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Show 626 WESTERN WILDS. Thus died John Doyle Lee, a fanatic and a sensualist, a devotee and a murderer, a kind father, a pleasant host, a hospitable gentleman and a remorseless bigot. The same qualities which, with proper edu-cation and surroundings, would have made him an energetic, active and valuable citizen of a Christian community, in Mormonism made him a polygamist and a murderer. Doubtless there was a time in his early life when the weight of a hair either way would have determined the course of his career as the drop falling on one side of a Minne-sota roof may flow down to the sunny gulf, on the other side to the frozen ocean. The accident of an hour turned his life into the chan-nels of Mormonism ; thence his way was steadily downward, and the perversion of those forces which would have made him honored in Il-linois, consigned him to infamous remembrance in Utah. So may all who are conscious of unregulated passion look upon him as the pious bishop did upon the hardened convict, " There go I, but for the grace of God." It only remains to inquire into the probable, or possible, fate of his companions in crime, and the proof of Brigham Young's complicity. Of those indicted, only George Adair and Elliott Wilden are in cus-tody, both minor characters in the tragedy, though other participants testified on the trial. But the really guilty, such as Isaac Haight, John M. Higbee and William C. Stewart the men who planned and carried the matter through exultingly are in hiding in the Indian country. For a long time they lived in a mountain fastness of south-eastern Utah, and Hon. G. C. Bates, their attorney, visited and con-versed with them in their chosen stronghold. He gave me a dra-matic account of his experience there ; of his going in at night and re-turning the next night, by a way so devious that none but Indians or the most accomplished scouts could find it. But even that place did not make them feel safe ; and since the Mormons extended their south-ern settlements into New Mexico and Arizona, the murderers have re-treated there. The community still shields them, but, as time passes, there is a growing number of Mormons who would like to see jus-tice done. The United States Government now has one duty to per-form: to offer a moderate reward for their capture, or guarantee the expense. Let this be done, and Marshal " William Stokes will pick his assistants and have those assassins in the Beaver jail within two months. Marshal Stokes, to whom Utah and the cause of justice are so greatly indebted, deserves more than a passing notice. A native of New York, but reared in Wisconsin, he was then thirty- three years of |
