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Show UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY priesthood was “as despotic, dangerous and damnable as has ever been known to exist in any country.”61 Magraw claimed Mormon policy was “framed in dark corners” and “promulgated from the stand of tabernacle or church, and executed at midnight, or upon the highways, by an organized band of bravos and assassins, whose masters compel an outraged community to tolerate [it] in their midst.” This last charge had often been made against the Mormons since their days in Missouri when they were accused of having a group of men called “Danites” to kill anyone who stood in their way. While Magraw’s letter lacked proof, he nevertheless assured Polk “conservative people” would recoil once the full story became known. Then, an outraged public might bring upon Utah “bloodshed, robbery[,] and rapine” and leave the territory to become a “howling wilderness.” However, there was a solution. If Young were removed from office, hundreds of grateful citizens, he predicted, would rise up against the current church leaders. “I know that they will be at no loss for a leader.”62 At the time that Magraw was wr iting his letter to Pierce, Isaac Hockaday, brother of Magraw’s former partner John M. Hockaday, sent one of his own to the President. Hockaday’s letter charged that the Gentiles in Utah were suffering “wrongs, abuses and outrages” and that Utah was under the control “of the most lawless set of knaves and assassins who disregard and trample under foot the rights of those not belonging to their so called religious community as well as those who are unwilling to sanction and affiliate with them in their most obscene outrages.”63 The Gentile letters must have had a role in the growing consensus about the saints. By late October as the election campaign was ending, the leading newspapers of the nation were calling for drastic action. The bumptious New York Herald wanted federal troops to “exterminate the Mormons” and scorned the American government’s failure to take on the Mormons.64 The New York Tribune, perhaps the Republicans’ leading journalistic voice, called for “wise and firm measures” against the Mormons and their “evil.” The Tribune cited strategic reasons. The Mormons and the Indian allies controlled the transcontinental lines of travel and communication, it complained, where the national railroad was likely to be built.65 Even Buchanan overcame his scruples against national public works and joined the Republicans to support the project, also citing national security. California and the west coast could not be protected 61 W. M. F. Magraw to Mr. President, October 3, 1856, “The Utah Expedition,” Message from the President of the United States, 35th Congress, House of Representatives, 1st Session, Ex. Doc. No. 71, 2-3. 62 Ibid. 63 Isaac Hockaday to Pierce, October 6, 1856, Miscellaneous Letters of Department of State, National Archives, as cited in MacKinnon, At Sword’s Point, 57. 64 New York Herald, October 19, 1856, as cited in The Mormon, October 25, 1856. 65 Historian’s Office, Historical Scrapbooks 1840-1904, CR 100, 91, box 1, fd. 4, book 4, pp. 63, apparently quoting the New York Tribune, October 25, 1856. 126 |
