Chapter 9 - The Raid

Chapter 9 - The Raid

DISCOMFORTED, AND AT TIMES sickened, by the brutalities which the polygamy crusade unavoidably imposed upon women, children and the non-polygamous Mormon majority, gentile leaders were nevertheless unwilling to abandon their most effective weapon in the "irrepressible conflict." They were, however, in a mood by 1887 to soften the pressures on polygamy and wage a more direct attack on the church's economic fortress. A weapon suitable for this purpose had been provided by the Edmunds-Tucker Act on which Congress completed action in February, 1887. This new act revised in several respects the anti-polygamy laws of 1862 and 1882 and gave them "teeth." One of the sharpest was a directive to the attorney general of the United States to "institute proceedings to forfeit and escheat all property, both real and personal, of the dissolved church corporation held in violation of the 1862 limitation. . . That act had disincorporated the church and restricted its holdings to not more than $50,000 and property used exclusively for the worship of God.

The mood of the gentile community at this point in the struggle was summed up by Whitney, a devout Mormon historian, in these words:

... the Edmunds Act of March 22, 1882, was a disappointment to those who had taken upon them- selves 'a mission for the social and political regeneration of Utah.' That law was not far-reaching enough to satisfy an element which, not content that pains and penalties should be visited upon the polygamous minority among the Mormons, desired something that would effect the destruction or emasculation of the entire Mormon system. 'We care nothing for your polygamy,' the gentiles were wont to say in private, to individual Mormons. 'It's a good war-cry and serves our purpose by enlisting sympathy for our cause; but it is a mere bagatelle compared with other issues in the irrepressible conflict between our parties. What we most object to is your unity; your political and commercial solidarity; the obedience you render to your spiritual leaders in temporal affairs. We want you to throw off the yoke of the Priesthood, to do as we do, and be Americans in deed as well as in name.' Such were the frank admissions of those who were reasonable in their opposition to the Mormons, and did not hate them with that deep-rooted rancor that brooked no thought of reconciliation between the two classes of the commonwealth. Even the most radical expressed these sentiments at times. Seldom, however, did such modified utterances — never, so far as polygamy was concerned — find place in their public speeches and documents, particularly those sent abroad and used for political effect at the Nation's capital. These were always full of polygamy, priestcraft, tyranny and treason.

It was a fair appraisal of the position of the gentiles by a champion of the Mormon cause except on one point. The comment that the gentiles never admitted in public statements that their primary target were issues other than polygamy was something less than accurate with respect to The Tribune. On more than one occasion The Tribune stated in articles and editorials that its primary targets were political and economic domination by a closed religious society.

In a comment on a Herald editorial, for example, The Tribune stated:

The Herald assumes that polygamy is the chief bugbear with gentiles here, and with the nation at large. It is by far the lesser crime. It is merely the nasty cement in the wall of Mormonism; the solid matter in that wall is church rule, the utter vassalage to which the State is subjected, making the abject prostitution of the ballot a natural result; delivering the consciences of the people bound and gagged into the keeping of their chiefs, cementing an organization together, over which some bold ruffians hold the keys of life and death, and causing a whole people to stand ready to execute the commands of those chiefs, no matter what crimes those commands might include. . . .

The local news and editorial content of The Tribune during this period indicated that the policy makers did not fully appreciate the potency of the weapon which had been placed in the hands of the gentiles by passage of the Edmunds-Tucker Act - specifically the sections directing the United States Attorney General to dissolve the church corporation and to escheat for the benefit of the district schools of the territory all real and personal property held in violation of the $50,000 limitation fixed in the 1862 law but not enforced up to this time.

The Tribune had vigorously supported the new law and editor Goodwin had spent some time in Washington serving as an adviser to representatives of Utah's gentile community sent to the capitol to lobby for its enactment. The newspaper castigated senators and representatives who opposed the legislation as "Jack Mormons" and, by implication at least, applied the same tag to President Grover Cleveland because he refused to sign the bill, permitting it to become law without his signature.

The term "Jack Mormon" was applied during this period to non-Mormons who collaborated with Mormons. It was a wildly elastic term which the most rabid Mormon haters sometimes hurled at The Tribune itself, or at Goodwin, if they suggested Mormon-gentile cooperation on a Fourth of July celebration or on some community enterprise or on some inconsequential political matter.

While federal officials were preparing to wage a direct assault upon the church's temporal power by seizing its property, The Tribune centered its editorial fire on two other targets — a test oath provision in the Edmunds-Tucker Act which was designed to prohibit polygamists from voting, holding office, and serving on juries and a church-sponsored renewal of the old campaign for statehood.

The Tribune, and gentile leaders generally, were dissatisfied with the test oath approved by the federally-appointed Utah Commission. The Tribune campaigned unsuccessfully for changes which the Mormons insisted, and the commission agreed, went beyond the provisions of the law.

The campaign for statehood was denounced by The Tribune as obvious trickery. The fact that the Mormons proposed to put into the state constitution an article prohibiting and punishing polygamy, The Tribune argued, was prima facie evidence of fraud. Who, The Tribune asked, could be so gullible as to believe that the same church leaders who had gone underground and into exile rather than obey a law prohibiting polygamy, really intended to enforce a state constitutional provision prohibiting the practice?

If statehood were granted, The Tribune asserted, churchcontrolled courts, legislature and executive department would ignore the polygamy prohibition or the church-controlled electorate would be directed to repeal it.

In an editorial under the heading "How to Secure Statehood,"the newspaper said:

The movement for Statehood is plainly nothing but an attempt to put off or turn aside the the inevitable. . . . There is a way to proceed which will insure the stopping of any further legislation, the prevention of partition, and the securing of Statehood in three or four years from now. Let John Taylor and George Q. Cannon tomorrow call at the District Court rooms, plead guilty to the indictments there filed against them, promise to obey the laws and resume their places in the community. Let them declare that there must be no more polygamy in Utah until it shall be made legal by the competent authorities of the Republic; that in politics the people must henceforth use their own judgment, that the priesthood has no more political control over them. Then let the Legislature meet and make polygamy unlawful by a special act, and let the people live up to their duty and exercise their political privileges, and the whole trouble that has vexed Utah so long will be ended in a day. Let this be continued for three or four years, and the gentiles will join in asking for Statehood. That is much sooner than it will be secured with any guarantee that trouble will not follow.

In pursuit of statehood, the People's Party went ahead with the mass meeting without gentile participation and elected delegates to a Constitutional Convention which assembled in Salt Lake City on June 30, 1887. After seven days of deliberation a constitution containing an article prohibiting polygamy was approved and a committee appointed to make arrangements for submitting the document to the electorate at the general election in August. The proposed constitution was approved by the voters in the election by a ratio of about 26 to 1 and it was submitted to Congress in December by Delegate John T. Caine. As The Tribune predicted, that was the end of the trail for that statehood bid.

During this eventful year of 1887 two developments occurred which suggested that perhaps both Mormons and gentiles were becoming increasingly weary of the strains and stresses of the "irrepressible conflict." One of these events was the formation in April of the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce and Board of Trade, as it was called initially. The initiative for the organization was provided by gentiles, one of the leaders in the movement being Governor Caleb West who served as chairman at the first meeting. Stated purposes of the new organization was to revive trade, establish home industries, and attract capital and population. A motto of "No politics or religion in the Chamber" was adopted, probably with the hope that this would permit gentiles to join without being denounced by extremists as "Jack Mormons" and Mormons to join without being denounced by their own extremists as traitors to the church.

With the strong backing of Governor West and many of the territory's most prominent leaders, the chamber moved through the processes of organization and incorporation with relative speed. Signing the articles of incorporation were a number of prominent Mormons, including Heber J. Grant, but its real strength lay in its gentile signatories, one of whom was P. H. Lannan, principal owner and publisher of The Tribune.

Early pacification achievements credited to the influence of the Chamber of Commerce were joint Mormon-gentile Fourth of July celebrations in 1887 and 1888. While the two sides of the "irrepressible conflict" had previously observed the nation's Independence Day with joint celebrations, this had not been the pattern during the quarter of a century just past. July 4, in fact, had on several occasions generated volatile situations. One of the most explosive had occurred only two years earlier when, on the morning of the Fourth, flags at City Hall, the County Court House and at many Mormon business houses were hanging at half-mast. When puzzled gentiles learned that the purpose of the half-masting was to signify mourning for the death of the liberties of the large majority of Utah's citizens, menacing incidents began erupting throughout the city. The gentiles quickly formed a committee which demanded an apology by the city and immediate raising of the flags. The Grand Army of the Republic, celebrating at Lindsay's Gardens, adopted a resolution declaring the half-masting to be an insult to the flag. Eli H. Murray, who was governor at the time, telephoned General McCook at Fort Douglas for military aid to compel the raising of the flags. The general, whose head was cooler than most in the city at that juncture, declined to interfere with the military. By mid-afternoon a milling crowd, with patriotism inflamed by liquor, was threatening to break into closed buildings to raise the flag. Shootings were threatened by partisans of both sides at several sites of halfmasted flags. But bloodshed was avoided. Repercussions from the incident continued for weeks and it snowballed into a sort of national issue with the gentiles capitalizing on it as proof of the treasonable attitude of the church. A report was spread that the Mormons planned to again fly the flag at half-mast on Pioneer Day, July 24, and this impelled President Cleveland to order the commanding general at Omaha to keep all posts of the Western Platte Department in full strength and prepared for any emergency that might arise in Utah.

One incident of that tumultuous Independence Day involving The Tribune was the prompt raising of the flag at the Salt Lake Theater. The Tribune, the following day, credited this action to William A. Rossiter, a Mormon who was under bond awaiting trial as a polygamist, and commended him for his loyalty. Rossiter promptly rejected the commendation in a letter to the Deseret News — "I take this method of assuring you and my friends that I do not deserve this praise, especially from that source. Respecting the flags being at half-mast, I feel exactly as all my co-religionists do — that it was a proper manifestation of our feelings upon the occasion. If Liberty is not dead, at least she lies bleeding." In the light of such proceedings, the Mormongentile cooperation on July 4, 1887, was an encouraging sign indeed.

The second event of 1887 which served to stimulate communication between the warring factions was the election of five liberals to the Territorial Legislature. One liberal had previously been elected to that body but he had been so completely ignored by the Mormon members that he was, in effect, not seated. The liberal breakthrough for five seats was not a result of Mormons switching to the enemy side but of the test oath disenfranchisement of some of the Mormon voters and a redistricting of the territory under the auspices of the Utah Commission. The Tribune, exulting in the political victory, said:

The gentiles won a mighty victory yesterday. They secured a fighting minority in the next Utah Legislature. . . . The spell is broken. There will be such a working force in the Legislature as will put the Church on record at least. But this is not the best feature of all. It will give the gentiles confidence which will cause them to see to it hereafter that they are registered. . . . Who says the dawn has not come?

At the end of the session the gentile members praised the Mormon leadership for the consideration shown them and the leadership commended the gentile members for their contributions. This was probably polite window-dressing. But at this juncture in Utah's history even a display of good manners between the two groups was a notable step forward.

The major territorial news event of the year was the death on July 25, 1887, of John Taylor at the home of Thomas F. Rouche in Kaysville. To the Mormons President Taylor was a martyr who stood fast for ecclesiastical doctrine through persecution and exile from family, friends and church brothers. His death was a deep personal bereavement for his faithful following and a great shock to them collectively, coming as it did at a time when the church was under tremendous pressures—ecclesiastical, political and economic.

To the gentiles, the departed president was an important personage but hardly in the same category as Brigham Young. If The Tribune reflected the attitude of the gentiles at that period, the real strong man of the church was his first counselor, George Q. Cannon.

In an editorial on the death of President Taylor, The Tribune said in part:

It has come down to us from ancient times that we should speak no evil of the dead. It is a good maxim, too; but when the happiness of thousands is involved the truth must be told, even down to the sepulchre. . . .The best energies of his life were devoted to the establishment of a hostile kingdom in the midst of a free Republic, a kingdom in which the tyranny of the ancient Asiatic world was to be reproduced, and where the many were to be but the unquestioning slaves of the few. In the face of the law he married many women, and though he saw the effects of polygamy in the family of the founder of the creed in Nauvoo, and the effects in his own family in this city, he clung to it, and when there was at last a law framed that struck a direct blow at the crime, with a kind of fury he drove his people into the commission of that crime, offered rewards to such as would commit it; treated with his displeasure those who refused, and withdrew his confidence and approval from such as having committed it, in good faith tried to make amends before the outraged laws. He not only exerted his influence as a man, but urged his commands upon a confiding people in God's own sovereign name. Hence, above his grave, it is but fair to record what he did, and to add the manifest fact that his lifework was a grievous failure.

President Taylor's death dissolved for the third time the First Presidency of the church. As on prior occasions, the Council of Twelve Apostles became the governing body and Wilford Woodruff, as its senior member, became the virtual head of the church although he was not sustained to the position of prophet, seer and revelator held successively by Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and John Taylor, until April, 1889.

The Tribune's first editorial comment on the new church president was in the nature of a qualified commendation, with the qualification receiving more emphasis than the commendation. Under the heading "Too Sweet," the newspaper said:

Apostle Woodruff is now virtually the head of the Mormon Church. As such, and in behalf of the Twelve, he has caused the publication of an epistle to the Saints 'throughout the world.' It has a more Christian sound than anything that ever emanated from John Taylor or either of his counselors. In the course of it he says:'Let all Israel remember that the eternal and everlastingPriesthood is bestowed upon us for the purpose alone of administering in the ordinances of life and salvation, both for the living and the dead, and no man on earth can use that Priesthood for any other purpose than the work of the ministry, the perfecting of the Saints, edifying the body of Christ, establishing the Kingdom of Heaven and redeeming Zion.'If the foregoing be true, then the Priesthood pertains solely to the relations which man has to his Maker — it is solely a religious affair. There is nothing there which would seem to include the running of a political party; nothing about handling the stock of a co-op store; nothing about nominating men for office and compelling the masses to vote for them whether they would or not; nothing about the temporal affairs of men; nothing to indicate that this Priesthood is a law unto itself, and regards no laws which conflict with its sovereign prerogatives. Did Apostle Woodruff mean it that way? We fear not. He holds a hope to men's lips; we fear he will when he gets ready break it to their hearts. Still, it is a pity. The Church at this crisis might extricate itself from its troubles if it would but give up what civilization demands from it. Power is too sweet and the hope of cajoling and defrauding the nation is too strong. We are afraid the epistle is too sweet.

Had the editor of The Tribune been able to peer into the next few years, he might have strengthened the commendation of President Woodruff's epistle and omitted the last sentence of the editorial.

While The Tribune, as heretofore noted, was belaboring what it deemed deficiencies in the test oath and warning gentiles not to be taken in by the church-sponsored campaign for statehood, the newly appointed United States District Attorney for Utah, George S. Peters, was priming the economic weapon provided by the Edmunds-Tucker Act for use against the church.

The opening shot in the "raid" upon church property was fired July 30, 1887, the day following the burial of President Taylor. Two suits were filed in the Supreme Court of the territory pursuant to provisions of the Edmunds-Tucker Act directing that the corporation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints be formally dissolved and that property held by the trustee-in-trust in excess of $50,000 be escheated to the government and used for the benefit of the public schools. The federal government contended that the church held real estate valued at more than $2,000,000 and personal property in excess of $1,000,000 which was subject to escheat.

The government won the preliminary legal skirmishes challenging the competency of the territorial court to hear the suit. This victory induced the church to voluntarily surrender some of its properties with the understanding that an appeal would be taken to the United States Supreme Court. The government then filed a rash of suits in the district courts seeking property which it contended had been transferred to stakes and individuals under secret trusteeships for the purpose of thwarting the law. These suits were later settled, by a compromise cash payment offered by the church, accepted by the receiver and approved by the court.

By mid-1887 the receiver had taken over property of a stipulated value of $807,666 but the actual value was probably substantially in excess of that amount.

Leonard J. Arrington, in his economic history of the church, The Great Basin Kingdom, reached this conclusion from his extensive research on this point:

When one considers the value of the items not stipulated, and the gross undervaluation of some of the properties, it is probable that the actual value of the properties surrendered was well in excess of $1,000,000. Nevertheless a comparison of the properties confiscated with the list of properties which belonged to the Church shows that the stratagems of the trustee-in-trust paid off in part. The receiver probably did not get a third of the value of the properties belonging to the Church at the time of the passage of the Edmunds-Tucker Act. Of greater importance to the Mormon economy, the receiver did not take possession of the Church's bank stock, nor of its holdings in the key institution, Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution.

The property "raid" produced a series of disputes involving legal and receiver fees, conflicts of interest, legal and ethical properties; but the upshot of these challenges was that the "raid" was upheld as to procedures and by the United States Supreme Court as to constitutionality. While much of the church-owned property might have escaped the escheatment net, the blow was a staggering one to the temporal strength of the church. Unlike the polygamy crusade, this was something that hit the leadership as well as the general membership and its direct effects could not be avoided by going underground or into exile. The direct effects of the "raid" were supplemented by a general economic disruption arising from the polygamy crusade. Arrington sums up the economic plight of the church and its members in these words:

With almost all leaders of Latter-day Saint communities in prison or in hiding, business establishments were abandoned, or were kept in operation by inexperienced wives and children. The ownership of most of the co-operatives drifted into the hands of a few individuals and were eventually converted into private enterprises. Those United Orders which had survived until this period were discontinued. There were no further meetings of Zion's Central Board of Trade. Almost every business history, in short, shows stagnation; almost every family history records widespread suffering and misery. Above all, the Church, as the prime stimulator, financier and regulator of the Mormon economy, was forced to withdraw from participation in most phases of activity. The 'raid,' in other words, was a period of crippled group activity of every type, of decline in cooperative trade and industry — a period when, above all, Church economic support was essential but not forthcoming — a period when planning would have saved much, but when planners dared not plan.

Gentiles as well as Mormons were bitten by the general economic disruption, although less severely. Surely there must have been a growing longing in the territory for an end to the strife which was depressing the economy and frustrating the desires of those who were looking forward to a more tranquil social and political life. One manifestation of this feeling was the organization of the Chamber of Commerce by both gentiles and Mormons. The Tribune, too, on occasion paused in its vitriolic crusade against the power structure of Mormondom to express this mood in a lyrical outburst. One such editorial which appeared April 26, 1887, under the heading "It's All Right" said:

Let us all who have watched and waited and hoped against hope for the coming of the transfiguration of Utah take heart, for the dawn is here. After the sun gets high in the heavens in the spring, there are cold storms and frosts, but we know it is spring nevertheless, and that in a little while longer the roses will bloom, the birds will build their nests and the fruition of the harvest will come. We will have many disappointments still. Men will be weak or perverse; much that we had a right to count upon will be denied us; promises will be broken and more than one will be destroyed in the house of friends, but it will not all matter, because forces are on the march that will, in a little while, make us independent of outside influnces.Utahwas long ago fixed to be the home of a free people, and at that time there was placed in the hills and in the valleys the means through which that freedom might be worked out. The hands of labor are even now closing upon this work, and when they all strike in accord there will be no further need of discussing the Mormon question. It will regulate itself. There is nothing to despair about, rather there is everything to hope for and the hope is going to be realized before the most sanguine dream of it.

This time the writer, presumably Goodwin, seemed to be doing something he would really liked to have done more often.