SOCIAL EXPERIMENTS IN UTAH. 479 



If every college controlled by a private corporation was energetically 

 taxed, the weaklings would soon be either suppressed entirely or 

 forced to consolidate with other stronger institutions. Ohio alone 

 has at least a dozen colleges which taxation would affect in this way. 

 At present, they are public nuisances ; united, they might become a 

 source of public good. 



SOCIAL EXPEKIMENTS IN UTAH. 



By J. H. BEADLE. 



THE social anomaly of Utah is of interest not only to the poli- 

 tician and the philanthropist, but also to the scientific student 

 of society, whose object is simply to find out how the thing works. 

 Though not claiming to be a sociologist, I have had considerable 

 opportunity to observe the operation of social forces among the 

 Mormons, and in this article I wish to present some conclusions 

 that I have formed relating chiefly to the economical aspect of the 

 matter. 



Judging from the tone of rmich of the Eastern press, one might 

 conclude that most thinkers regarded Utah as an exception to the 

 rules which govern other human societies ; as we read frequent euh> 

 gies on its people and their progress, coupled with innocent wonder 

 that such institutions could have produced such results. It seems to 

 be conceded by these writers that in one part of the world a whole 

 people may be Asiatic in religion and social type, and European in 

 energy and intellect ; at the same time going forward in wealth and 

 culture, and backward in intellectual and moral discernment. Facts 

 and figures may show, however, that what we should have looked for, 

 reasoning deductively, is really there, although a little disguised at 

 first. To treat it first in its purely economical aspects, I lay down 

 the broad principle that, in this climate and on this soil, a polygamous 

 community cannot get rich. 



For, first, polygamy tends to the multiplication of the helpless, 

 to make the proportion of consumers to producers unnaturally large. 

 The political economist knows that the surplus year by year accumu- 

 lated an the United States is small compared with the popular idea of 

 it rarely exceeding three per cent. This, funded arid in turn made 

 productive, treasures the general increase of wealth. Suppose, now, 

 some factor introduced which should consume this three per cent, of 

 increase: it would result that the people would be pressed down upon 

 the verge of poverty, and wealth would augment no faster than popu- 

 lation, perhaps not so fast. Polygamy has just this effect. 



True, the children are all the while growing toward the age of 

 self-support (which in the West may be set at eighteen years) ; and, 



