ural it should inspire the people that
breathed it with freedom's ideals of freedom and all the sublimities of
an eternal faith. And those people--!

A more despairing situation than theirs, at that hour, has never been
faced by an American community. Practically every Mormon man of any
distinction was in prison, or had just served his term, or had escaped
into exile. Hundreds of Mormon women had left their homes and their
children to flee from the officers of law; many had been behind prison
bars for refusing to answer the questions put to them in court; more
were concealed, like outlaws, in the houses of friends. Husbands
and wives, separated by the necessities of flight, had died apart,
miserably. Old men were coming out of prison, broken in health. A
young plural wife whom I knew--a mere girl, of good breeding, of gentle
life--seeking refuge in the mountains to save her husband from a charge
of "unlawful cohabitation," had had her infant die in her arms on the
road; and she had been compelled to bury the child, wrapped in her
shawl, under a rock, in a grave that she scratched in the soil with a
stick. In our day! In a civilized state!

By Act of Congress, all the church property in excess of $50,000 had
been seized by the United States marshal, and the community faced the
total loss of its common fund. Because of some evasions that had been
attempted by the Church authorities--and the suspicion of more such--the
marshal had taken everything that he could in any way assume to belong
to the Church. Among the Mormons, there was an unconquerable spirit
of sanctified lawlessness, and, among the non-Mormons, an equally
indomitable determination to vindicate the law. Both were, for the most
part, sincere. Both were resolute. And both were standing in fear of a
fatal conflict, which any act of violence might begin.

Moreover, the Mormons were being slowly but surely deprived of all civil
rights. All polygamists had been disfranchised by the bill of 1882, and
all the women of Utah by the bill of 1887. The Governor of the territory
was appointed by Federal authority, so was the marshal, so were the
judges, so were the United States Commissioners who had co-ordinate
jurisdiction with magistrates and justices of the peace, so were
the Election Commissioners. But the Mormons still controlled the
legislature, and though the Governor could veto all legislation he could
initiate none. For this reason it had been frequently propos