New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1877-03-24
RETRIBNTION At LIST.

The telegraph brings to us intelligence of the
execution Yesterday of the Mormon, Lee. For
nearly twenty years the murders at Mountain
Meadows have remained unayenged. a
massacre horribly unique in character
though reminding us in some OF It's
particulars Of the assassinatlons OF the indian
Thugs, has continued all this time to be a
mystery, while in some respects 1t Is mystery
still. For crime SO deliberately planned anu
so remorselessly Secuted, conjecture is at
fault in assigning an adequate motive
There was an opportunity for plumber.
There was the implicit obedience paid by infe-
rior fanatics to the brutal behests OF their
leaders, but this merely transfers the inquiry
from the execution to the plot. There was
irritation at what has been called the lnsolent
demcanor of the emgrants, but this theory
has been rejected rs inconsistent with their
neoceful character and conduct. An incentive,
partial at least if incomplete, may be found
in the dark and dreary depths Of Mormon
superstition, and in the unscrupuloUs brutall-
ties which it encourages. Certainly the inter-
ference of the Government with the remorse-
less ecclesiarchy which had so long ruled this
outlying province had awakened rage
which naturally res0rted to the methods OF
sayagcs. The discipline of the church"
the most consummate tyranny over the
minds of men which this continent
at least has ever witnessed, furnished
instruments more than enough to for
ward the designs of the salt Lake hierarchy,
to avenge its fancied injuries, or to do without
definite instructions that which it might find
il convenient afterward to disayOw. The
massacre itself was one Of the most revolving
of all the dreadful deeds which are the red
stains Of history.
But whatever may have been the motives
which led to these frightful murders, it is well
known that they were followed by robbery !;
and the very presence of the spoils must have
given Brigham Young and his coadJutors Il
sufficient knowledge of the methods by which
they were secured. From this point of view,
il matters not whether he was an accessory to
the crime before or after the fact, the pre-
sumption is that il would hardly have been
pcrpetrated without his cOnpivancc; but even
if it were, his subsequent silence, inaction, and
virtual conformation of this fearful felony, put
him in position quite as guilty as
that of Lee and his active associates.
Unfortunately for him, he is in the
minds of all intelligent men between the
horns of dilemma. If he is not religious
impostor he is religious fanatic, and in
neither character is he entitled to or likely to
receive Il charitable judgment, since even his
fanaticlsm, if it be allowed, is OF coarse,
brutal and sensual nature not the less sinful
because 1t may be sincere. Whether he was
directly or indirectly concerned in it, the
Mountain Meadows massacre was of his doing.
1t was the fruit of his undeniablc and fire.
quently and openly expressed contempt for
and defiance OF the law of the land-of the
unreasoning and slayish obedience to the
"church" and of the hatred of the Cen
tiles which he had inculcated in all
his Tabernacle dcliyerances-Of his bes
tializing and sensualizing system OF polygamy
of the recourse to assassination which
has, rs all men know, been "A part of his
church polity. The fifty or sixty white men
who were engaged in the crime were all
his disciples, and the crime itself was the
harves, of his long labor i'll the vineyard OF
Latter Day saintliness. Ii so many of the