Truth. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1901-1908, 1906-02-03
Putting on the Lid.
Continued from page 81

by thelr ola nelRnDOrS. Last year one
of them took his entire family to Hi
nois on visit. He purchased first
class tickets, bought three first class
berths en- the Overland Limited, and
they took all their meals in the diner.
New farmers are going to Bear River
valley every year and the old ones
prospecting. The same work of the
land agent is being done in Idaho,
California and in fact, all of the Inter-
mountain and Pacific coast states.
Does it pay the railroads to encourage
the land agent? Still water becomes
stagnant and a people who do not
travel are dull in their intellect and
unprogressive in their work. A pro-
gressive, intelligent people are those
who travel. BY travelling is acquired
knowledge and health and hustling
qualities which round out progress
sive people. People in the east are
astonished at the great progress Utah
has made, although the youngest state
they look at the last census report
and wonder why it is that Utah stands
third in education, first in school at
tendance and has the least illiteracy
and the fewest paupers and criminals
for this is that the Mormons who are
in the majority have acquired the
travelling habit. Nearly every adult
male Mormon is or has been on mis-
sion. These missionaries usually
travel in distant states from Utah or
in foreign countries. They are usual
ly away from home twenty-seven
months. In many instances both the
missionary and the family he left be-
hind have to make great sacrifices to
pay his travelling expenses Laying
aside the religious part of it, it pays
the missionary and the state of Utah.
When the missionary returns he has
ceased to be a mossback or jay
hawk; he has acquired the travelling
habit, has seen what other people
do; has learned new and up to date
farming, is good stump speaker, and
is generally well informed in the ways
of the world He is much wiser and
better man and in one year after he
returns he is usually better off finan-
cially than he was when he left. 1t
pays to travel and to encourage people
who teach others to travel. Mr.. Sci
dom Rider and his good wife, Nancy,
had lived on the same farm and in
the same house in LuZerne county,
Pa, for over forty years. They had
never been away from home to stay
all night. In 1868 he bought a new
clock and placed it on the mantel. No
matter how cold the weather or how
tired he was, for over thirty years he
wound that clock every night before
going to bed. One day a neighbor
came to him and told him he ought to
take a vacation and see the world and
know what was going on; in other
words, take the next excursion to New
York, the fare was only $3.50. Mr..
Rider objected at first. He said he did
not need a vacation any more than
a greyhound needed a corset, and
that he knew what was going on for
he had read every copy of the Dallas,
Pa, Post ever since the first issue
came from the press and the $3.50 he
would squander on the blamed rail-
road would buy 4S0 buckwheat pan
cakes at 1 cent each. At last he was
persuaded to go. On Monday morning
he and his good wife, Nancy, took the
7:15 Lackawanna train at Kingston,
Pa, and arrived in Hoboken at IL: Is
noon. They followed the crowd on
to the ferry boat, where they saw that
the North river was filled with tug
boats, ferry boats, ocean steamers,
the great grain elevators on the Jer-
sey shore the Bartholdi statue in the
n