The Great Falls leader. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1888-1900, 1889-11-28
Letter From Mormon CITY,
brlgham's Ideal Project in the Great
Basin Of North America.
Justice Anderson Interviews a Few
OF the Faithful Apostles.
A Spicy Letter From Kibby Which
Speaks for Itself.
Letter From Salt Lake.

oeoA FROM ealC Lake.
SALT LAKE, Utah, Correspondence of
the LEADER, Nov. 10, 1SS9.-In his yeri-
ned answer to the complaint of the U. S
attorney general for and in behalf of the
government, looking to the disincorpora
ton of the Perpetual Emigrating Fund
society of the Mormon church, Brigham
Young set up claim to the whole terri
tory OF Utah paramount to the United
States and all the world, by right Of dis
covery and conquest!
1t will be remembered that when the
Mormons colonized this country it was an
almest unknown and unexplored region.
designated on the maps as the "Great
American Desert" and, including Cali
fornia, belonged to Mexico. To give
color to this claim, while the Mormon
camps were at Winter Quarters, (now
known as Florence, miles above Oma-
ha) after being expelled from Illinois, in
the winter of 1867, Brigham Young
sent Col Jesse G. Little to Washington
commissioned to proffer to the govern
ment battalion Of active young men to
march overland to California as volun-
teers in the war with Mexico, to conquer
that great northern extension from the
enemy.
| Under this commission 500 Mormons
were enlisted and under command OF Col
st. ohm Cooke, of the regular army, took
up their line of march from Fort Leaven-
worth, going via Santa Fe and reaching
the Pacific coast near San Diego about
the close of hostilities, where they were
discharged. A large amount of the pay
and the bulk of the land warrants to
which this battalion was entitled were
appropriated by Young or his agents and
never accounted for.
BY the settlement made between the
| U. S. and Mexico, known as the treaty Of
Guadaloupe Hidalgo, ratified in 1S4s,
Mexico ceded to this government all of
| what is now known as California, Neva-
da, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and all of
Colorado and Wyoming lying on the Pa
cific slope of the main range of the
Rocky mountains.
Under the boundaries prescribed in her
organic act Utah included what is now
known as the state of Nevada, which will
doubtless ere long be parceled out to the
adjoining states because of it's poverty or
restored to Utah when she shall have be-
come loyal commonwealth.
The army and people of the United
States were always referred to by Young
and his retainers as "our enemies" He
never till death in its most excrutiating
form closed his relentless existence re-
linquished his idol project of establishing
an independent government in the Great
Basin of North America, which Thomas
II. Benton pronounced to be the "key of
the continent" It will not be deemed a
severe judgment by any one acquainted
with his inward life to say that Brigham
Young was the most inplacable despot of
modern times
Though illiterate, he had a profound
knowledge of men. His decision and ex-
ecution were Simultaneous. His love,
like his hate, was intense as life and
strong as death. Upon his favorites he
could never bestow too great immunity
His enemies were early made conscious
Of his power He assumed to be like the
arbiter of life and death-the dispenser
of awards and punishment in time and
eternity. With his advancing years his
passion for absolute dictation grew upon