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Show Jfi I The Pioneers W By C. C. Qoodwin IT is good to seo the saints bring their chil- M dren in to conference. I We wonder if many of 1 r them stop to tell their 'children the beautiful story of the evolution that the full history pictures, since the day - that the first weary ' ' . company came down the eastern mountains and halted here. f That was Salt Lake's first moving picture; there has been none like it since. Contem- plating it the temple, . the hotels, theatres, '' churches, hospitals, great business houses r- and stately homes; the temples to R e- ligion, to Learning, to Industry, to Justice and Mercy all vanish away; the roar of business be- comes still; the silence which the desert broods comes back; gardens vanish, the flowers all fade; there is nothing as now seen save the surrounding mountains; the lake shimmering in the distance, dis-tance, the sun shining J down from above, and the desolation that wrapped all this region 'round like a burial robe. Even the branches on the few stunted trees hung drooping like funeral R , plumes, while the sough l of the breeze coming I down from the hills or up from the lake was as mournful as is the requiem re-quiem chanted on the shores of the Styx. i The way a state is carved out of a wilder-I wilder-I ness and rounded into 8 form is always an inter- I esting theme. The way I the first stakes of 1 civilization were driven (, in Utah was drama- B v' tic enough to be set I to words for the stage. I In their penury and I distress, the first act of 1 the Utah pioneers was s to sink upon the earth; not in prayer for help, M not in lamentation and H despair but in a glad Praise Service and in M thanks to the Power M that had led them M through the waste and over the transfixed bil- M lions of the everlasting M hills to a place or re.sf. Then their work be- gan. They were not M dreaming of fortunes. M The struggle before M them was to live and H that struggle continued M almost without abate- M ment to the end. Often only the barest necessi- M ties were vouchsafed; M few comforts, no lux- M uries. In that rough H friction their youth was H worn away; the men M surrendered their ambi- M tions, the women folded M fond dreams and a M thousand innocent long- M ing in their hearts and M drew the silence of M self-sacrifice and self- M abnegation over them M forever. M But then a miracle M commenced. .The des- H ert began to transfer M the wrinkles and the M sadness from its som- M bre face to theirs, while H in turn it began to ab- H sorb the splendor or H their youth, and to H cause it to be reflected H in flowers and fruits H and golden grain and H vines in which the H birds made their nests H and filled all the soft BR air with their songs. HI Later still, as though H touched with pity, the H irresponsive mountains H began to swing back H their adamantine doors H revealing the treas- H ures within, where they H had remained secreted, H waiting until the time H should be ripe for the H coming of progress and H enlightenment. H The o v e r-wearied B eyes of those Pioneers H have mostly all closed; H their hands, gnarled by H labor, are nearly all H folded, but the miracle H is still being perform- H ed. More and more H Bj fields are annually rescued from the desert; H more and more flowers are blooming; more K and more birds are singing; wider and wider f fields grow golden under the harvest sun, recall-j recall-j lug the old legend, that artist angels, in the long ( ago, came here from Summcrlatid and with dl-t dl-t vine pencils, dipped in the dyes where light is B brewed, painted these mountains, with their B' dawns and sunsets that turn them to gold, and B left it all as a frame for a city beautiful which B man was to build; we may believe that the build-B build-B ing of that city has been begun and is progresses progress-es ing toward perfection. B This is the story that should bo told the chll- B dren when they are brought into conference, and B then they slibuld be told to listen and note if they B cannot still hear the echoes of that first Praise B Service, with which the fathers dedicated this B soil to the enlightenment which comes through B devotion to duty, through the omnipotence of pa- B 'aunt labor, and through faith in God. H m As To Our Duty As A Neutral WHEN two men engage in a street encountei, outsiders who have no interest in either B one of the lighters, in the interest of peace and B the decencies of civilization, interpose and stop fl the mad men. B The war beyond the Atlantic has been rag- B ing for the best part of two years. Each day it B seems to increase in vehemence and implacable B B Brooding over the destruction of life and propyl prop-yl erty, out of the sorrow and despair no feeling is Hf apparently awakened except a desire to charge B all the wrong upon the enemy, and to strike for B revenge. B When the storm first broke upon a shocked B world, our country hastened to declare itself B neutral. Since then discussion has been limitea B to the rights and duties of neutrals. B That is not what is done in case of a street H fight. B In that case the assumption is that the fighters B are temporarily beside themselves through anger, B and it is right to restrain them. B While that is impossible in a great war, the B principle behind it is the same, and there is a B way to interpose. It is our belief that no nation B of 100,000,000 free people, has a right to confine B its efforts to investigations, in a time like this, B to find whether this or that power has violated B any of its rights as a neutral. It should in every B legitimate way be interposing to try to stop the Bfl slaughter, the waste and the sorrow. B We think that President Wilson should, long B ago, have asked congress to join him in calling B a Peace congress, either at The Hague or on B our own soil say in Washington, with the su- H premo court to steady it to discuss and if pos- B sible to decide upon what new laws are needed to fl prevent if possible further wars, and should have B invited all nations, including those at war, to B send delegates to that congress. Further, that B each of our forty-eight states should have been B invited to send their very ablest men, regardlesb fl of party or creed, as delegates. Such a congress M might be a failure, but on the other hand it might Bf be a great success. It might formulate a code B that the nations now at war might accept as a B basis of settlement of their own differences, rather B than to go on as they now ar.e going on to utter H exhaustion. B At least such a congress could draft a new B, international code which is much needed. H One branch of the present war is penetrating H far into Asia, close to the places wnere three H thousand years ago ambitious and cruel rulers H believed that through scientific warfare they H might conquer and rule the world, and pursued Ht that work until its recoil finally destroyed them. H Just beyond where they fought and perished after B making such desolation, that recuperation has Hi been in vain through centuries of waiting, there are four hundred millions of people who are today to-day ready to swarm into a now life, and following follow-ing th'e rule that has always prevailed. When they do swarm their way will be to the west. This makes the present war in Europe, with its filled graves and empty cradles all the more wicked, for every man in Europe will be needed to oppose that wave when it is set in motion, for when that war comes, enlightenment and Chris-tiaility Chris-tiaility itself will hang in the awful balance. And while what our country could do, if attacked at-tacked is an important and serious question, vhat wo as a nation should be doing now in the interest inter-est of peace and enlightenment and justice,, as becomes our place and the mercies that have been extended to us is a still more grave and important im-portant question. The U. S. Supreme Court AVERY learned foreign writer recently said of our United States supreme court: "It construes con-strues and passes upon the constitution; it has powers to override the president and congress, and to pronounce unconstitutional the legislation of the forty-eight state parliaments. It is a court of incomparable honesty, learning and competence." compe-tence." Is it not humiliating to an American, proud of his country, and jealous of its honor and gooo. name, that appointments to membership on that august tribunal should ever be influenced by partisan par-tisan bias, or a desire to pay political debts, or to further party or personal plans? What would be thought "of a soldier who would tamper with the gates of a citadel the defense of which had been entrusted to him? Should not a man named for that place be like Caesar's wife, above the possibility of suspicion? sus-picion? Our Soldier Boys TT HE work that our little army has been doing and is doing in northern Mexico ought to be a lasting object lesson to the mongrels who people peo-ple that region. A sleuth-hound chase, dividing into little bands to pursue that chase in all directions direc-tions and indifferent to the odds that might be brought against them; to face the dust; the heat, by day the cold by night; the climbing of traillesb mountains, the lack of water, the cavalry ride of fifty-five miles in a day and a night and then without a rest storming the lair of the rag-muffin bandits; a nemesis that heeds neither distress dis-tress nor danger, nor any of the obstacles that can be heaped in its path and only intent on one settled purpose; adapting and outdoing all the inventions of the enemy, a race superiority which must convince those treacherous braggarts and murderers that it is a dangerous experiment to try too much the forbearance of a nation of free men. We have doubted from the first that Villa would ever be caught. The vastnesses of those inhospitable hills offer him refuge, among those ignorant people everyone is ready to shield mm, and lie about his whereabouts, but they are learning learn-ing something new every day about the character of his pursuers, and certainly are learning that it is dangerous to try the patience of the men of the United States and to awake to action the determination de-termination of the police of that nation to execute justice. And wo at home would be worse than ingrates if we did not give that police the full mead of praise and all our lives hold them in grateful memory. The Fear That Breaks The Nerves IN the long chase after old Qeronimo, General Miles llnally brought the heliograph to bear and the mysterious "eye," blazing out here and there on the promontories of the long mountain side, finally broke down the nerves of the old savage and he gave up and surrendered. He was sufe that the strange "eye" was searching out his hiding places and telling the pale faces what trails he was following. That was but thirty years ago but now a double terror is following the bandits in that same region. The aviator is riding the air along the same mountain crests and what he discovers he makes that same air carry in invisible messages ) to the nemesis that is pursuing those bandits. The knowledge that the foe pursuing them possesses such an equipment, must give those cutthroats as creepy a feeling as did the superstitious super-stitious fear that overwhelmed the old scalp-raiser thirty years ago, the thought that must haunt their sleep when they lie down at night must be the same one that long ago was set to the words: "Awake! Awake! The Huns are at your gates!" A terror, the extent of which cannot be comprehended com-prehended but which is ever iminent is about the most trying on the nerves of men that can be framed. And when men know that the ven-gance ven-gance that is pursuing them will accept no terms fy except their lives, and that it is in truth eternal , justice that is oh their trail, there is always before be-fore their eyes such a sword as was suspended over the gate of the garden and which was a notice that for them hope had been left behind. A Schoolmaster Needed A SCHOOLMASTER is evidently needed in Washington, The idea there seems to be to run the country in the old fashioned apple-paring, corn-shucking way, a go-as-you please affair, where all are good fellows and no ibossing is desired. de-sired. But war is ruling nearly all the world now. It is convulsing Europe and western Asia, it is degenerating de-generating into coarse murder in Mexico; China is all ready for it; it is churning the world's ocean into bloody spray, and filling the air above. And war is strictly an imperial machine. There is no "if you please" about it. It is go and he goeth, come and he cometh, all its edicts are like moving mov-ing the previous question they shut off debate. A few weeks ago a great cry come from Washington Washing-ton of the need of national preparedness, and the experience since indicates that the knowledge of what is needed is so obscure that a schoolmaster school-master is needed to formulate a system which will be comprehensive enough to meet the requirements. re-quirements. We have before us a paper which tells how a French officer was called to the telephone about midnight one August night in 1914. A brief message mes-sage fell on his ear. He sprang into an auto and dashed away to the nearest town and set a dozen 'phones ringing. In the next six hours several hundred automobiles came and reported to him. Some were driven by workingmen, some by military mili-tary officers; some by young men who still wore the full dress suits in which they were dressed when the order reached them. In fifteen hours they were all assigned their places with full supplies sup-plies and had started for the front. They had been organized with the thought that war might v come and every detail had been fixed so that when the news came that a war was really on there was not one second's delay in responding. Suppose such an order was to be sent out in our country, what would follow? The message that would come back would be: "Out of gasoline." gaso-line." Then there would be a call upon tnose who manufacture gasoline and the answer would be that they had just shipped all they had to Europe. Eu-rope. Doubtless, the next morning's papers would I give a list of lands supposed to be oil lands which the government had just reserved to keep greedy speculators from appropriating. r$ We have been .threatened with war in several ways for the past three years, but as we understand under-stand it, there are no small arms for an army, no heavy guns, no sufficient number of machine. (Continued on page G.) i MHaMHaaBaaHHlHfl A SCHOOL MASTER NEEDED (Continued from Page 2.) guns; no available supply of ammunition, and not enough food to support a real army for a month. More, so much food has been sent abroad, that the poor of the country are already reduced to small rations and the prices are soaring out of sight. What common prudence has been exercised in husbanding the country's resources? Suppose a war was to be sprung upon us tomorrow what J explanation for the country's condition could " those who handle our army and navy and the general government give for the condition the country is in? What could stop the ravaging of our coasts? What could possibly prevent the killing, kill-ing, uselessly, of from 100,000 to 500,000 of the bravest and best men of the republic? When our little war with Spain was declared and volunteers were called for, more of those volunteers died in camp than in battle, because there were no men competent to establish sanitary san-itary camps for them? Will our country never get the sense to use a little common prudence in keeping the country in at least a little way ready to meet whatever call may be made upon it, and i in time of peace to prevent the people from being be-ing robbed and wronged by speculators? |