A 'Utah Camelot' scandal led to the death of an early-Mormon 'princess'

I’m haunted by a ragged PDF-copied photograph, courtesy of the Utah State Historical Society, of Louisa “Louie” Wells, who 130 years ago was a princess in Mormon Salt Lake City. The poor quality of the reproduced photo does not hide that she was a beautiful young woman. “Louie” Wells was the daughter of Mormon elitist Daniel Hamner Wells, Salt Lake City mayor, and Emmeline Blanche Wells, Mormon feminist and magazine editor.

Besides being favored with beauty, and a steady, esteemed Mormon suitor, journalist Robert W. Sloan, Louie was as accomplished as a Jane Austen heroine. She sang beautifully, she performed in Salt Lake City plays and operas, including “The Mikado,” was an early leader of the LDS ladies Mutual organization, and was an excellent essayist, writing accounts of her travels to the eastern United States and Europe for the LDS journal Women’s Exponent. She was groomed to be a Mormon woman icon, perhaps as well known today as Eliza R. Snow.

Today, in a corner of the Salt Lake City cemetery, a tombstone, well over a century old, bears the name “Louie,” and nothing else. Louie Wells died an agonizing death at 24, far from home, with her mother at her side, helpless to save her. In less than a year, her bright future and presumed happiness was extinguished. The events that led to her death roiled Salt Lake City and nearly destroyed the kinship between two prominent families, the Wells and the Cannons. 

Historian Kenneth Cannon III’s article, “The Tragic Matter of Louie Wells and John Q. Cannon,” is must reading if one wants to learn more after reading this blog. In 1886, in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, John Q. — the eldest living son of Mormon elder George Q. Cannon, and a former Ogden Standard editor, Deseret News reporter, counselor in the LDS Church Presiding Bishopric, and husband of Annie Wells Cannon, Louie’s sister   — shocked a crowd gathered to worship by confessing to adultery. He was immediately excommunicated, promptly divorced from Annie, and then married to Louie.

Although John Q. Cannon did not mention the “other woman,” the hasty marriage to Louie made it easy to guess whom he had slept with. Try to imagine an LDS general authority today confessing to adultery during a stake conference and one understands how shocked Mormons were at the time. On the other hand, the anti-Mormon Salt Lake Tribune was delighted. It had, in 1884, published gossip that John Q. and Louie had secretly married. At the time, John Q. had tracked down the reporter, and beat him up.

After his 1886 confession to adultery, divorce and new marriage, federal marshals — always on the lookout for polygamists — arrested John Q., claiming his quick divorce from Annie was illegal. Louie, already pregnant, went into hiding but was located by authorities. She spent a humiliating time in court denying she was a plural wife.

The case against John Q. eventually lost steam. Long before its resolution, Louie was sent to San Francisco by her family to have the baby. It was not the first time that she had been made pregnant by her brother in law. John Q. confessed to an intimate that he had impregnated Louie in 1885 and that she had miscarried.  This news seems to lend partial credibility to the controversial Tribune article, although no marriage occurred. The source for that article, according to Kenneth Cannon’s piece, was Angus Cannon Jr., the despised, “scoundrel” son of Angus Cannon Sr., polygamist and stake president, who had accompanied John Q. when he confessed in 1886.

Louie Cannon Wells died six weeks after suffering her second miscarriage. Her death at 24 was due to dropsy, and she suffered terribly. Mom Emmeline was unable to help ease her pain, which must have been exacerbated due to stress, hiding and traveling. During their short marriage, Louie and her husband were likely never together. He was not at her side when she died. Shortly after Louie’s death, John Q. and Annie Wells were remarried. Several years later, Louie was sealed to John Q. in a temple ceremony.

At Louie’s funeral, an already bad situation was dangerously increased when stake president Angus Cannon publicly identified Louie as the adulterous partner of John Q. This created a feud between the Cannons and Wells that eventually led to Angus Cannon physically striking Louie’s sister, Mell, and threatening to tell more about the affair. Later, John Q. threatened to kill Angus Cannon. Tensions were finally eased thanks to the Wells family matriarch, Emmeline. Tolerant, and a peacemaker at heart, she reached out to the Cannons, and the situation calmed. However, the rift never died, as Emmeline Wells’ diary entry of May 17, 1898, footnoted by Kenneth Cannon, reads, “Angus is 64 years old today. ... He has seen much sorrow and as he has been unkind and ungenerous to others harsh in his judgment one need not be surprised that it comes back upon him — As ye mete it out to others so shall it be unto you, and therefore he should expect it.”

As with any tragedy, there are “why” questions. Why didn’t John Q. make Louie a plural wife, and avoid church punishment? One answer may be that plural marriage for younger LDS scions was being subtly discouraged at a time when Utah leaders wanted statehood. More likely is that John Q. could not control his lust for a beautiful, younger sister in law living in the home, particularly when his own wife was pregnant. In his article, Kenneth Cannon points out that despite being the favored older son, (John Q. had been called to be an apostle long before the adultery was revealed, only to have that blocked by LDS Church President John Taylor), John Q. was a dysfunctional man. He was prone to drinking, gambling and carousing. It’s possible that inebriation fueled his lust. Also, one two occasions, John Q. embezzled thousands of dollars while held positions of trust. He was bailed out both times by his family’s influence.

Time, and staying alive, returned John Q. to society’s esteem. After his remarriage, he was restored to membership to the LDS Church and was a Deseret News editor. He and Annie had 12 children. John Q. is buried in the Cannon family plot next to his wife Annie. Elsewhere, in the Wells family plot, sits the stone with the sole word, “Louie,” on it.

-- Doug Gibson

A previous version of this column was published at StandardBlogs.

An historical novel on the affair is also available.

Review: Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath

 

Review by Doug Gibson

In “Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath” (Oxford University Press, 2023), authors Richard E. Turley Jr., and Barbara Jones Brown relate, 19 years after the massacre, the second trial of John D. Lee, the only man convicted.

It was a quick trial. One that easily garnered a conviction from a jury comprised entirely of Mormon men. As the book relates, this was in direct contrast to an earlier trial of Lee – before a jury of Mormons and non-Mormons – that resulted in a hung jury.

The reason for Lee’s conviction was simple. In this second trial, prosecutor Sumner Howard focused solely on the evidence against Lee, and did not waste time, and taxpayer dollars, attempting to convict LDS leaders Brigham Young, George A. Smith, and the faith itself. The first trial was a semi farce, with prosecutors, a newspaper (the Salt Lake Tribune), and a Utah political party hoping that failure to secure a conviction would lead to federal action that would crush the Mormon faith and its political power.

To get a hung jury, prosecutors in the first trial openly insulted the faith of the Mormon jurors during the trial. With a more mature prosecutor, Howard, actively working with Mormon cooperation -- something the previous prosecution had refused to do – testimony against Lee from participants and observers clearly established Lee’s guilt of truly horrible crimes.

There is truth that Lee, executed on the site of the massacre, was a scapegoat. The slaughter of 100-plus emigrants involved dozens of conspirators. William Higbee, Nephi Johnson, Philip Klingensmith, Isaac Haight, are examples of those who escaped court justice. But Lee was guilty. He deserved to be shot for his crimes.

“Vengeance is Mine …” is a follow-up to the 2008 book “Massacre at Mountain Meadows,” of which Turley was one of the authors. The follow up provides a thorough recap of the years after the massacre, including how the Civil War put the issue aside for a while.

The book describes a period of rhetorical “fire-and-brimstone” eras leading to the massacre – the Mormon Reformation of the mid 1850s, the assassination of apostle Parley P. Pratt, and the movement of federal troops to Utah. Speeches from Young, Smith and others promised violence -- and alliance with Native Americans -- if the federal government threatened the Mormon faith. It’s not difficult to imagine a gross over-response to a perceived threat to settlers, given the harsh rhetoric from ecclesiastical leaders.

I’ve read just about every book published on the Mountain Meadows Massacre. For some reason the horrors of the massacre hit hardest while reading “Vengeance is Mine ...”. Perhaps it’s the book’s narrative approach. The authors are very effective in conveying the horror of what occurred.

Offered a white flag of truce from Lee, the emigrants surrendered their weapons, with a promise of being led to safety. Shortly into the march, the men were shot – most in the head – by the supposed Mormon protectors.

As awful as that is, there was a worse fate for woman, infirm men, and nearly all children 7 or over. They were knifed and clubbed to death by Native Americans and settlers. Seventeen children were spared, only because Lee and other conspirators felt they wouldn’t be able to remember. There was a very young survivor, about 1, being brought to a home with her arm essentially hanging by a thread; a bone was shattered. The descriptions of the aftermath are sickening. They include Mormon participants laughing hysterically as they (unsuccessfully) tried to bury massacre victims. There’s an account of Lee – during an LDS church address – saying the massacre was the fulfilment of a revelation from God that he had received in a dream. I can’t get that out of my head – fast and testimony thanksgiving for killing.

An iconic presence through the book are bones, hair, and clothing littering the once-beautiful  site of the massacre. Repeatedly, wolves and other predators uncover meager efforts to bury the massacred. Even 19 years later, as Lee meets his fate, bones still litter the site.

The historian Hannah Arendt described evil as banal. The Mountain Meadows Massacre was banal evil. It was so stupid. Vicious men, full of prejudices and hate – motivated by unwise speeches -- tried to get Paiute Indians to kill emigrants from Arkansas.  That failed. When Mormon settlers shot at two emigrants, with one killed and the other fleeing to the wagons, the fate of the entire party was sealed. Lee and others were worried that survivors would relate their crimes once they arrived in California. It was ridiculous to think that killing 100-plus more people would hide a crime.

So, everyone had to die. No one waited for a messenger dispatched to Salt Lake City to get Brigham Young’s advice. He said to let the emigrants pass through. But it was too late. The cover up began. “It was all the Paiute’s fault.” … “Those emigrants killed were comprised of prostitutes and former tormenters of the faith in Missouri.” “They poisoned a cow and killed Indians and a young settler boy.” All lies; the ringleaders knew it.

But these false rationalizations endured for scores of years.

As mentioned, Lee – while guilty – served as a scapegoat for the massacres. It’s a compliment to the authors’ writing skills that one can feel a small measure of sympathy for Lee as over time he is abandoned by his faith, many of his wives, most of his church colleagues, and even the man he arguably loved most in the world, Brigham Young.

However, those most culpable did suffer, as the authors relate. Isaac Haight lived a nomadic, rough life. Every time he tried to settle into conventional Mormon life, outrage eventually sent him fleeing. He died of pneumonia. William Stewart  had a lonely, nomadic, running-away life. He died in Mexico due to gangrene in his leg. John Higbee eventually became insane before his death. His life “was a living hell,” a former Mormon is quoted as saying.

Philip Klingensmith became a loner, trying to avoid the stigma of his mere existence. Reports seem to indicate that he died in the same manner as Loyal Blood, the character on the run in E. Annie Proulx’s novel, “Postcards.”

And Nephi Johnson, while living a long life, never escaped the personal hell that his participation in the massacre brought him. Prior to his death, trying to speak to a young Juanita Leavitt (Brooks), all he could utter was “Blood! BLOOD! BLOOD!”

This is an excellent, well-researched history book by two talented historians. Both “Vengeance is Mine …” and “Massacre at Mountain Meadows” belong together as must-reads to learn the story, beginning to end, of the 1859 atrocity in Southern Utah.

Uncle Will and the Fitzgerald Curse, a review

Review and musings by Doug Gibson

The late Utah-born author John D. Fitzgerald is certainly not a household name, but many of his books, primarily the youth fiction "The Great Brain" series, are both recalled and loved by I'd wager millions. In the 1950's, long before he started "The Great Brain" books, he wrote "Papa Married a Mormon," a major best seller. (Our review is here). That novel had several printings. A sequel, "Mamma's Boarding House," also sold well. Both are easily accessible today, "Papa Married a Mormon" can be bought for within $20, "Mama's Boarding House" is a bit more expensive, usually. Fitzgerald wrote a third novel, "Uncle Will and the Fitzgerald Curse," and I promise to get to that as soon as I've finished my beginning musings.

The above-mentioned series and novels relate the lives of the Fitzgerald family in a fictional Utah town named Adenville. The time period runs from the late 19th century into the first dozen or so years of the 20th century. Close to Adenville, in southern Utah, is a mining town later turned ghost town named Silverlode. Tom D. Fitzgerald is Papa and the Mormon he married is Tena Nielsen Fitzgerald. Children of the Fitzgeralds who are prominent in the books include John D., (the author of the novels) and his older brothers Tom D. and Sweyn D.

Fitzgerald is a marvelous storyteller. The books are mostly arranged in chapters that tell a distinct tale from beginning to end. The author manages to do this while keeping the flow of the novel. There are minor inconsistencies of time frame and character events but they are subtle and do not distract from an enjoyable reading experience.

Fitzgerald's writing style has been compared to Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Steinbeck and Harper Lee. He vividly describes the regional western era of the state he grew up in, with idealized, often-moralistic depictions of sheriffs, newspapermen, gamblers, saloon keepers, Latter-day Saint bishops, Catholic priests, Protestant ministers, teachers, mothers, dads, children, merchants, gunslingers, con men, miners, team of horses drivers, bigots, dance hall girls, Native Americans and even town drunks. Often in the chapters a negative influence in the moral tale will reform and become a positive influence within both diverse communities, Mormon, straight-laced Adenville, and the more "back-street, hell-raising" Silverlode, later represented as East Adenville. In other chapters the negative influence either dies at the hand of justice, or suffers appropriate monetary loss/comeuppance, or is sent off to jail.

While I may make no claim that Fitzgerald is the equal of Charles Dickens (there are probably only 8 or 9 writers in history his equal) I see a type of Western America "Dickensian-like" talent in Fitzgerald as he describes both the personal appearance, speech, and colorful personalities and antics of his many characters.

UNCLE WILL AND THE FITZGERALD CURSE

Time to get to the review of the above-mentioned book. It involves the life of a prominent character, Will D. Fitzgerald, Tom's brother and uncle to the children. In "Papa Married a Mormon," we meet this very rich owner of the White Horse Saloon and gambling hall in Silverlode. He is an agnostic and skeptic, but extremely fair and pragmatic. A longtime gambler, he worked his way across the country, earning his wealth initially through gambling, and killing several men in gun draws. He's a positive, loved member of the family who uses his considerable intellect, wits and wealth to help resolve some crisis in the novels.

"Uncle Will and the Fitzgerald Curse" is Will's story. A significant portion of the book is spent on Will's childhood, in the Fitzgerald family home in Pennsylvania. Already a headstrong child, Will reacts negatively to his maternal grandfather moving into the home. He is an autocratic religious bigot who -- with his father's enabling -- takes over authority in the house. His mother is also plagued with religious intolerance, but also is a loving influence. Will and his grandfather clash over several years, with Will slowly defying his parents, and the community. He turns into a known troublemaker, non-conformist, "bad seed."

There is a chapter, early in the book, in which Will, in his upper mid teens, is seduced by an unhappy early-middle-aged female librarian, who harbors a past romantic grudge against his father. The sexual seduction passages are not explicit, but is a bit shocking, perhaps more today where a mature adult seducing an impressionable teen is considered a criminal offense rather than a "rite of passage."

When Will turns 18 his father describes in detail the Fitzgerald family curse, which evolves from an Irish descendant named Dennis who turned traitor in the old country. Due to the treachery, a curse was placed on one male child of each generation. Several sons die ignoble deaths. In Will's family, the "cursed" one is predicted to suffer a fate worse than death. Although Will has heard his father scoff at the curse's veracity, listening this time, he senses his father believes he is cursed. He leaves his family at 18 on very formal, chilly terms, determined to become a gambler, head West, and build an empire. (I forget to mention that the aggrieved father who set the curse dictated that all male descendants of the traitor carry the middle name, Dennis.)

Will's travels through the West and the early years of his adult life take him through St. Louis, where he meets a mentor who teaches him to gamble successfully, with advice to live a detached life. Regarding women, the mentor says, "Why buy a cow when milk is so cheap."

Silver Plume, Colorado, which is a real place (I've been there) is the next major, long-term stop in Will's education. He takes a high-level gambling position with a successful saloon owner, with an eye toward buying the saloon'gambling hall one day and having his empire. He also gains a measure of prominence in the mining town. As always there are very descriptive characters, sort of Damon Runyun-esque, if the late Broadway scribe had written about the mining town West, about parlor house madams, female saloon owners, bullies, gamblers, miners, old-timers ...

His tenure in Silver Plume teaches a maturing Will several harsh realities caused by the life choices and viewpoints he's followed. He initiates a physical relationship with a beautiful showgirl, mistaking lust and a desire to possess her for love. She wants a wedding ring, and eventually leaves the relationship.

Later, he falls even harder for a newspaperman's daughter. She's a pretty young woman, charitable and religious. She represents conventionality, something that Will has rejected. My opinion is that Will sees in her the values he first learned in his youth. He mistakes his response to her purity, charity and friendship as love. She rejects him, preferring a more conventional mate, and a  conventionally decent life, although she lacks the maturity to understand that the "decent" homes she tells Will she wants her children to play in may not not necessarily be populated with decent adults.

Will painfully discovers, during his failed courtship, that prominent men with whom he rubs shoulders with will never accept him into their society or families.

It's actually a blessing that she rejects him, but it crushes Will, who leaves Silver Plume and wanders for a long time -- distracted -- until he wills himself to forget her. His despair during that time causes him to think that maybe he is a cursed Fitzgerald.

Will eventually makes his way to Silverlode and uses his gambling skill to win The White Horse Saloon in a high-stakes game with the owner, but has to outdraw and kill him afterward. Soon after, he finds a healthy, lifetime love.

"Uncle Will and the Fitzgerald Curse" is a great read, as satisfying as "Papa Married a Mormon" and "Mama's Boarding House." I sense it didn't sell as well as the others. It's a very expensive book to buy used; I've only seen first editions for sale. I owned a copy for years, but lost it in a 1997 move across country. I finally bought a copy for $150 a few weeks ago. Usually copies run $250 and above. I've added three links (here, here and here) to buy used copies. (I will add that I am skeptical of any offer for under $100). Readers who can't afford a copy should write to libraries and see if they will photocopy the book for a reasonable price. The book is out of print, so I imagine there is no legal impediment. I have receives photocopied pages of books from libraries.

I've written a lot about Fitzgerald and his work, on another blog, Plan9Crunch. Here is one and another is a review of the film version of "The Great Brain." It was released in 1978.

Fitzgerald researcher Carrie Lynn runs the valuable Finding Fitzgerald blog. She is also the author of a recent book, Finding Fitzgerald. It answers many long sought-after questions about the people who represented the characters in Fitzgerald's novels and how the author's hometown of Price, Utah, represents both "Adenville" and "Silverlode." You can buy Finding Fitzgerald here. I have done a review of the book here and interviewed Ms Lynn here. (Below is a photo of author John D. Fitzgerald).

Lincoln used diplomacy to charm the once-hostile Mormons

Originally published at StandardBlogs in 2011. 

The crude, casual racism of a long-ago era is striking in this Nov. 28, 1860 Deseret News advertisement from merchant George Goddard. (page one of four) It reads, “Abe Lincoln, Republican, elected by a large majority!!!, immense excitement!, Democrats all but crazy!!!, Niggers rejoicing at the prospect of freedom!!! and before they are all let loose — over 4,000,000, Geo. Goddard is determined to close out his present stock of goods at the following reduced prices: What follows is a list or ordinary merchandise, everything from grey overshirts, to fine tooth brushes, to tobacco to McGuffey's Readers, etc.

Mr. Goddard's published bigotry underscores the hostility that Utah's Latter-day Saint hierarchy greeted the presidential election of Republican Abraham Lincoln 151 years ago. Historian George U. Hubbard, writing in the Spring, 1963 issue of the Utah Historical Quarterly, notes that the election of Lincoln was greeted with derisive speeches by Mormon leaders, including Church President Brigham Young and apostle George A. Smith. As Hubbard writes in, “Abraham Lincoln as seen by the Mormons,” the Illinois president was described as “weak as water” or as a “King Abraham” who would oversee the destruction of the United States. Prominent Mormon John D. Lee, who would later be executed for the Mountain Meadows Massacre, referred to Lincoln as “the Black Republican,” recounts Hubbard.

The Deseret News editorialized on Feb. 27, 1861, that “…Abraham the I. has, in all probability, been installed into office as successor of James the IV (James Buchanan) … we still believe as we have for many years, that the Union, about which so much has been and is being said, will go to destruction …”

Apostle Smith publicly worried that Lincoln's crusade against slavery would extend to persecution of Utah Mormons. Smith, after blasting Lincoln's anti-slavery crusade as “a priestly influence,” added that “the spirit of priestcraft” would lead to him putting “to death, if it was in his power, every man that believes in the divine mission of Joseph Smith, or that bears testimony to the doctrines he preached.”

Hubbard's piece notes the irony of the Utah antipathy for Lincoln. In fact, it had been his chief opponent, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, who had been most critical of Utah Mormons during the 1860 campaign. The reason for Utah opposition to Lincoln was two-fold. The Republican Party platform of that era described slavery and polygamy as the “twin relics of barbarism.” That must have stung Utah Mormons, who had only recently admitted that their church promoted and practiced polygamy. The second reason for opposition to Lincoln by the Mormon faith was rooted in LDS theology. Mormon doctrine sees the establishment of the United States as overseen by God. As Hubbard writes, “To the Mormons the election of Lincoln meant the dissolution of the Union, a nation whose creation was divinely inspired.”

With those concerns, it's perhaps not surprising that the LDS Church hierarchy was a strong opponent of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln's plans to free the slaves. The Deseret News, which spoke only what church leaders' approved of, blasted the idea, describing it as radical and unconstitutional. The Deseret News wrote, “He (Lincoln) is fully adrift on the current of radical fanaticism” and further described the president as having been “coerced by the insanity of radicals…”

Harsh words, nevertheless, history tells us that two years later Utah's religious leadership, and by extension its citizens, were strong supporters of President Lincoln, cheering his re-election victory and later mourned and paid tribute to Lincoln after his assassination. The about face in support, explains Hubbard, was due to the president's extraordinary diplomatic skills.

Lincoln was no stranger to the “Mormon question.” As a Whig legislator in Illinois in the early 1840s, he had sought — like any other pol — the support of the Mormon voting bloc. In fact, in one election Lincoln had assumed support from the Mormons only to see it taken away by Joseph Smith for political reasons. The future president was too mature a politician to allow the snub to have long-term consequences, and refrained from harsh criticism of the church.

Hubbard writes that the first significant positive response Lincoln received from church leaders was in April 1862 when he bypassed federal officials and instead directly asked Brigham Young to supply an armed force to protect telegraph and mail lines from Indians. Hubbard writes: “The Mormon leaders were delighted with this recognition and demonstration of confidence on the part of the federal government, and their response was immediate.”

Lincoln's diplomatic skills further charmed Utah Mormons after a dispute — common in that era — erupted between church leaders and the non-Mormon leadership of the Utah territory.

Instead of the norm, which would have been to take the civilian official's side, Lincoln responded with a compromise solution. He provided the Mormons some political victories, as well as the civilian leadership. One significant move was that the anti-Mormon governor was removed from office.

The clinching act of diplomacy that endeared Lincoln to Utah Mormons, Hubbard relates, was an interview that the president provided then-active Mormon T.B.H. Stenhouse in 1863. The thrust of Lincoln's remarks as to the Mormons was to let them have autonomy in Utah. Lincoln, to Stenhouse, said, “You go back and tell Brigham Young that if he will let me alone, I will let him alone.”

That advice was manna to Mormon leaders, who had sought without success such a policy for 33 years. From that point on, the Mormon change of opinion on Lincoln was complete. Hubbard writes, “As a result, the Mormon population had become fervent supporters of Abraham Lincoln, and they were looking forward to his re-election.”

The death of Lincoln united, at least temporarily, Mormons and gentiles who flocked to the Tabernacle for an overflow memorial service for the president in April 1865. Future LDS leader Wilford Woodruff delivered the benediction. As Hubbard related in 1963, Abraham Lincoln has been a revered figure in the Mormon faith ever since. Nothing has changed in 2011, 48 years later.

-- Doug Gibson

Charles Shuster Zane was a fair judge Mormons loved to hate

Ever heard of Utah territorial Chief Justice Charles Shuster Zane? He’s one of those fascinating footnotes in history. Appointed in 1884 to administer justice in Utah, the New Jersey Quaker was a respected Illinois lawyer who rubbed shoulders in the same circles that Abraham Lincoln inhabited. Zane was a circuit judge when appointed to the Utah bench by President Chester A. Arthur. 

His tenure was stormy. The dominant Latter-day Saints disliked Zane because he thoroughly enforced the laws against polygamy. He imprisoned men and polygamous wives that he discovered were living “the Principle.” Zane also was heard to publicly proclaim polygamy an abomination. The judge was enforcing the Edmunds law, which was designed to go after Utah Mormons on the polygamy issue. 

According to an article on Zane in the fall 1966 issue of Utah Historical Quarterly, then-BYU professor Thomas G. Alexander cited the following negative assessment of Zane from LDS historians B.H. Roberts and Orson F. Whitney: “Judge Zane ... will stand classed ... in that history as sharing in responsibility for the cruelty and injustice of that regime, which marks the saddest period of Utah’s history. ... Judge Zane never divorced himself from his deepseated prejudice and vindictiveness against ... [the Mormon] offenders and their religious faith, ... his object was the overthrow of Mormonism as a religion.”

Those are harsh words, and they come from Roberts’ “Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” and Whitney’s “History of Utah.” But they’re also not true. In his Utah Historical Quarterly article, Alexander takes a long look at Zane’s judicial philosophy while in Utah, and discovers a tough but fair judge who was scrupulously following the law. In other words, Zane was not the judicial activist many Mormons had hoped would look the other way at laws designed to hamper their religious beliefs.

In fact, Zane made many lower-profile decisions that helped the Mormon church, which was constantly facing nuisance lawsuits from the energetic anti-Mormon “gentile” faction of Utah, which had as its mouthpiece “The Salt Lake Tribune.” For example, Zane ruled in favor of local, Mormon public schools receiving tax monies, rejecting lawsuits that they sectarian schools that taught treason. Zane was a big believer in public education, and the rights of local communities to make educational decisions. 

Also, Zane resisted efforts by gentiles in Utah to swing elections through malicious efforts. He sided with the People’s Party, an LDS party, in its accusation that members of the gentile Liberal Party had tried to stuff ballots in an 1890 school election. In fact, Zane even allowed, over gentile objections, voting by Mormon men who had engaged in obviously sham “spiritual divorces” from their polygamous wives. That shows a lot of tolerance for the Mormon religious mores.

In fact, when Zane finally jailed men and polygamous wives, it was only after every effort to prosecute, or resolve, the situation, had been attempted. There’s no doubt that Zane’s judicial decrees ailed many prominent Utah Mormons. Zane had the — perhaps — misfortune of assuming the bench when enforcement of the anti-polygamy laws was at its most intense. And he was determined to obey the letter of the law. Alexander adds that whenever a guilty plea came in, Zane was likely to fine, rather than jail the polygamist.

Another ruling, disliked by the LDS majority, was Zane’s decision to allow lawyers to question Mormons on naturalization, or citizenship, protests. As Alexander notes, this was a big issue as the Mormons were energetic missionaries overseas and the converts migrated to Utah. However, Zane did offer the Mormons an olive branch by requiring that the district attorney question prospective citizens, rather than anti-Mormon lawyers, explains Alexander.

After the 1890 Manifesto against polygamy, Zane’s attitude on the practice became more relaxed. Alexander recounts that he accepted the promise by LDS Church President Wilford W. Woodruff and later published an article in Forum magazine where he stated, according to Alexander, “that the Mormon problem (polygamy) was at an end because the Mormons had resolved to obey the law.”

The tenure of Zane was an example of a judge diligently following the law in a rugged, still frontier-like territory and angering both sides. Because the high-profile cases went against the majority Mormons, he was vilified long after his death in 1915. It would be fascinating to read a more in-depth look at his tenure as Utah territory’s chief justice.

--- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardNET

Mormon prophet Woodruff crossed the Rubicon often

“Things in Heaven and Earth,” Thomas Alexander’s exhaustive biography of Mormonism’s fourth prophet, Wilford Woodruff, provides justice to the early LDS leader, who tends to take a back seat to more colorful contemporaries, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Woodruff, however, was a transitional figure in Mormon history, one who created bridges that allowed the Utah church to defy chasms that separated it from the rest of the world. In fact, Woodruff made decisions that Smith and Young would have opposed, but were necessary for the young church to grow and prosper.

The massive business and ecclesiastical empire that is Mormonism today owes its 110-plus years of prominence to Woodruff, who made the tough calls needed to eventually turn Mormonism into a religion that garnered, even demanded, respect from what Woodruff and his peers once called “gentiles,” or non-Mormons.

Woodruff, an 1830s convert to the LDS Church, was as fierce a convert as Parley P. Pratt, Brigham Young, and others who survived the chaotic days prior to the Utah migration. He served missions, presided over missions, suffered poverty, persecution, dislocation, and allowed priesthood authority to dictate his acceptance of doctrines such as polygamy. Once in the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young preferred to keep Woodruff in Utah, and he took and active role in local church leadership for decades. He also served in the territorial legislature. Nominally a conservative Mormon, he often took an interest in education, the economy, the arts and literature.

Woodruff, fewer than two years younger than Smith, became church leader in his early 80s in 1889 after John Taylor died. Taylor had taken a small, liberal step forward by allowing some church business practices with non-Mormons. Woodruff was to move the pendulum further than anyone would imagine during his nine years as LDS leader. As Alexander writes, “He (Woodruff) marked the path which led the Latter-day Saints to come to terms with the separation of the temporal and spiritual and to acceptance and respectability; and he reclaimed and deepened the reservoir of spiritual water that nourished the Saints through trying times.”

Separating the temporal and spiritual was most evident in the Spanish-American War during Woodruff’s tenure. At its outset, apostle Brigham Young Jr. issued the established church line of urging young Utah men to avoid war and instead go on missions to preach peace. Woodruff overruled that sentiment, endorsing the idea of LDS men serving in the U.S. military. As Alexander writes, “… crossing an immense intellectual Rubicon, Woodruff subordinated the ideal of the kingdom of God to the ideal of loyalty to the United States….” That once-radical idea is now accepted norm in today’s church.

Earning respectability seemed a tough goal at the beginning of Woodruff’s tenure, with the church assets seized by the government and members, prominent or otherwise, constantly being hunted for polygamy charges. At the time, it was not an extreme position to argue that Mormons were not patriots of the U.S. government. And, privately at least, most Mormons would have agreed.

The Manifesto against polygamy is what Woodruff is most famous for. The revelation, vetted before it was announced, effectively ended the threat of the federal government taking the church’s assets. Woodruff had hoped the Manifesto would ease pressure on Mormon men with multiple marriages, but the threat of jail remained. In fact, Woodruff was basically pressured into assuring secular leaders that polygamy would completely cease. It did not, of course, but future marriages were no longer public.

Woodruff also paved the way for Utah to receive statehood in 1896. He did through encouraging business relationships outside of the church. In fact, during Woodruff’s tenure, one constant agenda on weekly LDS leadership meetings at the temple were the status of LDS church business alliances, such as the Bullion Beck Mining enterprise. These endeavors, as well as Woodruff’s embrace of the two main political parties in the U.S., Republicans and Democrats, would cause a lot of friction within the quorum — one apostle, Moses Thatcher, was booted out of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles due to political fights — but it again provided an entry for the LDS Church into the corridors of economic and political power in the secular world.

The advantages of these decisions helped the LDS church leadership, and many of its businesses, during a severe national economic panic in the early 1890s. Despite capital essentially being closed to borrowers, the church was able to obtain a much-needed loan from a New York firm. These temporal moves were crucial to the church’s growth.

Alexander believes Woodruff learned how to compromise from witnessing the persecution the church suffered in Missouri and Illinois, and through his tenure of managing the British LDS mission. On doctrine he remained a conservative, although he ended the practice of saints being eternally adopted to church leaders in the temple.

Woodruff had little tolerance for those who questioned priesthood authority. He hounded out the Godbeites, a Utah dissident sect that snared an apostle, and later bullied the ill fellow apostle, Thatcher, out of his apostlehood after Thatcher objected, with good reason, to political meddling by the LDS leadership. In fact, Woodruff almost excommunicated Thatcher before the Cache County man, his spirit broken, apologized. Woodruff followed the early Saints mantra of handling misfortune — the death of numerous children, four divorces — with stoicism believing it all to be part of God’s plan. He was a remarkable, determined man, who built the path that Mormons trod today. Listen to an audio of an 1897 testimony, preserved on audio via YouTube.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardBlogs

Diary of LDS apostle includes tales of bribing a Supreme Court justice

The diaries of the late LDS Church Apostle, Abraham H. Cannon, stretching from 1889 to the end of 1895, is interesting church history reading. Signature Book’s “Candid Insights of a Mormon Apostle,” edited by scholar Edward Leo Lyman, provides readers glimpses into the wary, sometimes turbulent LDS history between the Manifesto against polygamy, the church’s desperate efforts to avoid financial destruction due to polygamy, the dedication of the Salt Lake temple, the financial panic of 1893, and efforts toward statehood for Utah.

Cannon, who had several wives, died in 1896 at age 37 from complications of an ear infection. The scion of a prominent Mormon family — his father, George Q. Cannon, was a fellow apostle — his diaries show how his high standing in the LDS Church encompassed not only religious duties, but high-stakes business, chicanery and politics. A thorough diarist, regular meetings of the church’s First Presidency and Quorum of the 12 Apostles are meticulously recorded. Governing the young church’s business empire and dealing with the real threat of imprisonment and government harassment due to polygamy occupied as much time — if not more — than religious duties.

Example: Cannon’s diary entry of Dec. 17, 1892, records that at the apostles’ meeting “… the brethren were told that our success in the Church suits was in a great measure due to the fact that we have a partner of Justice {Stephen J.} Field of the Supreme Court of the United States in our employ, who is to receive a percentage of the money if the suits go in our favor, and the property is returned to us. …” Given the times, this is not as shocking as it sounds today. Justice Field was not the only person of influence tempted by the church. President Benjamin Harrison’s secretary was helping the church. The diaries reveal how federal attorneys were routinely bribed through third parties. Church leaders spent considerable energies covering up the crime of an embezzler because that man — sympathetic to the church — was in a position to be a receiver of assets the church needed. In fact, Cannon records entries where the apostles were counseled to “keep secrets” from their enemies.

But even with the help of a high court justice, Cannon’s entries detail how the church was boxed in politically and in danger of financial ruin due to overall public disgust of polygamy. The Manifesto from President Woodruff against polygamy was originally intended to grandfather in current polygamous relationships, but Cannon’s diaries detail how political powers forced the LDS prophet to make later, tougher statements that forbid already-married polygamists from co-habitating. Apostles, including Cannon, were constantly threatened with imprisonment if they even visited their plural wives.

Cannon details how busy the life of an LDS apostle was. Although most details of his family life were omitted by Signature’s editors, Cannon was constantly taking trains up and down the state, speaking at stake conferences, settling church feuds, selecting new bishops and stake presidents. Cannon must have given hundreds of church-related talks a year. As is today, the LDS priesthood hierarchy was stressed. Leaders, from apostles downward, were urged to change their opinions if a superior took an opposing stance. Cannon also describes, in detail, prayer circles and the rarely-mentioned second anointing, where church leaders and spouses are guaranteed exaltation, or the highest level of the Celestial Kingdom. Cannon himself received a second anointing.

Politics was often discussed and apostles were assigned to research and lobby for or against legislation. Cannon’s disgust for the anti-Mormon Liberal Party is not shy. The First Presidency and Apostles engaged in serious efforts to control local press coverage and counter the Tribune. Pages of the diaries recount local campaigns. Eventually, Cannon became part owner of the LDS-friendly Deseret News. Politics at times would tear the apostles’ unity, particularly when the Democrats and Republicans set up parties in Utah. Apostle Moses Thatcher, a Democrat, would often quarrel with apostle, John Henry Smith, a Republican.

Cannon details special meetings of the quorum where the apostles would speak frankly about their feelings for each other and address cases of gratitude and their struggles against resentment. The reader catches the religious spirit and commitment that bonded these men. These are fascinating, partially because even today, the LDS Church leadership is silent on the spirit and topics of the meetings of its hierarchy. A key difference from today’s LDS leadership is that the church’s highest officials — 120 years ago — were more likely to go out politicking. Today, church politics is more subtle. Preaching was far more conservative: Apostle John Henry Smith is recounted warning members that sexual intercourse for any purpose other than bearing children is the same as adultery, according to the Lord.

Glimpses of a high-level meeting are very interesting for history buffs. In one apostles’ session, Cannon recounts a debate over the Adam-God doctrine. The apostles disagree, but Cannon believes Adam must be more than just a spiritual brother. In another, the apostles discuss the status of the Holy Ghost — is he a son of God, only without a body? There was a discussion of whether there were “daughters of perdition.” The apostles also stressed the LDS doctrine that faithful parents would be assured of the salvation of their wayward children. The bohemian atmosphere of the early LDS church still remained. President Woodruff and the apostles freely discussed visions, conversations with the slain Mormon leader Joseph Smith and even a glimpse of the modern-day Cain was described.

Cannon was often without enough money to keep his many businesses healthy. He was a good businessman but had his hands in too many endeavors, although near the end of his life, his efforts in a railroad were paying off. Much of the 1893 entries involve his desperate attempts to meet payrolls and keep a bank he co-owned afloat during that year’s financial panic. In one instance, Cannon, after becoming a partner in a mine, promised the Lord a fifth of his profits if the mine was successful.
Ogden is mentioned often — Cannon frequently spoke there — as is the Standard-Examiner a few times. Much of the diaries cover mundane, administrative tasks that will interest history buffs. One tidbit of interest: church leaders, including President Woodruff, were fans of horse racing in Salt Lake City.

Cannon lived in Salt Lake City, on the northwest corner of 900 South on 800 West. His diaries may be uncomfortably candid, but they can also inspire LDS readers today who want more than Pablum. We are in Cannon’s debt for leaving records that bring to life an era in the Top of Utah usually recollected in dry history texts. Some excerpts are here.

-- Doug Gibson
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Originally published on StandardBlogs.

John Q. Cannon and Louie Wells, a Utah Camelot scandal

I’m haunted by a ragged PDF-copied photograph, courtesy of the Utah State Historical Society, of Louisa “Louie” Wells, who 130 years ago was a princess in Mormon Salt Lake City. The poor quality of the reproduced photo does not hide that she was a beautiful young woman. “Louie” Wells was the daughter of Mormon elitist Daniel Hamner Wells, Salt Lake City mayor, and Emmeline Blanche Wells, Mormon feminist and magazine editor.

Besides being favored with beauty, and a steady, esteemed Mormon suitor, journalist Robert W. Sloan, Louie was as accomplished as a Jane Austen heroine. She sang beautifully, she performed in Salt Lake City plays and operas, including “The Mikado,” was an early leader of the LDS ladies Mutual organization, and was an excellent essayist, writing accounts of her travels to the eastern United States and Europe for the LDS journal Women’s Exponent. She was groomed to be a Mormon woman icon, perhaps as well known today as Eliza R. Snow.

Today, in a corner of the Salt Lake City cemetery, a tombstone, well over a century old, bears the name “Louie,” and nothing else. Louie Wells died an agonizing death at 24, far from home, with her mother at her side, helpless to save her. In less than a year, her bright future and presumed happiness was extinguished. The events that led to her death roiled Salt Lake City and nearly destroyed the kinship between two prominent families, the Wells and the Cannons. 

Historian Kenneth Cannon III’s article, “The Tragic Matter of Louie Wells and John Q. Cannon,” is must reading if one wants to learn more after reading this blog. In 1886, in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, John Q. — the eldest living son of Mormon elder George Q. Cannon, and a former Ogden Standard editor, Deseret News reporter, counselor in the LDS Church Presiding Bishopric, and husband of Annie Wells Cannon, Louie’s sister   — shocked a crowd gathered to worship by confessing to adultery. He was immediately excommunicated, promptly divorced from Annie, and then married to Louie.

Although John Q. Cannon did not mention the “other woman,” the hasty marriage to Louie made it easy to guess whom he had slept with. Try to imagine an LDS general authority today confessing to adultery during a stake conference and one understands how shocked Mormons were at the time. On the other hand, the anti-Mormon Salt Lake Tribune was delighted. It had, in 1884, published gossip that John Q. and Louie had secretly married. At the time, John Q. had tracked down the reporter, and beat him up.

After his 1886 confession to adultery, divorce and new marriage, federal marshals — always on the lookout for polygamists — arrested John Q., claiming his quick divorce from Annie was illegal. Louie, already pregnant, went into hiding but was located by authorities. She spent a humiliating time in court denying she was a plural wife.

The case against John Q. eventually lost steam. Long before its resolution, Louie was sent to San Francisco by her family to have the baby. It was not the first time that she had been made pregnant by her brother in law. John Q. confessed to an intimate that he had impregnated Louie in 1885 and that she had miscarried.  This news seems to lend partial credibility to the controversial Tribune article, although no marriage occurred. The source for that article, according to Kenneth Cannon’s piece, was Angus Cannon Jr., the despised, “scoundrel” son of Angus Cannon Sr., polygamist and stake president, who had accompanied John Q. when he confessed in 1886.

Louie Cannon Wells died six weeks after suffering her second miscarriage. Her death at 24 was due to dropsy, and she suffered terribly. Mom Emmeline was unable to help ease her pain, which must have been exacerbated due to stress, hiding and traveling. During their short marriage, Louie and her husband were likely never together. He was not at her side when she died. Shortly after Louie’s death, John Q. and Annie Wells were remarried. Several years later, Louie was sealed to John Q. in a temple ceremony.

At Louie’s funeral, an already bad situation was dangerously increased when stake president Angus Cannon publicly identified Louie as the adulterous partner of John Q. This created a feud between the Cannons and Wells that eventually led to Angus Cannon physically striking Louie’s sister, Mell, and threatening to tell more about the affair. Later, John Q. threatened to kill Angus Cannon. Tensions were finally eased thanks to the Wells family matriarch, Emmeline. Tolerant, and a peacemaker at heart, she reached out to the Cannons, and the situation calmed. However, the rift never died, as Emmeline Wells’ diary entry of May 17, 1898, footnoted by Kenneth Cannon, reads, “Angus is 64 years old today. ... He has seen much sorrow and as he has been unkind and ungenerous to others harsh in his judgment one need not be surprised that it comes back upon him — As ye mete it out to others so shall it be unto you, and therefore he should expect it.”

As with any tragedy, there are “why” questions. Why didn’t John Q. make Louie a plural wife, and avoid church punishment? One answer may be that plural marriage for younger LDS scions was being subtly discouraged at a time when Utah leaders wanted statehood. More likely is that John Q. could not control his lust for a beautiful, younger sister in law living in the home, particularly when his own wife was pregnant. In his article, Kenneth Cannon points out that despite being the favored older son, (John Q. had been called to be an apostle long before the adultery was revealed, only to have that blocked by LDS Church President John Taylor), John Q. was a dysfunctional man. He was prone to drinking, gambling and carousing. It’s possible that inebriation fueled his lust. Also, one two occasions, John Q. embezzled thousands of dollars while held positions of trust. He was bailed out both times by his family’s influence.

Time, and staying alive, returned John Q. to society’s esteem. After his remarriage, he was restored to membership to the LDS Church and was a Deseret News editor. He and Annie had 12 children. John Q. is buried in the Cannon family plot next to his wife Annie. Elsewhere, in the Wells family plot, sits the stone with the sole word, “Louie,” on it.

A previous version of this column was published at StandardBlogs.

An historical novel on the affair is also available.

Apostle Parley P. Pratt suffered a violent death at the hands of a cuckold

The murder of Mormon apostle Parley P. Pratt, slain by the husband of a woman Pratt had taken as a plural wife, was national news in 1857.

Hector McLean chased Pratt across much of the country before catching him and killing the LDS leader in Arkansas. The small Mormon media defended Pratt, pointing out that McLean was a drunk and wife-beater long estranged from his wife. However, defenders of Pratt also, not surprisingly, criticized the motives of murderer Hector McLean, who was never legally punished. The strongest published condemnation of McLean came from the wife who abandoned him for Pratt, Eleanor McComb Pratt. Her argument, shared by others, was that to kill Pratt, or to spend a long time seeking Pratt and finally murdering him, was the work of a brutal, godless man consumed by thoughts of revenge, hate and killing.

There is a certain irony to the Utah Mormons’ outrage over Pratt’s murder by the cuckold McLean, though. Through the latter half of the 19^th century in Utah, cuckolds who murdered seducers of wives were routinely found not guilty of murder, and in fact applauded by the Utah media. Historian Kenneth L. Cannon II has written an interesting history “Mountain Common Law: The Extralegal Punishment of Seducers in early Utah,” published in the fall 1983 issue of Utah Historical Quarterly. Two early cases researched by Cannon are noteworthy. In 1851, Manti resident Madison Hambleton discovered his wife was having an affair with Dr. John Vaughan. After learning of the affair, one Sunday Hambleton spent hours at his Mormon church meetings, then sought out Dr. Vaughan, and then shot and killed him. He immediately surrendered and was taken to Great Salt Lake City. At the court of inquiry, Hambleton was represented by Mormon prophet Brigham Young! Writes Cannon, “The supreme court of the territory heard the case and acquitted Hambleton. Those in attendance enthusiastically voiced their approval of the court decision.”

Defenders of Hambleton may have argued that he killed Vaughan in a fit of passion upon learning of the adultery. I have no idea if that is true but it was an argument for adultery-related murders of that era. However, a more publicized case of a cuckold murdering a seducer could not claim “heat of passion” as a defense. Also in 1851, Mormon leader Howard Egan, returning to the Salt Lake Valley after guiding gold miners to California, discovered his first of three wives, Tamson, had been unfaithful with a man named James Monroe. Indeed, Tamson had given birth to a child by Monroe. Monroe, aware that Egan would want to kill him, fled the area. Egan pursued Monroe, and around the territorial border, found him with a wagon train and killed him. As Cannon recounts, a church investigation cleared Egan. At his civil trial, “Egan’s defense was handled by W.W. Phelps, a prominent Mormon, and George A. Smith, a Mormon apostle.”

During final arguments, Smith’s words are important, as Cannon writes, “they display the sentiments of Mormon Utah society at the time.” Smith was blunt and to the point. Criticizing English law, that applied only civil damages to adultery, Smith said, “The principle, the only one, that beats and throbs through the hearts of the entire inhabitants of this territory, is simply this: The man who seduces his neighbor’s wife must die, and her nearest relative must kill him!” It took the jury only 15 minutes to acquit Egan of a murder, that not unlike McLean’s of Pratt, was clearly premeditated.

Later in his article, Cannon posits that acquittals of cases where men killed seducers of their wives and daughters may have been grounded in efforts to protect wives, mothers and daughters from seducers in rural areas. Also, it’s likely many Utah territory residents were dissatisfied with penalties for seductions, which ranged from one to 20 years, plus fines, for a crime that was difficult to prove. Cannon notes that there was no evidence that Egan’s wife, Tamson, resisted Monroe’s sexual advances. Utah Mormons, Cannon adds, heavily publicized the Egan murder case, perhaps as a warning for outsiders to stay away from Mormon women?

Back to the Pratt murder by McLean. Patrick Q. Mason, writing in the excellent book of essays, “Parley P. Pratt and the Making of Mormonism,” 2011, The Arthur H. Clark Company, notes the power of cultural context of “honor.” Honor “is a communally constructed characteristic, as opposed to virtue or integrity.” As a result, a father or husband lost his “honor” among the community if a wife or daughter was seduced. Legal remedies might imprison or fine the seducer, but they did nothing to restore honor to the father of cuckold.

To regain honor, the offended man had to murder the seducer. That law doomed Pratt, no matter his religious motivations or the evidence that McLean was a brutal, drunken wife-beater. As the Hambleton and Egan cases show, Utah shared traits of the honor’s cultural context.

Utah’s commitment to “mountain common law” would last for decades, long after Pratt’s similar murder in 1857. As mentioned, the media usually agreed with the harsh punishment. After the seducer of a restaurant owner’s daughter was shot by father William Hughes, the Deseret Evening News published this approbation, writes Cannon: “… Public opinion in these mountains declares that a man who seduces a woman ought to pay the penalty with his life; and her nearest kindred should bring him to account.”

“Mountain common law” as a legal remedy was first challenged by the anti-Mormon Salt Lake Tribune, probably due more to antipathy to the church than a real commitment to legal reform. However, as Utah, and the LDS Church leadership, sought better relations with the “gentile” world, mountain common law, as in other parts of the nation, started a slow, consistent fade legally.

By 1888, the Utah Supreme Court reject the arguments of a cuckold convicted of killing his wife’s seducer because the killer, Wilford H. Halliday, had waited 24 hours before murdering the seducer. The “Egan rule” no longer applied.

          doug1963@gmail.com

          Posts are authored by Doug Gibson. Cartoon is by Cal Grondahl. This post and cartoon was originally published on the now-defunct StandardBlogs website from The Standard-Examiner website, which this post is credited to.