The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1877-09-06
Brigham Young.

Brigham Young is dead. This news
has been flashed all over this land and
Europe. No other American is better
known than was this remarkable man.
His soul took its flight at four O'Clock on
the afternoon of Aug. 30, after an illness
of six days. He died at his home, if a
man of his surroundings could be said to
have home.
1t would be carrying charity for the dead
too far, and be too great disregard for
truth, to pretend that his death was loss,
OF that the world will deplore his depart
ure from it. On the contrary, Brigham
Young has long been looked upon as the
pillar whereon pOlygamy rested, the prop
without which it could not withstand the
pressure of modern civilization. Con-
sequently, his death brings hope that the
peculiar institution" which is now dis
gracing the continent and demoralizing,
retarding and blighting in every way an
otherwise thrifty Territory will disap-
pear. Therein consists the significance
of his death. This hope may be
disappointed. Things come and go
so Unexpectedly in this strange
world that perhaps Brigham, in this re-
gard, may be more puissant dead than
alive. Be this as it may, the expectation
is certainly reasonable. Very few men
have the iron will and vast capacity for
management which the deceased Presi-
dent OF the Mormon Church possessed.
His sons are weaklings in comparison,
and so are all the Twelve Apostles, as the
dignitaries of the Mormon Church are
called. Thesystem of poly gamy is utterly
abhorrent to modern ideas. 1t belongs to
antiquity and barbarism. Our ancestors,
even as savages, had too much good sense
to practice it, but the people from whom
our religion came accepted it as matter
Of course. 1t is probable that great
many of the Mormons are sincere. Per-
haps the President of the Church was.
His course in the early days of Mormon
ism would indicate it.
Brigham Young was Yankee of the
most pronounced type. Born in little
out-of- -the-way town of Vermont, juno 1,
1901, he possessed the shrewdness and
tenacity characteristic of the sons of the
Puritans. His education was very meager.
He Joined the Mormon Church as early as
1S42, in Ohio. 1t was then in its infancy
1t had not developed into polygamic
monstrosity. 1t was born of that prolific
parent of fanaticism-expectation of the
uOuliy ScCouu Cou1uS VI Culcb. 0uiiuS
the period of trial and persecution, Young
stood heroically by his predecessor in the
Presidency, Joe Smith. When he led the
people, like second Moses, through the
wilderness of the plains to Utah, gener-
alton ago, he did a grand thirg. That
burial of handful of hardy men on the
banks of that Dead Sea of America, Salt
Lake, was one of the bravest and most
admirable enterprises Of history. One
cannot but be lost in admiration in the
contemplation of such indomitable deter
mination to meet destiny single-handed.
With all its DANTE infamies, the Mormon
settlement proved great blessing to the
country, furnishing most convenient
and necessary halfway house between the
Pacific Slope and the East. The Pacific
Railroad project owes more to Brigham
Young than to any other man, albeit he
had no philanthropic or patriotic pur-
poses. He was as destitute of patriotism
and philanthropy as an oak tree But
the march of events used him for some
good purposes, and we may hope that his
life will prove to have been q public BEN
eft.
Brigham Young leaves behind him q
vast estate. to be divided among his nu-
merOus wives and children. He kept the
Mormon people in abject poverty, the
greater part of them, and appropriated to
himself the wealth they produced. His
property ought, in strict justice, to be con-
fiscated and distributed among the people
whom he deprived Of it by playing on
their superstition. But nothing OF the
kind will be done. His heirs viii keep
what the lawyers do not get. But it is
morally certain that the Mormon grangers,
once freed from his personal despotism,
will begin to lay by for their own families
the surplus profits of their tillage. On the
whole, then, the public has no cause to
drop single tear upon the bier of the
dead Mormon. As he takes his place
among the spent forces of humanity, he
leaves vacancy through which the sun
of better days may throw his beams upon
the people he has SO long ruled with rod
of iron.-C Chscago Journal.
THE new railway station at York, En-
gland, the largest in the world, is not ter
minal, like the old one; trains will run,
without backing or shunting, straight
through it, It is situated on slope rising