THE STORM BURSTS UPON THE PEOPLE—THE MORALITY PLEA—WHO THE CRIMINALS ARE—TESTIMONY OF STATISTICS—A VISIT TO ARIZONA AND MEXICO—ASSAULT UPON THE PEOPLE IN ARIZONA—AN AMERICAN SIBERIA—SEEKING A PLACE OF REFUGE—IN SAN FRANCISCO—THREATENED WITH ARREST—RETURN TO UTAH—LAST SERMON—WARNING AND PROPHECY.

The "storm" increased in violence. Special appropriations were made in Washington to aid in the enforcement of the infamous Edmunds law. With those funds deputy marshals were multiplied, some of them being men of notoriously immoral lives. They usually went in squads, pouncing first upon one village and then another, raiding the homes of the most respected and honorable men in the community, who were suspected of living with their plural wives—with women they had honored with the name of wife in some instances for more than a quarter of a century, by whom they had reared large and respectable families: and because they would not abandon them—thrust them away like unclean, nameless things—this pack of human hounds were turned loose upon them, to dog their footsteps, to invade their homes and insult their families.

Spotters and spies were employed to betray their neighbors; children were hailed upon the streets and questioned about the affairs of their parents; wives—lawful wives—were dragged into the courts and compelled to testify against their husbands; shamefully indecent questions were put to modest maidens in jury rooms and in open court; juries were packed to convict; a Mormon accused of violation of the anti-polygamy laws stood before a jury of his avowed political and religious enemies; suspicion was equivalent to accusation; accusation to indictment; indictment to conviction; and conviction met almost invariably with the full penalty of the law, unless the victim was so recreant to every sense of honor as to push from him the women he had taken as wives for time and all eternity!

In the midst of this judicial "storm" which broke upon the Church in Utah and the surrounding territories, President Taylor moved calmly on, discharging his duties, counseling, encouraging and strengthening the people. At the same time he did not fail to rebuke and proclaim the hypocrisy of the men who were the prime movers in this unholy crusade, carried on, professedly, in the interests of morality. For this purpose he published the criminal statistics of Utah for the year 1883, by which he demonstrated that while the Gentile population was greatly in the minority, they furnished the overwhelming majority of criminals. Following are his statements:

"The population of Utah may be estimated at one hundred and sixty thousand in 1883.

"Of these say one hundred and thirty thousand are Mormons, and thirty thousand are Gentiles—a very liberal estimate of the latter.

"In this year there were forty-six persons sent to the penitentiary convicted of crime. Of these thirty-three were non-Mormons, and thirteen reputed Mormons.

"At the above estimate of population the ratio or percentage would be one prisoner for every ten thousand Mormons, or one hundredth of one per cent., and of the Gentiles one convict in every nine hundred and nine, or about one ninth of one per cent. So that the actual proportion of criminals is more than ten times greater among the Gentiles of Utah, with the above very liberal estimate, than among the Mormons.

"It is urged that these non-Mormon prisoners are not a fair representation of the average of crime throughout the country, but are the result of the flow of the desperate classes westward to the borders of civilization; with greater truth we reply that the Mormon prisoners are not representatives of Mormonism, nor the results of Mormonism, but of the consequences of a departure from Mormon principles; and of the thirteen prisoners classed as Mormons, the greater portion were only so by family connection or association.

"ARRESTS IN SALT LAKE CITY IN 1883:

Mormons 150

Non-Mormons 1,559

or more than ten times the number of Mormon arrests.

"Again it is estimated that there are six thousand non-Mormons and nineteen thousand Mormons in Salt Lake City, which shows of Mormons one arrest in one hundred and twenty-six and two-thirds.

"Non-Mormons, one arrest in a fraction less than four, or rather more than twenty-five per cent.

"If we were not on the defensive in this case," observed President Taylor, when presenting the above facts, "I would say nothing about these things; but it ill-becomes men who have ten criminals to our one, to come here as our reformers, and try to disfranchise men who are ten times as good as they are. These are facts that are not of my own getting up. They come from the public records and can be verified by the prison and other statistics."

In order to still further explode the defense made by those whom these facts placed in so unenviable a position, viz: that the scum of society from the eastern states had floated out here to the west, and consequently the Gentile population in Utah was not representative of Gentile communities elsewhere, he collected a number of statements from the sermons and writings of leading ministers and writers from various parts of the Union, on the subject of infanticide, foeticide and kindred crimes, that told a sad tale of sexual immorality, which every year, according to the authors he quoted, was growing worse and worse—something too much of this:

Handle it carefully,
Deal with it gently,
Speak of it tenderly,
Poor justice is blind!

The Stakes of Zion located in Arizona suffered quite as much from this judicial crusade as those living in Utah, and they were further away from the chief pastors of the flock, and hence greater perplexity and excitement. On learning of this, President Taylor determined to visit them, learn the true situation of their affairs and counsel them as the Lord should give him wisdom.

Accordingly a party of brethren was made up including his second counselor, Joseph F. Smith, and also Apostles Moses Thatcher and Francis M. Lyman, Bishop John Sharp and others. They were joined in the south also by Apostle Erastus Snow.

The party left Salt Lake City on the 3rd of January, 1885, by the Union Pacific Railway to Denver, thence to Albuquerque, in New Mexico, thence to the settlements of the Saints in Apache County, Arizona, in the vicinity of Winslow.

President Taylor went to St. David, in the extreme south-east corner of Arizona, near Benson, where he met with the Presidents of the four Stakes in that Territory; Jesse N. Smith, Christopher Layton, Alexander F. McDonald and Lot Smith. He found the Saints in a lamentable condition. They had been set upon in the most ruthless manner by their enemies. Nearly all the forms of law had been abandoned in dealing with them, and outrages had been heaped upon them, under the pretext of executing the law, that were well nigh unendurable. Those who had been convicted and sentenced had been shipped off to Detroit, a distance of two thousand miles, notwithstanding there was a good available prison at Yuma, within the Territory.

Under these circumstances President Taylor thought it better for the brethren to evade the law; and in order that those who were being hunted might find a temporary place of refuge, he sent two parties down into Mexico to find suitable place for the settlement of those who had to flee from this unhallowed persecution.

During the absence of these parties, he visited with a portion of his party Guaymas, on the Gulf of California, in the state of Sonora, Mexico. On the return trip he stopped off at Hermosillo, the capital of the state of Sonora, where he and his party were received at the residence of Governor Torres, with distinguished consideration.

Returning to Benson he met with the brethren sent in search of a place of refuge, and decided in his capacity as Trustee-in-Trust of the Church to assist in purchasing a place which had been selected by Christopher Layton, just over the line in the state of Sonora.

After giving general directions to guide the Presidents of the Stakes in Arizona as to their future policy and movements, President Taylor and party visited the settlements of the Saints in Maricopa County, on Salt River; and from thence via Los Angeles went to San Francisco. Here he spent a day or two visiting points of interest. Among other features of his visit was a call at the famous library of the veteran historian, Hurbert H. Bancroft.

While in San Francisco he received despatches to the effect that it would not be safe for him to return home, as his arrest had been determined upon. Notwithstanding this information he immediately started for Salt Lake City, where he arrived on Tuesday, January 27th, 1885, having traveled nearly five thousand miles since the 3rd of the same month.

The Sunday following, February 1st, he preached his last public sermon. In it he related the principal incidents of his late mission into Arizona, described the wrongs inflicted upon the people there, and told the counsel he had given them.

As the vindictiveness of the courts had increased during his absence, he gave the same advice to the people of Utah.

He deplored the condition of things in the Territory, not so much on account of the Latter-day Saints, as on the account of the great government of the United States, which had stooped from the proud position it had hitherto boasted as the asylum for the oppressed of all nations, to that of a persecutor of a righteous people for their religion, until they had to find an asylum in an adjoining republic! Referring to the outrages perpetrated both in Arizona and in Utah, he asks:

"What would you do? Would you resent these outrages and break the heads of the men engaged in them, and spill their blood? No;" said he, "avoid them as much as you possibly can—just as you would wolves, or hyenas, or crocodiles, or snakes, or any of these beasts or reptiles. * * * Get out of their way as much as you can. What! Won't you submit to the dignity of the law? Well, I would if the law would only be a little more dignified. But when we see the dignity of the ermine bedragged in the mud and mire, and every principle of justice violated, it behooves men to take care of themselves as best they can. * * * But no breaking of heads, no bloodshed, rendering evil for evil. Let us try to cultivate the spirit of the gospel, and adhere to the principles of truth. * * * While other men are seeking to trample the Constitution under foot, we will try to maintain it. * * * I will tell you what you will see by and by. You will see trouble! trouble! TROUBLE enough in these United States. And as I have said before, I say today—I tell you in the name of God, WOE! to them that fight against Zion, for God will fight against them!"

Such was his last admonition, his last warning, his last prophecy delivered in person in public to the people of God, to the nation in which he had labored as a faithful servant of God, with such untiring zeal, wisdom and skill for half a century.

That night he went into retirement, to escape the ruthless persecution aimed at him by the unrelenting and hate-blinded enemies of the Church of Christ.