Such tyranny as has been already alluded to is possible only because Ignorance and her handmaid, Superstition, are throwing their dark pall over the mass of the Mormon people. Mormonism grows mainly by imposition upon the ignorant and the credulous. Joseph Smith, its founder, was illiterate, and so was Brigham Young; and the mass of Mormons from the beginning were from a class of people whose education was very limited. Such also is the character of their converts now. They are gathered from the very lowest classes of the peasantry of England, Germany, and Scandinavia; and in our land the poor rural element of the Southern States, commonly called the “cracker” element, is a favorite and successful field for Mormon missionary labor, because the elders find as much ignorance and credulity among the poor whites of Tennessee, Georgia, and neighboring States, as they do among the low classes of Europe.
If you go into the Tabernacle at Salt Lake City, it is said, one is reminded, in looking at the faces of the people, of what we can see in Castle Garden. The marks of ignorance are stamped upon their very countenances. It has been aptly said: “The illiteracy of the average Mormon is denser than a London fog.” In an article published in the Presbyterian Review, April, 1881, Rev. Dr. McNiece, of Salt Lake City, said that, so far as he knew, “after three years’ observation in Utah, there are only three persons among the entire body of Mormons who can make the least claim to scholarship. One of these is a woman of notoriously immoral character; one of the others is always spoken of as a religious monomaniac; and the character of the third is such as to compel one to believe that he supports Mormonism simply because of the lucrative office which it gives him.” According to the teachers engaged in the Christian schools there, the ignorance met with is simply appalling. In many cases neither men nor women know how to read. Children are plenty who never heard of God, and know no more of Christ than a beggar in the city of Nineveh in the days of Jonah. History and geography are to a great extent unknown and untaught; even our own country outside of Utah is unknown. The Mormon leaders take great pains to keep their people in ignorance. Learning, intelligence, are everywhere at a discount.
The civilized world recognizes the fact that the diffusion of knowledge elevates humanity. Shakespeare says:
“Ignorance is the curse of God,
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.”
One of the chief features of this age is the desire for universal education, and every true reformer seeks to place it within the reach of all. But the Mormon Church is the recognized opponent of free education. Notwithstanding the fact that the Mormon priesthood has had control of Utah for well-nigh forty years, that Territory is the only one in the United States that has not a system of free schools, open to the poor as well as the rich. The teachers with few exceptions are young, untaught, and without experience; and the schools are scarcely worthy the name. The main object of the Mormon school system seems to be to prevent the people from learning to think and acquiring information.
Now, why is this? The only reason is that it is necessary for the Mormon Church to keep her subjects in ignorance to enable her to control them. This was the position taken by Brigham Young, and is the position taken by the hierarchy to-day. The plea of poverty cannot be justified, for the Church collects over a million dollars annually; but this tax of ten dollars a year for every man, woman, and child in the Mormon Church is spent, not for free schools, which would develop manhood and fit the taxpayer to be an honorable citizen of the commonwealth, but for that which rivets tighter the chains that bind the people.
The minds of the people are in a condition of slavery. Independent thought there is none, and consequently free speech cannot exist. This is clearly proved, when we call to mind one of the brightest spectacles in the history of Utah. It was in 1869, when Henry Lawrence and his associates boldly stood up in the “School of the Prophets” and raised their voices in favor of free speech and free thought. A noble act of heroism that was—a stand for a righteous principle—a deed which should gain for them immortal fame, when we consider the real manhood it required for them to face such a powerful and tyrannical hierarchy. A noble fight it was on their part, but a losing fight; for they were at once expelled from the Church, branded with the stigma of apostates, their business was ruined, and they and their families were completely ostracized. That act of expulsion by the Mormon leaders is a clear proof of the fact that they are the bitter opponents of mental freedom. Who ever knew of any proposition being debated in their conferences, or any nomination voted down by the people? Who ever knew of any matter of interest being left to the people to act upon freely and unrestrainedly? The leaders do the thinking. They arrange all things. The people must acquiesce and think as they do. Is that liberty?
Milton says:
“This is true liberty, when free-born men,
Having to advise the public, may speak free.”
But free thought and free speech are not the prerogatives of the Mormons. They are MENTAL SLAVES.