onent's
argument, but rather, by waiting his own time, be able to direct the
conversation to his own purposes. He listened to me, silently, his eyes
fixed on my face.

"Senator Vest of Missouri," I went on, "has always been a strong
opponent of what he considered unconstitutional legislation against us,
but he tells me he'll no longer oppose proscription if we continue in
an attitude of defiance. He says you're putting yourselves beyond
assistance, by organized rebellion against the administration of the
statutes." And I continued with instances of others among his friends
who had spoken to the same purpose.

When I had done, he took what I had said with a gesture that at once
accepted and for the moment dismissed it; and he proceeded to a larger
consideration of the situation, in words which I cannot pretend to
recall, but to an effect which I wish to outline--because it not only
accounts for the preservation of the Mormon people from all their
dangers, but contains a reason why the world might have wished to see
them preserved.

The Mormons at this time had never written a line on social
reform--except as the so-called "revelations" established a new social
order--but they had practiced whole volumes. Their community was founded
on the three principles of co-operation, contribution, and arbitration.
By co-operation of effort they had realized that dream of the
Socialists, "equality of opportunity"--not equality of individual
capacity, which the accidents of nature prevent, but an equal
opportunity for each individual to develop himself to the last reach of
his power. By contribution by requiring each man to give one-tenth of
his income to a common fund--they had attained the desired end of modern
civilization, the abolition of poverty, and had adjusted the straps of
the community burden to the strength of the individual to bear it. By
arbitration, they had effected the settlement of every dispute of every
kind without litigation; for their High Councils decided all sorts
of personal or neighborhood disputes without expense of money to the
disputants. The "storehouse of the Lord" had been kept open to fill
every need of the poor among "God's people," and opportunities for self
help had been created out of the common fund, so that neither unwilling
idleness nor privation might mar the growth of the community or the
progress of the individual.

But Joseph Smith had gone further. Daring to believe himself the earthly