SOCIAL EXPERIMENTS IN UTAH. 489 



direct command of God; that the Government was at war with the 

 Almighty in the abolition of one and disapproval of the other; and 

 that the mass of the people of the United States were scoundrels who 

 deserved death, and would soon be visited with all the plagues of the 

 Apocalypse. And these people did not seem to be aware that they 

 were insane. They argued earnestly and swore fluently in defense of 

 their religion, quoted the Bible voluminously in favor of slavery and 

 concubinage, and declaimed about the Prince of Peace, the way of 

 salvation, and control of passion, till they were black in the face with 

 anger. At the autumn conference that year Brigham pronounced the 

 flat "No trade with outsiders;" and at a wave of his hand all the 

 commercial relations of 75,000 people were changed in a day ; a dozen 

 mercantile firms had their business destroyed, and were driven from 

 the country. Some of them could not even dispose of their stock on 

 hand, and were forced into bankruj^tcy. That autumn I visited one 

 settlement, near Salt Lake City, where a c'ane-mill was run night and 

 day on custom-work. A year afterward I passed that way again ; the 

 cane-mill was resting in idleness, and the people hauling their cane 

 miles away to another settlement. The owner of the mill had apos- 

 tatized; the word from the Tabernacle had gone forth, "Drop him ! " 

 and for the first, and I hope the last, time in my life I got sight of that 

 unique theological phenomenon an apostate cane-mill. 



Whether the moral condition was then tolerably good or very bad 

 cannot be determined satisfactorily. There was such a dead calm 

 upon the surface of society, and such a singular reticence among all 

 classes, that only the most atrocious cases ever came to light often 

 those were not known or suspected until some of the parties had apos- 

 tatized. No account was ever given in the Mormon papers of any 

 crimes committed in the remote settlements, and so complete was the 

 surveillance of the secret police that a case of seduction was almost 

 immediately discovered and settled by having the parties married at 

 once, a previous marriage of the man being no hinderance. Of two 

 strangers visiting the Territory, one would say: "These are the most 

 orderly, law-abiding, and happy people on earth ; " the other : " There 

 is neither liberty nor law neither honest, earnest thought nor vigor- 

 ous happiness; there is a centralized despotism, and Brigham Young 

 is king." Possibly some idea of the moral tone may be gained by 

 noting the prominent characters chosen for the offices, and presuma- 

 bly representing the priesthood and people. John D. Lee, as well 

 known then as now as the wholesale murderer of Mountain Meadows, 

 only a few months after that awful crime came to represent Iron 

 County in the Legislature, received the encomiums due a faithful pub- 

 lic servant, and went home with a young wife, " sealed " to him by 

 Brigham Young. His colleague in murder, Isaac C. Haight, was also 

 his colleague in the Legislature, and was in like manner rewarded 

 with a young wife. Both these men continued high in office in the 



