hitherto scattered, but now at last gathered
together. His followers had just the degree of intelligence necessary to
accept leadership gracefully and to rejoice in a supposed superiority
because of a sense of previous inferiority.

This ductile material Brigham welded to his own forms. He was able to
assume consistently an appearance of uncouth ignorance in order to
retain his hold over his uncultivated flock. He delivered vituperative,
even obscene sermons, which may still be read in his collected works.
But he was able also on occasions, as when addressing agents of the
Federal Government or other outsiders whom he wished to impress, to
write direct and dignified English. He was resourceful in obtaining
control over the other strong men of his Church; but by his very success
he was blinded to due proportions. 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. Tithes were brought
to him personally, and he rendered no accounting. He gave the strong men
of his hierarchy power and opportunity, played them against each other
to keep his own lead, and made holy any of their misdeeds which