The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-12-25
z. C. N. |.
A Sketch Of the InSti-
tuition.
AS TO ITS ORIGIN
Together With Some Details of
Its History.
EARLY UTAH MERCHANDISING.
Purposes and Aims Of the InstitutiOn-Its
Enterprise and Success-Its Methods
of Trade - Present Prosperity
and Prospects fol the Future.

like that of any other community, for her
first colonists not only found themselves
over a thousand miles from the great
water courses of the old frontiers, from
whence they had come; but they were also
near the same distance from the western
sea board, which at that period was rarely
fecked by any sail; although, as a conse-
quence of the gold discoveries, that coast
was on the eve of an activity, as to both
souls and goods, which came from the east
sweeping round the stormy point of Cape
Horn and almost simultaneously by increas-
ed thousands, over that terrible stretch of
prairie and mountains, reaching from the
Missouri river, to the slopes of an inviting
Eldorado.
The people of Utah were much III need,
too, of supplies in every form; the rude
saw mill and the primitive grist mill
might aid in some measure the struggle
and faith of those times, but nails and
glass, clothing, groceries and tools, to say
nothing of crockery and furnishings. were
among the primitive necessities. The few
adventurous trading spirits, who followed
in the wake of a fleeing people, found a
clamorous demand and realized an exorbi-
TAM price for their poorly assorted wares;
hence the appetite for trade was unduly
swelled, success was garrulous, and the
number of dealers-merchant's as they
were caIled-increased rapidly on prolific
and profitable soil. Some of those early
dealers on a small scale were 'Mormons;"
the majority were not in sympathy with
the people or their history, but
they came mainly from river
towns, and were quite as sensi-
tive to the California fever as to the 'Mor-
monn hegira and the promising recoloni-
cation of thrifty people.
When, by the combined strategy of poll
ticians, merchants and freighters, the
Buchanan raid was finally inaugurated,
there was an unusual stimulus given to
importations; suffers, army followers and
spectators, ''loaded to the guards saw in
Utah the Mecca of fortune, and competi-
ton presently became fierce enough to de-
plete the ranks of men in trade, for while
some made money, others retired demon
allied and broke.
From this time onward Mormon mer-
chants became more prominent and as
consequence of the attitude assumed by
most outsiders, the people were advised to
trade with their friends; had the situation
been fully grasped by our local dealers, a
more than prosperous ascendancy might
have been secured and maintained; but it
is probably not in human nature to enjoy
a semi-monopoly without a tinge of that
spirit which aims to "make the most of
any opportunity"
The ever-watchful leaders of the people
were alive to the drift of things, and the
reaction against high prices then ferment-
ing among the people, was well exhibited
IN their patronage of several active bust
ness men, who, eastward bound, purchased
on commission anything and everything;
not only necessities, but things deemed
luxuries, with the then restricted facilities,
and in the estimation of the masses.
There was, however, visible every where
an increased ability to buy; the people and
the merchants were indeed prospecting;
emigration was large and permanent;
towns and villages W ere increasing with
astonishing rapidity; the expectation of
surplus to mining points and mail routes
was a most promising feature of trade; the
building of quarters and the furnishing of
army supplies, ran the government expen-
diture into hundreds of thousands, so pub
lie improvement and industrial enterprises
were set afoot; the genius of cooperation
was traversing new directions; much as it
had done whether in the stormy or peace
full periods of the past, as the lever of
enduring progress in manufacturing, com
mercial and financial movements, it had
hitherto been almost unknown.
The dream of the early pioneers as to
great overland railroad was fast material
izing in the public mind; the strategics of
government decreed it a sine qua non, if
this great western section was to remain
in allegiance, while the South was in the
throes of rebellion. The people of Utah
realized that great and significant changes
were in the immediate future; to them an
invasion whether Of a rude and lawless
railroad building population, or of specu-
lative and multiplying importers, meant
the testing of institutions, of union, of
supremacy; there was also implied the
possibilities of supplying and facilities for
credit, not in the central cities alone, but
in every important town, and possibly in
every little settlement; the outcome of
this to a a needy yet hopeful people, if I'M
seen, meant obligation, financial slavery,
and not unlikely general mortgage, and a
permanent condition eliminating either in
practical bankruptcy or in financial en-
barrassment-anyhow position requiring
wears of recuperation, or of undue sacrifice
and toll 1t was at this iuncture when the
outlook was threatening and ominous, that
the public sentiment was voiced in 1.-THE
School of the Prophets" that the people of
Utah had brains and ability enough to mer-
chaudise and import for themselves, and
that public economy required that they
should become as independent of the home
merchant, as of the aggressive and danger
GUS element of the unsympathetic stranger
It was asserted that the means for the
establishment of gigantic and permanent
importing house was to be had for the ask
ing. providing that this could be held under
nroner restraint, and somewhat of reliable
security.
The underground efforts of individuals,
and the opposition of men engaged in mer-
chandising, speedily vanished before the
breath of public opinion and the leadership
of tried men; even before a committee
could draft a constitution and bylaws,
tenders of money and goods were offered
To the authorities, and when the day of de-
cision came, the leading merchants sold
their stocks and rented their premises to
the newly-born giant, which had received
its baptismal name of Zion's Cooperative
Mercantile Institution, and adopted for its
Al