Page:History of Utah.djvu/217



POLYCxAMY A BURDEN AND A BOND. 165

The word of a Mormon was then good for all it was pledged to or for. I was proud to be an associate with such honorable people." And thus Colonel Kane, a disinterested observer, and not a Mormon: As compared with the other ''border inhabitants of Missouri, the vile scum which our society, hke the great ocean, washes upon its frontier shores," the saints were "persons of refined and cleanly habits and decent language."

Nevertheless the sins of the entire section must be visited on them. Were there any robberies for miles around, they were charged by their enemies upon the Mormons; were there any house-burnings or assas- sinations anywhere among the gentiles, it was the Danites who did it. Of all that has been laid at their door I find little proved against them. The charges are general, and preferred for the most part by irre- sponsible men; in answer to them they refer us to the records. On the other hand, the outrages of their enemies are easily followed; for they are not denied, but are rather gloried in by the perpetrators. To shoot a Mormon was indeed a distinction coveted by the average gentile citizen of Illinois and Missouri, and was no more regarded as a crime than the shoot- ' ing of a Blackfoot or Pawnee. Of course the Mor- mons retaliated.

Polygamy was a heavy load in one sense; in another sense it was a bond of strength. While in the eyes of the world its open avowal placed the saints outside the pale of respectability, and made them amenable to the law, among themselves as law-breakers, openly defying the law, and placing themselves and their religion above all law, the very fact of being thus legal offenders, subject to the penalties and punish- ments of the law, brought the members of the society so acting into closer relationship, cementing them as a sect, and making them more dependent on each other and on their leaders. It is plain that while thus bringing upon themselves ignominy and reproach,