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Show The Memorial-read by Mr. King-ran as follows: To the President: Your Excellency-We are come, a special commission, in behalf of and in the name of the people of Utah-indeed, of the whole inter-mountain country-to invite and to urge Your Excellency to visit our State. It will be fifty years on the 24th day of next luly since the first band of Pioneers entered the valley of Great Salt Lake. Naked almost, and almost in despair, they blazed the weary trail from the Missouri River to the shore of our Dead Sea, only to be saluted on their arrival by a desert. Such a journey, made to find a home amid such desolation, was never before undertaken. For years thereafter their yokemates were poverty and hardship, their lot unceasing and poorly requited toil. Uncomplainingly they bore up against their iron fortune; slowly acre by acre was reclaimed from the waste, until flowers and fruits took the place of the garments of sage which clothe the desert. Strong men and delicate women thus wore out their lives. The dreams of youth were repressed; they put aside their early hopes; if songs were in their souls they were never sung. From the rugged path they trod, one by one fell out until now only a remnant of the band remains. Upon the sacred graves of those Pioneers, on land enriched by their tears, our State's foundations have been laid. In July, in honor of those who still live and of the memories of those who have died, a Jubilee is to be held, a Te Deum sung. Then the story will be told of how the frown of desolation was chased away; how the smiles of civilization were warmed into life in Utah; bow the waters of the streams, turned aside from their natural channels, gave life to the soil; how the desert relented at last and smiles grew on its savage face through flowers and golden harvests; how, at the miner's summons, the sterile mountains opened their adamantine doors and brought forth their jewels until Utah became one of the first of mining states; how, in the waste, temples of religion, to education, to order and to law were upreared; how the toilers, while subduing the wilderness, subdued at the same time their own prejudices, until, when Statehood came, it was greeted by a people as loving, as loyal, as true and as devoted to our free institutions as ever lived. Will you not, Mr. President, accept the invitation of the whole people of Utah and the West? Will you not come and listen as swell the acclaims of our Jubilee? We promise you all courtesy, all hospitality; we pledge, moreover, that welcomes shall be everywhere -in the sunlight, in the sparkle of the waters of our great inland sea, in the flowers, in the eyes and in the words of our people, and we believe the visit will add to your pride in native land and intensify your determination to serve with all faithfulness this great Nation, and, if possible, to give new majesty to her flag. We have the honor to be, Your Excellency, your most obedient servants, Georgr q. Cannon, G. W. Bartch, P. H. Lannan, Frank J. Cannon, Joseph L,. Rawlins, William H. King. effects of the event it will commemorate. I should like to be there, gentlemen. You know, however, that my time is not under my own control; I could scarcely leave here with Congress in session. You can appreciate that. I should be sorely tempted to accept if Congress were adjourned." The Memorial presented by the delegation was exquisitely engrossed on parchment, and had as its headpiece, between the dates 1847-1897, the representation of a buffalo skull, which is here reproduced. |