New-York tribune., 1905-12-25
His son. James w. is the present Congressman,
and father of the prospective Speaker
A MONUMENT TO "FAKING."

It is sometimes a subject for wonder with
| persons outside of the trade union circles that
some of those within will insist on glorifying a
scoundrel like Sam Parks even when his crimes
are acknowledged. Yet there is no cause for
wondermeht. The capacity for hero worship is
! deep laid in human nature and there are very
! few of us whose geese are not swans. A po-
! tical leader, Notwithstanding fncontestab1e proof
of corruption can generally manage to hold to
himself a large following, not merely of Great
ures of his own sort, but of honest men who sim
ply have not the capacity TO defects In those
who stir their enthusiasm lead their preju-
dices.
And so It is everywhere The little town of
Sharon Vt was the scene on Saturday of tho
unveiling of monument to this human capacity
for calling black white. The shaft was raised
/ ostensibly In honor of Joseph Smith, the founder
of Mormonism. who was born on December %,
1905, but TO the world in general It will stand
as a testimony TO the power Of credulity. Here
was an impudent charlatan the author of
crude and vulgar hoax. of those cute"
Yankees who instead of making wooden nut
megs or burying Cardiff giants at about the
time when our state of society gave opportunity
for such industries turned religious takers"
America has been fertile mother of religious
sects. some of them merely eccentric, others the
product Of sheer fraud and Central New-York
days of the last century. Jemima Wilkinson
could promise to walk on the waters of Seneca
Lake and. after asking the assembled multitude
if they believed in her miraculous power and
learning that they did. say that she did not
then need to demonstrate IT, and still retain her
following But far surprising any prophet" of
his time in impudence was Joseph Smith, who
pretended to have dug up from a Palmyra hill
side the golden plates of the Book of Mormon.
Smith from his fifteenth year had, or pretended
to have. visions, probably under the stimulus
to vanity of the "revivals' which in those days
swept the country. His course might he ex-
planned by honest enthusiasm or self-delusion
if the visions had ended in the straightforward
teaching of what he believed to be religious
truth But belief in his honesty-at least after
his early reports of visions-is forbidden by the
palpable fraud on which he founded his whole
system. His hook translated from the golden
plates was palpable plagiarism, largely made
up from weird novel of ancient peoples which
had fallen into his hands.
All was afterward completely proved. But
finding in his neighborhood a few ignorant
families he had organized them into Church"
and the mischief was done. Partisan zeal from
that time made all exposure, even of his later
fragrant immOralities, useless, and MOrmOnism
has grown to its present dimensions. The power
of Smith must ever be a matter for curious
study. 1t was not at first based. like later Nor
monsm, on the appeal made to some persons by
polygamy. He set up as a prophet at time of
intellectual ferment among ignorant people who
did not know their own ignorance The pioneer
spirit had made leach man his own Mel
chisedec.' The old ties, social, political and re-
ligious. had been broken. New elements of so
ciety were coming into power. jealous of tradi
ton and dreaming of being the founders of
new era A smart adventurer like Joseph Smith
found them just fitted TO his purpose and they
and their successors from other lands who have
been drawn into the Mormon web now pay
tribute TO the power of impndent fraud.