[George Q. Cannon]
A dispatch had just been received from Salt Lake City to the effect that Captain Andrew Burt, chief of Police and Marshal of that city, had been shot and almost instantly killed by a negro desperado while endeavoring to arrest him. An infuriated mob had seized the negro and hung him, and his body was afterwards dragged through the streets. I was greatly pained at this news. The death of Captain Burt was a very shocking occurrence; for he has a large family who were dependent upon him for support, and besides he has been a most excellent officer, greatly respected in that capacity, and one of the best Bishops in Salt Lake City, he being Bishop of the 21^st Ward. But the hanging of the negro, and the treatment of his corps afterwards, shocked me greatly. I have a deep-rooted and invincible hatred of mobocracy in every form. I cannot justify it. The impressions made upon me in my boyhood by the acts of the mob are ineradicable, and I have felt that I would fight a mob endeavoring to take a criminal and wreak vengeance upon him to the death.
[The Journal of George Q. Cannon, Church Historian's Press, https://churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon]
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