Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-03-03
THE CRITICS REVIEW.
Hubert Howe Bnncroft's History of Utah
Some Questions the Book Does Not Fully


of Peasant Life-New Novels.
| A PRETTY volume, bearing the imprint of the
History Company, San Francisco with
Hubert Howe Bancroft for author, has for its
title History of Utah. 1t is one among many
other pretty volumes in which Mr.. Bancroft
has set down his gleanings in the harvest fields
OF ancient and modern American history as 1t
has been enacted on the other side of the
Mississippi river. For some years back this
busy cleaning has been going on. With q
corps of industrious clerks, turning over old
books and manuscripts, jotting down notes and
memoranda, Mr.. Bancroft has made a regular
business of recording what can be found out
about the history of the Pacific slope and lands
adjacent. Mexico and New Mexico, Texas
and California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado,
wyoming, Oregon. Washington, Idaho, Mon
tana, have all been written up. Mr.. BancroftS
researcne+ have extended as far south as Gen.
tral America, and as far north as Alaska. Utah,
however, presents a subject for the historian
winch has at least the charm of novelty. There
are Indians. and idols, and queer myths, and
hardy settlers, and gold seekers. grouped pic
turesquely in the background of a good many
pictures of early Western life, whether the his
torian sets up his camera in the North, or
South. or East, or West. But there is nothing
quite like Utah in all the wide stretch of coun-
try with which Mr.. Bancroft has made us ac-
qualnted. There is only one example in the
annals of America" says Mr. Bancroft, ''of the
organization OF a commonwealth upon the prin-
ciples of pure democracy. There is here: one
example only where the founding of a State
grew out of the founding of a re-
liglon. Other instances there have
neen OF the occupation Of wild
tracts on this continent by people flying before
persecution, or desirous of greater religious
liberty; there were the Quakers, the Hugue-
nots and the Pilgrim fathers, though their
spiritual interests were SO soon subordlnated to
political necessities. Religion has often played
a aconsplcuous part in the settlement of the
New World, and there has at times been pres
ent in some degree the theoratic. if not indeed
the hierarchical idea but it has been long
since the world the old continent or the new,
has witnessed anything like a new religion sue
cessfully established and set in prosperous
running order upon the fullest and combined
principles of theocracy, hierarchy and patri-
archy.
Mr.. BANCROFT found, as every historian
willard especially when his subject is the
record of people against whom almost every
man has set his hand-that there were
two possible paths for him to follow,
the path of lies and the path of truth.
A great many people have found it very easy
to tell lies about the Mormons, and not a few
books, whose fttest librarian is the garbage |
man, have been manufactured out of these lies.
The Mormons. also. in the opinion of some |
Gentiles, have found it well to tell some lies |
about themselves. There are lies enough on
both sides to provide the historian who desires |
to fill 700 pages and cares comparatively little
what he fills them with, with plenty of material. |
The path of truth, however. along which Mr.. |
Bancroft. being a reputable historian, wishes to
go. is not so easy. Nobody who is unacquainted |
with the literature of the subject can know |
what a task the historian must have with his |
authorities" 1t was foregone conclusion |
that no history of Utah could be written which
would satisfy both Mormon and a Gentle |
critic. Bancroft decided |
he will be content with satisfying himself He |
could not have done better. The result is a
careful, well.considered, just and permanently
valuable contribution to American history.
This book contains all the facts which are
verifable. all the facts which are asserted by
respectable authorities upon the Mormon side
with the questions by which respectable Gen.
tile authorities have doubted their right to be
called facts and all the arguments pro and con
which have any reason in them or any reput-
able names behind them. The reader can make
his choice.
THE story begins with the first sight of Utah
by Europeans in the persons of Francisco
Vasquez de Coranado and his companions in
1910 who seem to have had a hard time of it
and to have seen very little, but who, never
theless, discovered enough to set the map
makers at work. The Utah of 1910 was as
unknown to civilization as the regions of the
Congo were few years ago. And the map
as generous of hills and rivers as they have
been within our own memory. They set down
a great lake in the midst of the west, big enough
to cover Utah and Idaho combined.
Into the valley of the Great Salt Lake, which
trappers and explorers had brought within
more accurate limits of latitude and longitude.
came in the year 1S47 the great Mormon migra-
ton. Mr. Bancroft traces the rise of the move
ment beginning with Joseph Smith and Mar
Tin Harris and Oliver Cowdry, recountng the
and tragedies which accompanied
The spread of the new religion, and the circum-
stances which turned the faces of the leaders
Northward. With lS47 the modern history of
Utah begins. Henceforth Its fortunes are
within the memory of men still living.
THERE are three questions which we want
answered b. anybody who tells the history
Of the Mormons: What of polygamy? What
If the theocracy? What of the future These
questions are not answered in the book at the
ength which many readers will desire. There
S a chapter on "Mormonism and Polygamy" in
which the practice is founded on the example
If the Old Testament patrarchS and on the
curious belief of Mormons about spirits which |
ire awaiting incarnation. In this chapter the
Mormon argument for polygamy is stated, and
he custom is defended from some OF the most
common and most unsavory of the assertions |
which are made about it. AS for putting it
town. Mr.. Bancroft does not favor coercion, as
INVITING social tyranny.
In the matter of the theocracy, upon which
,uch writer's as Mr.. Strong, in "Our Country"
ay great stress, Mr.. Bancroft says little. MIR. |
SrronC's description of Mormonism shows it as
state within the state which IS at entire vari-
lnce with our institutions. which is reaching
,ut by persuasion and emigration after political
,ower beyond Utah. and which really threatens l
he future well-being of the West. The facts
IRE all in the book, butthere is no assembling of
hem together. That. however, the historian
night consider to be outside his province.
Il hna a1irno tot ,6t11fr in,
When Joseph Smith. the prophet, died, the
2 apostles os the Mormon Church were these:
Brigham Young, the lion of the Lord; Heber !
). Kimball, the herald of peace; Farley p.
Pratt the archer of paradise; Orson Hyde the
live branch of Israel; Willard Richards, the ,
Keeper of the rolls: John Taylor, the champion
# right: William Smith. the patriarchal staff
If Jacob; Wilford Woodruff, the banner of the ]
gospel; George A. Smith, the entablature of I
ruth; Orson Pratt, the gauge of philosophy; I
ohn E. Page the sun-dial and Lyman Wright, I
he wild ram of the mountains" 1t is to the
courtesy of the venerable Wilford Woodruff
hat the Critic is indebted for his copy of the
History of U Utah." :
IN the long evenings, to the sound of the
grinding of hemp Pere Elienne Depardieu t
old the story of peasant life which George t
sands set down in her novel, The BagpiperS. &
Roberts Bros: II. Watts & Co., 81 50.) At
east that was the way of it according to George
sands own account in her dedicatory letter to
eugene Lambert. 1t was nearly forty years
go that that fortunate young gentleman re-
marked in the very days when George Sand '
vas writing this story of ''The Bagpipers"- '
Bye the bye, it will soon be ten years since 1
anne here. intending to spend month. 1
must be thinking of leaving" He found that
he country and George Sand were unfaggingly :,
interesting, and several generations of inter-
sted readers have agreed with him. The list
# George Sands books would rival, it is said,
1omer's famous catalogue OF ships. Some of
hem are not worth reading. Some of them
re worth reading good many times over.