It is somewhat of an undertaking to address so large an assembly. I
bear my testimony to the truth of the restoration of the everlasting
Gospel and this Work which God has commenced in these latter days.
It has been the earnest desire of my heart, from the time I received
the ordinance of baptism in 1832, to be able to fulfil my duties as a
Saint, and to perform those things which were required of me as an
individual—to watch over myself and keep out of mischief; that I might
be prepared, when my work is accomplished on the earth, to inherit the
blessings and glory of that King in whose service I am enlisted. I
presume that a large proportion of the Saints have kept these things
in mind, though I am astonished when I reflect upon the great number
with whom I have been acquainted that are not now to be found, and of
whom we have no report only that they have gone off this, that, or the
other way.
This reminds us of the parable of the sower that went forth to sow, as
described by our Savior; some of the good seed fell among thorns, and
they grew up and choked it; some fell by the way side, and the fowl,
gathered it up; some fell upon stony ground where it had not much
depth of earth, and it came up quickly, and when the sun was up it was
scorched and withered away; and some fell upon good ground and brought
forth thirty, sixty, and an hundredfold. This is the substance of the
parable, and the kingdom of God in the last days is certainly very
much like unto it.
Among the great number who have entered into the fold of Christ, by
baptism, few have remained faithful to the present time. There were
men among us whose hearts were faint—who felt that it would not do to
gather here, because, peradventure, it was the greatest undertaking of
any age. To attempt to settle a whole people, situated as we were, in
the midst of a howling desert a thousand miles from supplies, was too
great an undertaking in the eyes of many, and they dared not risk it.
It required faith, courage, energy, daring, and perseverance, almost
beyond description, to lead a people into the heart of the great
American desert and establish settlements. We now see travelers
arrive here by stage, who are proud of the achievement of having
crossed the Rocky Mountains. It required a people full of faith,
energy, and devotion to the cause of God, and a willingness to abide
every counsel given by the servants of God, to come here; and also
required a large amount of faith, patience, energy, self-denial, and
long-suffering to stay when they got here.
I presume it was over three years after we came before a score
of men in the valleys ever believed that an apple, peach, or plum
could be grown here, and when the few men who had the faith and the
determination to set an example began to produce their peaches, plums,
and apples, and exhibit them, many opened their eyes with
astonishment. Who on the face of the earth would think that at an
altitude of four thousand four hundred feet above the level of the
sea, and in latitude nearly forty-one, and near the southern limit of
the isothermal line, such nicely flavored, delicate fruit could be
raised!
We came to this land because it was so desert, desolate, and
Godforsaken that no mortal upon earth ever would covet it; but as
Colonel Fremont reported that at the mouth of Bear River, in the early
part of August, his thermometer stood at 29 degrees Fah., three degrees below
freezing point, which would kill grain, fruit, or vegetables, our
enemies said, "You Mormons may go there and welcome," chuckling to each
other over what seemed to them our annihilation. We had been driven
several times; our homes had been devastated both in Missouri and
Illinois; we had been robbed of everything, and some came here with
the little that they gathered up from the smoking ruins of their
habitations. The priests sent compliments to each other rejoicing that
those "Mormons" (who had been making the people acquainted with the
principles of the Gospel by teaching them that the Bible meant what it
said) had gone into the heart of a desert, never more to be heard of,
for the Indians would destroy and grim want would consume them. The
newspapers recorded the joy and gratification felt at the utter end of
"Mormonism." Governor Thomas Ford wrote as follows in the title page
of his History of Illinois—"An account of the rise, pro gress, and
FALL of Mormonism." Notwithstanding, however, the many drawbacks and
difficulties encountered in the shape of drouth, crickets,
grasshoppers, and the cold, sterile climate, the Spirit of the Lord was
hovering over the Great Basin; as linguists tell us the Spirit of the
Lord brooded over the face of the waters anciently, so it brooded over
the Great Basin and the climate became genial and soft. I never was at
the crossing of the Sevier River in summer, for seven years after our
settlements in Iron County had been established, without experiencing
frost; and now the Sevier valley produces luxuriant fields of grain
and vegetables in the season thereof, in every place where the water
has been taken out from the mouth of that river to the head of it,
nearly nine thousand feet above the level of the sea. Who has done
this? God and the Saints have done it! The Saints have had faith and
walked over the land with the Holy Priesthood upon them and blessed
and dedicated it to the Lord, and have labored according to the
counsels of God, and the work has been accomplished.
To have told the Mountaineers ten years ago that grain could be raised
in the upper valleys of the Weber, where they encountered heavy frosts
every month in summer, would have incurred their ridicule; but the
genial influence of the Spirit of the Almighty has softened the rigor
of the climate, and the flourishing counties of Morgan and Summit are
the result.
In 1853, an expedition went out from Provo City after some Indians
that had stolen stock. They went up the Provo River and encamped near
where the city of Heber now stands, in the middle of summer. On their
return they reported to me that they were nearly frozen, and that much
of the wild vegetation was killed by the severity of the weather, and
that it would be useless ever to attempt to raise grain there.
I suppose that Provo valley, this season, with all its losses, will
raise not less than thirty thousand bushels of grain and vegetables.
With a little reflection we can readily perceive that the Lord God of
Israel has blessed these mountains and valleys, which have been
dedicated and set apart by His servants for the gathering together of
His people and the establishment of His latter-day work upon the
earth.
Go to Pottawatomie, Iowa; Nauvoo, Illinois; or Kirtland, Ohio, and ask
for apples and peaches, and you will find them few and far between. In
February, 1857, I visited my former field of labor in Western
Virginia, and inquired of an old friend for fruit; his reply was, "My
peach trees are all killed, and I have not been able to raise any
peaches for six years." Have you any good apples? "Not an apple that
is fit to eat; our trees are all diseased, and many of them have
perished." This condition of things was very general. It is so
wherever the Saints have lived and been driven away—their glory has
departed to return no more, until the land is dedicated and
consecrated to God and occupied by the Saints.
We had to produce the necessaries of life from the ground, for we had
not the means to send abroad eleven hundred miles to purchase. In a
short time after the Pioneers settled this country, some twenty-five
thousand pilgrims to the land of gold passed through this Great Basin;
a large portion of them came here destitute, and they are indebted to
the inhabitants of these settlements for the preservation of their
lives.
California is indebted to the Latter-day Saints for its present
greatness. We opened its gold mines, explored its country, explored
and made the three principal roads leading there, and ran the first
ship load of Ameri can emigrants into the port of San Francisco, then
called Yerba Buena. We are the men that developed the resources of the
Pacific Coast, and then we fed those tens of thousands passing through
to that land, who would have starved and perished on the deserts had
we not provided them with bread while they traveled the roads we
made, to go to the mines.
The passengers on board the ship Brooklyn not only brought to the
Pacific Coast their valuable library, but a printing press, which they
established at Yerba Buena—now San Francisco, and from which was
issued the California Star in 1847-8. We are the Pioneers of the great
West. The Latter-day Saints established the first printing press in
Western Missouri, the Evening and Morning Star, published at
Independence in 1832-3, and the Upper Missouri Advertiser, in 1833, by
W. W. Phelps. After the destruction of the printing office by the mob,
the press was removed to Liberty, and was for years used to print the
only newspaper printed west of Booneville, Mo., excepting the Elder's
Journal, published for a short time in Far West.
We were the Pioneer settlers of Western Iowa, making the road and
bridging the streams from the vicinity of Keeosaqua to the Missouri
River, nearly three hundred miles. We established the first paper at
Council Bluffs, published by Elder Orson Hyde, entitled the Frontier
Guardian, in 1848-9 and 50.
The Omaha Arrow, published by Joseph E. Johnson, was the first paper
published in Nebraska, who subsequently published the Huntsman's Echo
at Wood River.
We introduced the culture of wheat and fruit in Western Missouri and
Iowa, improved agriculture in California, and developed the resources
of these mountains, making the roads and showing men how to
travel them safely.
While all this has been done for our country, and we have
comparatively tamed the savage and held in check his wild and
bloodthirsty nature, that the inhabitants of the world could travel
across the deserts without being robbed and murdered, we have been the
subject of vile scandal, simply because our religious views were
different from those of the hireling clergy who occupy the pulpits of
Christendom. We taught that men should preach the Gospel without purse
or scrip—preach it freely; and a man who depended upon a congregation
for a salary by which to obtain his black coat and fit-out, was ready
to denounce preaching without purse and scrip as a heresy; why?
Because it would reduce him to the necessity of going to some useful
calling, instead of making merchandise of the Gospel, which God has
made free. It endangered his bread and butter; and thus priestcraft
has raised a constant howl that the Mormons were leagued with the
Indians. Why? Because we crossed the plains and the Indians did not
rob us. The reason the Latter-day Saints crossed the plains and the
Indians did not rob them was, they organized their companies, camped
in order, kept up guards, treated the Indians with kindness and
respect, seeking no quarrel with them, and passed right along. When
the Indians look down from the hills on one of our trains and see it
camped, they know it is a "Mormon" train; they see a nice corral, and
a guard out with the cattle who are carefully attending to their duty.
When they come up they get a kind word. When night comes the "Mormons"
kneel down to pray; they do not blaspheme the name of God. The Indians
see all this and conclude not to interrupt that company, for they
might get hurt—the "Mormons" having always provided their
companies
with sufficient arms for protection. That is the way the Latter-day
Saints travel through these mountains uninterrupted. How is it with
others? They would organize a company on the frontiers, travel a while
in that condition, quarrel who should be captain, and divide into five
or six squads; and by the time they got to the Sierra Nevada there
would be only two families together, and they would divide their wagon
and make it into two carts, and separate, if they were not afraid of
the Indians. This way of scattering presents a temptation to the red
men which is really very hard for them to resist, for these plains
cannot boast of being safer than the streets of New York,
Philadelphia, and Washington, where millions are expended to pay
police to guard and protect the property and lives of white men from
the depredations of white men.
We can but have a deep feeling of sympathy when we realize the
grievous afflictions that have befallen our common country. We look at
the cause. When the Latter-day Saints organized their first
settlements in Missouri—when they undertook to lay the foundation of
Zion, although there was no charge which could be brought against them
for violating any law, constitutional or moral, yet, because they
introduced a new system of religion, the hireling clergy, the
priestcraft of the world, arose against them to destroy them. As
Governor Dunklin, of Missouri, said, "There are ample provisions in
the Constitution and laws of the State to protect you, but the
prejudice is so great among the people against you, that it is
impossible to enforce these laws." There is a great deal said about
the origin of the trouble between the North and the South; some said
it was the almighty negro; but the fact is, the people did not respect
the Constitution of our country; for the Latter-day Saints
were driven in violation thereof from Jackson County to Clay, and from
Clay to Caldwell and Davis counties, and then from the State of
Missouri to Illinois, and from Illinois to the Rocky Mountains, robbed
and plundered of their property, their women ravished, their leaders
murdered, and there was not a solitary man arose to enforce the laws
or the Constitution in our defense. When the President of the United
States was applied to, all he would say was, "Your cause is just, but
we can do nothing for you." As soon as the Saints had found a shelter
in the Rocky Mountains, this feeling of lawlessness went rampant
throughout the Union. Men despised the statutes and the laws with
which they were bound, and it was mob upon mob, army against army,
until the whole country has been deluged in blood and creped in
mourning. When will the nation repent of these follies and maintain
those institutions God has introduced for the perfection of mankind?
When will they hold the Constitution sacred and inviolable, and seek
no longer to prostitute it for the destruction of the innocent? Until
this is done they may expect to see sorrow and woe, which will
increase upon their heads until they shall repent.
Brethren, we should consider these things within ourselves. We
commenced to make our settlements here under these circumstances, and
here we have found a shelter. It has been a home for the oppressed,
and a shelter to everybody that desired rest. The weary traveler has
had a chance here to refresh himself and enjoy the blessings that are
to be enjoyed in these valleys, and no man's rights have ever been
trampled upon.
It is true we have had a species of animals pass through here that
Alfred Cumming, in imitation of General Zachary Taylor, used to call
"Camp poicks," newspaper reporters, who, Cumming declared, prostituted
not only the body but the soul, by selling themselves for a
penny-a-line to lie; publishing their lies to the world as scandal
upon the heads of the Saints. They come here and drink of the mountain
water, partake of fine potatoes, and turnips, and luscious
strawberries, and feast upon the fruits of the valleys—the products of
our industry—and then go off and defame the people, and try to get
armies sent here to destroy the Saints. We care very little about
these things; but when that species of animals appear among us, we
look upon them as we do upon a serpent; we calculate they intend to
bite, and all we ask of them is, to do as they generally have done,
tell such big lies that nobody in their right senses can believe them.
We have had another class of animals in the shape of Federal
Officials. We have had fifty-eight of them, part of whom came here and
conducted themselves like gentlemen; but we have had one thing always
to consider, with one or two exceptions—very honorable ones—they have
scarcely ever sent anybody here that could get a place anywhere else.
If they could get an appointment in any other Territory, or a
magistracy in the District of Columbia, or a clerkship in a
Department, or the appointment of a weigher or gauger in the Custom
House, they would never come to Utah. Coming to Utah was the last
thing and the last place for a man perfectly desperate for the want of
an office. As the Secretary of State said when he sent Perry E.
Brochus here to be judge, he had to send him somewhere to get him "out
of the way;" and when he would not stay here, he was immediately sent
to New Mexico.
We have generally known what the qualification of men was, and un derstood it precisely when they came. Their qualification
generally was that they had performed some dirty work for some
successful politician. A few that have come here have done as well as
they knew how, with a mediocrity of talent—that is, if they had bright
talents they seldom displayed them; and the majority of them come in
here, open their eyes (putting one in mind of chickens just come
through the eggshell, when they get a sight of the light for the
first time), and exclaim, "There are awful things here! Tremendous
things here!" and they begin to make reports, and print and publish
them, go off to California and write for a year in succession there,
drawing their salaries to report how things are in Utah. All these
things we have had to encounter; but our industry, our economy and
prudence, our loyalty, and our firm and determined adherence to the
Constitution of the United States, have carried us through the whole
of it.
The administration of President Buchanan brought the power of the
Government to bear against us. The traitor, General A. S. Johnston,
was sent with what was then called by Secretary Floyd the best
appointed army that was ever fitted out by this Government since its
formation. General Scott issued orders to keep the troops massed and
in hand, the supply trains to be kept with the main body of the army.
The newspaper press of the country asserted that this army was to
cause the blood of the Elders and Saints to flow in the streets of
Great Salt Lake City. The mails being stopped, and the ordinary
sources of communication closed, it was supposed the "Mormons" would
be ignorant of the movements until the army came upon them like a
thunder cloud. The Governorship was tendered to a number who were
unwilling to come out with a formidable army, but were willing to come
without. Benjamin McCullough, of Texas, declined the honor on the
ground that a confirmed old bachelor ought not to interfere with
polygamy. Colonel Alfred Cumming accepted the office, and his
appointment was hailed with general acclamation by the enemies of
Utah, as he was considered a man of desperate character, who had on
one occasion compelled even Jeff. Davis to apologize. When Governor
Cumming arrived here and investigated the matter, he was satisfied
that the Administration had been duped, and he made official reports
to Washington that the charges against the Saints were totally
unfounded, and the Administration let the whole matter fizzle out, and
Uncle Sam, the generous old gentleman, had to submit to his pocket
being picked to the tune of about forty millions of dollars—the cost
of the Utah expedition.
The lies upon which the Administration had acted were, that we had
driven the judges from the country, had burned the Utah Library and
the records of the courts of the Territory. When the matter was
investigated it was discovered that the judges had gone off to the
gold mines, where they could get some feet, or on other speculations,
where they stayed until their time was out, not forgetting, however,
to draw their salaries. The Library and court records, never having
been disturbed, were found all right.
I have been truly astonished at the character and conduct of a large
portion of the Government officials we have been brought in contact
with. One of them, Governor Harding, was presented by the grand jury
of the 3rd Judicial District of the United States Court as a nuisance,
and he was removed by Mr. Lincoln's Administration immediately after.
Whenever a bill is presented before Congress to benefit the people of Utah in any way, it is generally referred to a committee, and
there it dies. What is the reason? There is not a man in either House
of Congress that dares to record a vote calculated to favor the people
of Utah, for the mass of the inhabitants here are "Mormons." It is
admitted that we have established ourselves in the desert under the
most trying circumstances, making a half-way house for travelers
between the Mississippi and the Pacific, rendering it safe to
establish mail and telegraph lines; but the member who would record a
vote in favor of this people in any way, the first thing he would hear
would be his denunciation in every pulpit of his district by the
black-coated gentry, and that would make his political grave. I
sympathize with that class of men, as many of them otherwise would be
willing to extend the same privileges, donations of land to settlers,
means to erect public buildings, open highways, and sustain schools,
as to other Territories.
We have never had one dollar from any source to aid in the cause of
edu cation. We have built our schoolhouses, hired our school teachers,
paid the school bills for our poor—have done everything that has been
done in education, without one dollar of encouragement from the parent
Government. I have been astonished at this. I suppose it is the policy
of the Government to extend the facilities of education, but it has
not been done here; not one solitary dime has been received by Utah,
while millions upon millions have gone into the treasuries of other
states and Territories for school purposes from the Federal
Government.
This is the freest people on the face of the earth. By a faithful
observance of the laws and Constitution of our country, and by
obedience to the principles of our holy religion, we can enjoy the
greatest amount of freedom.
The foundation has been laid, and the building will be erected upon
it. God is at the helm, and no power can destroy his kingdom.
May God bless us, and enable us to fulfill our high destiny, is my
prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
- George A. Smith