"Horrible Massacre of Emigrants!!" The Mountain Meadows Massacre in Public Discourse

 

THE MORMON PRESS ON MOUNTAIN MEADOW. 

Whenever a Mormon falls from grace, which means a denial of the royal authority of Brigham Young, that moment the recusant is cut off, rot and branch, as an apostate for-ordained from the beginning to eternal perdition no less than mortal disgrace. To refuse to pay tubing into the coffers of ecclesmitical piracy is the unpardonable sin: far more so than to dispute the sangunary decrees of the Blood Atonement. Deploring the treasures of the Church by contumacy is not pouring in the annual tenth of a man's net profits, sends out the anathema of Zion; but when, occasionally, the dupe whose hands are gory in innocent blood shed by "divine" orders, repents his dreadful career by wholesome confession, then do all the curses of Danite theology find condemning speech to crush the penitent in his remorse, lest revelations of too worldly a character throw dangerous light on the dread secrets of Latter Dayism. Hence we find the Salt Lake Herald—the Janus-faced organ of the Church—in yesterday's issue making use of its choicest style of hypocrisy over the dispatch of Mr. Simonton. The man Smith, who went into the slaughter at Mountain Meadow, was a priest of God, obedient to "counsel" when that crime of the century was perpetrated at the command of his then chief; but behold now how the sanctimonious elder attempts to impeach the witness whose testimony comes up from the vale of murder! The Herald assumes a desire to bring Smith to Utah, in order that his declaration may be put to the test of corroborative evidence, so that "the Mormons, as a people," may not be charged with the crime. This is shallow. The Mormons, as a people, are not charged with that unparalleled massacre, but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, as impersonated by Brigham Young, and his Apostles, did through them make the sacrifice of more than one hundred and twenty human lives, showing no mercy to its victims. The witnesses are hurrying in, of whom Smith is one, but, as many of these will soon appear; we shall now quote the Herald’s comments which may be stereotyped for use in the cases of all others who are to follow, seeking amnesty from God and man, under the plea of "Guilty."

"Simonton, chief of the associated press bureau in new York, sends a telegram west over his own signature, charging the Mormon people with the Mountain Meadow massacre, on the alleged confession of one Smith, now in Lincoln county, Nevada. This Smith, by Simonton's showing, is either a murderer or a perjured scoundrel, and in either case is amenable to the laws. He should be promptly arrested and brought to Utah on a requisition from Governor Woods to Governor Bradley, and if his statements could be substantiated by any credible testimony the guilty should be punished. But, the attempt made to charge the crime upon the Mormons, as a people, is an infamy only less in magnitude than the massacre itself. It has suited the malevolent policy of a few bitter anti-Mormons to refuse to avail themselves of every opportunity to fully investigate this matter, and continue to make general charges, which is seems to have at met got a second Bill Hickman to make affidavit to."