M E R I D I A N     M A G A Z I N E

OUTRAGEOUS!
By Davis Bitton

Two larger-than-life figures of the Victorian age were Brigham Young and George Francis Train.

We already know something of Brother Brigham. Few would deny his greatness as a leader, judged in terms of his impact on his religion, his people, and the different areas in which they lived. He saw himself as an instrument used by God. He was seen in less friendly terms by those who hated and despised Mormonism.

The "haters" are still out there, as everyone knows, and they are not reluctant to besmirch the Lion of the Lord. Without question, Brigham Young was outrageous.

But who was George Francis Train? And did he know anything about his contemporary Brigham Young?

Most people knew Train as a popular lecturer. In the days before movies and the electronic media, lecturers went from place to place in the country, spoke in theaters and auditoriums, educating and entertaining. If you didn’t attract an audience, you didn’t get paid, and scheduling your circuit for the next season might be difficult. Train was almost a sure winner. People turned out just to see him. They never knew what he might say. He put on quite a show.

But there was more to him than eccentricity on the stage. Soon after the discovery of gold in California he commissioned construction of a 2,000-ton clipper ship, which he sold for a handsome profit. Before this phase of his life was over, many other clipper ships had been built, for which he was later not reluctant to take full credit.

After spending two years in Australia when the gold rush there was at a fever pitch, Train traveled in China, India, France, and Russia before returning to the United States. In 1858, he returned to England and, always a wheeler-dealer, established the first municipal streetcar or tram systems in Birkenhead, Staffordshire, and Darlington.

Back in the States, Train was one of the organizers of the transcontinental railroad project. In this capacity he first came in contact with the Mormon leader when he sent the following telegram: "Citizen Brigham Young, chief of the Mormons. I hereby make you director that end of Union Pacific. Don't say no. Answer paid. Signed George Francis Train."

If Train could be terse, so could Brigham Young, who replied, "All right. Yes to the directorship. Push on U.P. Signed Brigham Young."

I don’t know how well this detail of the railroad’s organization is supported by other documents, but there is no doubt of Young’s responsibility for construction across several hundred miles.

Train was impressed with the Mormons and their leader. In a lecture delivered throughout New England the popular lecturer included a rousing defense of the Mormons. The following excerpt gives us the flavor:

Who established the first newspaper west of the Missouri, in 1832, at Independence? The Mormons. Who in 1846, penetrated from Iowa, the western land and moved towards the Pacific the great column of progress? The Mormons. Who first raised the American flag in the great western basin? The Mormons. Who made the Utah wilderness blossom as the rose? The Mormons. [Applause] What other sect, creed, or church in America ever expended five millions in immigration? (That's so.) How does it happen that the red Indian never interferes with a Mormon train? That the American government never spent but $75,000 for the Indians in the Mormon land when they threw away millions outside of that? [Applause] Who was it discovered the great gold mines out of California? The Mormons. The first emigrants at Yerba Buena landed from the Brooklyn, a Mormon ship; and the first "brick" made in California was mined by a Mormon, and the first printing press was taken there in '48 by a Mormon. Who sheltered and fed the poor starving emigrant bound for the Eldorado in '48 and '49, when, foot-sore and heart-sick, they found themselves in the wilderness? The Mormon colonists. [Applause, and "That's so."] Who made the Pacific Railroad a necessity? Brigham Young and his Mormon host. Who fed the miners, gave Montana food, and clothed the naked? These same much-abused Mormons.

It was not everyone who had anything good to say about the Saints. Train admired them and was willing to speak up and say so.

While in Utah in 1869, Train gave two lectures. He appeared on stage dressed in top hat, overcoat, gloves, and carrying a cane. Divesting himself of these one at a time, he finally stood forth dressed in "a dress coat with gilt buttons, white vest and black pantaloons." Conspicuously, on the left lapel of his coat he wore the badge of the Fenian Legion of Honor. He was a natural showman.

On the stage for his first lecture, he noted that too many gas stage lights had been turned on and asked that some of them be put out. "I furnish all the gas required for this stage," he said, no doubt provoking appreciative laughter. As the stage manager did not hear the request, Brigham Young quietly got up from his prominent box seat, came onto the stage, and with his broad-brimmed hat put out the lights at the rear of the stage.

"Well," said Train, "for once I consider myself beat. I might have done it myself; I am very glad, for once, to be thrown entirely in the shade." He led the audience in three cheers for Brigham Young, "the grand head of Mormondom."

Train continued to lecture in various American cities; traveled to France, which was just then going through the throes of the Communist revolt in Paris, declared himself for the rebels, was thrown into prison and later expelled from the country; traveled around the world in eighty days (providing the basis for the Jules Verne novel); campaigned for the American presidency, giving hundreds of speeches, but was not nominated at the Republican convention in 1872. (If you want to know what Train looked like, turn to Encyclopedia of Mormonism, vol. 2, page 949, where he is mistakenly identified as Mark Twain.)

The death of Young in August 1877 prompted Train to write a poetic tribute. The opus poses no threat to Wordsworth or Whitman, but it rhymes. One can imagine some delight in both the reciter and the listeners at these words:

When ten thousand columns of ink
Announce a great man's death! alas,
Tis apt to make all nations think
A great event has come to pass!
Not Emperor! King! Mikado! Shah!
Nor Sultan! Khedive! Pope or Czar!
Not Vanderbilt! Steward! Astor!
Nor fire! deluge! rail disaster!
No! Something greater. That great event
Is the death of Utah's President.
Against great odds, the brave old lion,
Died in his lair, as head of Zion!
Now Mormon land is wrapt in grief,
Mourning for its beloved old chief —
I cannot be the last to send
A cypress wreath to my old friend!
You know his friendship in the past,
I held as warmly to the last
And also know I stood by him
Through good and ill — through thick and thin.

Train continued his tribute for many stanzas. Since the common reaction in the nation’s press to Brigham Young’s death, in cartoons and words, was not condolence or tribute but mockery, it is refreshing to find the always newsworthy Train speaking out in unabashed praise and tribute.

George Francis Train’s mind was full of schemes and inventions. His ideas on health, he thought, would greatly extend human life. He proclaimed his expectation to be elected president of the United States.

Needless to say, his achievements fell short of these goals. In fact, he was pronounced insane and spent quite a few years in a mental institution. With no adequate medical basis for such a diagnosis, the judge’s verdict of "Not guilty, on the ground of insanity" prevented a court trial. Train had hoped to be party to a test case that would expand freedom of speech and press.

He lived past the turn of the century and finally died, but not before writing his own autobiography. In 1903, one year before his death, he proclaimed, "I was always the Mormon’s friend."

Outrageous! Such was the genteel reaction to George Francis Train. And such was the common opinion about his esteemed friend Brigham Young.

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