| OCR Text |
Show The First One Hundred Years 'O,ijt 'i,ijf IO, dini )11(t, otal, war, ,ni! n!, an tnt all IUIa !tl,r en· lW 1m ieD Ito 77 the failures and the mistaken judgments? True, any society is entitled to be judged by its successes rather than its failures, and yet the full backgrounds may help us better to appreciate our pioneers, and also better able to evaluate current experiments. Grant that .he Mormons made mistakes, smile at their search for the ideal society, admit all their failures, discount them all you can for their narrow provincialism and their smug self-righteous ness, and you still have a residue of achievement worthy of re spect. Present day Mormons have plenty of which they may be proud in the celebration of their centennial. To compare the activities of pioneer Mormon communities with those of towns in neighboring states is to make this more evident. Take for example St. George, not because it is different, but because it is so typical. Here a choir was organized, a debating society active, a school established in a wagon box, before there was a home in town. Furthermore, an election was held and a mayor and city council were duly sworn into office; significantly, the mayor was not the ecclasiastical leader. While they were still living in their wagons waiting for the city to be surveyed and the blocks and lots numbered so that each man could draw his num ber from a hat and thus know the location of his home, they set on up a lyceum course in a large sibley tent. The first lecture was English grammar! Imagine men who had gee'd and haw'd at oxen all day and women who had managed a camping-out household in December sitting on the ground in a candle lit tent to listen to a lecture on the better use of the English language. Could any thing be more eloquent of their general character? There was a concert presented in a willow bowery, and a theater presented in the same shelter upon an improvised stage with blankets for the curtains, so eager was the group for cultural entertainment. In Utah has been demonstrated the vitality of the American on the way of life, a demonstration of the truth of the inscription silver dollar, E Pluribus Urium, "out of many, one," or "from differences, unity." Here were many nationalities blended and fused. A Swiss colony transplanted from the green slopes of th Alps to the flaming southern Utah desert, Dane and Swede and Welsh and English, along with converts from all parts of the United States, were bound together by their common religion, and -ir, one generation had erased their racial differences to become: Mo-rnons first, and later, Americans. Each group brought its own peculiar customs and folk-lore and mores to combine in the new environment. Joseph Orton, a 'shGemaker who had never seen beyond the fog 'Of London, was called to settle at St. George. He was so poorly adapted to life the frontier that he made the whole three week's journey on from Salt Lake City without being able to distinguish his own oxen, but had to wait each morning until all the other teamsters |
