Chapter 43
In Washington, D.C., thirteen-year-old Annie Ellsworth is being driven home from school in her father’s carriage. Not every school girl in the capitol is so privileged, but her father is the Commissioner of Patents. Annie would not understand that such a position is unique in its ability to attract large “honorariums” for speeches that are never given, provided that patents are. What Annie does understand is the power of God to heal, bless, forgive, and protect. From her earliest years, Annie has been connected to God. As her good friend Samuel Morse has told her, she and God each hold a telegraph key and communicate over a direct line.
Some of Annie’s school mates call her “spooky”; she never loses her temper, or cheats at games, or gossips, or does any of the naughty things that every other thirteen-year-old does. She prefers to read her Bible rather than discuss boys; she’d rather pray than eat. Annie’s mother—no saint (if such a station is based on behavior)—worries about her daughter. In truth, she worries that Annie will disclose her mother’s petty vanities and vices to God, and that retribution is just around the corner. It is not easy being the mother of an angel, especially when one is a bit of a devil.
On this glorious spring day, Annie has a problem. “Sammy”—as she calls her parent’s friend, Samuel Morse—has asked Annie to decide on a message to be sent over the telegraph. It is quite an honor, as this will be the first message ever to be sent by telegraph from one city to another. Because she is such a serious young girl, she has taken this responsibility to heart. She wants the message to be exactly right, to communicate something very important to the world, but so far she has not come up with the right message.
At about the time that Jalal resettles himself onto the comfortable carpet in the young Siyyid’s house in Shiraz, Annie is arriving home. The carriage pulls up outside her house, scattering a flock of pigeons. She watches them fly away and then, while looking up into the empty sky, she sees the image of a man in the clouds and she knows what Sammy’s message should be.
She races into the house and writes the message onto a piece of note paper, folding it in half and placing it into an envelope that she addresses to “Samuel Morse.” She puts her name on the back and takes the envelope to the carriage driver, instructing him to deliver it immediately. The driver, who has often taken Mr. Morse to his favorite hotel after visits with the family, delivers the message to the hotel desk. Samuel Morse is handed the envelope when he returns to his hotel after dinner. He is amused by the envelope, understanding at once what it contains.
“In this envelope,” Morse explains to his dinner companions, Jonathon Fury and Oliver Chadwick, “is the message that I will send from Baltimore to Washington. It has been chosen by the most remarkable young lady I know.”
“What is this historic message?” Oliver asks.
Samuel Morse waves the envelope back and forth, as if trying to divine the message without reading it, then puts the envelope into his coat pocket. “I don’t know,” he says. “But I like surprises. Let’s wait until Friday.”
In the transforming bliss and harmony of his host’s modest Shirazi room, Jalal feels connected to all spiritual beings, as if he can commune without effort with all who reside, either permanently or temporarily, in a spiritual plane that transcends the limits of the material world. The universe seems open to him now, fractured to its core so that he can see and hear what was previously unseen and unheard. His spirit seems to mingle with his host’s, and with thousands of others who seek nearness with their Beloved and pray for insight, and through meditation tune the subtle vibrations of their bodies and souls to the melodies of God.
Jalal sits spellbound by the utterances of this young man, humbled by his depth of knowledge. Time floats effortlessly past, without meaning or boundary. A river of wisdom rushes by him, and Jalal recognizes that even with cupped hands he can capture only a few drops.
After a peaceful silence, the young Siyyid looks up at Jalal and says, “You are the first to believe in me! I am the Gate of God, and you are the gate of that Gate.”
In the Supreme Court chamber, all is ready for the grand demonstration. Distinguished gentlemen from Congress greet Samuel Morse with hearty handshakes, though most are privately skeptical that this telegraph gadget will deliver as promised. The whole idea of it simply defies logic.
Jonathon Fury has set up his cumbersome camera in a strategic position from which he can capture Mr. Morse and the telegraph key at the most opportune moment. Oliver Chadwick and Isaac sit in hard wood chairs beside the camera; now sixteen, Isaac’s insatiable curiosity makes him perhaps the most interested occupant of this room, except for Mr. Morse.
With a loud clearing of the throat, Samuel Morse begins his presentation with “heartfelt thanks” to Congress for providing the money required to construct the telegraph line from Baltimore to Washington. Next, he delivers a pedantic, too-long discourse on the physics of electricity and the logic behind the dots and dashes that will soon be embossed onto a strip of paper by the telegraph device. The inventor immodestly refers to this system of symbols as “Morse code.”
Before he is finished with his lecture, a number of witnesses are checking their pocket watches and rolling their eyes. At last he introduces his “very special guest,” Annie Ellsworth, who is attired in a flowery dress and matching hat. Seated next to her parents in the first row, she now stands to applause, blushes, then bows politely and retakes her seat.
“Miss Ellsworth has selected the message that we will be communicating to my colleague, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore. After Mr. Vail receives it, he will send the same message back to me here in Washington, and that will conclude our demonstration. The message is in this sealed envelope, which I have not yet opened.” Then, turning to Jonathon and Oliver, he says, “Are you gentlemen ready?”
They nod.
Morse opens the envelope, studies the message, and then smiles at Annie. He leans over the telegraph key and begins a series of clicking sounds that are undecipherable to anyone save himself. When he is finished, he folds his hands in front of himself and speaks to the group. “Alfred Vail already will have received my message, and I expect he is translating it for the group assembled there. In a short while, he will retransmit the mess—”
At just this moment, the telegraph begins to click and pull through its strip of paper. For the first time, everyone in the chamber is attentive. After a few seconds, Morse tears off the paper strip and holds it up, focusing his eyes on the embossed bumps.
“Ladies and gentlemen, our demonstration has been a success. Mr. Vail has transmitted to us the very same message that I sent him only moments ago.”
A smattering of applause greets these words. It was not a very dramatic demonstration, but the device seemed to have worked. Unsatisfied, though, Oliver raises his hand.
“Mr. Chadwick?” Morse says obligingly.
“Yes sir, I was wondering if you could tell us what the message was.”
“Oh, my yes, of course. My compliments to Miss Ellsworth for a most fitting message, indeed. Let me read it to you.” He holds up the strip of paper again, looks at it, and reads.
“What hath God wrought?”
Samuel Morse assumes that the message was meant to underscore the revolutionary nature of his technological achievement. Jalal would have seen quite another meaning.
Chapter 44
On Thursday evening, June 7, the
Nauvoo Expositor
press begins to churn out its very first weekly edition, a collection of virulently anti-Mormon articles and scathing attacks. A month earlier, William Law and his brother Wilson had hauled the old press to Nauvoo after buying it with a few dollars of their own and a larger sum invested by confirmed Mormon haters. The Law brothers had not always been critics of the Prophet; until recently, William had been one of Joseph Smith’s counselors, but he and his brother could no longer tolerate the Mormon practice of polygamy and the increasingly political nature of Smith’s “Kingdom of God.” In a shouting match, William had called out the Prophet and declared war on the movement he now believed was a public menace. He chose the printed word as his weapon, and this set the stage, he believed, for a duel of newspapers in Nauvoo. He could not have been more wrong.
The smell of ink and newsprint is thick at the
Expositor
office as William inspects the first sheet to come off the press. His black-smudged fingers flip the page over, leaving a thumbprint in the corner. “That old type you bought is a bit worn out. Look at the “i” and the “t” in particular,” he says to his brother, handing Wilson the page.
“What’ya expect for the price?” Wilson replies.
A noise startles them—footsteps just outside the side window, which is covered by layers of newsprint. William turns, frightened. “You lock up?” he asks his brother.
“Tight as a drum.”
“All right, then. We keep makin’ papers tonight. Tomorrow the whole area will see the dark side of Joseph Smith.”
“As if they haven’t already.”
“I take Nauvoo and Quincy. You head out early and drop off stacks in Carthage and Warsaw. Mr. Sharp over there in Warsaw’ll give you a hand, he said. Good man.”
“Ol’ Joe is gonna be spittin’ tacks… like the way he did when you testified against him over in Carthage and they brought him up on charges of adultery.”
“I swore under oath, Wilson. Had to tell the truth as I saw it. Way I see it now is there’s over three hundred of us former Mormons right here in Nauvoo who want to get things cleaned up, and that’s only the ones who’ve raised their hands. Lots more behind them, you can bet on it.”
The Law brothers do their job. The towns within horse wagon range are flooded with the first edition of the
Nauvoo Expositor
. Joseph Smith is one of the first to read it; five different people bring it directly to his home.
He doesn’t like what he reads.
Right there on the front page it says that the newspaper’s chief purpose is to
explode the vicious principles of Joseph Smith, and those who practice the same abominations and whoredoms which we verily know are not accordant and consonant with the principles of Jesus Christ and the Apostles.
The first inflammatory articles go on to charge Smith with bringing innocent females to Nauvoo under the pretext of religion, but in reality to add them to his harem. Another piece castigates Smith’s candidacy for president by saying,
You are voting for a man who contends all governments are to be put down and the
one
established upon its ruins. We cannot believe that God ever raised up a prophet to Christianize a world by political schemes and intrigue
.
And there is more. The
Expositor
faults the political system of Nauvoo, criticizes specific church doctrines, and advocates in strong language widespread reforms.
John Taylor, a city councilman and high-ranking church leader, is the first to have brought the newspaper to Smith’s home, and he now watches the Prophet’s stormy reaction. To calm the Prophet-mayor-general-presidential candidate, Taylor tries to make a joke: “Looks like the Law brothers have found themselves a writer. Much better English than they speak.”
Joseph Smith is not amused. His response, which carries with it the weight of religious and Nauvoo law, is succinct. “Call a meeting of the council for tomorrow morning!”
And so on Saturday morning, the Nauvoo city council convenes with one item on its agenda: the
Nauvoo Expositor
. “It stinks in the nose of every honest man,” John Taylor says in one of the council’s more even-handed exchanges.
After a lengthy discussion, Joseph Smith becomes visibly frustrated with the pace of the deliberations and stands up. “Such men and newspapers,” he says, “are calculated to destroy the peace of the city, and it is not safe that such things should exist, on account of the mob spirit which they tend to produce. I would rather die tomorrow and have the thing smashed, than live and have it go on, for it is exciting the spirit of mobocracy and bringing death and destruction upon us!”
Upon finishing this tirade, unfortunately, it is dinner time and the council decides to postpone further discussion until Monday.
By Monday morning, Prophet Smith is even more agitated. He dislikes having to argue his points to a council that would not exist if he had not created it.
“I am uncomfortable with destroying this business,” Councilor Warrington, a non-Mormon, confesses to the assembly. “I strongly suggest that we fine the
Expositor
$3,000 for every libel published in these pages. And if this does not curb its slander, then we should declare it a public nuisance.”
“A ridiculous proposition,” Joseph Smith counters. “Mormons would then have to travel to the county seat at Carthage to prosecute these cases, and their lives would be endangered. I urge all of you to agree that the best remedy is to declare the
Expositor
a public nuisance without a troublesome judicial process. As the city council, we have that right.”
By six-thirty that evening, the council diffidently passes an ordinance declaring the
Nauvoo Expositor
a public nuisance and issues an order for the mayor to have it destroyed. The mayor, Joseph Smith, duly agrees to fulfill his obligation.
Less than two hours later, a mob of citizens, assisted by the Nauvoo Legion under the command of the major general, march to the unstaffed office of the
Nauvoo Expositor
. They smash the press, scatter the type throughout the street, and set the building on fire. The duel of the newspapers had lasted four days.
Inside the
Expositor’s
office, in a wooden file cabinet, one of the last items to burn had been an official
Nauvoo Expositor
stock certificate in the name of Oliver Chadwick, now the owner of 50% of the ashes.
The Prophet’s actions that evening galvanize the non-Mormons of Hancock County, who view this sanctioned vandalism as a final act of contempt for their laws.
Upon hearing the news, Oliver catches a train for western Illinois. The Ellsworths, particularly Annie, having taken a liking to Isaac and graciously offer to look after the inquisitive boy until Oliver returns.