Sinners and Saints: A Tour Across the States and Round Them, with Three Months Among the MormonsRobinson, Phil
General
Sinners and Saints: A Tour Across the States and Round Them, with Three Months Among the Mormons
Robinson, Phil
Latter Day Saint churches; Utah -- Description and travel; West (U.S.) -- Description and travel
Physically, Mormon plurality appears to me to promise much of the
success which Plato dreamed of, and Utah about the best nursery for
his soldiers that he could have found. Look at the urchins that go
clattering about the roads, perched two together on the bare backs of
horses, and only a bit of rope by way of bridle. Look at the rosy,
demure little girls that will be their wives some day. Take note of
their fathers' daily lives, healthy outdoor work. Go into their homes
and see the mothers at their work. For in Utah servants get sometimes
as much as six dollars a week (and their board and lodging as well
of course), and most households therefore go without this expensive
luxury. And then as you walk home through one of their rural towns
along the tree-shaded streets, with water purling along beside you
as you walk, and the clear breeze from the hills blowing the perfume
of flowers across your path in gusts, with the cottage homes, half
smothered in blossoming fruit-trees, on either hand, and a perpetual
succession gardens,--then I say, come back and sit down, if you can, to
call this people "licentious," "impure," "degraded."
The Mormons themselves refuse to believe that polygamy is the real
objection against them, and it will be found impossible to convince
them that the Edmunds bill is really what it purports to be, a crusade
against their domestic arrangements only. There are some among them who
thoroughly understand the "political" aspect of the case, and are aware
that "the reorganization of Utah" would give very enviable pickings to
the friends of the Commission. Others, have made up their minds that
behind this generous anti-polygamy sentiment is mean sectarian envy,
and that this is only one more of those amiable efforts of narrow
Christians to crush a detested and flourishing sect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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