SALT LAKE AND THE MORMONS 67 



chose the world knows, and their subsequent 

 history, their abortive resistance to the United 

 States, their final submission to the Edmunds 

 Law, and the abohtion of polygamy, their won- 

 derful success and great wealth, are matters of 

 common knowledge. 



In that early history of theirs in Utah, there is 

 much we would wish blotted out. They did 

 wrong, but no greater wrongs than had been 

 visited on them by the gentiles. They disobeyed 

 the law, they took vengeance into their own hands, 

 but not until the law had failed to save them from 

 spoliation, outrage and death. Let us balance 

 the account. It was a religious war, always the 

 most horrible. It is ended now, and that peaceful, 

 wealthy valley, and a hundred others, throughout 

 Utah and the nearby States, attest the thrift and 

 husbandry of these people. 



It was,- perhaps, fortunate for the Church that 

 Smith was killed. His martyrdom sealed, his 

 faith atoned for much that might be condemned, 

 and gave them for a leader the greatest colonizer 

 the world has ever seen. Brigham Young was no 



