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Show EDITORIAL: The Mormon Migration, A Product Of Events The United States in the 1840's was a seething mass of unrest. A division of the Union over the question of slavery threatened to strangle the political politi-cal life from the adolescent nation na-tion before its economy had developed de-veloped sufficient strength to break the hold of sectional animosity. an-imosity. There was an air of strained expectancy over the whole scene which foreshadowed foreshadow-ed a testing of the young Republic. Repub-lic. And on the horizon rose the dark clouds of religious controversy contro-versy which were soon to pour a torrent into the boiling waters of national unrest. Possiblv without knowing it, the United States was ready for and in need of expansion. The signs were there signs that the country had outgrown the short breeches of its boyhood and now stood awkwardly on gangling gang-ling legs hoping for its first pair of long pants. Beyond the Mississippi, to the rigid fortress of the Rocky Mountains, and across the baked lands of the Great American desert des-ert to the Pacific Ocean, lay the hope of expansion for the United States. Capt. John C. Fremont, "The Pathfinder," under the guidance of Kit Carson, had mapped the vastness west of the "Father of Waters," returning with accounts which made the growing pains of the young United Unit-ed States more acute. The "Long ' Hunters" and Mountain Men of the Hudson's Bay and Rocky Mountain Fur Companies, walking walk-ing ahead of the setting sun's shadows, with their priceless catches of furs, brought stories of Rocky Mountain wealth, and of a frontiersman named Bridger, who had established a fort in a mountain valley where the grass grew knee deep. The die was cast; the era of national expansion had begun; the eve of the opening of the Western wilderness had arrived. In their city of Nauvoo on the banks of the Mississippi, the Latter-Day Saints, who were soon to become the objects of a political and religious uprising, were no less interested in the Fremont reports than were the other peoples of the United Slates. Astutely Mormon leaders cataloged Fremont's words, and checked his maps as though aware that their people were des tined to play a major role in colonizing col-onizing an American wilderness. History has well recorded what happened at Carthage, 111. in 1844 and what followed at Nauvoo. And history has inscribed in-scribed these incidents as symbols sym-bols of restlessness which pre-ceeded pre-ceeded the growth of a mighty nation. , r,. x The hope for a United States stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific was realized in two epics of the 1840's The Mormon Mor-mon migration from Illinois to Uluh, and the wrenching from Mexico of that land toward which the Mormon pioneers were headed. True, California, settled by proud Dons of Castil-ian Castil-ian descent, was a productive unit unto itself; and northward along the Pacific coast scattered settlements served as rendezvous for northwestern trappers. But eastward, separating the Dons and the trappers from communication communi-cation with the United States, swept a forboding vastness. It was toward this uninviting land that the Mormons moved. And in 1847 when the first band of "Saints" set foot on the shim-maring shim-maring alkali soil of the Great Basin, the hope for a nation reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific approached realization, Undeniably the Mormon migration mi-gration was a product of national nation-al unrest, an unrest that reached its climax in the holocaust which we call the Civil War. And it was as inevitable as the Civil War, Yet events alone cannot drive man to the fulfillment of his plans they merely influence him as his plan unfolds. Courage, Cour-age, determination and resourcefulness resource-fulness are the attributes by which man attains his goal. These were the tools by which the Mormons hacked out a wilderness wilder-ness to spearhead westward expansion, ex-pansion, and to build a great commonwealth in the heart of the desert. , - , The tribute to those who. 100 years ago today, drove their wagons wag-ons out of the Wasatah mountains, moun-tains, bringing them to a halt on the ancient bed of-the Great Salt Lake, can be no more honorable than: "Theirs was the courage by which humanity pulled itself out of the muck; theirs was the determination de-termination by which nations are built; and theirs was the , resourcefulness re-sourcefulness by which civilization civiliz-ation will progress." |