The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-01-08


with great neatness and skill
RAN SHORT OF INDIANS.
During interval of peace and inter
val OF war, toiled the pious monks.
erecting missions, digging bitches.
making farms. and cudgeling their In
dams IN and out of the church. Some
times, when the venerable fathers ran
short OF Indians to convert. the SOL
diers went on expeditions and returned
dragging in a few score. The settle
ment DrosDered. Upon the gently roll
ing plains. the mission churches with
their yellow stone towers outlined upon
the SKY, called with their bells at
evening a multitude of friars and meek
Indians and cleaning soldiers to ser
vice in the shadows before the flaming
candles, the solemn shrine. the slow
pacing, chanting priests. And wicked
and hopeless Indians, hearing these
bells. scudded off into. the blue twi-
light Of the prairie.
The ruins Of these missions are now
besieged in the valley south Of the city
by indomitable thickets of mesquitoe.
They rear their battered heads. their
sOundlesS towers, over dead forms.
the graves of monks; and of the Span
ish soldiers not one so much as -four
ishes a dagger.
RAVAGES OF TINE.
Time has torn at these pale yellow
structures and overturned walls and
towers here and there. defaced this and
obliterated that. Relic hunters with
their singular raDacity have dragged
down little saints from their inches
and pulled important stones from
arches. They have performed offices
of destruction Of which the wind and
the rain of the innumerable wears was
not capable. They are part of the gen.
eral scheme OF attack by nature.
The wind blows because II is the
wind the rain beats because it is the
rain. the relic-hunters hunt because
they are relic hunters. Who can tath-
ON the ways of nature? She Jhrusts
hear spear in the eye of tradition and
her agents feed on his locks. A little
guide-book published here contains one
of these Good friend. forbear''- ora
tions. But still this desperate massa-
ere Of the beautiful carvings goes on.
and il would take the ghosts of the
monks with the ghosts of scourges. the
phantoms of soldiers with the phan-
toms Of swords, a scOwling. spectral
party, to stop the destruction. In the
meantime, these DortentiOus mOnu-
mentS to the toll. the profound corv1c-
lions of the fathers remain stolid and
unyielding, with the bravery of stone,
until it appears like the last stand of
an army. Many years will charge
them before the courage will abate
which was injected into the mortar by
the skillful monks.
LITERARY ASPIRANTS.
1t is something of a habit among
| the newspaper men and others VINO
write here TO say: well. there's a
good market for Alamo stuff. now"
Or, perhaps, they say: Too bad!
Alamo stuff isn't going very strong.
now" Literary aspirants of the To-
| cality, as soon as they finish writing
about Her Eyes, begin on the --l2Ino.
Statistics show that 69.710 writers Of
the state of Texas have begun AT the
! Alamo.
/ Notwithstanding this fact. the Alamo
remains the greatest memorial to cour-
/ age which civilization has allowed. to
stand. The quaint and curious little
| building fronts on one of the most pop
ulous plazas of the city. and because OF
Travis, Crockett, Bowie and heir com
rades. it maintains dignity amid the
| taller modern structures which front
it. 1t is the tomb of the fiery emotions
/ Of Texans who refused to admit that
numbers and Mexicans We're argu-
ments. Whether the swirl of life. the
crowd upon the streets, pauses to look
or not, the spirit that lives in this
building, its air of cOntemDlative 81
lence is as eloquent as an old battle
flag.
The first Americans to visit San An
tonic arrived in irons. This was the
1 year 1900 There were eleven of them
They had fought $50 Spanish soldiers
on the eastern frontier, and, by one OF
those incomprehensible chances which
so often decides the color of battles
they had lost the fight. Afterward
| Americans bapfan IN filter down through
Louisiana until in 1894 there We're
enough of them to openly disagree with
the young federal government in the
/ City of Mexico, although there was not
! really any great number of them
Santa Ana didn't give a tin whistle
for the people of Texas. He assured
himself that he was capable of man.
aging the republic CT Mexico, and af-
ter coming to this decision he said tC
] himself that that part of it which
! formed the state of Texas had better
remain quiet with the others. In writ
ing of what followed, a Mexican SER
geant says: The Texans fought like
devils"
MET SANTA ANA.
There was a elimination at the ole
mission of the. Alamo in 1886. This
structure then consisted of rectangu-
about 120 feet wide, with the existing
church of the Alamo in the southeast
corner. Colonel William r. Travis
David Crockett and Colonel Bowie
whose monument is knife with a Pc
| culiar blade, were in this enclosure
with a garrison of something like 15(
men, when they heard that Santa Ana
was marching against them with ar
army of 1900. The Texans shut them