Copyright 1913, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

CHAPTER 6

PROPHECY AND FINANCE

WHILE the prophet's empire was being builded amid trials in Missouri, his career in Ohio was drawing to an inglorious close. There, Smith had tried to establish not only a church and a political organization, but divers commercial enterprises, including a "bank." Much information on many subjects has been vouchsafed to prophets at one time or another; but financiering is too sordid, or perhaps too exact, a business to be conducted by revelation. Smith's "bank" eked out a troubled existence for less than a year, and finally closed its doors in November, 1837.

Many better and more wisely managed institutions than this at Kirtland went to the wall in that disastrous year; but Smith's bank failed under circumstances which no glozing can render creditable. He had been refused a banking charter by the state legislature, and then, to evade the law, reorganized his financial association as the "Kirtland Society Antibanking Company." The notes with this queer name on them were printed with "Bank" very large and the rest of the name very small -- "Anti-BANKing " -- by which trick it was hoped to make ordinary people think that the institution was a bank and convince courts that it was not. Worse -- if possible -- than this deceit was the recklessness with which notes were issued and the affairs of the bank conducted. With a nominal capital of $4,000,000 and an actual paid-up cash capital of something under $10,000, Smith's bank was marked for destruction from its birth.

But the prophet had other troubles than financial ones that year. It was impossible that a chance gathering of new believers, drawn in chief part from the most independent and undisciplined population on earth, should dwell together in perfect harmony, even under the rule of a prophet. That would have been a miracle indeed; and such proof of Divine grace was lacking. Dissensions broke out, which ripened into quarrels, and in 1837 there was open insurrection.

Various grievances were put forth by the malcontents at this time. Some objected to Smith's business enterprises, or rather to his conduct of them. Some complained of his arbitrary rule. Some accused him of dissolute habits. Probably most of the accusations were true, but such complaints are the signs of disaffection, not its cause. Smith was undergoing the experience which sooner or later comes to almost every prophet, that of seeing at least part of his followers regard him with the disillusioned gaze of experience instead of the fervid eyes of faith; and he could not well endure the new method of inspection. A young girl, who had discovered the art of extracting visions from a black stone, prophesied that Smith would be deposed for his transgressions, and that David Whitmer or Martin Harris would succeed him in the prophetic office. Martin Harris had printed the Book of Mormon at his own expense, and David Whitmer had made oath that he saw the golden plates from which Smith had translated that scripture; yet there is not a doubt but they were working for the fulfilment of the young woman's predictions. Rebellion had come in high places.

Left to his own devices, Smith might have made terms with the malcontents -- thereby ruining himself and forfeiting his prophetic character. Under the counsels of Sidney Rigdon, the prophet would have stood firm enough, but helpless except for cursings and revelations. It was Brigham Young whom Joseph needed, and Brigham was at hand. He was at least as despotic in natural temper as his chief, and he had the wit to see that one who rules by direct authorization of God must be all or nothing. No terms were made with the disaffected. Some escaped immediate excommunication, on account of the disturbed state of business affairs in the community. Others who repented were received back into the fold. But of concession on the part of the church authorities there was none then -- and save in the presence of superior force, there never has been any since. Of all ecclesiastical organizations in the Western Hemisphere, the Mormon church is the most consistently despotic.

Financial troubles thickened fast around the Kirtland stake of Zion. The "Anti-banking Company" was organized in January, 1837; with Joseph as president and Sidney Rigdon as secretary. In March, Smith and Rigdon were arrested on the charge of violating the banking laws of the state. They were tried and convicted in October, but appealed to a higher court on the ground that their institution was not a bank. There was more truth in this plea than either of them realized; but the court never gave a ruling upon it.

The "bank" closed its doors in -- November, 1837.

This open failure and the overhanging sentence of the trial court emboldened Smith's enemies within the church, and they made a determined effort to depose him. Brigham left Kirtland in December. According to the Mormon account, he was driven away by the mob; but in view of the consistent way in which he had defied and Smith and Rigdon stayed on, fighting the malcontents with no great success; and in January, 1838, they, too, fled from Kirtland, and started to the Zion in Missouri. Young joined the prophet on the way, and they entered Far West together, March 14, 1838.

The first care of Joseph and Brigham was to purge the church of those sinners who had dared to raise their voices against the Lord's chosen prophet. Thomas B. Marsh, David W. Patton, and Brigham Young were appointed a committee of three to drive apostasy from the tents of Israel, and tighten the reins of church government. They performed the task in a manner which had at least the merit of simplicity; they excommunicated every one of importance who dared to protest against the absolute authority of the prophet. Hildebrand was not more reckless of consequences in asserting the supremacy of the church than this committee. Two of Joseph's "witnesses to the plates," four members of the Twelve Apostles, several men high among the Seventies, and others of scarcely less importance in the church were excommunicated and cast into outer darkness. Marsh himself weakened and apostatized before the work was through, and was excommunicated as promptly as if he were but an ordinary backslider. The unyielding tenacity and intolerant mastership which marked Brigham all through his life were never more apparent than during this purging of the church in Missouri.

Another piece of work of this summer may fairly be ascribed to Brigham. This is the tithing law which for three-quarters of a century has been the source of the church's financial strength. Smith and Rigdon had devised a chaotic scheme of "consecration" of property, which was a sort of religious communism, neither clearer nor more workable than other schemes of the same class. But on July 8, 1838, the rule of contributions was fixed at one-tenth of the property owned by the convert when he came into the church or when the law was announced, and thereafter one-tenth of his increase each year. It was drastic; but Brigham never shrank from drastic measures; it was practicable; and his was the practical mind in the councils of the church. The working out of this plan can hardly be other than his.

But even as the government and finances of the church were improved, the storm was brewing which which should sweep it from the state. Up to the prophet's coming, the Mormon settlement in Caldwell county had roused little antagonism. Within that county, the Saints had nearly everything to themselves; and without, they were too few to be esteemed dangerous. Smith's arrival brought a large increase of Mormon immigration, much of which was colonized in Carroll and Daviess counties -- thereby insuring the social contact which was bound to insure hostility. Smith's grandiloquent pretensions did not calm the rising alarm of the Gentiles as they saw the increase of the Saints; and the drastic church discipline enforced by Brigham Young's "commission" of faith -- could not have helped matters. Sidney Rigdon was much blamed by some of the Mormons at a later day for his famous "salt sermon," in which he vowed that the Mormons would not be driven from their homes again without bloodshed; but the present writers are unable to see that this sermon had anything to do with the resulting trouble. Rigdon expressed a perfectly proper sentiment in a needlessly provocative way. But a peace so tenuous that it is shattered by such a trifling indiscretion cannot be preserved long in a world where everything must bide the stress of circumstance -- or fail altogether.

Trouble began on August 6, at Gallatin. The state election then took place on that date; and some Mormons, going to Gallatin to vote, were stopped by a group of Gentiles. There was language and breaking of heads, but no serious injury was done; and the Mormons seem to have voted at the end of the fray. Instead of ignoring the disturbance, as any sensible man in his position would have done, Smith collected at Far West a band of one hundred and fifty on horseback, and went to the "relief" of the brethren in Daviess county. The brethren did not need relief; but Smith came across a justice of the peace who had been active in opposition to the Mormons, and bullied him into signing a paper which nothing less than prophetic wisdom is competent to interpret. As soon as Smith had returned to Far West, the Daviess county Gentiles swore out warrants for him and some of his followers on the ground of entering another county in armed array and threatening a judicial officer -- Adam Black. After some demur, the accused surrendered and were bound over in bail to a hearing. September 7.

But the mischief was done. The county divided into two armed camps. Skirmishes took place with the usual great cry and little wool of militia operations, and the newly elected Governor Boggs called out the state troops. These were placed under General Doniphan, who afterwards won fame in the Mexican war, and his tact and skill soon brought about a more quiet feeling in Daviess county. Then the Gentiles of Carroll county began to arm and form plans for expelling the Mormons. An attack was made on the Mormon settlement of Dewitt. After a comic opera bombardment and a Venezuela-like exchange of proclamations, the Mormons agreed to evacuate Dewitt on condition of receiving payment for their improvements, and permission to return to Far West. This was granted. It is worth noting that the governor had refused to protect the Mormons of this settlement.

The Mormons now were gathered in two chief settlements, Far West and another town which staggered under the title of "Adam-ondi-Ahman." The Gentiles had retired from the open countryside to a number of towns which were regularly patrolled by sentries. Society had dissolved in a border war like that which, perchance, the common ancestors of both parties once waged across the Tweed; or that which sons of the Gentiles concerned were destined to wage a generation later on the Kansas line. Three companies of regulars would have driven both camps into the Missouri river; but the regulars were not to be had. Captain David W. Patten at the head of a little troop of Mormons performed the only noteworthy exploit of the "war" by routing a much superior force of Gentiles at Crooked River; but he was killed in the fight, and the resentment roused at the defeat of state troops by Mormon partisans far outbalanced the advantages of the victory.

The "battle" of Crooked River was fought October 25, 1838. Two days later, Governor Boggs issued leis famous order to General Clark, commanding a part of the militia, telling him that the Mormons must "be exterminated or driven from the state." It was not necessary to carry out these sanguinary orders. After some time spent in parley, Far West surrendered to General Lucas before Clark could arrive. Smith, Rigdon, and several other prominent Mormons were given up as "hostages," and were thrown into jail. Forty-six others were arrested a little later by General Clark, who informed the Mormon colonists that they must leave the state at once, on pain of "extermination." That word seems to have been a favourite among the statesmen and soldiers who had charge of affairs in Missouri at this time.

Before Far West surrendered, there occurred a massacre which gave a sinister meaning to the verbose threats of Governor Boggs and his militia officer. On October 30, a considerable party of Missourians attacked the Mormon settlement at Hawn's Mill. The Mormons took refuge in a log blacksmith shop. The Missourians surrounded the shop, and poured a fire through the cracks between the logs, until every one within the enclosure was dead or wounded. Then they broke in the door, butchered some of the survivors with any implement handy, and ended by throwing dead and wounded together into a nearby well. Some of the wounded were rescued from the well by friends from Far West, and they ultimately recovered; but all told, more than twenty Mormons lost their lives in this affair. The Missourians did not lose a man.

It was an utterly unjustifiable massacre. The men who perpetrated it were legitimate progenitors of those "border ruffians" who established a reign of terror along the Kansas line twenty years later. The historical responsibility for this massacre must rest on Governor Boggs. He was justified in calling out the militia to restore order; he was justified in taking any measures necessary to break up the theocracy which Smith had established in one county of the state, and was endeavouring to extend to all neighbouring districts. But the governor's inflammatory language and open partisanship were a direct incitement to such multiple murders as this of Hawn's Mill, and a direct encouragement to the lawlessness which remained so long the curse of Missouri. The Mormons and their un-American theocracy vanished; but the anarchy excused and, indeed, commended, in high places, endured for more than a generation.

Brigham Young passed unscathed through all these ordeals. He was a consistent champion of the prophet, a prominent figure in the church, and neither then nor later did he shirk his due share of danger. Yet for the moment Gentile hostility almost neglected him. He was not shot, he was not named in any list of proscribed exiles, he was not even thrown into jail. Dozens of less important men among the Saints were awarded this honour, but somehow Young was, passed by. He was present When Joseph Smith and others were given up as "hostages," but the eyes of the Gentile commander were held, and he did not see that a greater than Joseph remained at large. Small wonder that a people like the Mormons, who lived in the midst of signs and wonders and interpositions of Providence, came to believe that Brigham Young was miraculously preserved to be the leader and saviour of his persecuted people in the yet greater trials which lay before them.