The 19th Wife (47 page)

Dear Mrs. Young—

Although I have failed to find any connection between Mr. Reef and Brigham Young, and now do not expect to do so, there is one link of another sort that has recently come to light. I do not know the meaning of it, yet it stands out among the many clues and therefore I bring it to you. Mr. Reef is an associate of your brother, Aaron Webb. The two share a title to a small, not especially productive copper mine in Southwestern Utah, near a settlement called Red Creek. Your brother’s first wife, Connie (my records show he has taken an even dozen in total)—she is the sister to Mr. Reef ’s seventh wife. I have yet to turn up evidence connecting your brother to Mr. Reef ’s actions pertaining to you, but the coincidence of association is noteworthy. Before I investigate any further, is there any reason to suspect your brother might have had a hand in this libelous plot?

I await your instructions.

Yours sincerely,
CARL CUMMINGS, INVEST., CHICAGO

Although no betrayal is as painful as that inflicted by a family member, Mr. Cummings’s revelation, distressing as it was, did not come wholly as a surprise. Ever since his involvement in the Reformation, Aaron had become a blind defender of polygamy. He reveled in his right to acquire women, blithely bringing a fresh bride into his bed whenever he desired conjugal variety. He embodied the hypocrisy of the Mormon polygamist so well that even before my apostasy I had done my best to limit my boys’ interaction with their uncle. For his part, I am sure Aaron recognized my skepticism even before I did; although brother and sister, it was obvious we were enemies.

At this point, after having endured so much, I chose to ignore Mr. Cummings’s ominous but circumstantial evidence. What good would come from it? I looked to my conscience for counsel and never responded to Mr. Cummings’s letter. The truth would have to lie privately in Aaron’s heart and mine, where God would judge it.

Sadder still was the silence from others. My dear father, so regretful over his own multiple marriages, never found the courage to speak out on my behalf. My half-sister Diantha, whom I loved, went missing from the debate. And most painfully, my mother’s farewell letter always burned in my pocket, where I protected it, hoping another would come to revise its contents, to change her view of me.

On the eve of my arrival in Washington, where I would meet my most important audience, a letter from my beloved brother Gilbert was delivered to my door.

Sister—

I know the news about you is untrue. Anyone who knows you will say the same. Anyone who believes in your crusade knows it too. Don’t worry about your friends. We remain steadfast and true. Yet you have enemies. They repeat these tales, adding to them and puffing them up. I hear them in town, at the mill, in church. Whenever I can I tell the speaker to shut his mouth but there are too many mouths in Deseret for me to finish the job.

Since your departure I’ve been planning my own. By the time you read this, I should be half way to Albuquerque or El Paso. I’ll have to leave my wives behind, and my children too—an abandonment I know I’ll feel painful about for the rest of my days. But I have no choice. I no longer believe anything this Church has to say. When I see Brigham, it’s like looking at the face of a criminal. I know he feels the same about me. If I were to stay, I’d be dead soon enough, so either way my family will be left without husband and father. If I make any money, I’ll send it to my wives. But I won’t promise anything I don’t know for sure I’ll have. When I settle, I’ll write with my news. Until then, you should know I believe you, and only you.

Before closing, I want to tell you our Ma’s sick. Not of body but in heart. She’s twisted up about how Brigham’s been talking about you. She can’t stand it, I know, because she knows he’s telling lies. If I were a wagerer, I’d put a dollar down on her apostasy too. It’s a pitiful sight—watching someone so devout lose her faith. If you can, you might write her. Right now, only words from you might soothe. I can’t tell the future, but I suspect one day soon you and she will reunite. I know she wants to bring James to you. She’s in South Cottonwood, but how long she’ll last I can’t say.

Your Brother—
GILBERT WEBB

Immediately I wrote my mother, posting the letter in Baltimore.

My Dear Mother—

On this journey of mine, of which I know you are aware, each night, kneeling before the stiff hotel bed, I pray twice. Once for a swift return to James. And once for a reunion with you. If these prayers are not answered, I will live out my days burdened with doubt about the value of my Crusade. If I succeed in my mission, and eradicate polygamy from our land, and yet remain separated from you or my son, then I will ask myself, At what cost? Indeed, at what cost has all this been? These are my most private thoughts, shared with only you and my God.

—Your Daughter

THE
19
TH WIFE

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Defeating Polygamy

In Washington we drove up a muddy street, past a row of one-story private houses, narrow, crowding structures displaying squalor in their windows. Here and there were patches of springtime grass, ready to be trampled by the pigs who seemed to outnumber the Capital’s citizens. The street led to a wide avenue, grandly laid out, yet its buildings were no more elegant, or noble, in design than the huts we had previously passed. Had the Capitol’s dome not beckoned us, flashing in the April sun, I would have been sure we were on a highway to nowhere. On that drive it was impossible not to compare Washington to Great Salt Lake. The former had a fifty-year advantage on the latter, and yet any fair observer would crown the capital of Zion the more colonized metropolis.

We were a party of four—Lorenzo, Major Pond, Mr. Redpath, and myself—who entered the Capitol building, through a dim hall known as the Crypt. A clerk in epaulette informed us we were standing directly beneath the famous dome. The room was held up by forty brown columns, the veins in the stone coursing with force, as if revealing their strain as they worked to hold aloft the building above.

The clerk, a birdy fellow with clipped, flapping arms, led us to the House chamber. I was shown to the Ladies Waiting Area, a cordoned section of chairs, while the Major and Mr. Redpath were invited to sit with the gentlemen. The clerk wanted to seat Lorenzo with them, but I insisted he remain with me.

Mr. James Blaine, the House Speaker, is a quick-minded, flinty man, trained and fortified in the cold blasts of Maine. He has the inscrutable eyes of a newspaper editor, which he once was in Portland. When I arrived he was orating from his chair of authority, the famous gavel in his grasp, filling the chamber with, by chance, a lecture on the subject of the separation of Church and State. The clerk delivered to him my card and letter of introduction.

To my surprise, the Speaker set down his gavel, left his chair, and invited me into the elegant Speaker’s Room. By the warmth of a fire, and beneath the gentle glow of a French chandelier, Mr. Blaine invited me to tell my story. I began, and not far into it, he sent the clerk back to the chamber with the instruction of having another member replace him in the Speaker’s chair. I continued with my story, and some twenty minutes later, the person responsible for filling in for the Speaker gave up that position to come listen to me as well. For two hours I spoke; every few minutes another member of the great Chamber quit the floor to join me in the Speaker’s Room. Before I had finished the room was full and more members stood on toes in the hall.

I told them everything I have disclosed here, Dear Reader, from the early glories of Joseph Smith to the story of my parents’ conversion. I described my first meetings with Brigham, my unhappy marriage to Dee, and Brigham’s friendship at the time of my divorce. I discussed my mother’s sorrow as one wife, then the next entered her house, and my sense that I had lost my father to polygamy, so demanding upon his moral soul was it. I portrayed for these Gentlemen the workings of the Lion House, and the authority of the Beehive House next door. I recounted Brigham’s courtship, and my brother’s legal troubles, and my eventual submission. I offered every honest detail of what it has been like for me to be the 19th wife—the few morsels of affection and support it afforded me. All of this I portrayed for the Gentlemen of Congress, those responsible for the laws of our miraculous land. I could perceive the effects of my tale in their wincing eyes, in their agitated lips, twitching behind mustaches and beards.

I urged them to pass the necessary laws to ban this relic of the barbarian. “What kind of country are we that we let this pass? That today, beside this warm fire, sitting in this fine furniture, under the roof of this great building, we should be here while thousands of women and even more children suffer under this system. The Mormons will appeal to you in the name of religious freedom. They will tell you—indeed have already told you—that to subject them to the laws of the land is to persecute them for their faith. If you are inclined to believe this, if you are hesitant to trample on the rights of the religious, then I beg you to consider the question this way: Let a man be with a woman and another and another after her if he so chooses, and if they so choose. Let this happen for the sake of freedom, which we all hold so dear. But as soon as there is a child, as soon as one boy or one girl enters the house, you can no longer look away or protect the situation for the sake of religious freedom. Doesn’t every child deserve something better than neglect? Don’t you, and we, and all of us, have the obligation to protect that child? And what of this child’s rights—his right to be protected, her right to grow up to choose his or her own faith?

“Good Gentlemen, Sirs, I implore you, do not let doctrine ensnare you. Don’t hesitate over questions of God and the Lord. You are lawmakers, and your laws have been circumvented. Make it a crime to neglect a wife. Make it a crime to neglect a child. Make it a crime to force one woman to accept another into her home. Make it a crime, for that is what it is. It is not a religious practice, it is not a declaration of faith, it is not a testament of freedom, it is a crime of cruelty and abandonment. And it is permitted today, in your borders, with your consent. Brigham has sanctioned adultery in the name of God, and you, in doing nothing, have condoned it. Your silence has allowed Brigham to claim it to be true. I, of course, cherish my freedom, but I shall never want my freedom to restrict the freedom of another. In that case then I am not truly free, and none of us is truly free.

“Gentlemen, here, let me introduce you to my son Lorenzo. He has traveled with me all this way. I selfishly took him with me, for I could not imagine the journey without him. I should have left him in school with his brother. But I could not, for he, ultimately, is the reason I wage this fight. I look at him and am reminded of my purpose. If my story has not impressed you, consider it from his eyes. Imagine what he has seen, and how it has affected him. If you owe me no protection, I at least ask you to give it to him.”

When I concluded my speech, the Gentlemen of Congress rushed to meet me, offering their cards and promising their support. For some time a circle of men ten-deep surrounded me and there was a general noise of congratulation, like at a party, with a hundred voices collecting to form a roar. At some point, something I could not see was taking place at the rim of this crowd, for many men fell silent, and urged others to do so too, and the men began to step aside. The quiet was sudden and complete and had an ominous quality to it. The men were making way for someone to pass through, I could tell, and at first I could not imagine who. Then, slowly, it became clear that somehow Brigham had followed me to the Capitol. He was here, but I did not know why. The Gentlemen continued to step aside, and I waited for my husband to appear from behind the shoulders and heads. I saw a presence, a form moving to me. I held on to Lorenzo, my fingers digging into his shoulders, and I loathed myself for not pushing him out of harm’s way, but I could not let go of my child. As the crowd continued to part, the man stepping forward began to take shape, and when at last the final ring of men moved aside, letting the visitor pass—just at this moment I saw before me, as close as my hand is to my face when I hold it out, President Grant. Mrs. Grant was at his side, her eyes crossed with fury. “Our nation will stew in shame,” the President said, “if this Congress does not heed your call.”

I thanked the President for his support. Next I introduced my son, and the great General knelt to discuss matters with my boy, including the quality of fishing in the Potomac. At the end of our interview, President Grant pledged his full support.

But the final word came from Mrs. Grant. “I want to assure you,” she said, “I won’t let him sleep until he gets this done.”

A few weeks after my visit, Congress passed the anti-polygamy Poland Bill. I can claim only a fraction of the credit for it, for many others have taken part in this Crusade. Time will tell of the bill’s effects, and its ability to dismantle what Brigham has so vigorously fought for, but my mission, as I saw it, was complete. I had brought to the nation’s attention the suffering of Utah’s women and children and forced the country to respond. How Brigham and the Church would react to this new onslaught would be up to them. Would they accept it, give up polygamy, and finally enter through our nation’s gates? Or defy it, and invite a battle that would lead to Deseret’s humiliation and defeat, along with the surrender of its leaders, like that of the South a decade before? I could not predict the next chapter in the Church’s life, nor the future of Brigham’s reign, or the prospect of his household, nor the final outcome of this tale of faith. At this point I was certain of only one thing—I had played my part and was ready to reunite my boys and find a home, wherever that may be.

THE END