Show AS TEnNEn PAYS TRITE TRIBUTE OF PRAISE ASTO i TO UTAH AND THE HEROIC PIONEERS I I JOHN STEVEN McGROARTY 4 Los Angeles Times I l I L Lately when rhad a a loan from God and was wail on my way to the e old blue 1119 of home in Penns Penn's Woods where I was born I spent a few handfuls of y iy golden store of time tim in Utah It is a place where I had often orien longed to be the he great Mormon Empire ic e east vast ast beauty of or which with its thrilling story had lured and aid fascinated me melis melis lis his long time since I I have hale already related in the Synagogue as hest I could yet could yet feeling so sory try ry about it the it-the the wonders of Zion with its stupendous temples and leaming domes and I have told tale of the Red City that Bryce le Ie e Scot found on a wandering day in a great gash of the Wasatch Hills flips ut all that is only a little of the far far fl far hg wonderland of Utah And nd jiow now l I I last st I 1 have ha crossed its domain from end to end Ind and am left awed i in th the realization of what it means to be he an American I I For Tor this is what you u must realize when you jou OU cross the continent that continent that iti it ita i a tremendous thing to be an American When ones one's mind the fact at Utah alone and by itself is a greater country in every way than all put together er and yet that it is only p II small part of our America after I 1 then the very stars on the flag nag take on a s I brighter glory and its crimson a deeper flame Utah that stands at the back door of California less than twenty four oars urs away by y train or auto Its in incalculable wealth within easy reach of our ads Ind and ami its indescribable beauty un ler ier our very eyes And beyond it retching limitlessly to the tle Atlantic he sweep of the cOl continent All of American and all of it ours Wherefore is it not meet and just that we stand bowed before the hrone brone of the Lord God of the Ages in reverent mind with grateful hearts As 1 traversed Utah my first thought ht was of the pioneers I r could not rr C t my mind away from them and all that they had endured endured- to reach a romped ed Land It is difficult t to find its parallel in in human history history history-an an codus before which that tl-at of Israel itself would seem to pale into insi There was a writing man the latchets of whose hoe shoes I could never hope i be worthy to have loosed who has put this thing into wondrously eloquent owls oRIs I rea read them on a creaking caravan words caravan words written long ago b by the theto tc to Judge Goodwin sometime editor of the Salt Lake Tribune Tribune and and that in thus i TI The B. B codus to n Utah was i o tint not like an n nv r Y f At other o tr recorded tr ri e i fn M 5 T Th The J U J odus to Italy was was to a land of sunshine native fruits and flowers the arch of Xenophon's immortal band hand was a march of fighting men back to heir leir homes the exodus of tl the e Pilgrims was to a new w world of unmeasured fc but c was of despair to ades nation on the unresponsive breast of the desert The Utah pioneers had haden haden en tossed out of civilization into the wilderness and on of the outer gate of at civilization a flaming naming sw sword rd of hate had been placed which turned Her every ay against them All ties of the past had been sundered They were so poor that their most hope was to secure the merest necessities of life If ever a dream of like comfort rt or luxuries came to to them they made a grave rave in their arts for that dream and buried it that it might not longer longere vex vec them This is what Goodwin said of the Mormon pioneers and ami no one will willer er cr say it with a more more exquisitely poignant touch And nd now three-quarters three of t a century after I 1 saw their green farms on one onIe onic ic Ie banks Lanks of shining rivers their villages among th the trees that their strong trong ads planted and I walked the thronged streets of Salt Lake City the atel capital of the empire that rose from their faith out of desert sands They that made graves in in their hearts to bury hury dreams of comfort and ury cury that it might not longer vex them then lived on to meet the resurrection those dreams among smiling fields and flower-flamed flower gardens in the of a wilderness that the they made mad to hl blossom as as' as the rose I am not any too well informed as to just rv what hat exactly the religious religion creed the Mormon ormon church is that is-that that church which once wholly dominated Utah 1 a great extent dominates it still I It t is something with which I 1 am ant not nc accrued erred It is a matter for their them own consciences es solely But I 1 do know at lat the Mormon pioneers in Utah were possessed of f a tremendous faith There is a sculptured rec record record-of rd of that faith erected from enduring stone ul HI bronze in the beautiful gardens of the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City the city the monument of the sea seagulls gulls There is no more wonderful stor story of human faith than this which is 1 lil dd 1 by hy the monument of the sea gulls It was in the year jear ear 1845 that the pio pio- irs cr planted their fir first t crop of grain in the valley of the Great Salt Lake Oil on reaching the Promised Land after the untold hardships of or the exodus in nn c civilization The very lives Ihu of the settlers depended on the harve harvest t. t 11 nd 1 the seed that was sown so in fn ho hope e grew and flourished until it was at last lastad uly ady ad for the scythe Then one day the skies were darkened with end endless leu swarms warms of maraud maraud- K crickets that swooped down on the fields destroying every ery growing gro ving green greening ting ing that they touched The settlers fought them with the strength of pair Mair but hut all in vain vahn Nothing that human power could do was swag as able to at al hack back the black hordes of the destroyers And nd so not knowing where else turn urn the people fell upon their knees amid the vanishing harvest hanest and sent sentI 1 I rom front their weary eary hearts supplications to God Immediately I then came swift answer to their prayers Looking up they hi Id legions of white winged white winged gulls swifter than Ihan the winds wind that bore hore them themis is lIlg from front the Great Salt Lake the sk sky vibrant with their rescuing cries I 1 n were the fowled Bluchers come to Waterloo Down upon the crickets e white while gulls gills fell devouring them even en as they had devoured the almost Hied grain And Arid so the crop on which life depended was saved The base of the monument is ma made mae e eloquent with scenes in bronze that tha thatto 1 to make up tip the story tor But tut the feature of it all that impressed me mos mosi most i- i ithe the sculptured legend the words of or which tell that the sea gull monument i I. erected in fn grateful remembrance of the mercy of God to the Mormon fter fler this the Mormon church was assuredly on its way And it had hadt hadn t n its martyrs not only with the grave of or its prophet but hut in the lonely silences silence the hard road it travelled to its Canaan Cauaan Whatever your our religious convictions may be or if it be that you vou have ha ae ne you must still in all honesty feel a profound admiration for the Morn More Mor n m n people after you jou OU have come cone to know their story Stand now in the the green valley alley of Salt Lake clustered with trees anc ancen and anden en realize that when Brigham Youngs Young's pioneers reached the spot there wat wa Wall was it t one lone scraggy tree in that vast desol desolation tion to greet their eyes ees Of what wha stuff they must have ha been made not to have ha been disheartened as aa the they zed upon that inhospitable scene I How perfect must have ha been their faith they accepted without a murmur the dictum of their leader when he said his is the l place lace The Promised Land of Isreal Israel was a land laud of corn and wine it flowed th milk and was sweet with hone honey It was a land in which a mans man's belly rejoice But Dut to greet the weary hearts the tired eyes eye's and the aching dies of the Mormons was this vast desolation And yet It they accepted it h en gladly They lighted their camp fires upon the arid wastes and lifted Continued on page S 2 S EASTE EASTERNER PAYS TRIBUTE OF PRAISE TO UTAH AND THE IE HEROIC PIONEERS Continued from Page 1 up ul their voices in of wild grateful hymns of praise e to 10 God amid amil the ing anI and inhospitable hill hills Things arc are changing in fn Utah Ulah as a everywhere d else cUe t and the Mormon I is losing control It is 5 history repeating Itself Massachusetts i is k no longer lonKer Puritan Virginia no IC longer hunger Cavalier Ca California no longer Franciscan scan One c man blazes a trail that another mart man ma may trudge ft it The Mormons Mormon however howe were never ne very ry strong numerically And nd al although although al though their numbers have increased ed and not lessened there are nut not not yet ye el t more mMe than of them theist in the whole world the bulk hulk being in Utah fhe They have today tOllay 2010 missionaries at work here and abroad hut hit the growth i is i. slow They still constitute 70 0 per cent of Utah's population but only dt 41 40 per Pr cent of the population of Salt Lake City which is at once the capital of or orthe the State Slate and of the Mormon Empire I suppose the day will come conic when the prophets prophet's people will walk their r mew own n land as aliens The stranger will have ha at last overwhelmed o them But Butiu ut time will never be he able ahle to obliterate wholly the footprints that the they left iu in inthe inthe t the sands Utah is destined of boundless riches riche to see great days great days great days clays o a anI and ami civic glory yet it will not and cannot forget the deathless glory of itt it its a pioneers they pioneers they who drove e the stakes of the Commonwealth and reared the rafters of the State nd And in those days that ar are to be there will doubtless s lie he sonic some carp carping critic to find rind fault and belittle them and to sneer and t to o laugh above c the graves of Brigham Young and his nineteen wives wl Rut Hut with ith all that which that which was wa his own business and something that ha has s nothing to do with his almost unparalleled record as an empire builder builder- history will ill he be sure to write him hint down clearl clearly and without petty prejudice As for me who am a as far away from the Mormons in their religious beliefs helicEs and practices practice as a man can be he the they have ha my profound re respect I would not like to tu think that I 1 could not nut grant them theist the justice that history tor cannot withhold from them theist It staggers the imagination on to contemplate what hat this empire of Utah really is the is-the the empire that the Mormon n people opened up for the world II by their faith ralth and sacrifice and sublime courage Its natural and still undeveloped unde undo eloped wealth i is so immeasurable and ami boundless that one does doe not wonder r that Abraham braham Lincoln in a moment of prophetic vision ision declared that Ut Utis Utah Ut rn n is the treasure house of the nation There is today tolay ned coal in Utah sufficient to supply the needs of o world for the next hundred years ears to come conic regardless o of the most profligate ate and improvident use uses use It has hal mountains 11 of iron and copper almost inexhaustible stores of silver great deposits of gold It has limestone petroleum asphalt and a hundred and one other miner minerals ls It is indeed a a storehouse of the nation And it is at the back hack door of It will send us coking coal oal forthe for forthe forthe r the steel mills that we vve are to build l and that will speed their products upon t the laden ships to the trade of the Orient and South America It will Ivill supply us with much raw material that we vve ha have hate e not nut ourselves es Needful things that t California can telephone for and anti ha have ha e delivered leli to it over o night Nor or does this potential commercial alliance of oC California with ith Utah stop at the raw materials materials of the mines California it it appears clearl clearly is destine to 1 become the most lost t densel densely inhabited section of the globe gIoia Its thou thousand and d miles of length will be he crowded it 1 homes home and marts mart's of trade There wit will ill 1 no longer longer- remain lands for the pursuits of a agriculture and stock raising dairying and all that There will be one ne vast ast dt city from San Diego's harbor of the Sun to Sonoma in the Valle Valley of the Seven Se Moots Moons oon and far beyond that Hut But there will still be he Utah at the back hack door Just now how it is a marvelous experience to ride through the Mormon empire just to see the sheep alone You will meet them crossing crossing the high t in endless s droves es their shepherds shepherd and the sheep dogs with them It Itis Itis 1 t is always a sight that the heart lingers upon lovingly lo One thinks of th the e sunlit plains and starlit hills of Judea And d the darling dogs that are always alwa's s so seriously at their task of or guardianship You Von will love lo the sheep and the th e i et dogs in Utah and the Mormon shepherds is will rill wave wa a friendly hail to you t as you ou pass And nd it mOl may he be that thai as you see sec now an and 1 then a black sheep heep a an anold n I old Id rhyme of childhood will come back to you ou to find you saying saing I lla ha 1101 ha ba black sheep Have Ha wool you an any q t Yes sir ir yes sir three bags full One for rM the master malter one olle for Cor the dame Anti And one for the little bu buy boy that I lives in the lane Likely enough I have han not quoted exactly h by the book juk and so u Mother Mothe r Goose mOl may be h heen even en now lifting an accusing finger at inc nut Hut oh sometimes s childhood seems so sory very ry far al a away As 5 a wind-up wind of your jour oUr journey le you jou will perhaps spend some ome time in Salt itt h Lake Cit City Nor or will it be he time lost lust though you jou 01 mOl may say May with others that thaI all a cities are alike For it is i after all true that there thre are arc a half dozen or orso orso orso so beautiful cities in the worl world 1 Salt Lake is one of them 11 nd 1 you will ill be le glad Iad that goo good 1 fortune led your steps within its sunn sunny gates |