ary, 1851, the waters of the "main channel" of Mill Creek were donated to Brigham Young. On the 9th of December, 1850, there was granted to Ezra T. Benson the exclusive control of the waters of Twin Springs and Rock Springs, in Tooelle Valley; and on the 14th of January, 1851, to the same person was granted the control of all the cañons of the "West Mountain" and the timber therein. By the ordinance of September 14, 1850, a "general conference of the Church of Latter Day Saints was authorized to elect thirteen men to become a corporation, to be called the Emigration Company; and to this company, elected exclusively by the church, was secured and appropriated the two islands in Salt Lake known as Antelope and Stansberry Islands, to be under the exclusive control of President Brigham Young. These examples are given to show that the right of the United States to the lands of Utah met no recognition by these people. They appropriated them, not only in a way to make the people slaves, but indicated their claim of sovereignty as superior to any. Young, Smith, Benson and Kimball were apostles. Richards was Brigham Young's counselor. By an act of December 28, 1855, there was granted to the "University of the State of Deseret" a tract of land amounting to about five hundred acres, inside the city limits of Salt Lake City, without any reservation to the occupants whatever; and everywhere was the authority of the United States over the country and its soil and people utterly ignored.

comparison was the power of the civil authority. They incorporated the Mormon Church into a body politic and corporate, and by the third section of the act gave it supreme authority over its members in everything temporal and spiritual, and assigned as a reason for so doing that it was because the powers confirmed were in "support of morality and virtue, and were founded on the revelations of the Lord." Under this power to make laws and punish and forgive offenses, to hear and determine between brethren, the civil law was superseded. The decrees of the courts of this church, certified under seal, have been examined by the writer, and he found them exercising a jurisdiction without limit except that of appeal to the President of the church. That the assassinations of apostates, the massacres of the Morrisites at Morris Fort and of the Arkansas emigrants at Mountain Meadows, were all in pursuance of church decrees, more or less formal, no one acquainted with the system doubts. This act of incorporation was passed February 8, 1851, and is found in the latest compilation of Utah statutes. It is proper also to observe that, for many years after the erection of the Territorial Government by Congress, the "State of Deseret" organization was maintained by the Mormons, and collision was only prevented because Brigham was Governor of both, and found it unnecessary for his purpose to antagonize either. His church organization made both a shadow, while that was the substance of all authority. One of the earliest of their legislative acts was to organize a Surveyor General's Department,' and Not satisfied with making the grants retitle to land was declared to be in the per-ferred to, the Legislative Assembly entered sons who held a certificate from that office. upon a system of municipal incorporations, Having instituted their own system of by which the fertile lands of the Territory government and taken possession of the were withdrawn from the operation of the Land, and assumed to distribute that in a preemptive laws of Congress; and thus system of their own, the next step was to while they occupied these without title, nonvest certain leading men with the control Mormons were unable to make settlement of the timbers and waters of the country. on them, and they were thus engrossed By a series of acts granting lands, waters to Mormon use. From a report made by and timber to individuals, the twelve the Commissioner of the General Land Ofapostles became the practical proprietors of fice to the United States Senate,' it appears the better and more desirable portions of that the municipal corporations covered the country. By an ordinance dated Octo-over 400,000 acres of the public lands, and ber 4, 1851, there was granted to Brigham Young the "sole control of City Creek and Cañon for the sum of five hundred dollars." By an ordinance dated January 9, 1850, the "waters of North Mill Creek and the waters of the Cañon next north" were granted to Heber C. Kimball. On the same day was granted to George A. Smith the "sole control of the cañons and timber of the east side of the 'West Mountains." On the 18th of January, 1851, the North Cottonwood Cañon was granted exclusively to Williard Richards. On the 15th of Janu

over 600 square miles of territory. These lands are not subject to either the Homestead or Preëmption laws, and thus the nonMormon settler was prevented from attempting, except in rare instances, to secure any lands in Utah. The spirit which prompted this course is well illustrated by an instance which was the subject of an investigation in the Land Department, and the proofs are found in the document just referred to. George Q. Cannon, the late Mormon dele gate in Congress, was called to exercise his

1 Senate doc. 181, 46th Congress.
2 Sec. 2, 258, Rev. Stat. U.S.

1

duties as an apostle to the Tooelle "Stake" | them. The suffrage has been bestowed at the city of Grantville. In a discourse upon all classes by a statute so general that on Sunday, the 20th day of July, 1875, Mr. the ballot box is filled with a mass of votes Cannon said: "God has given us (mean- which repels the free citizen from the exing the Mormon people) this land, and, if ercise of that right. If a Gentile is choany outsider shall come in to take land sen to the Legislature (two or three such which we claim, a piece six feet by two is instances have occurred), he is not admitall they are entitled to, and that will last ted to the seat, although the act of Congress them to all eternity." (June 23, 1874) requires the Territory to pay all the expenses of the enforcement of the laws of the Territory, and of the care of persons convicted of offenses against the laws of the Territory. Provision is made for jurors' fees in criminal cases only, and none is made for the care of criminals.1 While Congress pays the legislative expenses, amounting to $20,000 per session, the Legislature defiantly refuses to comply with the laws which its members are sworn to support. And the same body, though failing to protect the marriage bond by any law whatever requiring any solemnities for entering it, provided a divorce act which practically allowed marriages to be annulled at will. Neither seduction, adultery nor incest find penalty or recognition in its legal code. The purity of home is destroyed by the beastly practice of plural marriage, and the brows of innocent children are branded with the stain of bastardy to gratify the lust which cares naught for its victims. Twenty-eight of the thirty-six members of the present Legislature of Utah are reported as having from two to seven wives each. While the Government of the United States is paying these men their mileage and per diem as law-makers in Utah, those guilty of the same offense outside of Utah are leading the lives of felons in con

By measures and threats like these have the Mormons unlawfully controlled the agricultural lands of the Territory and excluded therefrom the dissenting settler. The attempt of the United States to establish a Surveyor-General's office in Utah in 1855, and to survey the lands in view of disposing of them according to law, was met by such opposition that Mr. Burr, the Surveyor-General, was compelled to fly for life. The monuments of surveys made by his order were destroyed, and the records were supposed to have met a like fate, but were afterwards restored by Brigham Young to the Government. The report of his experience by Mr. Burr was instrumental in causing troops to be sent in 1857 to assert the authority of the Government. When this army, consisting of regular troops, was on the way to Utah, Brigham Young, as Governor, issued a proclamation, dated September 15, 1857, declaring martial law and ordering the people of the Territory to hold themselves in readiness to march to repel the invaders, and on the 29th of September following addressed the commander of United States forces an order forbidding him to enter the Territory, and directing him to retire from it by the same route he had come. Further evidence of the Mormon claim that they were inde-vict cells. For eight years a Mormon delependent is perhaps unnecessary. The treasonable character of the local organization is manifest. It is this organization that controls, not only the people who belong to it, but the 30,000 non-Mormons who now reside in Utah.

Every member of the territorial Legislature is a Mormon. Every county officer is a Mormon. Every territorial officer is a Mormon, except such as are appointive. The schools provided by law and supported by taxation are Mormon. The teachers are Mormon, and the sectarian catechism af firming the revelations of Joseph Smith is regularly taught therein. The municipal corporations are under the control of Mormons. In the hands of this bigoted class all the material interests of the Territory are left, subject only to such checks as a Federal Governor and a Federal judiciary can impose. From beyond the sea they import some thousands of ignorant converts annually, and, while the non-Mormons are increasing, they are overwhelmed by the muddy tide of fanaticism shipped in upon

1 According to the affidavits of Samuel Howard and others, page 14.

gate has sat in the capitol at Washington having four living wives in his harem in Utah, and at the same time, under the shadow of that capitol, lingers in a felon's prison a man who had been guilty of marrying a woman while another wife was still living.

For thirty years have the Mormons been trusted to correct these evils and put themselves in harmony with the balance of civilized mankind. This they have refused to do. Planting themselves in the heart of the continent, they have persistently defied the laws of the land, the laws of modern society, and the teachings of a common humanity. They degrade woman to the office of a breeding animal, and, after depriving her of all property rights in her husband's estate, all control of her children, they, with ostentation, bestow upon her the ballot in a way that makes it a nullity if contested, and compels her to use it to perpetuate her own degradation if she avails herself of it.

1 See Report of Attorney-General United States, 1880-81. 2 Act of March 6, 1862. $ Act of February 16, 1872 4 Secs. 1 and 2, act of February 3, 1852.

Ex-Secretary Blaine on the 3d of January sent the following letter to President Arthur:

No power has been given to the Mor-lived he intended to make his administramon Hierarchy that has not been abused. tion brilliant at home and abroad-a view The right of representation in the legisla- confirmed by the policy conceived by tive councis has been violated in the ap- Secretary Blaine and sanctioned, it must portionment of members so as to disfran- be presumed, by President Garfield. This chise the non-Mormon class. The system policy looked to closer commercial and of revenue and taxation was for twenty-political relations with all of the Republics five years a system of confiscation and ex- on this Hemisphere, as developed in the tortion. The courts were so organized and following quotations from a correspondcontrolled that they were but the organs of ence, the publication of which lacks comthe church oppressions and ministers of pleteness because of delays in transmitting its vengeance. The legal profession was all of it to Congress. abolished by a statute that prohibited a lawyer from recovering on any contract for service, and allowed every person to appear as an attorney in any court. The "The suggestion of a congress of all the attorney was compelled to present "all the American nations to assemble in the city facts in the case,' ," whether for or against of Washington for the purpose of agreeing his client, and a refusal to disclose the on such a basis of arbitration for internaconfidential communications of the latter tional troubles as would remove all possisubjected the attorney to fine and imprison- bility of war in the Western hemisphere ment. No law book except the statutes was warmly approved by your predecessor. of Utah and of the United States, "when The assassination of July 2 prevented his applicable," was permitted to be read in issuing the invitations to the American any court by an attorney, and the citation States. After your accession to the Preof a decision of the Supreme Court of the sidency I acquainted you with the project United States, or even a quotation from and submitted to you a draft for such an the Bible, in the trial of any cause, sub-invitation. You received the suggestion jected a lawyer to fine and imprisonment. with the most appreciative consideration, The practitioners of medicine were and after carefully examining the form of equally assailed by legislation. The use the invitation directed that it be sent. It of the most important remedies known to was accordingly dispatched in November modern medical science, including all an- to the independent governments of Ameriaesthetics, was prohibited except under ca North and South, including all, from conditions which made their use impossi- the Empire of Brazil to the smallest reble, "and if death followed" the adminis- public. In a communication addressed by tration of these remedies, the person ad- the present Secretary of State on January ministering them was declared guilty of 9, to Mr. Trescot and recently sent to the manslaughter or murder." The Legislative Senate I was greatly surprised to find a Assembly is but an organized conspiracy proposition looking to the annulment of against the national law, and an obstacle these invitations, and I was still more surin the way of the advancement of its own prised when I read the reasons assigned. people. For sixteen years it refused to lay If I correctly apprehend the meaning of its enactments before Congress, and they his words it is that we might offend some were only obtained by a joint resolution European powers if we should hold in the demanding them. Once in armed rebel- United States a congress of the "selected lion against the authority of the nation, nationalities" of America. the Mormons have always secretly strug- "This is certainly a new position for the gled for, as they have openly prophesied, United States to assume, and one which I its entire overthrow. Standing thus in the earnestly beg you will not permit this pathway of the material growth and devel-government to occupy. The European opment of the Territory, a disgrace to the balance of the country, with no redeeming virtue to plead for further indulgence, this travesty of a local government demands radical and speedy reform.

The South American Question.

If it was not shrewdly surmised before it is now known that had President Garfield

1 See act of January 17, 1862. Act of January 7, 1854, sec. 14,

powers assemble in congress whenever an object seems to them of sufficient importance to justify it. I have never heard of their consulting the government of the United States in regard to the propriety of their so assembling, nor have I ever known of their inviting an American representative to be present. Nor would there, in my judgment, be any good reason for their so doing. Two Presidents of the United States in the year 1881 adjudged it to be expedient that the American powers should

3 Acts of Jan 21, 1853, and of January, 1855, sec. 29. meet in congress for the sole purpose of

Act of February 18, 1852.

5 Act of February 18, 1852.

Act of January 14, 1854.

7 Soc. 106, Act March 6, 1852.

agreeing upon some basis for arbitration of differences that may arise between them and for the prevention, as far as possible,

If you have not formally and finally recalled the invitations to the Peace Congress, Mr. President, I beg you to consider well the effect of so doing. The invitation was not mine. It was yours. I performed The above well presents the Blaine view only the part of the Secretary-to advise of the proposition to have a Conand to draft. You spoke in the name of gress of the Republics of America at the United States to each of the indepen- Washington, and under the patronage of dent nations of America. To revoke that this government, with a view to settle all

difficulties by arbitration, to promote trade, | chiefs of Government on the Continent can and it is presumed to form alliances ready to suit a new and advanced application of the Monroe doctrine.

The following is the letter proposing a conference of North and South American Republics sent to the U. S. Ministers in Central and South America:

be less sensitive than he is to the sacred duty of making every endeavor to do away with the chances of fratricidal strife, and he looks with hopeful confidence to such active assistance from them as will serve to show the broadness of our common humanity, the strength of the ties which bind us all together as a great and harmonious system of American Commonwealths.

SIR: The attitude of the United States with respect to the question of general peace on the American Continent is well known through its persistent efforts for A GENERAL CONGRESS PROPOSED. years past to avert the evils of warfare, or, these efforts failing, to bring positive con- Impressed by these views, the President flicts to an end through pacific counsels or extends to all the independent countries of the advocacy of impartial arbitration. North and South America an earnest inThis attitude has been consistently main-vitation to participate in a general Contained, and always with such fairness as to leave no room for imputing to our Government any motive except the humane and disinterested one of saving the kindred States of the American Continent from the burdens of war. The position of the United States, as the leading power of the new world, might well give to its Government a claim to authoritative utterance for the purpose of quieting discord among its neighbors, with all of whom the most friendly relations exist. Nevertheless the good offices of this Government are not, and have not at any time, been tendered with a show of dictation or compulsion, but only as exhibiting the solicitous good will of a common friend.

THE CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICAN

STATES.

It

For some years past a growing disposition has been manifested by certain States of Central and South America to refer disputes affecting grave questions of international relationship and boundaries to arbitration rather than to the sword. has been on several occasions a source of profound satisfaction to the Government of the United States to see that this country is in a large measure looked to by all the American powers as their friend and mediator. The just and impartial counsel of the President in such cases, has never been withheld, and his efforts have been rewarded by the prevention of sanguinary strife or angry contentions between peoples whom we regard as brethren. The existence of this growing tendency convinces the President that the time is ripe for a proposal that shall enlist the good will and active co-operation of all the States of the Western Hemisphere both North and South, in the interest of humanity and for the common weal of nations.

He conceives that none of the Governments of America can be less alive than our own to the dangers and horrors of a state of war, and especially of war between kinsmen. He is sure that none of the

gress, to be held in the city of Washington, on the 22d of November, 1882, for the purpose of considering and discussing the methods of preventing war between the nations of America. He desires that the attention of the Congress shall be strictly confined to this one great object; and its sole aim shall be to seek a way of permanently averting the horrors of a cruel and bloody contest between countries oftenest of one blood and speech, or the even worse calamity of internal commotion and civil strife; that it shall regard the burdensome and far-reaching consequences of such a struggle, the legacies of exhausted finances, of oppressive debt, of onerous taxation, of ruined cities, of paralyzed industries, of devastated fields, of ruthless conscriptions, of the slaughter of men, of the grief of the widow and orphan, of embittered resentments that long survive those who provoked them and heavily afflict the innocent generations that come after.

THE MISSION OF THE CONGRESS.

The President is especially desirous to have it understood that in putting forth this invitation the United States does not assume the position of counseling or attempt ing, through the voice of the Congress, to counsel any determinate solution of existing questions which may now divide any of the countries. Such questions cannot properly come before the Congress. Its mission is higher. It is to provide for the interests of all in the future, not to settle the individual differences of the present. For this reason especially the President has indicated a day for the assembling of the Congress so far in the future as to leave good ground for the hope that by the time named the present situation on the South Pacific coast will be happily terminated, and that those engaged in the contest may take peaceable part in the discussion and solution of the general question affecting in an equal degree the well-being of all.

It seems also desirable to disclaim in ad