah, and never offered to take any copies of the work.
“Very respectfully,
“H. H. Bancroft.”
The writer then directed an inquiry to the person in Salt Lake City from whom the statement in the magazine claimed to have been made, and asked him his authority for his statement. The answer was: “The Bancroft alluded to by me is H. H. Bancroft, the Pacific coast historian. His agent told me the Mormons had agreed to take two hundred and forty sets of his complete works in thirty-eight volumes, the gross amount of which (not the net amount) would be about $40,000, if he would publish a certain kind of history of Utah. Since Bancroft is a millionaire, the Mormon offer was not very tempting.”
But H. H. Bancroft flatly denies that any such offer was made him, and the statement must clearly be pronounced untrue. And yet the person who made the published statement was one of the leading Christian men of Utah, desirous of disseminating nothing but the truth. He was misinformed, whether intentionally or not.
There is a deep-seated prejudice against the Mormons in the breasts of many in our land, which gives rise to many charges against them which have no basis of truth whatever. We must, therefore, be on our guard, and not believe quite everything that is published against them. Mr. A. M. Gibson, legal adviser of the Mormon people at the national capital, says that the reputed wealth of the Mormon Church amounting to millions “is all bosh;” that “the Incorporated Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is actually in debt to-day, and is a borrower of money.” If that is the case, surely if the trustees were appointed according to the new Edmunds Bill, they wouldn’t have many funds to handle.
Another measure to break the political power of the priesthood proposed in the new Edmunds Bill is to stop the importing of converts from abroad by abolishing the so-called Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company and appropriating its surplus property to educational purposes.