i88o;] 'The Latter-Day Saints 



The Mormons are, after all, at bottom very much 

 like other people, the sect having been originally 

 solidified and confirmed in its peculiar tenets by 

 the relentless persecution from which it suffered at 

 Nauvoo (Illinois) and elsewhere. And the fearful 

 journey across the plains to the land of "Deseret" 

 gave a sanctity to the hope by which their spirits 

 were upborne. To the small early group of Ameri- 

 can stock has been added, by a system of prose- 

 lytism both ingenious and effective, a large body of 

 simple-hearted and kindly European peasants, mostly 

 from the Scandinavian countries. All these form a 

 population which, as a whole, is peaceable, sober, 

 and devout — holding perhaps to more articles of 

 faith than most of us would accept, but good citizens 

 from any point of view, and of the sturdy stock 

 from which loyal Americans are made. In my 

 judgment, also, the only remedy for those features 

 of Mormonism to which we had the right to object 

 lay, not in suppression, imprisonment, or blood- 

 shed, nor in expropriation of church properties, but 

 in education and assimilation. This result, I claimed, 

 would naturally follow schooling and increasing 

 contact with the outside world; in the free air of 

 modernism, the antiquated theory which underlies 

 polygamy would soon pass away. 



Events proved the wisdom of moderate counsels. Value 

 Plural marriage has ceased to be a feature of the °{ 

 Mormon practice in our country — not primarily 

 because it was made illegal by national legisla- 

 tion, but because a different ideal has come to pre- 

 vail. The railways centering in Salt Lake City and 

 Ogden have brought Utah into the Union. Its 

 ideals and its politics are now national, and its 



C 233 n 



patience 



