A Matter of Principal: Polygamy in the Mountain West

Funding for a matter of principle was provided by signiture books publisher of works in Western American culture focusing on history current affairs and literature and through a grant from the Utah Endowment for the Humanities in a small crossroads town in Arizona. Two thousand men women and children gather on a Sunday to celebrate their religious convictions in a private meeting hall 300 miles north. A congregation leader greets families that gather for the same purpose. By the time the first song ends more than a thousand worshippers filled the hall in Utah Salt Lake Valley even further north. Children begin a day of private school with the Pledge of Allegiance then kneel in prayer from Montana. They direct their prayers to the Temple of a church that has banned them from membership. Linking these groups that span almost a thousand miles in the Mountain West is a central belief that their god has

blessed the practice of celestial marriage. Plural marriage in layman's terms polygamy in the eyes of the law that really binds them to the history of a region reaching from Canada to Mexico committing their lives to the shadows of society embracing beliefs that have often led the believers behind prison bars nestled fast against the sharp rise of the Bitterroot Range in western Montana is one of the

state's newest towns removed from the main highway. And with the population just under a thousand it's easy to miss the town of Pinedale which is just what the people of Pinedale had in mind when they bought the land 40 years ago. That was the first read that was bought to be a haven for people who needed a place for refuge. That was being sought by the law at that time for living plural marriage. They called it an awful cohabitation Pinedale Montana is made up of members of the APIs delic United Brethren. They are bound together by their belief that a man taking multiple wives is living an ancient and renewed law of God a law higher than those made by man. That would outlaw polygamy. Well our goal is basically to build up the kingdom of God. We would like to our religion as peaceful as you can. We don't want to push our religion mandated the. And we like to be left alone and living it. But for more than a century

American society has had a keen interest in the religion practiced by men like Morris Gesa a dubious general public has identified polygamist as cult figures zealots and threats to American values. The scrutiny takes a toll that can be sensed when the men and women of Pinedale testified to their belief in plural marriage what they call simply the principle I. Pay. For my family. I have been more grateful lately. For the principle of our own marriage. That experience. Or my beautiful. I have come home to. My paternal family in. So appreciate. It. God has given me that opportunity.

Polygamy is neither new to religion or new to this region of the United States but it has defied acceptance for more than a dozen decades and is part of the Shadow History of the American West. Until Joseph Smith founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or the Mormon Church in the early 80s hundreds most Americans relegated plural marriage to Africa and the Far East. But in the early 1840s Smith began confiding in trusted associates that he had received authority from God to restore polygamy in accordance with Biblical precedent. Smith's incorporation of polygamy into Mormon belief contributed to a series of events that culminated in his murder by a mob in Illinois in 1844. Legendary Mormon leader Brigham Young succeeded Smith at the helm of the struggling church and led the Mormons on a cross-country odyssey that ended in the isolated and desolate Salt Lake Valley in 1847. And the Mormons objected

to the world in the sense they wanted to form Zion. Zion was the great organizing. Motif. Really. Everything circled around a concept of the community. So so fine that God could dwell with humankind in harmony. There came to be enough hysteria against the Mormons that even the degree of isolation they found themselves in in the Great Basin was insufficient. The hysteria erupted in 1852 when the Mormon Church publicly announced for the first time that polygamy as conveyed by God through Joseph Smith was a part of the Mormon faith. Brigham Young announced that plural marriage was God's law and would soon be recognized worldwide as quote one of the best doctrines ever proclaimed to any people. The general reaction of the American people was one of profound disgust shock that within American society. There was a group of people publicly advocating the

practice of plural marriage. Lincoln had enough sense not to come to grips with him on this issue. When asked how he would respond to the Mormon issue he said if I have a stump in the field I plow around it. That's pretty well what he did I say by accident possibly too in that the civil war. Caused the country to be concerned with a much more important issue for them to deal with than Mormon polygamy. With the end of the Civil War Congress decided to plow through rather than around what was called the Mormon problem for Congress. The problem went far beyond polygamy. The Mormon Church exerted nearly complete political control over the Utah territory and also practiced a closed economic system of Christian socialism called the United Order. And for many of the more serious people I think they were more concerned with Mormon theocracy in a secular democratic state than they were polygamy but polygamy became the issue that could make that a popular thing getting people angry about a

theocracy is not easy. The number of people getting them angry about something that seems overly sensual and bizarre as as polygamy seemed to me to be is easier if you look at the people who practice plural marriage and look at the church leadership members of the Council of the twelve and first presidency state presidents state high councils bishops most of them practice plural marriage virtually all of them did but a handful of federal officials in the Utah Territory expressed dismay that a new generation of Mormon children was being indoctrinated to plural marriage. They were. Told by their parents that it was essential for their exaltation and they've never reached the highest. Degree Celestial Kingdom. Without. Practicing plural marriage. And that was something that was seen as part of the church as essentially with between 27 and 56 wives

depending on the source. Brigham Young was the undisputed center of defiance in the Utah Territory the federal attempts to control polygamy. Brigham Young used to have what he called his Hitlers. People who would follow the federal marshal with a pocket knife and little bit of would say we won't want to hurt them. We don't want to have any violence here but you can whittle and you'll hear the laughter through the tabernacle as as as Brigham would say this ungentle conference meaning we can intimidate the heck out of these guys. But Congress and the federal courts were not intimidated by defiant pioneers. Building a homeland that intertwined church and state into a blurred image. Presidents and Congresses are getting second and third and tenth hand accounts of what the Mormons are about. They are often lurid ludicrous exaggerated. And and you have you have enough hysteria that the kinds of protections we normally have in civil rights drop away. How far polygamy had removed the Mormons from American society was tested in the late

1870s Young's personal secretary George Reynolds was selected to serve as a test case before the U.S. Supreme Court claiming plural marriage was a constitutionally protected religious belief. And essentially what the Supreme Court said was that you could believe anything that you wanted to but that you couldn't practice any way you want it to. They differentiated between belief and practice. Generally most Mormons felt the way Roger Claassen did when he said that he was sorry that the laws of the United States came into conflict with the laws of God but that he would feel himself unworthy if he didn't obey the laws of God. Brigham Young died before the Supreme Court decision placed polygamy and by extension the Mormons clearly outside of the law of the land. But if the federal government assumed the primary protagonist of the polygamy drama was out of the way. They received a rude surprise in the next Mormon leader John Taylor.

If anything he was more adamant that Brigham Young was he essentially nailed the flag to the mast on plural marriage saying we're not going to give up at all on this thing. Like to burden trains driven on by their own momentum. Taylor's commitment to plural marriage and Congress's commitment to break the Mormon Church raced headlong toward each other. The collision came in the 1880s. Under federal law. Polygamy was difficult to prove since there were no public records for plural marriage ceremonies. But in 1882 Congress outlawed illegal cohabitation making even the suspicion of polygamy sufficient grounds for conviction. Federal informants watched church buildings for signs of marriage ceremonies and conducted round the clock surveillance of the homes of Mormon leaders. Scores of polygamists started to go to prison as the result of midnight no knock raids in the middle of the crackdown. Church President John Taylor and the upper ranks of church leadership disappear into a Mormon underground.

And from 1885 until his death in 1887. He was completely secluded and did not appear in public at all. He would be in one place for a period of time and then there was a rumor that the federal deputies were nearby and so he and his counsel church Kincannon and their trusted associates would scurry off to another hiding place for John Taylor. It was living outside the law because he felt the law was unjust and that God's law was a higher law. While John Taylor was on the underground seeking to avoid federal informants. A pivotal moment in the history of plural marriage took place. It was the fall of 1886 and Taylor was holed up in this home in the town of Centerville north of Salt Lake City. He was secretly visited by three high ranking authorities of the Mormon Church. They carried a plan to end the practice of polygamy. What happened next is the subject of sharp disagreement. But one thing

is certain. In this simple home are sowing the seeds of a plural marriage subculture that has endured for more than 100 years. According to witnesses after listening to the plan to abandon polygamy Taylor went into a bedroom for the night. The next morning he announced he had been visited by God and Mormon church founder Joseph Smith. In the cramped front room he announces polygamy must be carried on regardless of the cost and reportedly ordains a group of men with the power to perform plural marriage. Taylor dies the next year. Still on the run and still dedicated to polygamy. When Wilford Woodruff assumed church leadership on Taylor's death he he's confronted by an all out assault on the Mormon Church by the federal government under a new law. The Edmonds Tucker at the church was in effect put in receivership by the federal government that had been preceded by the denial of the right of the vote to people believing

or practicing polygamy. The denial of the right of immigration for those similarly inclined the denial of the right of jury duty and the whole theocratic structure of this religious based government and the Supreme Court upheld the Idaho state constitution which disfranchised all members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. Once you have by 1890 about a thousand people who've spent a term in prison for practicing plural marriage you have the church's property being confiscated now under a provision of the Edmond's Takhar act and then then really vicious You can only describe it as vicious attacks on the Mormon people in regard to polygamy where you'd have women put in jail until they would testify against husbands. Children born in jail. Women and children in jail at great personal almost vindictive. Persecution of the people in

the polygamy cases. Statehood for Utah would end the repressive federal controls since Congress has anti-polygamy laws only apply to territories not states in the summer of 1890. WOODRUFF traveled to California in a desperate bid to cut a political deal with national Republican Party leaders. They had been talking with them about what it would take for Utah to achieve statehood and of course I understood that the only way that that could come about would be for the church to end plural marriage and for the church to let a up its full political party and for the church to to stop being the sole prime mover in the economic area. The world was coming apart for the church but for Wilford Woodruff the world had come unhinged in 1890 with the decision of the federal government to confiscate the temples. He saw the church and himself in a desperate position.

By September 1890 on the afternoon of September 24th 1890 a press release was sent from Mormon Church headquarters in Salt Lake City to the Associated Press bureau in Chicago. In the statement soon known as the Woodruff manifesto the church president said he would submit to anti-polygamy laws and would tell his fellow Mormons to do the same. But I've read hundreds of diaries of rank and found Mormons and I think that it's fair to say that the rank and file Mormons were overwhelmingly stunned by the publication of the manifesto in 1890 that outlawed plural marriage. I mean if you believe that a principle is essential for your salvation no matter what principle it is. And suddenly someone tells you you can't follow that principle any longer. And what do you do when you're faced with essentially a conflict that any reasonable person would be disturbed

by. The clouds did not clear overnight but in 1896 after drafting a state constitution that included a federal directive forever banning polygamy. Utah became the nation's 45 state. But doubtful non-Mormons in Utah refused to accept the Woodruff manifesto as the final word. The Salt Lake Tribune published a stream of stories recounting rumors of new plural marriages taking place. That Church own Deseret News fired back with statements from leadership that the Mormons had flatly abandoned the practice of polygamy. Those statements were not true. There's no question about it because there were members the First Presidency of the Council of the twelve who were still marrying people in new plural marriages between 1890 and 19 for the church officially became involved with a continuing plural marriage in that its officers from the president of the church down through Apostles and state presidents as authorized by the

presidency of the church were sanctioning plural marriages authorizing plural marriages performed in plural marriages in the Mormon missions of Mexico. Anthony Ivens was performing dozens of plural marriages with authority from church headquarters. The unspoken rationale was that Mormons could obey the law of the land by marrying their multiple wives across the border in Mexico or Canada. Mormon church president Joseph Smith himself a polygamist was making an earnest effort to keep the principle alive while simultaneously issuing public statements that polygamy had stopped. Although he wanted plural marriage to continue and allowed it continue to continue secretly he privately gave encouragement only to those he knew were also advocates of plural marriage to those he knew were questioning plural marriage or were opposed to plural marriage. He expressed disapproval of new plural marriages when Mormon church authority read Smoot was

selected to serve in the U.S. Senate. Congress used Smoots confirmation hearings in 1094 to probe post manifesto polygamy. The hearings dragged on for three years and threatened new federal intervention against the Mormon Church. Joseph Smith was very quick to see that that his own personal preferences could not be responsible. For the destruction of the church. And so he issued the second manifesto in 1994 which effectively closed the door. On new plural marriages. But Congress was suspicious of more promises and demanded tangible evidence. Mormon Apostle John W. Taylor the son of polygamy defender John Taylor and apostle Mathias Cowley became the evidence it's unfair for them to be regarded as the only. Leaders of the church who sanction performed or entered into plural marriage after the manifesto. They were not in fact but they were the

ones who were identified in the popular press and that most prominent way and friendly as well as unfriendly government leaders told Joseph Smith and other church members if the church is going to survive. If read snood is going to survive as Senator you have to get rid of John W. Taylor and Matthias. Taylor and Kelly became the first Mormons to lose church standing for practicing polygamy after the manifesto the first but far from the last. As the Mormon church steps closer and closer to the mainstream of American society in the early 20th century a transformation takes place when something that fundamental to your faith has been given up. There had to be a great deal of rationalization and soul searching and trauma in leadership which had rejected the path of the past to a new and I think quite necessary path in the future. And so the

people the Mormon people to prove their patriotism to prove their new orthodoxy. Came to be rather ferocious prosecutors of fundamentalist polygamist groups it's here that the 1886 revelation of polygamy defender John Taylor returns in the Centerville hideout. Taylor reportedly gave last authority to a group of men to keep polygamy alive. They in turn ordained others so that by the 1930s a small plural marriage subculture had formed in the West. They considered themselves Mormon fundamentalists. The true followers of church founder Joseph Smith church President Heber J. Grant called them renegades. He had been a polygamist himself but he was an all Turby opposed to the continuation of her own marriage and there could be no mistaking his position. He did everything he could

publicly and privately to stop the practice to ferret out those who were promoting it and practicing it. One step taken was to pass the polygamy portfolio in church leadership to attorney and former ambassador J Rubin Clark. Clark viewed the legacy of polygamy as a roadblock to acceptance of Mormons as full participants in 20th century American society. They gave the word out to the city police and Salt Lake City to the prosecuting officers in Salt Lake City and throughout the state. That the church wanted them. To not ignore. The practice of plural marriage to the church one of them in fact to begin a vigorous prosecution of those who were entering into plural marriages and that was all they needed to do. They didn't need to be involved. In any of the further legal activities although later on in fact President Clark became involved in in directing a surveillance

program of those who were attending LDS church meetings and then they would turn the records of those surveillances over to the police charged for him and probably don't understand it unless you have that experience. And today Albert Barlow lives a quiet life in retirement but in 1944 he was one of the targets in the largest polygamy raid ever staged in Utah. It wasn't difficult for informants to spot the Barlow household. Three wives and a score of children made them talk of their neighborhood. The knock on the door came in March of 1944. And so it was it's always their worry in you the fact that this could happen. And of course when it did happen it was it was like well it's finally here. You know we have to go to that all that came just like this. When it rains it was about six policemen and some plain clothes on.

How many of them but at least six policemen they've had through the back door and through its front door. Bert Barlow and 14 other leading figures in plural marriage were convicted of unlawful cohabitation and sentenced to prison. I never say going to hell anymore. I used to use that term all the time or go to hell. I never say that anymore. I've been there and I mean I've been there. Unlike earlier polygamy crackdowns there was little support in the community for the polygamists the families left behind bore the brunt of the prosecution. We had to launch what they called the Gushee or knew that we didn't have a dog. So they had moved on the bones and given to us we said at first we were worried about having their children taken away. If we went on welfare for instance and tried to get help that way we'd we

face the possibility well if we go ask for help. They say well you're not you're not competent to take care of children you're doing something that's against the law. The state offered the imprisoned polygamist a deal signed a statement renouncing plural marriage and be released. Barlow resisted until a fellow inmate his father urged him to sign the document. Then I signed it. As I'll sign the damn thing. But Lord knows I'll never live up to it. So I said sign on release. Bert Barlow went right back to his wives but would eventually serve another five years in prison for failing to honor the anti-polygamy statement. He would also refuse to sign any other statement denouncing polygamy. I'd be a damn fool to do a thing like that because that's God's law. My law man has no right to add or subtract to God's laws.

Today Barlow lives in Salt Lake City with his two surviving wives the three have just celebrated their fifty fifth anniversary. We admired him for taking a stand he did because this is why we married him at least I did. I married him because he believed the same as I did and wanted the same things I did. And so the fact that he had to go to jail for that made him that much. More superior in my eyes. And now we look back on that as something that he went through for his religion not for something he did wrong. The 1944 raid sent shock waves through the plural marriage subculture in the Mountain West. War had been declared against the fundamentalist and polygamist and prosecutor alike knew the next battle would be on the Utah Arizona border in the isolated town of short creek a town built on the principle. The people of short

creek possessed a deep commitment to their religion a religion that embraced the communal economics of the United Order and the fundamental belief in plural marriage for two years. The Arizona legislature funneled secret appropriations into an investigation of short creek including the use of private detectives posing as film producers scouting for locations. In July of 1953 Arizona assembled dozens of armed officers to conduct a dramatic early morning raid on the town as they swept into Short Creek in the darkness of a total eclipse of the moon. The officers were met by the people singing God Bless America. You know grandpa just my grandfather 84 years old stepped up and he said. Said if it's blood you want take him on on. I'm not going to yield to this kind of unjust action. For we knew that we were serving the Lord in our conscience. And it wasn't a matter of a policy or

something that we could give or take on. It was something we had to stand on. It is totally unprecedented in the history of the United States for an entire community to be arrested or removed right there. I think it's an extraordinary event. It's unheard of in the history of the world to go in and arrest and hide like this. To break up the community's life. Within hours the men were driven off to jail. Reaching out from squad cars to say goodbye to their children that the National Guardsmen would go around to all of the different houses and that search for material to be used in the trials against the men. In addition to those visits the women received a visit from a National Guardsman and his A.F. photographer and those two would take photographs of each one of the family units. You see the expressions on their face tell you the sorts of

humiliations that they are feeling and the bewilderment and sense of tragedy I think is betrayed through those photographs. The women and children were shuttled to nursing homes in shelters in the Phoenix area to await hearings to remove the children from the polygamist homes. There is a large number of people in the social service system who believe that the children of the polygamist should be taken from them and permanently adopted out that that these polygamist parents should not have any decision as to what will happen to these children. The threat to remove children is played out simultaneously on the Utah side of the border. Vira black a plural wife is singled out by Utah social service authorities as a test case. All I would have to do is sign my name to paper and that I would wouldn't deny my belief and that I could just do that. That's all I need to do and I can keep them. If I just promise I'd never leave my

religion where I believe it anymore. Some way that. They expected me to feel good about it. I set fire inside of me all the more that I'd be more determined than ever that I'd never do things that I would not done. And we received the letter mamma did in the mail and it's just a few sentences were going to be here as I said today to take away your children. Be ready. Everything's packed. The image of children being separated from their mother produces an emotional backlash in favor of the polygamists looking to cut a deal. Social service authorities convinced Vira black to sign the anti-polygamy statement. The children are returned and the matter is quietly dropped. The entire family resumes its life in the principle of plural marriage. The fear of separation plays out in hundreds of plural marriage families in the 1950s

Mabel all red and her daughter Dorothy experienced their own brand of life on the underground naturopathic physician and all read was one of the polygamists rounded up in the 1944 raid. His refusal to leave his five wives after prison meant that his families would face life on the run. Oh tear I mean absolute tear. I remember being. Taken out of the house in my nightgown to the home of some sympathetic people in Bountiful and being hidden in the basement all night there with my mother and my two younger children because you see we're young children were evidence that could send my father back to prison. We were evidence that proved that he had not. Kept the promise he made not to live plural marriage when he got out of prison already scattered his families throughout the mountain west with Mabel's family landing in Elko Nevada constantly moving to avoid detection already visits

became clandestine way around midnight or later. And then he'd roll down the street with his lights off and. Park away from the house. And then sometimes sneak in the back door. And he's always afraid of being found out. And before you came in the house the mothers would pull the drapes before they'd turn on the light. They're very secretive. I guess he had good reason to believe he could be arrested at any time. The threat would linger through the 1950s but as the system of justice was brought to bear on polygamy there was a sense that Crusade's would not end the practice of plural marriage almost every single one of the cases the site was decided in favor of the parental rights that the children had not in fact been neglected by these men and women. They had not been mistreated and that there was nothing about the doctrine of polygamy per se that created an immoral immoral environment.

So most of these children were released and returned to their their homes and shortly after 20 to 24 months after two years the short Creek raid had cost Arizona hundreds of thousands of dollars to care for the separated families and it made Governor Howard Pyle the subject of derision in the press in the wake of the Arizona raid and the so-called children's crusade. An unofficial cease fire evolves between government and the polygamists. During this era. The plural marriage community undergoes a wrenching internal split. The West's largest fundamentalist organization divides over leadership authority. The short Creek community follows the leadership of Leroy Johnson a central figure of resistance during the short Creek raid. Ruling Ruland All right becomes the presiding official over the Apostolic United Brethren based in Salt Lake City. Each organization fiercely defends its claim to sole authority. As the congregations grow in numbers. Their relationship grows cold.

Brothers and sisters parents and children find themselves in opposite camps. It's a bitter split that exists to this day. But theoretical disputes over the keys of authority were dramatically overshadowed by a violent murder. In 1977. Ruland already was gunned down in his suburban Salt Lake medical office. The murder broke 20 years of virtual silence surrounding polygamy and the law. A long investigation tied the murder to an unstable fringe element of the polygamy underground headed by a man who would be king. Herbal LeBaron. I think chervil of bear and probably fits the profile of a cult leader to a T. They isolate their followers from the norm of society and then infect them with their own beliefs and create paranoia. Once they believed that he was led by God and that what they were doing would bring rewards to them now and in the hereafter and that's exactly what those people believe and

that's how evil control those people to the point where where they were willing to kill her own sisters. Kill their own mothers to kill their own brothers at Earls at her command. By the time he is imprisoned in 1980 for ordering the murder of Ruland already more than a dozen murders are attributed to herbal LeBaron and his followers. Even after his death in 1981 a legacy of murderous vengeance was attributed to le. As late as 1988. Former followers had a habit of turning up dead. In Texas the horrible brutal slayings of four people including an 8 year old girl who happened to be a witness shot twice in the face with a high caliber pistol because she happened to see the killer. And since that since Serviles death we estimate another 11 or 12 homicides have occurred within that group. Other violent crimes in Utah during the 1980s carried a linking threat to polygamy.

Ronald and Dan Lafferty killed a mother and child when the woman apparently intervened to discourage a plural marriage. Of family in the tiny mountain community of Mary in Utah holds off authorities for more than a week after bombing a Mormon church building. In each case polygamous affiliation fueled rumors that violence somehow was central to plural marriage. Ogden crowd wrestles at be mentioned in the same breath with the headline grabbing violent crimes operator of a private publishing house crowd is the author of dozens of words on plural marriage. He himself is a polygamist. Crowd claims the public misses the essential nature of polygamy. If it focuses on lurid headlines. And show you have some in some of these others like Lafferty or Liban they don't represent fundamentalism. And yet the public in general thinks that's what funk fundamentalism represents and that

they support that kind of thing. They don't think in plural marriage. You have more respect for the family. You have a closer tie. You're trying to bring something together under the family roof and most fundamentalists are very dedicated to their wives. They're very dedicated to the children. And. Nowadays that's kind of an exception. But at the same time crowd acknowledges that the spiritual nature of the fundamentalist can attract a collection of oddballs claiming to be the latest anointed messenger of God. And there's a multitude of. Independent prophets who are showing up all the time now. They usually haven't come through here about once a month somebody rising up with some new keys and new revelations. Claim To Be The One might end strong. It's a difficult thing among fundamentalists to see this big division and it keeps growing.

But to Ogden crowd the estimated 30000 polygamists in the Mountain West are rank and file citizens who provide no clues to their beliefs. Well I think people will be very surprised if they knew how many fundamentalists there were and the positions that they're in in government and stayed in the church in general society. The fundamentalists don't usually go out saying I'm a fundamentalist. If we expect the followers of the principle of polygamy to look a certain way to stand out in a crowd. Roy Potter challenges and at the same time confirms those conventions. In the early 1980s. Potter attempted the most delicate balancing act imaginable a private life of a polygamist coupled with the public life of a police officer in a suburb of Salt Lake City. I remember that day quite well it was November 15th 1980 too. And. I was to see Carson who was a lieutenant on duty

and he put the question right square to me and said Are you practicing polygamy. And I didn't give him the answer. Right then and I said well I need a couple of days to write up a statement. Give it to you if you let me do that. And he said yes but the idea of a polygamist getting on their police department was was such a great embarrassment to them that I think that that was probably some of the impetus for the reason why they pursued me so so. Viciously. The city police of Murray Utah fired Potter but rather than go quietly. Roy Potter decided to make the first full legal challenge of anti-polygamy laws in 100 years. The religious conviction. Of. Those who practice plural marriage in Utah is real. And there is no harm that results from it. Polygamists don't cause riots. They're not harming anybody. There's no harm to society by practicing polygamy.

The fundamental issue that they that they do not like and that they attacked was my religious belief. That was what they were after. The judge stated that and they also stated in my administrative hearing that if I just had a girlfriend that would have been all right. But the fact that I believed in and practiced my religious convictions that they could they couldn't have that. In a battle that sputters to a halt on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court. Potter loses polygamy However motivated is not deemed an exercise of religion protected by the Constitution but the losses run deeper. His career is gone. Two of his three wives leave. And Roy Potter becomes a pariah. If I don away quietly I probably would have been all right but because I wouldn't lay down and die and roll over and hide from it put my head in the sand. Retribution had to be carried out at least that's the way I feel. It has turned out if a spiritual belief. Or a spiritual. Event. Is really important to you.

Then you have to be willing to sacrifice for it or it doesn't mean anything. The Roy Potter lesson keeps plural marriage on a Kwasi underground level in the contemporary Mountain West congregational meetings offer compelling evidence that belief in the principle has survived prosecution and ostracism. Yet the families fiercely guard their identities and privacy for fear of retribution. There has always been the persecution of those that didn't follow the path of the majority. And I believe this is the case here. We believe that the laws of the land are to be obeyed. That's one thing I insist on is our people obey the law but when it contradicts the law of God God's law comes first. Oh and all red is the presiding leader of the Apostolic United Brethren a group that claims thousands of members from Montana through Utah to Mexico. All in all red

assumed leadership of the group. When his brother Rulon was murdered in 1977 we believe this less the principle of celestial or plural marriage is one of the most holy and sacred principles that was ever given to man on earth. It wasn't something to satisfy a man's lust. Yes I truly believe that a man can love. Two three four or five women more than he can love them because his ability to love increases his ability to understand the wants and needs and desires of another individual. Can I love my older son more than I love my younger son. If I have ten children can i love them separately. Can I say I only love one and the rest of them were just there. No I love them all. And it's the same way I believe with a man's wife. The group the A.U. be quietly operates private schools for its congregations

in the Salt Lake Valley and Montana schools represent the emphasis placed on children in plural marriage. It is a very vain reason for the principal. His children to raise up a righteous posterity. We believe that was the intent all the way. Ever since the advent of Adam on the earth we have to raise up the righteous posterity. And that is the main purpose of our living today. Since there is an emphasis on the children. Observers have questioned the ability of the next generation to make free choices. We have a satellite right now that. He's living at home but he has at this point he's haven't stopped and he hasn't Chow's. To. Go to church. To do the things we want him to do right now. And at the heart. KRAS. Does what he does. That's his choice and my working with him and we we still love him and we still.

You know we still hope that he'll change but if he doesn't that is his free agency. That is his choice. No I don't believe there's any force there at all and I don't believe are ostracized because they aren't the members of the QB. Donate a portion of their earnings known as tithing for the support of their religious organization. The QB for its size has significant property holdings that are managed by his governing council. We have people that would be on welfare but we support them we take care of them widows. One man in particular has been paralyzed now for seven years and been tied down. He was a very good time. They are all during his youth time and for seven years we've completely supported that man paid his doctor bills and things of that nature will run into thousands of dollars on the records it'll show 2800 bucks went to charity. That's when they say well who got that charity. That's none of your business.

In support of it's Salt Lake locations and in the pines Dale Montana community the QB practices a modified version of the United Order. The concept of the many producing for the common good in the meetings in the homes in the people is a sense of mission a sense of purpose that drives each day from morning to night. So if they're not dedicated if they don't have a religious background or religious motive. They will screen their selves out and we've seen a number of people. That have lost. That far as we're concerned lost their families. Divorces break ups. Heartaches you name it because they feel themselves. They think they can live this way of life. And not put an effort to it. The sense of mission is found in the words of Owen already the man who leads a group that walks quietly in the shadows of society one way. It's a terrible burden another way it's a wonderful wonderful feeling. I love those

people. I love the people here and I wish many times that I could step out and have somebody else better qualified to take my place. But I can't do it I can't do it because you will understand this because I know God put me here and I've got to stay here till he calls me home and get somebody else to better or less qualified. I don't know to take my place. I can't back out. The most readily identifiable gathering of believers in plural marriages found on the Utah Arizona border built on the foundation of the Short Creek community the town of Colorado City is populated by third and fourth generation ancestors of the first polygamist who carved a niche in this hard land incorporated by the state of Arizona Colorado City and its adjoining sister city of Hilldale Utah have a

population estimated at 4500. Local government offers little outward difference from other small western towns with the exception of community leaders always looking over their shoulder. Because we know that we are lucky that if we make a mistake it's accentuated and because of that we've made an extra effort. To make sure that we were strictly within the law on the things that we do and we want to be on. We are not law breakers. We do not have a contest with America. We only want to live our religion and have the freedoms guaranteed to us that is guaranteed to all people. And that is to serve our God according to the dictates of our conscience. Unlike the Montana and Salt Lake groups Colorado City children attend a public school system

supported by Arizona tax dollars. School administrators are careful to keep church and state separate. There are no prayers during the school day but virtually all of the children participate in release time religious studies at the nearby meeting hall. But religion and daily life are constant companions in Colorado City obedience to the order of strong testimony of religious conviction and hard work for the common good are the measures of man woman and child alike at people that are God fearing people that have strong faith and beliefs. Maybe a little old fashioned in some things because they still believe in morality. They still believe in modesty. And they still believe in working together and helping each other. The common benefit of the United Order guides much of Colorado City's development the United Order manifests itself in work parties to finish improvements on the town's medical clinic

as well as in home ownership. All land in the town is held in trust by the United Effort Plan. The fundamentalist organization the concept that's behind that trust is this the men make a consecration to it. They put their foot their land in it. And then and it is held without mortgage. Or without in any way being indebted to the banks. And so as you look around our community any homes that are built on that trust land. Have no mortgages on them. It's quite hard to withdraw from when you joined with that effort. You. Consecrate your land. And that. And. Then that land becomes used for other members as they can. And so if you want that land back at a later time. It's a it's a difficult process to withdraw. Some disaffected members of the community who have taken issue with the handling of land matters in the

town producing a lengthy round of legal battles. The town leaders are reluctant to discuss it is one of several reminders that Colorado City is not an open book. The interest of visitors is tolerated up to the doors of the meeting hall of religious services and even social gatherings are not open to cameras. While visitors can be warmly received by members throughout the community all questions are directed to a limited number of approved spokesmen. We were invited to visit the town's largest business a sowing concern that produces medical and restaurant uniforms but home visits and questions about individual families or plurality of wives were discouraged. Colorado City refuses to be put on display refuses to perform tricks for the media refuses to justify itself to non-believers. We do what we do. Because we want to serve our God and our own conscience. And we're not doing it because we're trying to make an impression on anyone else.

And whether people agree with us or disagree. Has the same value. In reality. The presence of clearly defined outpost of polygamy in the Mountain West produces a series of challenges to public policy in the recent past these men and women were considered one of the West's most pressing social problems. They have not changed their beliefs and promised they will not. The number of people following the principle of polygamy has increased an estimated 500 percent since the end of World War 2. Yet all the laws barring plural marriage remain on the books. The laws being broken. I know about it. Every law enforcement officer and every prosecutor in the state of Utah knows about it. And yet there are no prosecutions. That makes everyone feel uneasy. More than three decades after the fact authorities refer to the Arizona raid on the short Creek community as demonstrating that prosecution of polygamy has more cost than

benefits. If you really take the problem on that you are going to generates real significant very significant social disruption among these people and that arresting the man as it were or of parents both parents leave a large number of children. Who have to be cared for both emotionally and otherwise. It's extremely expensive extremely difficult. If you really want to after one from a cohabitation aspect if you said as a matter of policy we're going after people who are lawfully living together. Could we just confine it to polygamists and then if there are tens of thousands as we know there are. Where do we put them. As a matter of practical fact but pragmatic arguments do not clear the air over the issue of polygamy. When the Utah chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union weighed in on the subject in 1989 the organization

was nearly ripped apart for consenting adults. We believe that polygamy as a personal choice that's protected by the rights to privacy and the right to free exercise of religion. I have had more debate more dissension more heat generated over the whole issue of plural marriage than anything else we've done. Utah children's poetry speak much of the public remain suspicious of the mysterious nature of polygamy. Speaking out in an adoption case involving a polygamous family. The child advocacy group Utah children argued that polygamist teachings could damage child development. The primary issue in a case is not religion or religious freedom. The primary interest is the state having a role in acting in the best interest of children. The fact that women were considered property that women were expected to be

submissive. And all of those things are outside of the norms of general society. And we do not believe are in the interest of healthy children and children growing up to be healthy and normal adults. Polygamy then is relegated to the gray area of the long enough suspicion remains to keep the anti-polygamy laws in force yet practical considerations keep them from being applied. Followers of the principle of demonstrated a religious durability over 100 years yet remain outside of the religious protections of the Constitution. In the absence of an effective mandate to do something. Society has chosen to do nothing. Once the seed bed for the polygamy movement the contemporary Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints is also uncomfortable with the topic of polygamy. Repeated requests for interviews were turned aside by Mormon Church authorities. The church will only

state that the practice of polygamy was ended through divine revelation in 1890 and has no part in contemporary church practice. Privately church spokesmen say references to the controversial practice detract from the Mormon mission of emergence as a leading 21st century denomination. For most of his 83 years Samuel Taylor has chronicled the battles surrounding polygamy. He is the grandson of Mormon church president John Taylor. Polygamy's fiercest defender. And he is the son of John W. Taylor the Mormon leader excommunicated for attempting to keep polygamy alive in the church. Despite or perhaps because of that legacy. Taylor and his brothers and sisters did not follow the path of plural marriage and his father and grandfather died on the cross. We think we've paid our dues. Through five books and dozens of articles. Taylor has documented more than 15 decades of

attempts to end the practice of polygamy. Now 100 years after the Woodruff manifesto Taylor says the rules and conventions of man have failed leaving society to treat polygamy like the subject of a childhood nursery rhyme. As I was going up the stair. I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today. I wish I wish he'd go away. Funding for a matter of principle was provided by signiture books publisher of

works and Western American culture focusing on history current affairs and literature and through a grant from the Utah Endowment for the Humanities