SOCIAL EXPERIMENTS IN UTAH. + 8 7 



cited before the High Council, as promptly resigned, and the Church 

 nominee was declared elected. A few dissenters in the Thirteenth 

 Ward of Salt Lake City combined with non-Mormons and elected 

 Bishop Woolley to the City Council. He was cited before the School 

 of the Prophets, and subjected to savage abuse by Brigham Young, 

 humbly apologized for his presumption, and resigned ; and the regu- 

 lar nominee took the seat. It was the last attempt of that nature 

 inside the Church. That patriotic class of religionists who want an 

 amendment declaring ours a " Christian Protestant Government " 

 would have been delighted with the state of Utah ; it was a " religious 

 government " in the broadest sense of the words. The modified 

 theocracy set up in New England by the Puritans was red-republican 

 communism in comparison. 



Here and there an individual grew restive under this regime, but 

 took good care to say nothing openly ; for of all reformers those who 

 strive to rescue men from a mental slavery receive the bitterest oppo- 

 sition from those they seek to aid. If such found the condition intol- 

 erable, they quietly slipped out of the Territory and sought a com- 

 munity where public opinion was not so oppressively unanimous. If, 

 as sometimes happened, one failed in the attempt, there was a " man 

 missing supposed to have been killed by the Indians " as duly re- 

 ported in the Church paper. As to the fate of these missing men we 

 are mostly without legal proof, but find a number of candid state- 

 ments in various sermons preached by the heads of the Church. As 

 instance the following from Brigham Young : 



"Now, you apostates, keep your tongues still, lest sudden destruction come 

 upon you. I say, rather than apostates shall flourish here, I will unsheath my 

 bowie-knife and conquer or die! Now, you nasty apostates, clear out, or judg- 

 ment will be laid to the line and righteousness to the plummet. If you say it is 

 all right, raise your hands." (All hands up.) " Let us call upon the Lord to 

 assist us in this and every other good work." 



Of course, if we should see this quotation in a hostile report, we 

 should reject it at once as a fabrication ; but it is in the " Journal of 

 Discourses," with a score of similar passages, the whole book being 

 published by the Mormon Church and indorsed on the title-page by 

 Brigham Young and his councilors. The curious reader may find the 

 doctrine of killing apostates explained and commended in that work, 

 viz.: vol. i., pp. 72, 73, 82, 83; vol. ii., pp. 165, 166, et seq. ; vol. iii., 

 pp. 226, 234, 235, 237, 241, 246, 247, 279, and in many other passages. 



The results of this peculiar system of securing unanimity were 

 curious indeed well worth the study of the sociologist. The society 

 became perfectly homogeneous. All traces of mental independence 

 vanished. The people even ceased to care for it apparently. A rigid 

 paternalism governed every detail of the social organism under the 

 guise of what was called " counsel by the priesthood." There was 



