PREFATORY AND PERSONAL

THE INITIAL THOUGHT IN CONNECTION with the writing of this volume was to assemble the evidences relating to the political perfidy of the Mormon “prophets,” and to make a brief statement of the political incidents in Utah from 1890 to 1909.

The underlying motive was to prove that the continuous asseverations of the Mormon press and speakers to the effect that the prophets were not in politics are absolutely false.

The falsehoods uttered and diligently circulated throughout the United States, and testified to under oath by the prophets during the “Smoot” investigation, relative to the non-interference of the Mormon leaders in politics, were so interwoven with their treachery in the matter of polygamy, that one phase of the subject could not be discussed without trenching upon the other.

To make the subject intelligible to those unacquainted with the true inwardness of the Mormon theo-political imperium in imperio, an explanatory foundation was necessary. Every effort to find a starting place short of the very beginning of the system was fruitless. But a consecutive history of the rise and growth of Mormonism, no matter how condensed, would be too voluminous for the objective subject-matter of the work. It was therefore decided to discuss only those high-lights of the subject which bear more directly on the political aspect of Mormonism, and to introduce sufficient general details to keep the story intelligibly consecutive.

In the matters of construction and diction, it is cheerfully conceded that the following pages are not bomb-proof to Mormon criticism. But the entire Mormon hierarchy, their servile tools and professional liars, are challenged to disprove the truth of the evidences of their unparalleled duplicity, and the legitimacy and justice of the conclusions and criticisms.

PERSONAL

There are always legitimate questions arising in the minds of readers of a work like this, as to the personality of the author, his antecedents, his reliability, his opportunities for investigating the subject with which he deals, and the motive which impelled him to undertake the work. That those very natural questions may be answered, the following is cheerfully and respectfully submitted:

I was born in 1845, in Nauvoo, Illinois. My father, William Gibbs, was born in Vermont. My grandfather, Josiah Gibbs, was a veteran of the war of 1812.

My mother, Eliza Dana, was a daughter of Francis Dana, son of Francis Dana, of Massachusetts.

During 1845, father aided in completing the carpenter work on the Mormon temple at Nauvoo, and assisted in defending the city from the mob that subsequently expelled the Mormons from Illinois.

In the spring of 1847 father moved to Mt. Pisgah, Iowa, where he remained four years and then moved to Alden, McIIenry county, Illinois. It was in Alden that the austere “schoolmarms” of those early days “birched” into me the rudiments of the three “r’s.”

In 1857 father and his family “crossed the plains,” following up the Mormons, and arrived in Salt Lake City in September, a few days after the perpetration of the atrocious Mountain Meadows massacre.

In January, 1858, father joined the general “retreat” before “Johnston’s army,” and the following spring returned to Salt Lake City where he worked at carpentry.

In 1859 father entered the employ of President Brigham Young and helped build the famous Salt Lake Theatre. It was at that time that I began my apprenticeship to the carpenter’s, trade.

In 1861 President Young sent father down to his “Forest” farm, four miles south of the city, where, during 1861 and 1862, he built a large farm house for the President.

On Saturdays we were sure of a visit of from one to a half dozen of President Young’s girls, who made it a rule to be at the farm whenever convenient. Those products of plural marriage were perfect speciments of healthful, robust girlhood, full of romping, joyous life, and, withal, pure, guileless and unsophisticated. My acquaintance with the girls soon ripened into a strong and lasting friendship. I soon became an apparently welcome visitor to President Young’s “Lion House” residence, and more especially to the apartments of “Aunt” Zina D. H. Young, whose gentleness of nature endeared her to every one who had the pleasure of her acquaintance. I soon learned to love her as a second mother, and today her sweet personality is one of the cherished memories of my life.

As a boy can be acquainted with a man, I knew President Young, who, barring his unyielding and inexplicable fanaticism, was “every inch a man.” During nearly two years father and I were once-a-week night guards, under the direction of “Uncle” Joseph Schofield, at the Lion and Beehive residences of President Young.

In 1863 father moved to Fillmore, Millard county, one hundred and fifty miles south of Salt Lake City. Millard was one of the “cow” counties, and I soon added “broncho-busting” to my other limited accomplishments.

In 1864 father took me with him to Adamsville in Beaver county, where we built a rude air-pumping apparatus for an iron furnace or smelter. We were then near the scene of the Mountain Meadows massacre, and there were then living in Beaver City, several men who participated in that terrible affair. And I yet vividly remember the expression of hopeless dejection which characterized their appearance and movements. Our employer, a Mr. Stewart, had in his possession a brindle cow which was pointed out to me as one of the survivors of the four hundred head of cattle taken from the emigrants. One of the employees on the Stewart ranch at Adamsville was a man named “Nate” Dodge, from southern Utah, who was familiar with the details of the massacre. He appeared to take delight in pouring the horrid story into my ears, and in singing a lot of doggerel composed on the massacre, and which began as follows: “In splendor from the mountains some thirteen wagons came.” Night after night I listened to the story until it burned into my memory. And with what Charley Fancher had told me in the early summer of 1858, I knew that white men were the leaders in the massacre and that wholesale lying was being resorted to in order to shield the guilty. I did not, however, then know the relationship that existed between the doctrine of unquestioning obedience, the law of blood-atonement and the “reformation” which was still being impressed upon the Latterday Saints. Subsequently I visited the “Meadows” and camped on the ground where those one hundred and twenty betrayed men, women and children were butchered in obedience to the orders of the presiding priesthood of Iron county. Notwithstanding the massacre was a legitimate subject of discussion, and a result of the doctrine and policy just mentioned, there was merely a bare reference to it in the first draught of this story. The details were so appalling that I hesitated because of the dislike to being charged with appealing to the passions of the public. However, for reasons not necessary to state, I was induced to give the uncolored facts of the massacre which will be found in Chapter XXV.

In 1866 I was out on two expeditions against Chief Black Hawk and his band who had ravaged the northern part of Millard county, killed a man and boy and driven off several hundred head of cattle and horses.

In 1867 I was “called” on a mission to England where I remained a little over two years. In the matter of broadening my views of life and salvation, that mission was a godsend to me.

On my return I began the study of geology, then read Darwin’s works, and later on began an enthusiastic study of Herbert Spencer’s synthetic philosophy. Very naturally that line of study did not strengthen my faith in “exclusive” salvation.

But I staggered along and hugged to my soul the thought that I could “harmonize” many of the doctrines of Mormonism with the teachings of science.

Thus it went on until the “division” on political lines in 1891. Then my real trouble with the prophets began. As the years went by their double-dealing and treachery first incensed, then disgusted me, until my former respect for them was transformed into contempt and loathing. As a country editor, I opposed the presence of prophets in politics, and did all I could to discredit their work, which continued without abatement.

In 1906 I joined the American party, and occasionally broke into the newspapers with some rather bitter criticisms of Joseph F. Smith and others of the political prophets.

In March, 1907, the twenty-first quorum of seventy cited me to trial for my fellowship on the charge of “apostasy,” based on “general neglect of duty” and on my “public utterances regarding President Joseph F. Smith and others of the church leaders.” My quorum disfellowshipped me, and the “high-council” of the Millard stake of Zion completed the program by excommunication. It served me right; I had been an apostate from the day when, in 1871, I first resented the domination of the Mormon priesthood in politics.

During the fifty-one years in which I have intimately associated with the Mormon people, I have seen all the lights and shadows of Mormonism; I have partaken of the good there is in it, and have...