I was now given over to the tender mercies of Porter Rockwell, one of the great chiefs of these “Angels.” I was unacquainted with this worthy until I ‘began to notice him wherever I went. One day in the street I stopped to talk with my Cockney friend. Noticing this fellow watching me, I asked my friend who he was, told him I found him always following me.
He replied, “That’s old Port.”
I said “he looks more like old Rye Whisky.”
The Cockney gave his name and said “if he’s following you he has his orders to kill you, and he’ll do it dead sure. He has slain many a good man. There’s only one way to get the blind side of him. He’s mighty fond of whisky. If you can stuff him with that you’re all right.”
I said “You leave me now, I’ll fix him.”
My friend went one way and I started as if to pass “Port” and – cross the street. Coming directly abreast of “ Port “ I stopped short and addressing him said “Excuse me sir, but can you tell me where the Patriarch John Smith lives?”
“Oh yes! he said, down by Jordon Bridge.” (The Patriarch lived within a stone’s throw of where we stood.) “But,” he continned “he ain’t home, he won’t be home till nine to-night.”
I thanked him -very politely, and said “Well my friend, you’ve saved me a good jaunt, I feel it’s my treat, do you ever indulge? won’t you take something?”
“Wal yes,” said Port, “You’re the best man I’ve seen today.” And although the Scripture says “Woe unto him hat giveth his neighbour drink” “a drowning man will catch at a straw.” I took him to a saloon, asked the landlord to show us to a private room as we had business to talk over. We were – shown to a small room.
“Friend what will you take,” I asked?
He replied “My old stand-by, whisky, I suppose we can punish a pint can’t we?”
I said “I’ll take Soda-water.” Port ordered a pint of whisky. We sat down. Here was the victim and his would-be murderer cozily seated in a snug little room. How to handle him properly, secure his friendship, and draw him out was the question. Our potations came and Port began to make himself at home and as the whisky got in his wits got out. Presently Port emptied the pint, which was refilled. He became very talkative. I said “Excuse me sir, what is your name?” He answered, “Port Rockwell, they call me Old Port.”
I made it a point to be very sociable, for I meant to get from him an account of some of the many murders he had committed, and his intentions toward myself. Finally I was successful; he said in answer to my question. “I’ve had my orders to use you up, but you’re a bully good fellow, don’t you fear old Port, I’ll not hurt a hair of your head. You know how to treat a man decent; you’re all right.”
I saw that by a judicious use of whisky I had secured a friend, instead of becoming my “Destroying Angel,” “Port,” through a good supply of “ Spirit “ would be my “ Guardian Angel.”
He became quite confidential. In one of his moods he said “You got in a hell of a hurry that night when you fetched out yer shooting irons and got huffy.”
I asked him if he could explain that affair. “I guess I can,” he answered “Between you and I, you’re a lucky cuss; we attended to another poor devil that night who couldn’t keep his mouth shut, like yourself. You’re awful foolish let me tell you; howsoever, we didn’t catch on to him till midnight, and by the time we’d a fixed his wind-pipe so as he won’t squeal again, kivered him up, and got to where we thought you was, you’d a got yer back up and gone.” Port said this when the whisky had taken the place of his wits. I further drew from him that the “Saint” was to keep me there that night till the “Destroying Angels” came, that my grave was dug in the “ Saint’s “ garden, and they intended to make “short work of it.”
From that time I and Port were friends; and being in his charge I was perfectly safe. Port reported that I was a slippery customer, and difficult to catch. This much, past experience had proven. It cost me something to supply Port with whisky, but I trust my life may yet prove worth the outlay.
Things jogged along all right so long as I had money for whisky, but my second wife got a divorce and I was turned out in the streets homeless and penniless.
I sold my pistols to keep the whisky mill agoing. Port frequently posted me in regard to the various devices planned for my capture; though we were never seen together after the time mentioned, we had a way of communicating.
One night on my going as usual to our “Telegraph Office,” as we called it, there was the cipher message “Meet Port midnight by old City wall, by Arsenal.”
I met him and never shall forget his anxiety: I know that this man, guilty of “hundreds of murders” according to his own confessions to me, was true in his sympathy toward me and wished to aid me all in his power. He had then brought me a bundle of provisions, which he quickly handed me and, hurriedly said “Here take that, fly to the mountains and hide at once, I have to leave this city by daylight. A far worse than I am is now on your track.” He told me which way to go to escape him; for Port had given him instruction where to find me or rather where not to find me, and had sent him off in another direction. Then giving me a gentle push said “Now be off and may God bless you.”
It is really astonishing how these murderers can mix up the Divine Name in everything they do. I have seen men that I know are guilty of blood take the bread and break it at the Sacrament, and offer a prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. It seems to me that all the blasphemy under the sun is centered in this so called “Zion “-this Hell upon Earth.
I am sorry space will not permit me to give more of my sufferings in this Hell upon Earth. I will briefly tell how I got away, and trust to my lectures for an opportunity to detail all I am prevented from giving here.
Though 500 American troops and gatling guns are now stationed at Camp Douglas, overlooking the City; a railway connecting it with the outside world; Gentiles there transacting business; and United States Courts in operation-yet the Mormons hold civil, ecclesiastical, and judicial power in Utah, and have things pretty much their own way.
General Garfield came to Salt Lake City, and through a friend of his” obtained an interview with him, which finally resulted in my escape. The reader may ask, why talk of an “ escape “ from Salt Lake, new that Railways, Troops, Gentiles, and U. S. Courts are there? I answer what good is either to one in the condition I was? The Railway is a ready money institution; no trust there. At cheapest rates it costs 15 pounds to get back, and the generality of us not able to muster ‘scents., or is pence. The first forty miles of railroad is built, controlled, and worked by Mormons. The journey from Salt Lake to New York at cheap rates takes about ten days, and food costs something when traveling. I ask how can the poor duped English girls, now living a life of sin and slavery in Utah, who scarcely ever get any money, raise the cash to go back? The Gentiles have enough to do to look after themselves. The troops are all very well in their place to Overawe the Mormons, but they have nothing to do with the Civil Government. As to the United States Courts,,. a more complete farce does not exist; for with Mormon Juries it is impossible to obtain a just verdict.
Look for a moment at the fact. The whole Territory, is governed by the Mormon Power. There is the Mormon Parliament. The Lower and Upper House and its Cabinet. Then all the Officers of State are Church Officers. Mormon Mayors, Aldermen and Town Councilors in their various Cities-Mormon Police-in fact Mormon everything, with the exception of one Governor, and two or three judges who are like a figure 9 with the tail off.
Had the Mormons known that I was going away to expose their wickedness, think you for one moment they would have allowed me to escape? No, never! Suppose they knew it the night before I left; on going through the street a crowd of Mormons would be there through which I must pass. Superintending matters would be a policeman, who would grab me, while the “ Saints “ flock around, and one put, say a gold watch in my pocket, the owner of which would there and then charge me with highway robbery, and every Mormon priest swear to it. I am walked off to the City Hall, searched, the watch found on me, and locked up. In the morning papers would appear as follows:-” Last night Wm. Jarman was arrested for stealing a gold watch from Mr. – On being searched the watch was found on him, and he was held for examination. During the night he attempted to escape and was shot by his keeper. He died instantly, the bullet piercing the heart,”
The keeper, – coroner, and everyone who had to deal with the case being “Good Mormons” would be perfectly satisfied, and thus would end the career of Wm. Jarman. That’s about how the business is managed now-a-days. But they did not know – for after Brigham’s death arrangements were being made for my going back into the Church, though I constantly put it off. I did business with Mormons, some very prominent ones. I had “an axe to grind “-(in English a game to play). There were matters I should never have found out had I not done so; yea, so late as 11 p.m. the night before I left, I had important business with the second man in the Kingdom, and everything considered O. K.
A good Brother holding the same “ Priesthood “ I had, helped me away; my luggage was shipped, and ticket bought by others, not me. My valuable books and papers were taken to New York by a gentleman and delivered to me there, and not till the morning after my first lecture in Brooklyn, where the associated press telegraphed it over the country, did the Mormons know where I was.
When they saw the account in their papers they asked, “How did he get away?” I hope I have answered in a way to satisfy my readers. I know the “ Saints “ will not be satisfied until they know who assisted in spiriting away my books, papers; and myself, so that they could “Blood atone” them for their sins. But they will never know from me. “Port” died before I left Salt Lake, or I would not have said what I have. I could tell a hundred times as much as I have of such matters were it not that my friends who helped me are still living in “Zion,” and for their sakes I keep it back feeling I have said quite enough to convince the world of the perfect honors of this vile Mormonism, if not am sure they would not believe the balance though an angel from Heaven proclaimed it.
To my confidential friends now in Zion I say “Fear not! so far as I am concerned you are perfectly safe. When the Governments of America and England are ready for the question, I have ample proofs and evidence without breaking faith with you, and you are most of you old enough to die before these slow-coach Governments take any active steps. in the matter.” “Uncle Sam” has brought ONE out of the MANY human butchers to justice, and seems perfectly satisfied to let the others R. I. P.. and the murderers of wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, brothers, and fathers are allowed to occupy the best positions in the Territory. So much for the Great Boasted, “ Free “ Republic; and so much for “Christian” England in allowing her citizens to be thus deceived, enslaved, and slaughtered “for Christ’s sake.”
Editors Note: Jarman ends his treatise with several accounts of how terrible the Mormons are and that something must be done about them before they take over the world. It is indeed obvious from the many testimonies that many of the Mormons in early Utah, from Brigham on down, abused their power but then when we read the solutions to this abuse it appears that the solution proposed is worse than the problem. Jarman and the people he quotes wanted the U.S. government to wage outright war on the Mormons, even if it means a mass slaughter would be the result. These critics see this as the only solution. If Jarman is telling the truth then you can’t blame him for wanting to expose the abuses of Mormonism but then he wants to abuse the Mormons with more ferocity than they dished out.
In reality what did happen was much more harmless than many critics wanted and the charge was led by none other than the prophet’s son, Joseph Smith III who worked with Congress to create laws to force change without causing the shedding of blood.
From Jarman’s book I finish with a quoted sermon and a few words from Jarman himself. He gave quite a few other references but many repeat accusations already covered. JJ
A SERMON preached by the Rev. T. De WITT TALMAGE, D. D. in The Tabernacle, Brooklyn, U.S., on the 26th of September, 1880.
Then the Lord rained upon Sodom brimstone and fire from the Lord’ out of heaven.’-GENESIS xix.
SODOM and Salt Lake City are synonymous. You can hardly think of the one without thinking of the other. Both in fertile valleys-valley of Siddim, valley of Utah. Both near a salt, offensive, fishless dead sea; for Dr.. Robinson says there must have been a lake near by while yet ancient Sodom stood. Both the famous capitals of most accursed impurity. Both doomed.
In 1857, a company of emigrants started from Arkansas and Missouri for California. They were good, respectable, well-to-do people; but they had an idea that they might have larger comforts for their families on the other side of the mountains; so they undertook what always seems to be a terrible thing, traveling in the Wagon emigrant train. They suffered everything on the way. By night the fires kept off the wolves, and by day there was fatigue and hunger, and heat, and gentle womanhood fainting with the long journey, and children crying for rest. There were one hundred and seventy in that company.
They must needs cross Utah Territory, and in Utah nearly all the emigrant trains were accustomed to take in new supplies of provisions; but Brigham Young heard that this emigrant train was coming, and he forbade, under pain of death, any Mormon in Utah giving any clothing, or food, or medicine, or kindness of any sort, to these emigrants. It was a revenge for the fact that a man in Arkansas had slain Elder Pratt, of the Mormon Church, because he (Elder Pratt) had stolen the wife of the man in Arkansas, and taken her to Utah and into Mormonism.
On and on went this emigrant train, suffering all indignity, until they came to a plain called Mountain Meadow. The Indians dashed down upon the emigrants, but the emigrants threw up a barricade, and in this temporary fortress drove back the red men most successfully. Then the Mormon militia dashed down upon these emigrants; but you know how men will fight when they fight for their wives and children, and so the Mormon militia were driven back.
Still it was only with great peril that any one could leave the temporary fortress even to get water from the spring near by. There was great suffering from thirst, so one day they dispatched two little girls clad in white to bring water from the spring. They said, Most certainly the Mormon militia will not disturb them;’ but no sooner had they appeared outside the barricade than they were shot dead by the stream.
Petitions for relief were signed by all the emigrants, and by Oddfellows and Freemasons, who made appeals to members of their particular order. Three brave men volunteered to carry that petition for relief to California. An aged Methodist minister of the group, in prayer, commended these men to God, and the emigrants all knelt in supplication; but hardly had these three brave men started on their journey than they were butchered.
Time passed on, and one day wagons were seen coming. ‘Now,’ thought the poor emigrants, we shall have relief,’ and they could not restrain their glee at the thought of liberation. The wagons came up, and from them came a flag of truce, saying, If you emigrants will surrender, and put down your arms, you may walk out into perfect liberty, and you shall not be harmed.’ Thinking the proposition a fair proposition, it was accepted, and they put down their arms, according to the arrangement, and then the men marched out first, then came the women, and then came the children. After they were outside the barricade, the Mormon militia, with guns and hems and daggers, massacred all save a few little children, whom they thought to be too young to tell the story. Aged and young husbands and wives, parents and children, left dead on the plain! Women belonging to the emigrant train, who were sick and unable to walk, were then taken out by the Mormons into the presence of their murdered families, stripped of their clothing, shot dead, and hurled upon the heap of corpses.
The wagons, the stock of the train, the dresses of the women and their jewelry amounting in all to a property of 300,000 dollars, taken possession of by the Mormon Government. Years after, a Mormon woman, showing a silk dress that had been captured from the train-showing one of these silk dresses in Salt Lake City-one of the little girls that had been saved from the massacre recognized it. She said, ‘Oh! that’s my mother’s. Where’s mamma? Why don’t mamma come? Mamma used to wear that! ‘ and she burst into tears.
John D. Lee, the Merman Bishop, was the presiding spirit in person of the massacre, and when, fifteen or eighteen years after, in the court-room, he gave testimony, he said he had orders to do that from head-quarters; and it appeared on the evidence that Brigham Young had given orders as to the disposition of the property of these murdered people, and had told the witnesses to hush up, and all Christendom today holds that man responsible for the tragedy. No wonder, when years after he visited the scene and found that the bones of the emigrants had been decently buried by the officers of the United States Government, and General Carlton had put up a head-board by the grave, with the epitaph, the inscription’ Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord ‘-no wonder that Brigham Young, seeing that inscription, ordered it to be torn down.
It is the presiding spirit of the Mountain Meadow massacre that I arraign today for trial before you, the jury of Americans. It still lives. It has its throne in Salt Lake City, and its foot on the heart of dishonored women, and its breath is the pestilence of the nation. Gory, ghastly, hideous, infernal Mormonism, stand up and look into the faces of the American jury that is to try you.
This summer, as well as on a previous occasion, I had the opportunity of inspecting this iniquity, and of asking many questions, and having them answered by Mormons and anti-Mormons. Many of the Gentiles of Salt Lake City called on me and asked me that when I got home I should present the case before the people on this coast. I solemnly promised them, and this morning I fulfill my promise. In regard to the alleged subsidence of Mormonism, I have to tell you that 750 Mormons had arrived in Salt Lake City or Utah, just before we went to Utah, and that there was another company still larger approaching the city, and that there were 10,000 added last year, and that there will be more than that added this year.
Three hundred missionaries, sent out to gather up victims, travel all over this land, and in Sweden, and Norway, and Russia, and Germany, and England, and Wales, and Scotland. (Germany has now prohibited Mormons from Proselyting in that country.) Many Scotch Presbyterians were recently brought there: These missionaries are compelled to go out, although their families may suffer the greatest penury, for this whole system is cruel and Herodic. These missionaries go to those who are in the struggle of life, and they hide all the hideous deformities of Mormonism, and tell these people, ‘Now, if you will cross the ocean and go to Utah, you will have your expenses paid.; and when you get there you will have gardens and farms of your own, and your hardships will be ended for ever,’ No wonder some of these incautious people ‘ accept the invitation, and then fly from poverty to get into a most stupendous swindle. Oh! you ought to see the poor creatures carrying the tenth of their small income and the tenth of the small product of their farm or garden to the tithing-house of this insatiate institution. They are taxed until the blood comes. No escape but the grave. The co-operative societies and the co-operative stores of Utah are so many mills to grind out more money from the poor people to support a depraved priesthood.
I charge Mormonism with being one great and prolonged cruelty. Nobody denies the work of the destroying. angels called Danites, whose chief business it was to hunt up antagonism to the Mormon Government and put it to death. It was for’ the land of assassination and the field of blood.
No one doubts the Hickman butcheries under Brigham Young. I saw a cellar where a mother and two sons had been put to death, the mother slain in the presence of the two sons, and the two sons butchered, because they had revealed the secrets of the Mormon Government. The whole world has heard the story of the destruction of the Aiken party. And these Mormons have a delicious vernacular by which they describe this putting to death. They say all these things with a smile and a jeer. ‘Oh, they were put out of the way; or, ‘they met with a bad accident; ‘ or, they were used up; ‘ or, ‘ they were cut off just under their ears! ‘
Why have these atrocities stopped? Because a regiment of United States soldiers are on the hill overlooking the city, and with iron rake of destruction may rake that city if it attempts to repeat such atrocity. It is not because Mormonism is more merciful, but because it has not the courage.
I charge Mormonism with being a great blasphemy. Brigham Young in one of his sermons, declared that Christ himself was a practical polygamist; that Mary and Martha were his plural wives; that Mary Magdalene was another; and he said in the same sermon that the bridal feast in Cana of Galilee, where Christ turned water into wine, was the occasion of one of His own marriages! The whole tendency of the system is towards blasphemy. I was told over and over again that Brigham Young, with slight provocation, would swear like a fishwoman at Billingsgate.
I charge upon Mormonism that it is a disloyalty to the United States
Government. There is an oath taken in the endowment house at Salt Lake City, which subverts all other oaths. Perjury is no crime when enacted in behalf of Mormonism. Mormonism hates the Government of the United States with a perfect hatred. Fourth of July occasions and all patriotic demonstrations are an utter abhorrence to the Mormons, and the Gentile celebrators of the Fourth of July suffer every indignity. Mormonism would like to have the United States Government to perish today.
I charge upon Mormonism that it is an organized filth built on polygamy. There is a man in Salt Lake City who has three wives, and they are the mother, the grandmother, and the grand-daughter! I observed that there were additions built on the houses, and it was explained to me that, when a new wife is taken, then the house is enlarged, forgetting the fact that no house was ever large enough to hold two women married to the same man!
Think of a system which applauds a man for such things. Think of a system which teaches that the more wives a man lives with at the same time on the earth, the higher his honour in heaven. Think of a system which commends a man for living in marriage at the same time with three sisters. Think of a system which wrecks the happiness of every woman that touches it, for, I do not care what they say, God never made a woman who can cheerfully divide a husband’s love with another.
Every honest wife knows she has a right to the entire throne of her husband’s affection. They may smile to keep up appearances, but they have an agony of death, and the most pitiable thing in all the earth is an aged woman in Mormonism. The aged woman in other parts of the land we bow before; we take off our hat to her, we do her reverence. The softest chair in the house is grandmother’s chair. She is the queen on Christmas and Thanksgiving days. The older she gets, and the more wrinkles on her face, and the more stooped her shoulder, the more we think of her; and when God takes her away to the eternal rest, it seems as if three-fourths of the house were torn down. But a woman getting aged in Mormonism, she is shoved back, and is paid less and less attention, and is of less and less account. Why? Another has taken the throne, and, after awhile, she will be dethroned, and another will come up, and another.
I tell you Mormonism is one great surge of licentiousness; it is the seraglio of the Republic, it is the concentrated corruption of this land, it is the brothel of the nation, it is hell enthroned.
This miserable corpse of Mormonism has been rotting in the sun, and rotting and rotting and rotting for forty years, and the United States Government has not had the courage to bury it. Moreover, it is all the time gaining in influence. Mormonism once meant Utah; now to a certain extent it means Idaho, Arizona, Nevada, Wyoming, New Mexico. Wider and wider and wider, and greater and greater and greater. It is going forth to debauch this nation. You have no idea of the influence it is having in American politics, or what it has already done at Washington. Mormonism receives 1,000,000 dollars every year through the tithing system, and has plenty of money with which to effect national legislation. The subject was brought before Congress and the matter referred to a Committee, and one of the members of the Committee said in derision, What do you make all this fuss about polygamy for? Those Mormons out there make a religion of having four or five wives, while some of us members of Congress practice the same iniquity without any religion! ‘ A stout effort is being made to introduce Utah as a State of the Union, and if it be accomplished the United States govemment puts its broad seal of approbation upon this stupendous indecency
Now,’ you say, ‘what is best to be done? ‘ Execute the law against polygamy. What right has the law to punish a man for bigamy, if one foot this side of Utah he have two wives, when one foot the other side the law lets him have twenty? What right has the law to smite libertinism in other parts of this country when there it licenses it? Are these Mormons the pets and the darlings of the nation, that they should have especial regulations? Do you believe that filthy pool of iniquity can stand in the midst of this continent and not have the whole air poisoned with the malaria? Mormonism is an insult to every home, to every church, to every father, every mother, every sister, and the curse of Almighty God will come down on this nation unless we extirpate it.
What! ‘ say you, would you interfere with a man’s religion? ‘ Oh! no. If these Mormons want to believe that Joseph Smith was God, or that Brigham Young is the second person of the Trinity, the law has no right to interfere with them. But Mormonism not only antagonizes Christianity; it antagonizes good morals, and the infidel and the Christian stand side by side in denouncing Mormonism as a foe to free institutions. Then, I say, away with it! Moral persuasion first, if possible; but moral persuasion will not accomplish it. They have declared, over and over again, that they will let their city go down under the bombshell before they will surrender polygamy, and I tell you that Mormonism will never be destroyed until it is destroyed by the guns of the United States Government.
It would not be war. I hate war. It would be national police duly executing the law against polygamy. Why did they not let General Johnson in 1857, with his 2,500 troops sent out under the order of President Buchanan, march right on until they did their work? President Buchanan never was charged with excessive courage, and he sent out Governor Powell, of Kentucky, and Major McCullough, of Tennessee, to offer pardon to all the Mormons who would put down their arms, and there has not been a President of the United States with enough moral courage since to clean out that national stable.
We all go to look at it. President Grant went to look at it. Secretary Schurz went to look at it. Secretary Thompson went to look at it. President Hayes went to look at it. Everybody goes to look at it. We cross the continent, and it is one of the arts of Mormonism to be very gracious to public men. The Mormons struggle as to who shall have the privilege of entertainment. I never addressed a more genial audience in my life than last August in the Mormon opera-house, a great many Mormons present. They bow you into the city, and they bow you out of the city, and none of us dare touch them. We all want to be Congressmen, or President of the United States, or Minister to England, and if we oppose Mormonism it will oppose our political interests. And so, if I were an aspirant for any political office, this sermon might perhaps be very impolitic.
If there be any truth in the transmigration of souls, I hope that the soul of Andrew Jackson will get into the body of some of our Presidents, and make proclamation that within thirty days all these Mormons must decide upon one wife, or go to jail, or quit the country. Then have Congress make provisions for the carrying out of this order. If the Mormons submit to the law, all right. If not, then send out troops of the United States Government, and let them make the Mormon Tabernacle their head-quarters, and with cannon of the biggest bore thunder into them the seventh commandment. Arbitration by all means; but if that will not do, then peaceful proclamation. If that will not do, then howitzer, and bombshell, and bullets, and cannon-ball.
If a gang of thieves should squat on a territory and make thievery a religion, how long would the United States Government stand that? Yet a community founded on theft would not be so bad as a community founded on the grave of desolated, destroyed, imbruted womanhood.
I call the attention of the American Congress to this evil. The hour has come. Let some Senator of the United States at the next meeting of Congress, or some member of the House of Representatives, with eloquent tongue and persistent purpose, and good morals of his own, lift the anti-Mormon standard, and then unroll the tragedy and outrages of that appalling system before the Government and before the people, and that man will gather around him all the sympathies of all the families, and all the Churches, and all the reformers, and all the high-toned men and women of America. The thing has got to be done. It is only a question of when. Let this man of whom I speak in the name of God go forth and do his duty, and he will at the same time make his political fortune. Come, now, instead of exhuming the wrapped-up and entombed mummy of negro slavery, and tossing it about in these Presidential elections, have one live question-Mormonism, the white slavery of today, and have it decided at the ballot-box whether that institution shall go forth with its pestiferous influence, or whether, under the law of our civilization and the stroke of the law, it shall perish.
But,’ says some one, that would be a very expensive crusade.’ It would not cost the United States Government one farthing. Confiscate so much of the Mormon domain as is necessary to pay for the extermination and take some of those vast sums of money that are being poured into the lap of that old mother of harlots, and pay it out as honest taxes to support the United States Government. Utah is rich enough to pay for all the costly and expensive surgery of taking out this dripping cancer of Mormonism. Let the pulpits and the platforms and the printing-press agitate and agitate, and agitate until Congress and the White House shall hear rumbling all around the sky the storm of popular indignation against this gigantic, organized, and national crime.
I make no war against Mormonism as a religion. I war against Mormonism as an immorality, as a defiance of civil law, as an institution anti-American. When Brigham Young’s men, with bowie-knives, broke up Judge Drummond’s court in 1856, and compelled him to adjourn it sine die, and when Mormonism poised loose rocks on the top of cliffs where you may see them to this day, expecting to throw them over on the United States troops as they passed under, Mormonism showed what she thought of our Government.
Now as I have empanelled you as a jury to sit in trial of this giant of lust and disloyalty, and the evidence has been presented before you, are you ready for the verdict before you leave the jury-box? Guilty or not guilty? Guilty,’ says one. Guilty,’ say all.
Then what shall the sentence be? It must not be a small incarceration; it must not be a slight censure. While we have only pity for the victims of this abomination, and we pray God He will speedily deliver them, for this institution of Mormonism, as such, only extinction and death. But where shall be the execution, and when shall the execution take place? What scaffolding will be strong enough to hold such a monster of iniquity? One end of the scaffolding must be planted on the Rocky Mountains and the other on the Sierra Nevadas. But what Friday of what gloomy week, of what gloomy month, of what gloomy year would be gloomy enough for the execution of this beastly outlaw? What grave deep enough for this stout, thousand-armed, thousand-footed, thousand-headed, thousand-horned, thousand-fanged corpse? What epitaph for that grave unless it be this:-
Here lies Mormonism, the outlaw, the libertine, and the murderer, the hero of Mountain Meadow massacre. Born February 22, 1827. Died 1882 at the hand of the law and under the instruction of the Almighty. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven.’
Oh! good people of the United States, whether I address you face to face or through the printing-press, which every Monday morning in most of our cities gives me an audience-for which I am very thankful-whatever way I reach your ear or your eye I have to tell you that, unless we destroy Mormonism, Mormonism will destroy us. If God be good and pure and just He will not let this nation go unwhipped much longer if we allow that iniquity to go unchallenged. Every day as a nation we consent to Mormonism we are defying the hail, and the lightning, and the trumpet, and the drought, and the mildew, and the epidemic, and the plague, and the hurricane, and the earthquake of an incensed God.
My plea this morning is in behalf of fifteen thousand Gentiles, who in Utah are suffering persecution for their principles, or speechless because they do not want their commercial interests sacrificed.
I plead for thousands of foreigners who, deceived and betrayed from their own country, have been introduced into Mormonism, and, thousands of miles away from their native country, can make no resistance, but must live and die in dumb despair.
I plead for womanhood in Utah-,womanhood under foot, womanhood in the sewer, womanhood crushed until it cannot weep, womanhood looking out of the barred windows of a perdition of anguish towards what seems an unpitying heaven, crying, O Lord! how long, O Lord! ‘-womanhood in the pandemonium of a polygamous home-womanhood with the garlands of hope and affection and honour torn with the swine’s snout of incestuous abomination-womanhood that, if it had a chance, or had had a chance in the past, would have been as pure and good as that which presides at your table today, or which long ago bent in benediction over your peaceful cradle before you began the struggle with the world.
Oh men with wives and daughters and mothers; Oh brothers with sisters, do not your ears tingle, and does not your blood run cold at this story of Mormonism? And are you not determined at the ballot-box, and with pen and tongue, and in every possible way, to war against it? Oh you wives, who will to-night kneel before God, thanking Him for the home in which you are the undisputed queen-Oh mothers with daughters coming up honoured and defended, no rough hand to touch them from cradle to grave, will you not in your prayers today sympathize with your sisters who are dying the slow death of Mormonism?
Oh ye aged couples, who have been in each other’s company for thirty, or forty, or fifty years, climbing the hill of life together, and now going down on the other side the hill in the light of the setting sun; but all the way up and all the way down supreme in each other’s affections; united in holy marriage so long ago that all the witnesses but God are dead; your sympathies strengthened by the birth-hour, when one life was spared and another added, and by the grave over which both your hearts broke at once her face, with all the wrinkles more attractive now to you than when rosy with youth, because it is written all over with precious memories side by side, so long, so long, so long, that when God takes one of you He will soon take the other-Oh ye aged couple, remember this day, in prayer before God, those to whom old age brings neglect and dethronement of affection. And may the God who setteth the solitary in families bless all our homes. The best cornerstone for the republic is the hearthstone. May God keep it inviolate! (Amen.’)
As I hope to meet John Henry Smith when I lecture in Liverpool shortly I prefer to say more then. He certainly will come to my lectures, for I always state in my circulars the following:
Sir, I challenge those Mormon Missionaries who are now in England to refute my Accusations.
Not one of them has come forward to meet me as yet, I sincerely wish they would. What are they afraid of? I am not a “Danite.” The fact is they cannot, dare not meet me, so they have taken their usual course, Defamation of character. They wish the public to believe that I am a “vile fellow” not worthy of credence, so that I may not get audiences. Why vilify? If my statements in regard to them are false, they could easily prove – it. But they well know that what I say is true and that I dare not tell it all, for it is too indecent.
THE REMEDY.
As with slavery, the American Government will seek to remedy the Mormon evil by Pacific measures and dally with the question until compelled to settle it by force of arms. The sooner an army is sent to Utah to compel obedience to the law the better. For during the delay the Mormon power is increasing. They have already made fast friends of the Indians, and well armed them. They are busy in the Southern States making converts to Mormonism, for whipped on the slave question, the South have little or no love for the U. S. Government, and the Mormons are successfully winning the disaffected Southerners and firing their hearts with the hope that the South, Mormons and Indians combined will sever the union of States, firmly establish the Southern Confederacy, and concentrate a great Mormon and Indian power in the West. I know this to be the Mormon programme, and all they ask is to be let alone till they have time to perfect their plans.
If the American Government wish to avert a bloody struggle they must at once stop Mormon intrigue in the South; place the Indians under complete control, and imprison every Mormon convert that arrives at Castle Garden or any other part of the United States. For foreigners are brought to Utah on purpose to build up the Mormon power and to fight against the Government and people of the United States, and for immoral purposes.
Let Congress pass a law disfranchising all who wear the “Endowment Garment” and have taken the Endowment House Oaths; by those oaths they have virtually disfranchised themselves: All who remain faithful to these-oaths must be disloyal to every other Government but that of the Mormon Church.
Then let the Government send plenty of troops to preserve order, and aid in establishing proper schools, free from Mormon dictation. Discharge all Mormon Postmasters and Postmistress so that the people can communicate with their friends without fear of their letters being over-hauled or stopped, and let all the offices of the Territory be held by Non-Mormons.
I would also advise the Government to aid the “ Josephites “ or true law-abiding Mormons all in its power, to disseminate their principles of law and order among the Utah Fanatics, for there are thousands that will never be satisfied with anything but Mormonism, hence they should be supplied with the best there is. This is the best Remedy I can suggest short of a war of extermination.
A fund should also be raised to assist those who wish to leave the Territory. .
No Mormon should be allowed a seat in Congress, for he is there only in the interest of Mormonism.
Take from the Mormon Church the power to perform the marriage ceremony, and have all marriages solemnized by Non-Mormon Judges, or ministers of other denominations. For though I use the words “Mormon Church,” I do not consider Mormonism a Religion. I have seen enough of it to convince me that it is an infernal despotism which seeks only political power and aggrandizement under the cloak of religion. I challenge the whole of the so-called “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” to produce one Christian man or woman among the lot. Among the dupes there are sincere Mormons, but no Christians. A Christian could not remain among them, and thousands who were devout Christians when they joined the Mormons, are to day thorough infidels. We may as well try to find Christians among Mohammedans as among Mormons.