The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1959-07-03
BREIG-
West Is Vast.
But Beautiful

God, II | may reverently put it so, was iii ali eX-
panSlye mood when He made the West. Thinking back
on our auto tour, my memory reels with visions of
snoW-croWned peaks and unending prairies, Of great
rolling hills and huge-shouldered buttes flung about
with abandon; of titanic mountain ranges with vast
valleys between.
| have never been in Switzerland, but surely the
Grand Tetons of Wyoming must be every bit as maies-
Tic as the Alps. And without departing from the ordi-
nary through-highWays of Wyoming and Montana, one
can see from the window of a speeding automobile
breathtaking piles of uncomfortable mountains.
Snow was five feet deep, flung by snoWploWs,
along the road that took us through part of Yellow
stone Park. Rounding a bend, we saw a black bear
lying with his paws and joWls on the white bank,
waiting for tenderfoot tourists from the East to come
by and throw candy to him. %
EVEN THE ANIMALS seem involved in the con-
Splracy OF neighborlineSs that is perhaps the best
OF all descriptions of America. Sweet-toothed bears
Will pursue your car-although you must be careful
for after all they are wild animals. Moose, elk, ante.
lope, deer-theSe creatures, cautious and quick
though they be, seem at home with the visitor, SEEM
eel to regard us as friends.
Signs along highways In Wyoming and Montana
warn you that you are in open range country. That
is to say, cattle and buffalo may wander across the
road III front OF you. But the roads run straight for
countless miles, and in the high clean air your eyes
telescope the vast distances.
For 100 miles or more, we could see a storm
ahead OF us as W. rushed toward it at so miles an
hour. Colossal clouds were piled up to the heavens, and
from them dark streamers fell earthward. At first
we thought we would be in the area in a matter of
minutes; as it turned out, a couple of hours passed
before we heard hail drumming on the roof of our
auto.
BOB FREDERICK, in whimsical mood, pointed to
tremendous mountains rising from the horizon be-
lore us, and said: Imagine the wagon trains reaching
this point after 500 miles across the plains. Can't YOU
see the horses flinging themselves down, beating their
hooVeS on the earth and Whinnying, Oh, no! Don't tell
me we've got to climb up there!'"
You learn a profound respect for the pioneers as
you rush at high speed across the enormous prairieS
and toward the mountain ranges, and realize that
they travelled this way at perhaps Is or 20 miles a
day under a furnace of a sun, amid packs of coyotes
and seas of buffalo. You discover, also, a new ~astonish-
ment IN contemplating the speed of the development of
the nation.
LET ME PUT 1T this way. Only $50 years ago.
the first settlers came to the Montana wilderness. Only
70 years ago-the average life span of a male Amer
lcan-the state entered the union and became part of
our lone nation, indivisible under God" "Yet only
the other day | was riding across Montana on excellent
highways, eating in very good restaurants and staying
each night in a splendid motel.
Still, 1t is enllghtening to remember that the
people who made this state-men and women like
Bowen and Beulah Carson whom | met-live simply
and thrifty even now, often in frame houses rs years
old. But by the magic of radio, television and the
printing press, they live very close to the rest of us,
for all the vast distances between.
VAST they emphatically are. For
two days We travelled across the diocese of Bishop
William J. Condor of Great Falls, with whom we had
dinner one evening. The flock of 110,00 Catholics
whom he shepherds are scattered across an area of
more than 81, 900 square miles-but in 20 years he
has missed only one scheduled Confirmation cere-
mony. The weather stopped him that time.
The size of his diocese will become vivid to you
when ] mention that the New York archdiocese, with
something like 900, 5000 Catholics, covers on area of
4,717 square miles; and the whole state of New York
embraces 49,567. Montana embraces lat, 1873. God
made the West with a lavish hand.