When we first came to these valleys, we urged the brethren to believe
that they could raise grain here, for but few of them believed it; and
raising peaches was supposed by nearly all to be entirely out of the
question. It is now proved beyond a doubt that we can raise in these
mountains, not only the best of grain, but the finest of fruit.
If the Elders of Israel had taken the counsel which has been given
them for eight years past, we would have had gold enough on hand to
buy one quarter of the State of Missouri; which we might have owned as
well as not, and lived in it when we pleased. There is one practice
among this people that I am at war with, and I pray God to give me
strength and ability, with the faith of the righteous, to root it out
from our midst, and that is, they would seemingly rather be damned
than not give their money to their enemies. Will they raise flax,
cotton, and fruit? No; but they will put fortunes in the pockets of
strangers, to import from a distance what we can produce at home. If
this people had followed the counsel given to them, there is not a man
in Israel would have raised a bushel of wheat for our enemies who came
here to cut our throats, without making them pay from five to ten
dollars a bushel for it. I do not wish to scold, but still I do most
cordially dislike the conduct of certain men with whom we are obliged
to associate in a Church capacity. It is impossible for me to speak
pleasantly of their conduct while they, in their feelings and
affections, lean toward the wicked who will take the name of God in
vain and curse the chosen of God. Even now, many of our brethren are
running after them begging for a little job of hauling, for a little
employment here and there, and apparently would lick the dust of their
feet for five cents.
While brother Erastus Snow was speaking upon our being under
the necessity of importing various articles from abroad, I tried to
think what there is that we cannot make here. There is as good
material in this Territory for making hats as there is in any part of
the world, and we have the mechanics who can put it together. We have
an excellent button machine, one capable of producing as good buttons
as these I now wear in the bosom of my shirt. There are tons of bones
and horns bleaching upon the prairie, which can be manufactured into
as good buttons as any man need to wear, if some of our button makers
would take hold of the machine and work it. We also have men here who
can make pressed buttons which will do very well.
I see here, today, many who are dressed in homespun, and they look
comfortable and comparatively independent. Some of the sisters I see,
wear homemade shawls, and to me, they appear far more appropriate
than do the gaudy trappings of foreign make. I cannot see why we
should send to buy from strangers that which we can manufacture
ourselves, if it is not to satisfy a disposition to please and pamper
that power which is opposed to the kingdom of God on the earth.
When the Lord cuts off every resource from this people, only that
which is immediately around them, they can then live as well if not
better than they do now, and attain to a state of self-sustenance much
sooner than if he should continue to plead with them to rise up in
their strength and do as they ought toward becoming independent before
all foreign temporal facilities are entirely cut off. Enoch was
three hundred and sixty-five years in getting a people ready to
receive the blessings the Lord had to bestow upon them, but in the
latter days his work will be cut short in righteousness. Were the Lord
to be as indulgent with us as many want him to be, and continue to
bear with the sins of the wicked, I presume it would take him fully as
long to prepare the people in his day, but he will not wait so long.
The Lord can oblige this people to come to the standard he wishes them
to reach, but I have very little faith that many will attain to it in
the flesh.
If we could not buy imported hats, we would make them of the material
we have here. If we could not buy a yard of cotton cloth, we would
raise cotton and make it. We can make spinning wheels and jennies; but
brother Erastus inquires where are we going to get the spindles, if we
do not import them. That we have need to import spindles is not
correct. We have plenty of men here who know how to make iron, and
steel, and spindles. Brother N. V. Jones has produced specimens of
iron from magnetic ore. He has not made cast iron from that ore, but
the best of wrought iron can be made from it. Do our brethren make it?
No. They want to go to California after gold, or they wish to freight
for this man or that man who has nothing in common with the interests
of the kingdom of God. In the same proportion that men operate to
encourage the importation of foreign productions, so far, according to
their influence and means, they operate against the advancement of the
kingdom of God on the earth. Many may not believe this statement,
though to me it has become an established fact. Any man of this Church
and kingdom who exerts his influence, strength, and means to promote
any community, or to build up any city, except the people and cities
of Zion, is exerting his strength and means against the kingdom of
God.
Our speaker this afternoon commiserated our friends in the east who are now destroying each other, but who were once united in
taking from us our homes and possessions, and winked at the shedding
of the blood of our best men, and who have taken the lives of our
brethren and sisters, of our fathers and mothers, of our wives and
children. The tottering grayhaired sire excited no commiseration in
their breasts, neither did the aged grandmother whom they deprived of
her children—her last prop and stay, except her God, and left her to
fall into the grave without a relation to speak an encouraging word in
her dying moments. Our history records hundreds of such cases in
consequence of the persecutions, mobbings, and drivings to which this
people have been exposed. Infants, the youth, and the middle-aged have
dropped into untimely graves by hundreds. They have taken our lives
from the earth and swallowed up our substance, and forsooth we feel
very much to pity them in their present condition. I will inform
sympathizers, that if the fountain of pity and commiseration keeps
pace with the increasing calamities that will come upon our enemies,
where they only have yielded drops, rivers will flow, for the press is
only just beginning to come down upon the ungodly—they can only just
begin to feel its pressure; but there is a weight hanging over them
that is ponderous in its crushing and desolating force. Would I lift
it off from them if I had the power? No, but I would let it crush
the guilty, ungodly wretches—the priest in the pulpit, the judge on
the bench, the governor, and the rulers, and would let the common
people go free.
After a long struggle we expect to be able to redeem Zion, to
establish the Center Stake thereof, and from thence spread abroad in
the vastness of our increasing numbers, and in the greatness of our
power and infinitude of our wealth, build hundreds and thousands of
cities and magnificent temples to the name and honor of our God; and
we will enter those temples and officiate for our forefathers and our
relatives who have died without a knowledge of the Gospel, and for
those ignorant thousands who are paid for killing each other in the
present war, and we will give them a salvation—All who have not sinned
against the Holy Ghost, or shed innocent blood or consented thereto.
The priests have riveted their fetters and chains around the
millions, and they more or less influence every political man in our
Government, to ridicule and fight against God and every holy principle
that comes from heaven. If these fetters were broken asunder, and
every man and every family permitted to judge for themselves, hundreds
of thousands would embrace the Gospel as soon as they could have the
privilege of hearing it, receive their ordinations and endowments, and
be ready to go forth and hasten the work of building Temples wherein
to officiate for those who had not in their lives the privilege of
going into a Temple to receive their washings and anointings. Were it
not for priestcraft and political-craft, I am satisfied that scores of
thousands on this continent would now embrace the Gospel.
I would like to see the footsteps of the Almighty (and they are now
beginning to be visible) in his going forth to cut off the bitter
branches; and by-and-by the stone cut out of the mountain will begin
to roll, and if it does not soon crush some of the toes of the great
image, I am mistaken. From present appearances I think the toes will
be pretty well mutilated before the stone reaches them. I pray for
this constantly, for I would be glad to see the inhabitants of the
earth have the privilege of believing the Gospel for themselves, and
not any more be bound by the blighting influences of
priestcraft. In this country and in the old countries politicians and
wealthy men, who have any influence whatever over their neighbors, or
over a family, or district, exert that influence to keep the people
from embracing the Gospel the Lord has restored again to the world, by
threatening to injure them, to stop their wages, turn them out of
employment, or out of their houses, if they embrace "Mormonism," and
thus the masses are bound down.
Will we still continue to build up and foster our enemies, and give
them our life's blood? If we intend to cease doing so, we will cease
trading with them in the way and manner we have done and are doing.
You may enquire what we are going to do. I will tell you what I have
not done; I have not sent to the States this season for any factory
cloth, nor for any calico, and I shall say to my family you must make
your own clothing or go without. "What are we going to do for pins and
needles?" Do without them, or use thorns. When we cease importing
them, necessity may become the mother of invention in this as well as
in many other cases. I have often wished there was not such a thing as
a pin or a needle when I have found them sticking in garments, in my
shirt, on my pillow, in the chairs, on the door rugs, strewed over the
floors and passages, and in the streets. I will venture to say that the
quantity of pins and needles that has been brought into this Territory
has not done one-tenth part of the service they would, if they had
been properly taken care of and not wasted. People will hardly stoop
down to pick up a needle or a pin, but they will go to the stores and
buy them. Ladies will take a dollar ivory comb, put it in water, and
then comb a child's hair with it; it is never dry, the ivory softens,
and the comb is used up in a very short time, when a good comb of that
description ought to last five years in a common family. Mothers have
not learned that water will spoil an ivory comb. There are some combs
made of gutta percha, that comb the hair better than horn, but they
are brittle and require to be used with care; but the first you know,
one is on the floor and the rocker of the rockingchair has passed
over it and rendered it useless.
Where do you keep your needles? On the floor, in the cradle, on the
bed, upstairs and downstairs, in every nook and corner of the house.
Where are the pins? All over; you can pick up one wherever you are. Do
we answer the end of our creation in thus wasting, with a prodigal
hand, the good things which our Heavenly Father has bestowed upon us?
The people are ignorant and careless touching these matters, and in
them do not answer the end of their creation, and will not without
prudently making the best possible use of that which God gives us.
We can make everything we want; and that is not all, we can, if we are
disposed to, cease to want that which we cannot make. The moment we do
this, and are satisfied with our productions, we are an independent
people.