Thoughts on the Mormon Problem – A.T. Schroeder, 5/1900

Republished from the free-thought newspaper Lucifer’s Lantern

It is not here the purpose to discuss the evils of Mormonism. While I feel sure that few who read this have any
adequate conception of them, yet for the purpose of this discussion it must be assumed that you are sufficiently
informed to care to know how the spread of these evils may best be checked. I should perhaps say that in my
humble opinion, polygamy and the materialistic theology so much condemned are not the worst evils of the
Mormon system. Neither am I unmindful of the fact that in its prime, Mormon polygamy had an accompaniment
of esoteric doctrines, justifying practices which in their essence were scarcely distinguishable from the group
marriages of Australia, the polyandry of India, and the phallic worship of many ancients. While these have been
the most disgusting features, they are, for that very reason, not the most dangerous to free institutions, because
they will, as they have done, eventually produce nausea and induce revolt and reformation from within. To my
mind, the most dangerous element of Mormonism is the existence of a priesthood, whose voice is the voice of God,
whose will is the will of God, and this doctrine made applicable to all affairs of life, including temporal government.
When you remember that this substantially infallible priesthood, even now by a judicious use of its power can
control the political destinies of demagogues and political parties in five States and Territories, you can imagine
that I am not over-estimating the possible evils to come out of this hierarchy. Especially is this true when that
hierarchy boasts of world-conquering ambition, and proposes here and now to establish the temporal kingdom
of God, which is to be an outgrowth of its ecclesiastical domination in matters of state. After so much by way of
introduction, we proceed to inquire why it is that the Mormon church grows in spite of its evils. Having determined
that, we are prepared to discuss intelligently the weaknesses and strength of the various methods of checking
its growth.

POLYGAMY LURES EROTOMANIACS.

A small percent are, no doubt, attracted toward Mormonism by the very fact of its polygamy. Those who have
given thought to the subject have demonstrated the psychical co-relation between religious emotion and abnormal
sexualism. Erotomaniacs who find it difficult, or impossible, to satiate their abnormal appetites, welcome Mormonism
as a harbinger of peace. They honestly prate about the “emancipation of women through polygamy,” and “the
higher freedom” of sainthood, meaning thereby nothing very different from the perfectionism of free-lovers in
the Oneida community. In other words, by reason of the new gospel they have embraced and the “sealing
ordinances” performed in the secret temples of the Mormon church, they have acquired a perfection which
makes it morally right for them to do what would be immorally wrong for others. In so far as this condition is
the result of erotomania, it is without the scope of this discussion. Such cases can usually be best treated
by physicians, who sometimes can relieve the abnormal physical conditions which are its cause. In so far as
this tendency is due only to abnormal mental states, it requires ethical training not unlike that which would be
applied to any case of moral anaesthesia arising from want of such education, and not lack of capacity therefor.
In these classes of cases criminal laws are sometimes of affirmative value. In the first, a fear of punishment may
serve as a counter-irritant, and thus supply a moral strength sufficient to overcome an immoral tendency, often
produced by only incipient physical abnormity. In the second class of cases, criminal laws may sufficiently supply
the want of moral dynamics, to overcome lawless tendencies, at least in their most demoralizing manifestations.

THE MORMON FOR REVENUE.

But there are still other and large classes of Mormons not thus to be disposed of, including the convert for temporal
gain. In the past, promises of prosperity often induced the acceptance of the “gospel” as taught by “Latter-day Saints.”
Ignorant foreigners were led to believe that a portion of the Government’s domain, acquired under Congressional
acts, was God’s temporal reward for piety, bestowed upon the convert through the Mormon priesthood. This has
almost, but not entirely, ceased. Mormon clannishness and co-operation, coupled with the increased opportunity
offered by the undeveloped resources of the west, still make it possible for the “Saints” to improve the material
welfare of most converts. The “Saints” for revenue are usually zealous only as long as it is profitable. They are
neither highly intellectual nor deeply moral. They are pre-eminently practical, subscribe to any creed and pay their
tithes with great regularity—so long as it pays to do so. Such give little real superstitious adherence to the church,
and sometimes, in spite of very limited opportunity, emerge into a state of intellectual self-respect, sufficient to
induce apostasy. Often, however, when they apostatize it is because they have become economically independent,
and cease to feel a necessity for the continued payment of tribute to the supposed dispensers of divine blessings.
The church leaders see among the wealthy a tendency toward apostasy, and devise subtle means of preventing
such as may not remain entirely subservient to their will from becoming rich enough to be “stiff-necked,” instead
of “humble before the Lord and His servants.” One of many means used to perpetuate the slave virtue of humility
was to induce the “brother” to become a polygamist. Educational means of the particular kind which I shall hereafter
advocate for the more honest and fanatical Mormons is, in my judgment, also best fitted to increase the number
of apostates from among this class of “Saints.” Even when apostasy is not the result, they will often be a strong
force to aid in reforming Mormonism from within, which is quite as important as to induce apostasy. Theological
education will seldom serve any purpose with those belonging to this class. They are not religious, and look
upon churches only as a means to an end.

THE HONEST AND FANATICAL MORMONS.

We next discuss the most numerous, the most sincere and, in the hands of an unscrupulous priesthood, the most
dangerous class of Mormons. These really believe proper church authorities to be the “Living Oracles of God,” of
whose utterances it is said that whether it is by God’s own voice, or the voice of His servants, it is the same. From
this class came those fanatics who, upon hearing the doctrine of blood-atonement, as once publicly taught in the
Mormon church, were ready to cut the throat of an apostate, and consoled themselves with the thought that in
shedding their neighbor’s blood, without which shedding he could not be saved, they had carried out the mandate
of Jesus to “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” They had loved their erring neighbor well enough to shed his blood, and
thereby secured to him an eternal exaltation. By the control of these over faithful ones, a designing priesthood can
induce subservience on the part of demagogues outside of the church, and hypocrites within it. These will do, from
considerations of expediency, what others do as a matter of religious duty. By these forces the very essence of free
institutions may be destroyed. While yet observing the forms of republican government they, by controlling the
conscience of the devout followers and effecting the purse or political prospects of others, can make the States
under their control what Utah Territory was in the past: a mere instrument of a cunning priesthood. In order that
we may better understand these individuals, we must examine closer into their antecedents and their present
intellectual status.

LAGGARDS IN RELIGIOUS EVOLUTION.

All religions are a growth. The inspired utterances of yesterday are the nursery twaddle of today. The living oracles of
one age are to succeeding ages only mythmakers. On the highway of progress from an infallible priest to a rational
man; from miracle to law; from sorcery to science; from the casting out of devils, to medicine and hospitals; from
witchcraft to sanity, there are myriads of passengers, traveling in many varieties of vehicles and with infinitely different
rates of speed. As this procession is passing along the road we discover many laggards, those who still believe that
God talked to Moses face to face, and may again so talk to His chosen servants; those who believe the sick were
actually healed by the power of the Holy Ghost as embodied in a priest; those who still believe that pious men have
raised the dead, and truly pious could right here and now restore vitality to a lifeless organism. In short, right now
and here, in the midst of our boasting civilization and much-vaunted education, we have a very large and, in my
judgment, a numerically much under-estimated population who still in many respects live in the middle ages. Such
persons readily empty their coffers into the lap of a woman who can hurl at them the largest jumbles of meaningless
jargon, if properly labeled with high-sounding piety. From the ranks of these come also the followers of that innumerable
band of mystic degenerates who, for a consideration, secure messages for you over the wireless telephone from
spiritland. Among them also may be found some of the Salvation Army recruits, composed partly of well-meaning
men and women, with deformed bodies and crippled minds, who hope by a mingling of nonsense and charity to
secure in the hereafter that higher pleasure which, for want of healthy bodies and sound minds, they cannot enjoy
here. It is from the ranks of these hysterical, visionary laggards in the evolution of religion that come the believers
in the revelations of Mother Anne Lee of Shaker fame, the followers of a Swedenborg, and the prophets of the
Seventh-Day Adventists. Thence came the advocates of spiritual wifery in the Old World, the Free-lovers of the
Oneida community, the modern believers in witchcraft, the spiritual brides of Mathias the prophet, the “angels”
of a Schweinforth, the dupes of Dowie, the Zionist, as well as the miracle-working, polygamous Mormons.
These laggards have not profited by the improvement which modern civilization has made upon the
crudities of Christianity’s childhood, and they look upon the advanced minister and his “higher
criticism” with misgivings and suspicion.

HOW THE MISSIONARY CONVERTS THE VISIONARY.

All the weaknesses of these mediaeval Christians are well known to the Mormon missionary. He insists on literalism
in interpreting the Bible, and thus interpreted he swallows the Old Testament as well as the New, and Jonah as well
as Solomon. He points to the improvement made by modern civilization upon primitive Christianity, as an evidence
that the whole Christian church has apostatized from its genuine beginning, and that Mormonism is a necessary re
-establishment of the gospel in its original purity. With the gospel have been restored the gift of healing the sick,
raising the dead, casting out devils, immediate and continuous revelations, the “living oracles,” and “the temporal
kingdom of God,” in which He reigns through His priesthood. Mormonism promises its converts more than any
other church of which I know. If a candidate for sainthood manifests any interest in Mormonism, he is advised to
go to God in prayer and ask a fulfillment of the Bible promise, that he who seeks shall find. This victim of his own
superstitions now fervently prays for a testimony from on high as to whether or not Mormonism is true. His very
earnest anticipation suggests and directs the course of his dreams, which are interpreted and accepted as God’s
manifested approval of the Latter-day gospel. Now he “knows” that Mormonism is true. It is not a belief, not a
matter arrived at by processes of logic, but a matter of direct and personal knowledge coming to him through his
sixth, or spiritual, sense. He boasts of “that peace which passeth understanding,” and looks with pity upon those
unfortunates who, for want of a proper spiritual perception, think him in error. A trainload of Bibles and an army
of fifteenth-century theologians can never disillusionize this new convert. His faith and his folly are based upon the
Bible. A wrong interpretation of it, if you please, but what he “knows” is an inspired and an infallible interpretation.
There are but two ways of restoring such a man. One is by the long, and to him often arduous or even impossible,
process of education which will give him a scientific knowledge of the psychology of dreams.

The other is to show him by Mormon literature that his testimony is unreliable, in that it by necessary implication
involves God’s endorsement of almost every folly and crime, because the “Living Oracles” of his church have, by
practice or precept, justified nearly all of them. So long as a belief in the “Living Oracles” exists, no argument
based upon Bible premises can possibly be effective. Spiritualists and Christian Scientists would most easily
take such an one from the Mormon system. Even the methods suggested by me would be less successful with
this class, and could reach only a small percent. The children of such men, if they do not inherit or do outgrow
paternal weaknesses, will still have as much confidence in the dreams of their own fathers as in the mysticism
of others. The difficulty in reaching even the children by theological methods lies in this, that the testimony of their
friends and parents to marvelous occurrences are quite as convincing as the miraculous tales of the Jewish
patriarchs and the early Christian fathers. For want of a personal experience in miracle work, he is open to
conviction that all alleged suspension of the natural laws are untruths. You can never convince him that the
living witnesses who assert they have seen people raised from death are mistaken, while asking him to believe
the testimony of dead witnesses to equally improbable tales. The non-theological and non-religious arguments
are also, for this reason, the most effective. While the apostate very seldom becomes anything but a Christian
Scientist, an Infidel or a Spiritualist, his children are very often found in the evangelical churches. When such an
uninstructed horde, still living in the middle ages, is marshalled under the leadership of a few whose human follies
and passions are invested with the authority of divine sanction, they become a seriously dangerous element in
our civilization.

THE PROBLEM STATED.

Here, then, is the real problem. How are we to deal with these honest fanatics, who, when left to the guidance of
their individual instincts would, in the main, follow the well-beaten path of the average man’s morals? What are we
to do to prevent these often unscrupulous and always selfish “mouthpieces of God” from extending their influence
over an increasing number of this unreasoning mob? How can we decrease the extent of the system’s influence
and lessen the degree of its evils? Such I conceive to be our problem, and the facts which create it. In our search
for a solution we would be wanting in fidelity to our cause if we did not resort to a critical study of past and present
efforts, their successes and their failures, as a means of educating us for the future work.

MISSION SCHOOLS AS REFORMING AGENCIES.

One of the remedies used is the mission school, established mainly under Protestant auspices. Those schools which
expect to reach the children of true Mormons have usually found it necessary to avoid all instruction which was a
direct attack upon Mormonism, either as an ethical, a social, or theological system. Schools which have not done this
have mainly limited their usefulness to work upon such as had already practically left the Mormon church under other
influences. By example and indirection the immediate effect of these schools has been good, and doubtless they
have made many young Saints feel dissatisfied with the system of their fathers, but without knowing definitely why.
When asked to defend their lack of interest in the church, or a refusal to go on a mission, they have been at a loss
for arguments with which to justify their course, even to their own satisfaction. His own want of proper information,
coupled with many considerations of expediency, soon induce such an one to yield. He goes on a mission during
which the course of his work is so directed that he meets but few who are his superiors intellectually. From this fact,
or the general ignorance about Mormonism, they are unable to answer his arguments made in its favor. At the end
of his two years or more of missionary work he has at least convinced himself that his case is a good one, that
Mormonism is the only true religion, and the Mormon people really the cream of humanity. By this time that little
good done by the mission school has been overcome and the school itself might as well not have existed, so far
as any effect upon the special problem of Utah is concerned. If any effect remains, it is only in the existence of
such few additional accomplishments as will make the former student a more effective Mormon missionary. The
fault of the mission school has been that it dared not, or did not, supply the doubter with the specific facts and
arguments which directly tend to discredit Mormonism, and would best enable the Mormon student to defend his
skepticism. A further weakness is the fact that the mission school can directly reach only the children of those who
are already so far from orthodox Mormonism as to make them willing to give publicity to their doubting condition.

THE MISSION CHURCH AS A REFORMATORY

The next and most expensive reformatory has been the mission church. And here it might be said that there are
very few churches in Utah which are not mission churches. So far as their effectiveness as proselyting forces is
concerned, they are practically failures, and so confessed even among the missionaries themselves. I am informed
through a clergyman for some years in charge of one of these churches, that one convert from Mormonism in
twenty-eight years was the extent of the achievements of his mission church. Notwithstanding this they have
done good. The voice of the missionary has always stood as a protest against the wrongs of Mormonism, not
always a protest induced by the broadest humanity, nor by the highest ethics, but a useful protest nevertheless.
The Christian missionary was not dependent, as usually is the business man, upon the good will of Mormon
neighbors. Honesty and courage were, therefore, cheaper commodities with him than for the rest of the Gentile
community. This made him naturally the center of agitation and the spokesman of even those who could not claim
to be Christians. While thus useful to give warnings of danger, as is a lighthouse in a fog, yet as a life-saving crew
for the intellectual shipwreck, they have accomplished little. The reason is obvious. If the minister undertakes to
discuss any of the absurdities of Mormonism, he is confronted with a Bible text which, at least to the Mormon mind,
is a justification. At once the discussion, instead of being about Mormonism, becomes one of Bible interpretation,
in which there is no possibility of convincing the Mormon. He remembers that the Bible says the Scriptures are not
of private interpretation, and he believes his church to have the only “Living Oracles” whose interpretation is the
final authority. In the face of this, any argument having no greater force than a minister’s logic must fail. Therein lies
one weakness in the evangelical methods of reform. Neither can such discussion be avoided with the best of effort,
for the reason that the Mormon claims to be the only true Christian and relies especially upon the Bible to demonstrate
his claim. Besides this, every Mormon is carefully trained, in preparation for his missionary work, from which none
are exempt, and he rather delights in getting an opportunity to defend his faith on Bible grounds. Another weakness
of the mission church lies in the fact that the Mormon looks upon the Christian minister as a personal enemy, a
religious zealot, the advocate of all legalized coercion, and therefore is seldom lured beyond the portals of the
mission chapel in which the evangelist is shedding his light.

The person who comes out of Mormonism into any other Christian church as the immediate and direct result
of Christian missionary efforts, is so rare as to be a real curiosity. Most of the few ex-Mormons who are to
be found in Christian churches will, I believe, be found to have joined them after leaving Mormonism, not as
the direct result of any missionary’s efforts, but as the result of general intellectual evolution or a resentment
of wrongs inflicted by the Mormon priesthood. Even to such the mission church was a help, because it
furnished the dissenter a rallying point and friends.

SHORTCOMINGS OF ANTI-MORMON LITERATURE

Much literature has been printed upon the subject of Mormonism. There are about 2000 books, pamphlets and
magazine articles relating to the subject, some of which have been run through many editions, and thousands
of newspaper articles besides. Yet how few of these, except those published by their own church, have any
Mormons been tempted to read? Not many of the very few books read by them were well enough adjusted to
the Mormon intellectual bent and capacity to do him any good. Instead of being circulated for elevating purposes
among the “Saints,” they have only been used for sensational purposes outside Mormondom. It was intended
to arouse hostility against Mormons, not to increase intellectuality among them. Anti-Mormon literature was
sold for money-making purposes beyond Utah and not gratuitously distributed for educational purposes within
Utah. A few tracts have been distributed, but in the main they have been devoted to demonstrating what was
self-evident, as that the Mormon idea of God is not in harmony with, perhaps, a Presbyterian interpretation of
the Bible’s conception of Him. Sometimes it has been argued that God didn’t mean what He is reported to have
said when speaking of the polygamist David as a man after His own heart. At other times it seemed as though
the vital question was whether God, after talking face to face with Moses, had lost the power of speech, so that
His reported conversations with the Mormon Prophet are impossible. So long as anti-Mormon missionary literature
is limited to dissertations on theology, seeking no higher processes than Old Testament interpretations, the Mormon
“apostle” is quite justified in viewing the reformer with a smile. Further, so long as anti-Mormon agitation is of a
kind suited only to and used mainly among non-Mormons, the well-disposed philanthropist will throw his money
to the wind without much return, except the consciousness of having kept some well-meaning men in harmless
employment. In view of the fact that anti-Mormon literature has usually been prepared for non-Mormon consumption,
and missionary efforts have been devoted so largely to theology and Bible interpretation, is it at all remarkable
that the Mormon increase was larger last year than ever before and larger than in any Protestant church in the
United States? To be more effective, reformatory literature should be devoted to showing the human origin of
Mormonism, its follies and its iniquities, by a critical examination of the system itself. Had a small per cent of
the immense sum spent for the theological regeneration of Utah been judiciously spent in printer’s ink and
postage stamps, there would today be no Mormon problem.

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT AS A REFORMATORY

Promoters are now floating two new reformatory enterprises which deserve consideration. The first of these is an
amendment to the Federal Constitution, giving Congress power to legislate upon the subject of polygamy. That is to
be followed by the passage of criminal laws which, among other things, will, by the test-oath method, disfranchise
all polygamists. Some of the more zealous want a disfranchisement clause made part of the Constitutional amendment,
so as to make it impossible for Congress to repeal this part of the penalty and to prevent Presidential amnesties.
Such a constitutional provision can be justified only on the doubtful theory that Congress cannot be trusted to
determine what is a just and humane punishment for polygamy, and the still more doubtful one that the American
people are already sufficiently informed to prescribe beyond repeal the remedy for the problem of polygamy as it
will shortly be presented in the Philippine islands. The mere matter of giving to Congress power to legislate upon
the subject of polygamy, with the expectation that it will exercise that power, cannot be objectionable from the
moralist’s point of view, and can offer some purely political considerations in its behalf. With this, however, we are
not now concerned. We are to discuss this amendment and the agitation which will precede it, as a reformatory
force. This amendment is aimed only at polygamy. It does not and cannot be made to touch the greater evil which
both underlies and overshadows Mormon polygamy, viz.: the existence of a priesthood which is held above human
criticism, and its control of State affairs, through the consequent divine authority over civil officers. Legislation has
never worked a true reform of either sexual appetite or misdirected religious zeal, even when standing separately;
much less can it do so when, as here, the two are combined. By legislation you may destroy the outward manifestations
of the evil, and thus curtail its damaging influence upon others, and for purposes of self-defense this is perfectly
justifiable. But in the case under discussion it has not, and cannot, work any real reform.

By real reform I mean a removal of the desire for wrongdoing, and not simply to supply an increased pleasure to be
derived from the added zest of a necessary secrecy. To compel secrecy is sometimes, but not always, a wise means
of protecting society; but as a means of reforming physical appetites, natural in kind, though perhaps abnormal in
degree, it is quite worthless. When such appetites are being gratified under the influence of religious fanaticism,
every obstacle overcome, and every punishment suffered, is but another jewel added to a martyr’s crown. The
physical incarceration of the few polygamists can never secure a mental liberation of their many fanatical followers.
The woman who, with bleeding heart, accepts a wife’s place in a polygamous household, believing it a divinely
imposed cross to be borne as a means of crushing out selfishness, and thus fitting her for a higher exaltation in
the hereafter, is not to be reformed by criminal laws. She is more deserving of pity than punishment. By legislation
you can make her hate you, and the Government whose heavy blows you are directing. You can drive her to treachery
in the performance of her religious duty, or to a treasonable resentment of misunderstood legislation, or even to a
martyr’s grave, but you can’t by legislation alone, work her reform. No better proof of this need be asked for than
is furnished by the history of the Mormon expulsions from Ohio, Missouri and Illinois, as well as the history of anti
-polygamy legislation in Utah. You may and you should, but for necessary self-protection only, legislate against her
crime. When, however, you seek to reform such women, it must be by kindly ministrations and appropriate education,
not the sting of scorn, nor the criminal law’s lash. These last will do good in suppressing or shaming into decency
the knave who thrives on the follies, the ignorance and the passions of others, but not in reforming those of his
dupes who are really honest, and who constitute the largest part of the Mormon church and make the Mormon
problem. Since the designing leaders usually are sensitive to no public opinion, except that of their own followers,
it again is essential to educate the humble tithe-payers.

WHAT MUST ACCOMPANY LEGISLATION

The constitutional amendment, therefore, is not sufficient, and, unaccompanied by the proper educational methods
to be used in Utah, probably means only the expenditure of large sums of money in alarming the American people,
for which expenditure there can be no adequate return, unless a tickling of the philanthropist’s vanity is considered
adequate. By proper educational methods, I mean something more elevating ethically and more practical than
theological discussions or Bible interpretation. More than that, unless as much money is spent in sensible, broad
-minded, direct methods of educating the Mormon out of his follies, as will be spent to coerce him out of them, the
agitation and the amendment will result in as much harm as good, in that they will only breed disloyalty, multiply
zealots and create martyrs. If accompanied by proper non-theological education, such as will be hereafter described,
very much of this evil would be avoided. Further, if the same methods of intentionally told sensational falsehoods
are to be used in arousing public sentiment in favor of this amendment, as were unnecessarily used in some
quarters to arouse in the East an anti-Roberts feeling, then that agitation will be little less than criminal. Should
such a contingency again arise, then, as before, many thoughtful people will keep aloof. Those thinking ones who
remain in the movement will do so either through ignorance of the wrongs which by their silence they seem to be
indorsing, or with many misgivings as to which work most needs their assistance—that of the reformers, or a duty
to reform the reformers.

THE REFORMERS’ MORAL OBLIGATIONS

The honest Mormon polygamists, unlike most criminals, are not committing crime from mere conscious wantonness,
but from considerations of religious duty. The honest ones are criminals from ignorance and fanaticism, not from
malice nor a greed for gain. If they become malicious, it is in resentment of misunderstood coercive methods.
Perhaps you can solve a social problem resulting out of such conditions by coercion alone, but it has never been
done. If Mormons should all be killed, the problem would disappear, but it wouldn’t be solved, much less solved
properly. All good citizens, and especially pretended philanthropists and reformers, owe it as a moral obligation
to the Mormon people to give them an opportunity to know better, as well as by force to compel them to do better.
Educate them to right thinking, and you need not coerce them to right doing. The same stern obedience to conscience
which now compels resistance to law and the courting of martyrdom would, under conditions of right thinking, make
a disobedience of these same laws an impossibility. Philanthropists and reformers also owe the Government a duty
in this matter. No government can retain the affection of its people, nor secure a cheerful submission to its laws,
unless the masses of its people are convinced of the impartial administration of justice. Unless we so educate the
Mormons that the bulk of the intelligent ones appreciate the justice of our laws and criminal prosecutions aimed
especially at them, we must necessarily induce disloyalty. The responsibility for this disloyalty, when it comes, must
rest largely upon those who spend thousands for anti-Mormon agitation to stimulate religious hatred, while refusing
to spend anything in effective methods to reform Mormonism from within. Patriotic sentiment is a developer of
individuality of the kind that will not yield to priestly subversion of governmental function. When a Mormon truly
appreciates the greatness and extraordinary generosity of this Government toward the people of Utah, his now
great priesthood becomes puny by comparison, and its strange and treasonable conceits will provoke resentment.
Blindfold the Mormon with revengeful passion, by seeming persecution of those whom he reveres, and he
will not only do as all Mormons used to do, take an oath to avenge the blood of the prophets on our Government
and teach his children to do so, but he will be ready to execute that vengeance. Hence the double duty of
those who plead for more legislation to supply also the most effective kind of education. We cannot, and
should not, attempt to destroy Mormonism by coercion, and if you will not endeavor to reform it, or curtail
its evils by suitable education, then you write yourself down as still believing more in the potency and
morality of the torch of persecution than in the torch of reason.

THE UTAH GOSPEL MISSION

The latest scheme for the regeneration of Utah, which is now being financiered among Eastern philanthropists,
is the “Utah Gospel Mission.” This organization proposes to send to Utah a large number of young men who
will do colporteur work, and who will know all about almost everything except Mormonism. The number of
these is to be so large as to make it possible for them to reach by personal visitation at least once each year,
every one of the 300,000 Mormons. Another feature of this work will be evangelism, as if by exhortation and
song the Mormon could be convinced that Solomon was a monogamist, and David a celibate. It may be worthy
of suggestion here that it is very doubtful if any expert on abnormal psychology or nervous disease would
prescribe the emotional methods of evangelism as suited to aid in solving any problem of sexual vice,
especially when coupled with religious zeal. The third feature will be agitation outside of Utah, where, by
literature, addresses and newspaper work, the labor of the Mormon missionary is to be made less fruitful.
In so far as this scheme contemplates the reaching of all members of the church, and attempting to make
fruitless the missionaries’ labors, it aims in the right direction. While the aim is in the right direction, the
multiplicity of small guns to be used is unnecessarily expensive, and the ammunition far from being the
most effective. It is the expressed intention to put the great questions of polygamy, the infallibility of the
priesthood, and the priesthood control over affairs of State, into subordinate positions, as mere incidents of
an erroneous theology. Thus more emphasis must be put upon reforming people’s opinions about the next
life than will be put upon reforming their conduct in this. Let us inquire whether we are right in charging
such narrow-mindedness upon these reformers.

THEOLOGY ABOVE MORALS.

In the prospectus upon which this scheme is being financially floated, occurs in italics this statement: “The real
trouble is not polygamy, but heathenism.” An inquiry as to what was meant by that “heathenism,” which was so
much worse than polygamy, brought forth the prompt answer that it meant the Mormon idea of God. Since many
law-abiding citizens outside of Utah hold views about God equally unorthodox with those of the Mormon, it would
seem they too must be considered worse than being guilty of polygamy, and the other crimes of Mormonism,
and therefore all the more deserving of like disfranchisement by constitutional amendment. Of course, it also
follows from this that the Utah Gospel Mission must consider its work practically a failure if, without destroying
the Mormon organization, it only made all Mormons good, law-abiding citizens, who hold their citizenship above
priesthood control. By thus making theological reconstruction paramount to questions of social and political
morality, these reformers demand what seems unjust to others and to the cause, viz.: that all believers in
unorthodox theology must engage in a race for advantage to a mere ism, stay out of the anti-Mormon work,
or make themselves a tail to a theological kite which they perhaps abhor. Another of these reformers recently
wrote of the Mormon idea of God, that it was “too blasphemous to quote.” Of course, if Mormon doctrines are
too blasphemous to quote, they cannot be discussed. If they cannot be discussed, Mormons can and must
be converted only by coercion. To such men constitutional amendments are real reform machinery. Such
premises of bigotry always lead to persecution, and such a bigot always deserves contempt. It is not true,
as has been asserted in defense of this narrow position, that polygamy is the outgrowth of Mormon theology.
The very reverse is the fact. Lust must exist before the deification of lust, just as, in fact, Mormon polygamy
as a practice preceded Mormon advocacy of the polygamous Adam-God. Man always makes his God endorse
what he himself has first conceived to be the most desired good. Reform man’s moral precepts, and he will
make his conception of God conform.

MORE ABOUT THE UTAH GOSPEL MISSION.

The information to be disseminated by this “Utah Gospel Mission” will be in kind exactly the same as that heretofore
furnished by the Utah missionary, without substantial results. The quality, however, will be inferior, for the reason that
those who are to do the work will, for some years at least, be less competent than the Utah workers are, because
less informed as to the special problem they are working on. The Utah Gospel Mission is inter-denominational in
its pretensions, if not in its manager. If it is a good thing to make your reform work broad enough to interest those
belonging to other evangelical churches, as well as your own, then it is still better to make it so broad as to appeal
also to the remaining two-thirds of the population of the United States. When all have united and succeeded in
destroying those evils of the Mormon system, about which all are agreed, there will be time enough left in which
to quarrel about who did the most work, or is entitled to the largest garden patch in which to sow his particular
kind of gospel seed.

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT AND THEOLOGY.

It is a matter of regret that the Utah Gospel Mission’s narrowness is endorsed by leaders of the movement for an
anti-polygamy constitutional amendment, because others will wonder if the amendment is also but an incident in
a scheme for theological, as distinguished from moral, regeneration. It is thought that the personnel and the
method of those who give direction to this agitation should be such as to be in themselves a guarantee that
the machinery constructed for it is not a mere preliminary toward the disfranchisement of others guilty of that
worse offense of “heathenism.” There are many religious and non-religious people who are willing to destroy
polygamy, but who are not yet ready to build up a semi-political organization controlled by men who believe
that erroneous opinions about God are worse offenses than the practice of polygamy. A management which
appreciates the immorality of theological error above violations of law, discredits the arguments made in favor
of the constitutional amendment, because it invites a suspicion that they argue only for a means of religious
persecution in furtherance of purely theological ends.

THE EDUCATIONAL REMEDY APPLIED.

If you wish to subvert the Mormon missionary, your efforts must be as cosmopolitan as is the ubiquitous Elder. To
do this you must have a center of information where all who apply can receive free of charge, accurate statements
of fact. This bureau should as far as possible keep itself informed as to the whereabouts of Mormon missionaries,
sound the alarm in their various fields of labor, and supply to the local clergy and others, without charge if necessary,
suitable literature with which to oppose Mormon aggressions. If supplied with arguments instead of inflammatory
denunciation, the bigots in our Southern States might not so often be tempted to the indefensible use of mob
violence upon the Elder. Thus we may also incidentally reform our gentile friends. This same, or better suited
literature should be sent free of charge to every Mormon willing to read it. It should be especially forced upon
the attention of that thoughtful class of young people who attend the various academies under Mormon control.
That well-tempered, argumentative, non-theological literature would be read by most of those who receive it, is
almost certain. Most Mormons are well trained in the stock arguments, by which their faith is defended. This
gives them confidence in their position with a correspondingly increased intellectual hospitality. It has occurred
that Mormon meeting houses have been opened and filled with Mormon audiences, in order to give opponents
a chance to destroy Mormonism. These examples of religious liberality which, for generalizing purposes must
be taken with a discount, are yet worthy examples, and insure a hearing in most Mormon homes where reading
is not a lost art. Every one sufficiently conversant with Mormon history to entitle his opinion to respect, knows
that the Mormons and Mormonism of today are quite an improvement upon the Mormons and Mormonism of
the days of the Utah Reformation. If a marked advance has been made with only half decent help, then still more
rapid reformation is possible with the right kind of intellectual aid. The expense of this method of reaching the
Mormon mind is so small a per cent of the cost of ordinary missionary work, and can reach so many thousand
more than the ordinary missionary does reach, that one is at a loss to know why the mails have been used so
little, or not at all. Another circumstance which induces the hope that Mormons can be helped by the methods
suggested, lies in the fact that Mormonism can boast of a higher percentage of apostates than any other church.
Of the first twelve apostles, ten are said to have apostatized.

These apostates are, or can be made an improvement on themselves as compared with their condition while in the
church. Another evidence that such literature as is herein described would be read, is furnished by the Godbeite
movement. By these dissenters was started the “Mormon Tribune,” out of which grew the present Salt Lake Tribune.
While every Mormon felt in duty bound not to give financial aid to the paper by way of a subscription, hundreds
would borrow and some even steal it, and read its contents to whole neighborhoods. This condition continued
long after the Salt Lake Tribune became a vigorously anti-Mormon paper. While these reformers at first hoped
only to improve Mormonism yet the self-induced examination of the system for reform purposes, necessarily
resulted in their disbelief of the whole of it. All properly adjusted educational reform must be along this line of
development and in aid of it.

NON-THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION DEFINED.

The literature sent out from this bureau should be so constructed that all, the Protestant, the Atheist, the Catholic,
the Jew, and the Unitarian, can without doing violence to their conscience support the bureau. So too, the literature
must be supplied alike to all, and be so constructed that each will feel safe in recommending it to his co-religionists,
leaving each sect to make his own application of the facts presented. First of all the reformer must attack the
two fundamentals of Mormonism. After the destruction of the weeds, the sowing of seed is more effective. These
fundamentals are the divine origin of the Book of Mormon upon which the whole structure of Mormonism rests,
and the existence of a priesthood whose voice is the voice of God, out of which conception of the priesthood
grow all of the iniquities of the Mormon system. The attack upon the divinity of the Book of Mormon should be
made upon two grounds only. These are the insufficiency of the evidence to establish the claim of its divine
origin, and the argument based upon the historical and internal evidences demonstrating its human origin.
While many attempts have been made at this, it is still necessary and possible to produce something more
convincing to Mormons than has yet been put forth. The pretensions of the priesthood to continuous divine
revelation should be attacked, not by showing their revelation to be out of harmony with somebody’s interpretation
of the Bible, but by showing this inspired priesthood to have by precept, or practice, justified almost every folly
and crime, which a lot of ignorant, lustful, selfish men could well devise. Under this head, and the general ethical
literature comes the attack upon polygamy. When this is done as it can be done by evidence from authorized
church publications, and not mere bald assertion, you have at once discredited the inspiration of the “mouthpieces
of God.” Very much can be done upon the lines indicated, and practically nothing thereof has been done. Many
Mormons are better than their creed, or their priesthood, though this involves an inconsistency. Make your
principal attack upon polygamy, the priesthood whose voice is the voice of God, or its ecclesiastical control
of politics, and you have always with you that most powerful influence for good, viz.: active sympathy within
the enemy’s camp. But make your main attack a theological one, and you invite a united opposition.

Those who otherwise would be your allies, are now usually driven to a defense of the whole system, evils and all, and
at the same time they acquire a vigorous contempt for the doubtful sincerity of a reformer who is more interested in
theology than to assist in an internal betterment. If the missionary is more interested in destroying, than in reforming
Mormonism, it is concluded by many Mormons that he secretly wants a continued polygamy, because it is a fruitful
means of inducing greater generosity in the fear-stricken philanthropist. The advent of such a suspicion of insincerity
marks in the mind wherein it arises the decline of the missionary’s possibility for usefulness. That such a suspicion
exists in many Mormon minds to the injury of missionary efforts none will deny though we may often deny the justice
of it. In stating the kind of argument to be used, I intentionally omitted those derived from Bible premises, because
all such arguments necessarily degenerate into mere Bible interpretation wherein the inspired and divinely appointed
head of the church always is the easy victor. For these reasons, then, I believe that non-theological arguments based
mainly upon authoritative Mormon literature, will be the most effective. By non-theological education I do not mean
a useless duplicating of the secular work of the public schools, nor the distinctive theistic or agnostic arguments,
but a non-religious direct argumentative attack upon Mormon fundamentals, accompanied by such purely ethical
assistance as the special features of the problem would seem to require. Upon such a platform for educational
work, it seems to me all sensible people can unite. Those who refuse to co-operate with liberal religionists, Jews
or Catholics, upon this common ground for improving the intellect, the morals, and the citizenship of Mormons,
are too narrow to be encouraged by any except partisans of their own special brand. Make your solution of this
problem a work of broad critical education, not solely a matter of legislative coercion possibly induced or enforced
in part by religious zeal, or as an aid to theological mission work. Let it be a question of good morals, and of good
citizenship, with efforts directed as much to a reform as a destruction of Mormonism, and then you will command
among Mormons a respect and a hearing such as mere theologians have never secured, and never will secure, until
the way has been prepared for them by other than the favorite methods of the few most contracted among them.

When the philanthropists shall cease to give substantial encouragement to those narrowest among the reformers
of Mormonism, they will receive from within and without the church a help and sympathy which will not allow
itself to be used for solely theological ends, but which nevertheless can do substantial good. There are here
great questions of good government and common decency which should not be submerged in mere theological
discussion, that for reasons already given, must prove fruitless. When the right kind of an attack upon Mormonism
shall be made, it will be upon such a broad plain as to invite the co-operation of all interested in the problem. It
is not sufficient that it be instituted in the interests of any church, or set of churches. It must include the Catholic,
the Infidel, the Universalist and the Jew, and the religiously indifferent. It will be more educational than coercive
and more ethical than theological, and every movement of this sort, which is too narrow for co-operation on an
equal footing by all law-abiding citizens, is also too narrow to entitle it to respect, except from the petty ones.
Our conclusion is then, that past efforts at solving the Mormon question have been wanting in the main essentials
to effectiveness. That a constitutional amendment alone can work little real improvement, and like all coercion
the motive of which must be misunderstood, it will be more productive of treasonable sentiments and haughty
martyrs, than of substantial reform. You may suppress the outward evidences of polygamy, but you will by that
very process furnish the infallible priesthood a more subservient following, and their theocracy or “theodemocracy”
as they choose to call it, an increased political power. You will also furnish seeming justification for the martyr’s
wail, which has ever been a fruitful seed when planted in a healthy though misguided sympathy.

LESSONS FROM HISTORY.

The histories of religions are full of facts demonstrating the truth of much herein contended for. At this time space
will allow but a few illustrations from Mormon history. If what is known in Utah as the Godbeite movement, had
been preceded by a few years of work such as is herein proposed, it is not at all improbable that the entire Mormon
doctrine as to the priesthood’s control over temporal affairs would have been then changed. There was no ready
-made public sentiment or enlightenment such as could enable Godbe and his associates to speedily secure a
following. Had there been such they could have crystallized it into a powerful whole, which might have controlled
the church action and changed the church doctrine. As it was, these recalcitrant brethren before they could
educate a following such as would have been effective, had their influence destroyed by being “turned over to
the buffetings of Satan.” An unlimited quantity of theological mission work would not have been the least help to
this and other such most important steps in the evolution of Mormons, in which work of the kind here proposed
might have turned the tide and changed the whole character of the Mormon church for the better. It is because
of such occurrences that so much stress is herein laid upon reform of Mormonism from within. In Nauvoo when
the doctrine of polygamy was being actively, but secretly taught and practiced by the few elect, the entire church
might have been disrupted could the common people have been convinced of this, and the numerous other crimes
being committed by the sanction of the prophets and apostles of God. In their ignorance the common people
honestly denied the charges made against their leaders, and instead of arguments and evidence they were
given mob violence, the prophet made a martyr, and his innocent followers driven from the state for an ignorance
which they could not help, and their neighbors would not. Thus by seeming persecution, thousands in supposed
self-defense were made the willing slaves of a tyrannical priesthood, and would rather swallow the doctrines
of polygamy and blood-atonement, than submit themselves to the persecutor’s power.

The church was then the temporal kingdom of God, and all outside must be the children of Belial. In the forced
expulsion from Illinois, the kingdom of God was in a state of actual war. All who refused to fight the battles of Zion,
or obey the divinely appointed commanders in “the army of Israel” that is all who were apostates by the very act
of apostasy became traitors. Every other temporal government kills its traitors, why not the temporal kingdom of
God? Thus by the folly of those who believed more in coercion than education, a tyrannical and crime-hardened
priesthood was unintentionally given aid in forcing upon the Mormon people that most pernicious doctrine of
obedience to the priesthood, which was accompanied and enforced by the cruelties of that more damnable
doctrine of blood-atonement. Examine your anti-polygamy legislation and you find no more encouragement
for purely coercive methods. About two thousand men were sent to prison cells and many times that number
of unfortunate women and innocent children were made to suffer by reason of that imprisonment. In her despair
the heart-broken polygamous mother of unfortunate children was easily led to believe that the trial of her fractional
husband on a charge of polygamy, was but a trial of her faith, to determine whether she possessed the requisite
self-sacrificing love for her God to entitle her to an eternal exaltation in the hereafter. When placed upon the
witness stand she could become one of the children of perdition by obstructing the fulfillment of God’s will, and
aiding in securing for her children’s father a penitentiary sentence. By adding to her crime of polygamy that of
perjury, she might retain a husband’s divided love, her children a father’s care, her church an active worker and her
God vindication. Is it then to be wondered at that polygamous wives would sometimes get upon the witness stand
and by a double self-sacrifice of honor, swear they did not know who was the father of their children, or that they
did not know whether they had lived with their admitted husbands in sexual relation?

While we cannot condone her double crime, we may yet exercise such charity as will exclude hate, and prevent
revengeful persecution. Neither are we, in an overflow of that charity to allow the law and common decency to be
trampled under foot, but may we not hope to find some philanthropist who will interest himself more in furnishing
an effective kind of education than in coercion? We must repel every attempt to secure affirmative recognition for
polygamy, or its votaries. Does it follow that we must also wreak vengeance while refusing to make known our
justification for the repulse? May not even here justice be tempered with a charity which will at least endeavor to
enlighten? By misunderstood, and sometimes unjustifiable coercion, you have made pious perjurers by the score;
you induced treason which found expression in dragging the stars and stripes in the filth of the streets, and the
raising of them at half-mast on the Nation’s birthday anniversary; you have induced open defiance of law, and the
most violent passions; you have caused the shedding of unlimited tears and a little blood; but how many truly honest
Mormons have you reformed by these coercive methods? Don’t claim those who left the church because they
could no longer endure the priesthood’s oppressions, and tell us where there is one of these fanatics in whom
criminal laws and conviction produced real, religious or moral conversion. The present demand for an anti-polygamy
amendment to the Constitution is a confession that our coercion (largely because it stood unaccompanied by
appropriate education) has been an utter failure as a reformatory. When we offer the misguided and unappreciated
theology in one hand, and a commitment to the penitentiary in the other, has the limit of our wisdom and philanthropy
been reached? Shall we refuse to help him to any but theological salve for his moral blindness, when we should
know that he is now suffering from an overdose of theology, and needs to rid his system of that before applying
more? Will you insist that the only way you know of satisfying his natural hunger for intellectual and moral
nourishment, is by a jail sentence which destroys the digestion without satiating?

When you have exhausted your vocabulary of invectives in denouncing Mormonism, you will probably be ready to
enter only my kindergarten class of excoriation. For want of an equally thorough supply of information you cannot
reasonably hate Mormonism as much as I do. But can we not hate Mormonism and yet feel a real genuine kindly
pity for the unfortunates who can’t help believing in it? The old theological and penitentiary remedies have been
practically failures. Probably over forty millions of dollars have been spent in religious and coercive methods of
reforming Mormons. We have endeavored to fill the “Saints” with theology, and the penitentiary with “Saints,” until both
were near to overflowing, and yet what substantial improvement can we point to as compensation for this enormous
expenditure? Shall we now refuse to even try the non-theological educational method herein proposed? I do not
claim for this, that it can be a substitute for all methods of work, though it has virtues possessed by none. It need
replace no other methods of Mormon reform work, though it supplies their shortcomings, and will certainly be a
help to all. It can do for part of the other reform schemes what they cannot do for themselves without impairing the
effectiveness of other parts of their work. In this belief these suggestions are humbly submitted to the consideration
of those who have the power to put them into operation.