There can be little doubt that at one
time he thought he could defy the United States by force of arms. He
even maintained an organization called the Danites, sometimes called the
Destroying Angels, who carried out his decrees.[5]
[5: The Mormon Church has always denied the existence of any such
organization; but the weight of evidence is against the Church. In one
of his discourses, Young seems inadvertently to have admitted the
existence of the Danites. The organization dates from the sojourn of the
Mormons in Missouri. See Linn, _The Story of the Mormons_, pp. 189-192.]
Brigham could welcome graciously and leave a good impression upon
important visitors. He was not a good business man, however, and almost
every enterprise he directly undertook proved to be a complete or
partial failure. He did the most extraordinarily stupid things, as, for
instance, when he planned the so-called Cottonwood Canal, the mouth of
which was ten feet higher than its source! Nevertheless he had sense to
utilize the business ability of other men, and was a good accumulator of
properties. His estate at his death was valued at between two and three
million dollars. This was a pretty good saving for a pioneer who had
come into the wilderness without a cent of his own, who had always spent
lavishly, and who had supported a family of over twenty wives and fifty
children--all this without a salary as an officer.
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