History of Salt Lake City, Part 77

Author: Tullidge, Edward Wheelock
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Star printing company
Number of Pages: 1194

USA > Utah > Salt Lake County > Salt Lake > History of Salt Lake City > Part 77

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

The writer saw their weapons brandished above the heads of their foremost men, gleaming in the flickering light of the lamps, and heard the excited cries of men eager for the word to fire.

The " G. L. U's" went to that meeting anxious for the work of revolution, as the more speedy way of "solving the Mormon problem ;" and around the stand, where for a moment there seemed a favorable opportunity, this was strongly manifested. All through the anti-Mormon warfare of that period, the judicial pro- ceedings of McKean (coupled with the idea that Grant would support an anti Mormon issue, no matter how terrible and summary) had encouraged this invading class. They had everything to gain and nothing to lose by a conflict with the primitive settlers. A strange, though deeply rooted idea, was in the radical mind that Camp Douglas was bound, in its duty to the Government, not to support the city authorities nor the great community ; but, in the case of riot or civil war, to concentrate its troops against the city authorities ; in other words, it was to be war upon the Mormon people and their leaders, who had founded the Territory and to whom, as a property, it chiefly belonged. This idea, too, was always un- derlined with the certainty that Governor Woods, who, like Mckean, had a mis- sion to put down Mormon rule, would call upon the commander of Camp Douglas for troops to support the anti-Mormon side. Fifty reckless men, therefore, in such a case, was at any time enough for civil war ; and the city and its govern- ment, in the prospect, were looked upon as their spoil.

Such were the views of those radical leaders who called that out-of-door meet- ing which had so exasperated the multitude, and in the adjourned gathering that night, at the Liberal institute, it was singular to hear how " pat" the chairman was, in mixing the " G. L. U's" and Camp Donglas in the execution of a com- mon vengeance.

That our city did not witness on this night a mournful tragedy is due alone to the fact that no weapons were drawn by any, excepting the Liberals.

On the Monday morning the Tribune came out with the following editorial :

"LET US HAVE TROOPS TO.DAY."

Referring to the disturbance of the Saturday night, the editor said :

" In view of such conduct being repeated to-day, and of the intense feeling aroused amongst the supporters of General Maxwell, and to avert any chances of a conflict, as also to secure the rights of voters at the polls, we ask the acting Gov- ernor to make a requisition for troops to be in attendance during the day or near the polls to insure peace and enforce the rights of loyal citizens. The conduct of the police on Saturday evening was such that not the slightest dependence can be placed on either their willingness or ability to preserve the peace.

" In addition to having troops in the city it would also be wise for the saloon keepers to close their doors to-day, so as to aid in making the election pass off peaceably. This seems to be demanded in consequence of the strong feeling aroused which may result disastrously unless great discretion be used.

" Let every man opposed to church domination make this an election day, 34

594

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

and set the example of keeping cool in order to be the better prepared to assert his rights and resist such intolerance at all hazards."

This war utterance of the Tribune was very like an order on board a pirate ship to clear the deck for action. It was directed, moreover, not against a citizen rabble, but against the city authorities. As for the reference to the indisposition of the police to keep the peace, and their ability to do it, the action shows that the pru- dence of the police in keeping out of the affray was the chief preventative of bloodshed. Our managing editor well knew that armed spies of the " G. L. U's" had their eyes on every policeman near, and that, had any of them engaged at the crisis, they would have been the principal marks for the ready revolvers of the radicals. The citizens undoubtedly would have helped the police, unarmed as they were. A massacre would have ensued; but before troops from Camp Douglas could have been brought into action, a terrible judgment night would have been met by the armed men who had dared war upon the city. The police knew this ; none knew it so well as they; and it was they under the direction of Mayor Wells who did keep the peace and preserve the city from bloodshed.

But that call for troops on the election day was not an unauthorized outburst of our managing editor.

" They shall have another mass meeting," said a chief of the anti-Mormon leaders, " and if they repeat it, there shall be a hundred coffins wanted next morning !"

The call for troops on the election day, and the significant suggestions to saloon keepers to close their doors, and for the radicals to " keep cool " "in order to be the better prepared " to " assert their rights, and resist such intolerance at all hazards," show how eagerly the election day would have been seized as the grand opportunity for the " hundred coffins."

Troops, however, did not come upon the city ; acting-Governor Black, this time, was not to be seduced into the serious folly of issuing a proclamation and making a requisition upon the commander of Camp Douglas, and the election was one of the most orderly Salt Lake City had ever known. Even the radicals were forced into a sort of good fellowship with the primitive citizens for the day. This signified that in spite of the oracle, the Mayor and police kept the peace by the simple manoeuver of seeing that the radicals found no opportunity to break it. The case is suggestive of many more in the history of Salt Lake City.

Let the reader couple the terribly meant purpose of the " hundred coffins," with the following letter headed

"ORGANIZATION DEMANDED.

" Editor Salt Lake Tribune.

" I have visited some of our mining camps in the vicinity of Salt Lake City, and find that there, as well as here, there is a very general feeling of deep burn- ing indignation towards, and condemnation of the barbarous proceedings in the city Saturday last.

" Some of those who have hitherto erred on the side of charity towards the Mormons, and have pleaded for tender consideration and forbearance on their be- half, are among the most earnest in their expressions of their determination to maintain for all parties and at whatever cost, the rights of citizens of Republican

595

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

America. If these rights can only be maintained-if this thrice accursed assump- tion of the right divine of kings and priests to control and dispose of the property, liberties, consciences and lives of their fellow beings, can only be put down by a conflict of arms, then let it come and the sooner the better. Far better would it be that the oft repeated threat of the Mormons should be fulfilled-that Utah should be again converted into a desert, and the whole of its citizens be baptized in their own blood than that we should live to witness the triumph of those tyran- nical, cruel, barbarous assumptions of kingly and priestly power which have been the curse of the world for ages. Let our sons and daughters be buried with us in bloody graves, rather than live to be the serfs of an ignorant, cruel, priestly aristocracy.

" It is high time for all who are opposed to the establishment in Utah of a theocracy or kingdom of any kind, should unite and organize for mutual defense and for the overthrow of this accursed system. The Liberals should meet in pub- lic in Salt Lake City or anywhere else-as Henry Ward Beecher advised the Orangemen of New York, to march every day in the year if necessary, until they can do so with perfect peace and safety. Let there be an effective organization as complete as the one we have to fight. The Mormon Church organization includes a military organization ; let us have one as effective as theirs-better if possible. Then, if necessary, pass the word and five thousand miners will rally in a few hours to the defence of free speech and republican principles. Such an event would be greatly to be deplored as it would be attended with fearful scenes and lawless violence. But, if nothing else will teach the poor willing tools of priest- craft to respect the rights of American citizens one dose of Napoleon's treatment of the Paris mobs will be a lasting and sufficient lesson. But mark it : we must have effective organization. We must know who are our leaders, and they must be men of the sterling kind-wise as well as brave should the crisis come-and many think it inevitable-the sneaks and hypocrites on both sides will fare badly.

" The majority of the citizens of these United States are unalterably opposed to the establishment of kingly or priestly assumptions and institutions on Ameri- can soil, and with them I am willing to pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor to prevent such a calamity. HONORIUS."

The second meeting came, which was to give to our city the " hundred cof- fins." Here is the statement of Mr. Joseph Salisbury :

" The meeting was held in front of the Walker House on the evening of the 12th of October, 1872. As on the first occasion, I attended as reporter of the Tribune. During the day it was whispered around that an organization had been effected and that prominent men of the city authorities would be watched by armed members of the "G. L. U's." I subsequently learned that these were un- der the control of the chairman and that at his given signal the body were to move en masse.

" I soon discovered that the programme was well arranged, and saw men known to me as " G. L. U's," moving in the crowd in twos, with their hands upon their pistols, threatening those who dared utter the slightest murmer at the wanton denunciations against the Mormon leaders. It was at this meeting that the pre- dictions uttered at the Liberal Institute and by Mr. Baskin in the Tribune office,

596

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

were to have found fulfillment, but associate justice Strickland exposed the move- ment prematurely when at the first sound of an opposing voice he arose and pro- claimed :

". The first man who interrupts this meeting I will order shot ! I mean what I say and say what I mean !'

" The radicals were extremely dissatisfied at the indiscretion of their chair- man, who should have given the signal at the opportune moment, instead of an untimely warning, in a clumsy paraphrase of General Dix's famous order- ' Shoot him on the spot ! '

" The friends of the associate justice explained that their chairman was ' drunk,' but among themselves they did not deny that there was a sober signifi- cance underlying his indiscretion.

" I subsequently learned, from conversation among the radicals that, had there been any counter demonstration, the 'G. L. U's' at a given signal would have fallen back to the side walk, in front of the Walker House, and that a volley from them, and others stationed in the windows above would have fulfilled the prophecy of U. S. Attorney Baskin-' We'll have a hundred coffins at our next meeting ! '

"Signed." JOSEPH SALISBURY."

CHAPTEP LXIX.

CONGRESSIONAL HISTORY FROM 1870. LOCAL POLITICS CARRIED TO WASH- INGTON. CONTEST FOR THE SEAT. THE ELECTION OF 1872. HOOPER RETIRES WITH HONORS. GEO. Q. CANNON ELECTED, AND POLYGAMIC COLORS NAILED TO THE MAST. MAXWELL AGAIN CONTESTS THE SEAT. W.THE "ENDOWMENT OATH" CHARGE AGAINST THE DELEGATE. DE- MIALS OF THE OATH AGAINST THE UNITED STATES BEING ADMINISTERED IN THE ENDOWMENT HOUSE. SCENES IN CONGRESS OVER UTAH AF- FAIRS. NOTES FROM THE DELEGATE'S PRIVATE JOURNAL. HON. GEO. Q. CANNON TAKES HIS SEAT IN THE FORTY-THIRD CONGRESS, BUT A COMMITTEE IS APPOINTED TO INVESTIGATE THE CONTESTANT'S CHARGES. THE CONTEST CARRIED INTO THE SECOND SESSION, CANNON HOLDS HIS SEAT.

The election for delegate to Congress in the fall of 1872, requires the con- unuation of the Congressional line of the history from the passage of the Cullom bill to the date of the contest for the delegate's seat between George R. Maxwell and George Q. Cannon.

In 1870, the said George R. Maxwell, Register of the Land Office of the Territory, had been a candidate for the office of delegate to Congress against Delegate Hooper, but had been badly beaten, receiving only a few hundred votes

597

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

as against over 26,000 votes in favor of Mr. Hooper. On the strength of this meagre vote, he contested the seat, collecting a mass of testimony, and put the delegate to the trouble and expense of rebutting it. He relied altogether for his success on the prejudices which he knew existed against the Mormons; he also accused Mr. Hooper of disloyalty, and of having taken part against the Govern- ment during the Buchanan troubles ; and of being unfitted as a delegate in Con- gress by reason of having taken the " endowment oath."

In the fall of 1872, while affairs in Utah were in the condition related in the preceding chapters it was determined by the leaders of the Mormon community that the Mormon case in its entirety should be sent to Washington. Delegate Hooper, who had represented Utah most efficiently and untiringly for ten years on the floor of the House, and who, in addition to this, had spent nearly two years in Washington as senator elect for the inchoate State of Deseret, trying to get the Territory admitted as a State, having served so long and faithfully, it was, by the People's party, deemed best to relieve him from the arduous duties of the position. Moreover he needed rest and, as a principal merchant and financier of our city, the privilege of attending to his affairs at home, and enjoying the society of his family and friends. He also needed the rest for recuperation, as it was certain should Utah be admitted as a State, at any time during the near succeeding years, Wm. H. Hooper would be called from his retirement to serve Utah in the Senate. The ques- tion then arose, in the People's party, " Who will be sent as delegate? Who is the most fitted man, at such a critical moment, to manage Utah's affairs in Congress." Many felt and urged that it would be a great misfortune to lose the service of Mr. Hooper at such a time. No man was better known in Washington than he. His reputation was excellent, and though known as a Mormon, it was generally understood that he was not a practical polygamist. He had served the Territory efficiently and to the satisfaction of his constituents, while at Washington it was confessed that Delegate Hooper had more influence than any man who had ever been sent to Congress from the Territories. This was probably partly due to the importance of Utah herself in Congress, as the peculiar problem of the Nation which was ever and anon coming up in Congress, provoking efforts for extraor- dinary special legislation, in the hope that finally some measure would be devised with capacity sufficient to solve the problem.

Others, namely the Gentiles, who had voted for the convention and the State with little faith in the value of the Mormon movement in the age, not only ad- vised the sending of a conservative Gentile at that period to Congress but the renun- ciation of polygamy itself, and the practical abandonment of the Mormon mission in its vast society aims, allowing the church to quietly settle down to a respectable religious sect. Not so, however, will the Mormons ever think. Brigham Young and his apostolic compeers were never less willing than at that moment to resign their mission, nor has the Mormon Church to this day shown the first intention to give up the fraction even of her institutions. The fifth section of the State constitu- tion signified nothing of compromise from the Church, nor any promise made to Congress touching her future conduct ; but simply left the affairs of the State to the State, and of the Church to the Church. Had Congress at that time ad- mitted Utah as a State, defining its own terms as invited in the fifth section, the

503

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

people of Utah must have accepted the State as constructed by Congress ; but as Congress did not, and as the anti-State party in Utah in this matter prevailed, the Mormon community naturally returned to their old position.

The general feeling among the clearest thinkers of Utah was, to send a strictly socialistic representative man. In the person of George Q. Cannon the Mormons believed they had such a man. " But," it was urged by some timid persons, " he is an apostle and a polygamist. If you send him, your enemies will siy that you mean to defy public sentiment, and you will be sure to evoke strong opposition." President Young, however, was in favor of his nomination, and the people determined to elect him. They certainly had the right, they said, under the constitution, to choose whom they pleased to represent them, so long as he possessed the constitutional qualifications. What had a representative's religion or family relations to do with his qualifications for Congress ? Catholics and Jews had been deemed suitable for legislators in free America, and why should Mormons le deprived of this right ?

A writer on the matter thus commented :

" It was a grand manifestation of faith and righteousness, when George Q. Cannon, an apostle and polygamist, was sent to Congress. The Mormon people have never from the first moment shirked their responsibilities, but have courted a righteous trial of their cause. Milton's motto : 'Give truth a fair and an open field ; let her grapple with error ; whoever knew truth worsted ?'-has been well applied in their case. They have never shunned investigation, but have ever met with resignation even their imprisonments and martyrdoms. At this very period President Young, as we have seen, had just submitted to arrest and imprisonment, from which he was only relieved by the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States.

" Upon consideration, the honorable anti-Mormon must confess that next to giving.up their ' institution,' the most proper thing for the Mormon people to do, was to boldly send their cause to Congress, in the person of a polygamic represen- tative. It was Congress that gave them an anti-polygamic law, which even a mis- sionary judge could not twist into an effective form ; Congress, that was everlast- ingly in travail with special legislation for Utah ; Congress and the President of the United States, who insisted that 'polygamic theocracy ' must be brought to trial somewhere or somehow. 'Polygamic theocracy ' could therefore have chosen no better field of mission for one of its ablest apostles than Congress itself. Halt a dozen earnest Mormon elders in Congress, would be the rarest godsend that the nation has seen for the last quarter of a century.

" The institutions of that people are truly embodied in President Young, but he could not go to Congress to stand in their stead. One therefore had to be chosen worthy both to represent Brigham Young and the Mormons, as a people, as well as the general interests of Utah, as a Territory. George Q. Cannon was the man, and there is no doubt that his election meant as much in the minds of the whole community."

The grave importance of the contest of the Liberal party with the People's party in the election for delegate in August, 1872, was not in the number of votes which the Liberals gave their candidate, Maxwell, but in the nature of the case as

599

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

thus expounded ; for clearly if a system could be brought to trial in the person of Brigham Young in a U. S. District Court, in Salt Lake City, similar could be done in the person of George Q. Cannon in Congress. The logic of facts would have met the successful delegate at the very threshold of Congress and excluded him, had the Supreme Court of the United States allowed polygamic theocracy to be tried, found guilty and imprisoned in the person of Brigham Young. The de- cision of the Supreme Court, disallowing Judge Mckean's doings, had, it is true, somewhat changed the case from the Mckean construction, nevertheless the party that sent George R. Maxwell to Washington anticipated some very thorough special legislation before the close of the forty-second congress, which would restore the case substantially to the McKean design by an act of Congress, more legal in form but identical in spirit and aim. " Polygamic theocracy " could be disfranchised and made ineligible for office in the persons of its upholders ; and the history of all the special legislation or attempts of members of Congress to construct and pass acts to meet the Utah case determine strongly on this line-namely the politi- cal disabling of the entire Mormon community. Such was the significance of Maxwell's contest with Cannon ; and preposterous as it would seem, the party that sent him to Washington actually expected that the Gentile contestant would take the Mormon delegate's seat.

On the 10th of September, 1872, in Salt Lake City, the Secretary of the Ter- ritory, George A. Black, in the presence of Governor Woods, opened and counted the official returns of the election held on the 5th of August last. Hon. Geo. Q. Cannon was absent, having started for California, but he was represented by Hon. S. A. Mann, late Secretary and acting Governor of the Territory, and Hon. John T. Caine ; General Maxwell was present, accompanied by Rev. Norman McLeod.

The total vote cast was 22,913, the distribution of which was: for George Q. Cannon, 20,969 ; George R. Maxwell, 1,942; W. H. Hooper, I; P. E. Connor, I.

General Maxwell read a protest against the certificate of election being given -the protest being substantially the same as his memorial to Congress in his con- test with delegate Hooper in the election of 1870. Messrs. Mann and Caine con- tented themselves with quoting the law, and showing simply that the Governor had no option in the matter, his duty being plain, to grant the certificate to the candidate having the greatest number of votes; it being the province of the House of Representatives of Congress, alone, to decide on the qualifications of its mem- bers. Failing to obtain the certificate the said contestant, George R. Maxwell, caused a notice to be served on Delegate Cannon that he should contest for the delegate's seat.

To aid Maxwell in his contest at Washington, certain apostates from the Mor- mon church made affidavits that such an oath, disloyal to the United States, as charged against Geo. Q. Cannon, was administered in the endowment house, and the intention was that all such affidavits from apostate Mormons, who had been through the endowment house, were to be furnished by the contestant Maxwell to the committee on Territories, showing sufficient cause on testimony that Geo. Q. Cannon was ineligible to Congress, and unworthy of citizenship, by said dis- loyal oath taken against the United States. Probably had the conspiracy been al-

600

HISTORY OF SALT LAKE CITY.

lowed to consummate, delegate Cannon never could have taken his scat ; but many prominent apostate Mormons were equally as concerned as Geo. Q. Can- non ; and they had given abundant evidence that they never did, and never would have been induced, even at the penalty of their lives, to take an oath disloyal to the United States. The Tribune, in behalf of these gentlemen, came out flatly with a denial in its editorial columns. Eli B. Kelsey also made an affidavit upon the case, directly testifying that he had been through the endowment house, and had passed through all the ceremonies and administrations of the house, and no such oath against the United States had ever been administered to him. His affidavit was forwarded to the committee on Territories.

It so happened that just at this time, the Salt Lake Tribune was advocating the policy, and recommending it to the Government, of the appointment of Mr. J. R. Walker as governor of Utah Territory ; at which Oscar G. Sawyer, smarting under his retirement from the editorship of the Tribune, in his little paper, the Salt Lake Mining Journal-not only dubbed Mr. J. R. Walker a " tape seller," without capacity for the governorship, but affirmed that he was as inelligible as Cannon, for similar reasons, he having once belonged to the Mormon Church in in Utah. This brought Elias L. T. Harrison out in a lecture on the endowments, delivered in the Liberal Institute, in which he also declared most solemnly to the public that no such oath of disloyalty to the United States was administered in the endowment house.

General Maxwell, however, carried his contest to Washington according to his notice. He did not accuse Mr. Cannon of rebellion during Mr. Buchanan's time, but persisted in his charge of the "endowment oath," as he had against Mr. Hooper, with the additional charge of his having conspired with Brigham Young and others to intimidate voters, under threats of death if they did not vote for him; and also charged him with living in polygamy in " violation of the laws of God and his country," with four wives. At the opening of the Forty- third Congress, Maxwell was present, and with some friends to help him, en- deavored to create an influence among members adverse to the delegate elect. When the members were being sworn in, he succeeded in inducing Mr. Merriam, of New York, to introduce a resolution into the House embodying in brief his charges against Mr. Cannon. According to the rules of the House, one objec- tion offered by a member, can prevent the swearing in of another, until it is dis- posed of by the House. He therefore had to step aside until the other delegates were sworn in; then the resolution came up for discussion. The leading men of both political parties spoke against the resolution. The reading of his certificate of election was demanded, and as it stated that his vote was over 20,000 above his opponent's, it created a sensation. It was clear. according to all precedents, and the rules of the House, that he had a strong prima facie case, and was fully entitled to his seat. On motion, the resolution was tabled, only one dissenting voice being heard, and Delegate Cannon was sworn in.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Salt Lake City, Part 77

Author: Tullidge, Edward Wheelock Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Salt Lake City, Star printing company Number of Pages: 1194

Author: Tullidge, Edward Wheelock
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Star printing company
Number of Pages: 1194