The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-07-19
JUBILEE OF MORMoNIsM.
Great Celebration to De Held at
Salt Lake City This Week.


Salt Lake Letter in Pittsburg Dispatch
The new State of Utah begins well. with
the golden jubilee celebration of the tiftieth
anniversary of the arrival of the Church
of the Latter Day Saints in the Promised
Land.
So far as material prosperity goes no
community in the far West has so much
cause for satisfaction as Utah It's found
ers began right-with irrigation. 1t took
other sections of arid America twenty, thir-
~ or forty years to learn that rain Is
poor substitute for ditch water; in some
places the lesson is not yet learned. Utah
has lived by irrigation from the first.
1t is seventy years since the Book OF
Mormon, engraved on thin metal plates,
held together at end by three rings,
was, according to the legend implicitly be-
lieved by the church., placed in Joseph
plates Were engraved in an unknown
tongue. No one processes to have seen
them within the last sixty years. Anti
Mormons claim that there never were any
plates; that the Book was really a romance,
written by preacher named Spaulding,
Smith translated the Book he sat behind
blanket hung across the room to hide
the plates from prying eyes his secretary
dakllg Gown tne words OUTSIDE the screen
The Book OF Mormon thus produced does
not claim to take the place of the Bible.
1t is received as an additional revelation,
being in that respect like the Koran.
The parallel the Mormons are able to
draw between their experiences and those
of the Israelites in their wanderings is GER
bondage, they termed the abuse and
mobbings they met in the East They were
driven from Manchester, N. H, to Kirkland,
O., in 1881; to Missouri in the same year,
whittier those remaining in Kirkland fol-
lowed in 1887; to Illinois in 1888; and after
Smiths death and the election of Brigham
Young to succeed him, to Iowa in 1916, and.
to Utah in 1847, Brigham Young and the
main body of the colonists reaching their
haven on July "a. Thus ended their long
wandering in the wilderness.
But the parallel continued. The Great
Salt lake was likened TO the Dead sea,
Utah lake to the Lake of Liberals. and the
stream connecting them to the Jordan.
Mormon maps have often been published
showing the Jordan and Dead sea side by
side with Great Salt lake and its tributary,
the remarkable likeness between them eX-
aggerated to an almost exact resemblance.
AS a matter of fact the Great Salt lake
IS larger body of water than the Dead
sea, while the connecting river is shorter
in proportion. wider and more irregular in
form. 1t is probable that Brigham Young,
in selecting the Utah site, was influenced
almost as much by these accidental re-
sembances as by the abundance of water
obtainable for irrigation.
Utah is perhaps the most uniformly pros
porous community in the world. The city
itself is a splendid example of what can
be done by central intelligence working
upon willing people. The wide, clean
streets, the streamlets of running water,
the shade trees, the absence of drunken
ness, or the graver forms of vice or pow
erty. the total lack of slums, are all pecul-
iarities to which the Mormons will refer
with pride during the anniversary week.
and that never fails to impress the visitor
from other civilizations.
Compared with Nevada and other dry
States the growth of Utah has been re-
markable. The present iopulation is esti-
mated at 300 600 1t vas 207,000 in 1890, 143, 900
IN 1880. In 1870 it was $4,000, and already
more than enough TO have secured Utah
admission as a State, but for polygamy.
This, il is said has now practically disap-
peared, yielding IN part 10 the desire for
statehood, but quite as much to the newt,
able growth of discomfort with creed
outworn" among the most Intelligent Nor
mons.
One secret of the material prosperity of
the saints is cooperation Their great trad
ing establishment gets the best of goods
in great quantities at low wholesale rates
and distribution is cheap where there, is
no competition. The canals and bitches
which have made the desert blossom as the
rose are communal property, built and
operated without waste, greed or litigation.
The great Mormon temple, with its
myriads Of turretS and pinnacles, all built
where so much of the usual construction
is fimsy, is one of the most remarkable
buildings in the world as the old Taber--
nacle with its great oval dome was one of
the most unique; and it's building was a
great achievement for not very numer-
Gus pastoral people.
Young crossed the plains will have the
place of honor in the weeks parades. Most
schooner, type of wagon which has come
down almost unchanged from quite remote
times and is still used in the Orient. Some
of these wagons are still In existence
though rather like the old knife with new
haft and handle-and there are men to
drive them who can remember the terrible
march across the plains, the sufferings, the
privations, the frozen rivers and the forced
removals, the fear of Indians and the re-
joicing when the goal was reached. These
men and these wagons in the pioneers
procession" will be the core of the cee-
bration. There will be day and evening
parades, Examinations, sports, decorations,
Inequalities and honors; but the sight that
is most calculated to touch the imagination
wagons the plainly-clad women and chill
dren within. the few household goods and
the sturdy men in long boots and SLOUGH
hats stalking along by the rear wheels
the modern types of that colonzing genius
that has won the admiration of all who
have seen the MOrmOnS in their own homo