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Show A M onument to 'Faking It Is sometimes a subject for apoadtH with persons outside of the trade union circles thut some of those within will Insist In-sist on glorifying a scoundrel like Sam Parks, even when his crimes are acknowledged y,-t thi r- l no MUM tor wonderment. The capacity for hero worship wor-ship Is d eep laid In human natuie, and I there are very few of US W h"Se ge, se Hie not swans. A political lender, notwithstanding notwith-standing Incontestable proof of corruption, corrup-tion, can generally manage to hold IO himself a large following, not merely of creaturee ot his own sort, but of honest men who simply have not the capacity to see defecta in those who stir their enthusiasm en-thusiasm or lead their prejudices. And so it is everywhera Tha littli town of Sharon. Vt., was the scene on Saturday of the unveiling of a monument to this human capacity of calling black white. The shrift was raised ostensibly in honor of Joseph Smith the founder of Mormonlam, who was born on Dacember 13. UJ05, but to the world In grnrral It will stand as a testimony to the p"sr of crcdullti Bart was an impudent charlatan, char-latan, tVie author of a crude and vulgar hoax, one of those "cute'" Yankee who. Instead of making wooden nutmegs or. burying Cardiff giants at about the time when our state .if m.cIi t k'a opporl ' tilly f.r such hul nui. luni'd r - -1 I j faker' America has been a f. I It mother of religpius sim is, fime nf th. m merely eccentric, others the product of sheer fraud, and Central New fork a-their a-their happ hunting ground in the early days of the last century. Jemima il klnson could promise to walk on the waters of BeneCa Lake and. ufler asking the assembled multitude If they believed In her mlraculoua power and learning that they did, say that she did not then nceJ to demonstrate II. and still retain her following Hut far sutpa lug any "prophet'' of his llnie in Impudeni e i - Joseph Smith, who pretended to ii.n dug up from a Palnnra hillside the golden plntes of the Hunk of Mormon Htnlih from his fifteenth year had, or putendt I to have, visions, probably under the fttimulous to vanity f the "revival ' which In those days swept the country. His course might pe explained by honest enthusiasm or self delusion If the VJsioM had ended In the straight fnrw a rd leaching leach-ing of what he believed to t religious truth. Bjt belief In his horieoty at Ml after his early reports of visions Is for-l for-l Idden by the palpable fraud on which he founded his whole system Ills I k translated from the golden plates was palpable plagiarism, largely made up from a weird novel of gncienl peoplca which had fallen into hie hands All was afterward completely proved But finding In his nelghtiorti t a few Ignorant families, he hail organized them Into a "church." and the mischief w i" dorv Partisan zeal from that time made all exixisure, even of Ids later flagl U Immoralities, useless, and Momflonlam has grown to Its present dimension- l"h. power of Smith must ever be a matter for curious studv It wus not at first b led like later Mormonlm. on the appeal ap-peal made to some persons by polvgaun lie set up as a prophet at a lime of Intellectual In-tellectual foment among Ignorant people peo-ple who did not know their own Ignorance Igno-rance The pioneer spirit had made each man his own llelohliedec The old ties social, political and religions, hail bt n broken. New elements of society r coming Into power. Jraloua of tradition and dreaming of being the found' i - i Bee era. A smnrt adventurer like Joseph Smith found them Just fitted to his pur-posi pur-posi mil tin nnd Ihelt success. -n from other land- who liae been drawn Into tin Mormon w , h now pa' tribute to the power of Impudent fraud N. Y Tribune. Dee, . lc. |
