The limited time at my command

The limited time at my command will only permit me to express a thought which has come to me while the brethren have been speaking to us. It may be based upon the saying of the Savior, when He, in His famous sermon on the mount, speaks as follows: "Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit." ¶

The successful affairs of this life are as a rule made up of happy mediums. To illustrate : If a man spends his money in a very liberal and imprudent way, we call him a spendthrift. If he is too close with his means, we are tempted to call him a miser. We admire the happy medium when a man is neither a spnedthrift nor a miser. Again we sometimes find men who to all appearances are too self-important, who assume a certain extreme dignity, which conveys the idea to others, that they consider themselves better than other people. As a contrast to these we find people who, figuratively speaking, crawl in a hole, who are 'too modest, who dare not assert themselves in anything, and who dare not step to the front to show their real ability and the talent which God has given them. These are two extremes which most people do not admire. We like a man who does not exhibit either of ¶

these extremes — who is not too modest, nor too much inclined to self-assertion. Most of the successes which the human race have achieved in any of the affairs of life have been based on a happy medium. ¶

The Latter-day Saints are by most unprejudiced people referred to as a good and honest community. Sometimes, perhaps, we may overdraw the mark in regard to our own virtues and goodness. But true it is that we are not the people that our enemies claim that we are, when they endeavor to paint us black, and make us appear real wicked. Perhaps at times we go to the extreme in doting on and speaking of our purity and virtues, for even in that regard there is necessarily a happy medium and a certain way of getting at the truth. ¶

I have given this matter quite serious attention while I, during the past years, and particularly during the last few months, have been busily engaged in perusing the history of the Church, or recording the actions of the Latter-day Saints in these valleys. I have patiently gathered together the events of each day in regular chronological succession from the very day the pioneers first arrived in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake in July, 1847, to the close of the Nineteenth Century, and I find this truth proven beyond all doubt and beyond every attempt at successful contradiction, that there has from the beginning been a great difference in the general morals of the Latter-day Saints when they have been alone in these mountains and when they have been associated with other people not of their faith. In other words, the Latter-day Saints, ( when they have had an opportunity to regulate their affairs according to their own religious and ¶

moral convictions or practical creed), have been far better than at other times when they, in a sense, have been helpless in the hands of others, or associated with more worldly-minded and less God-fearing neighbors. ¶

From the day of the arrival of the pioneers here in 1847 till the month of June, 1849, the "Mormons'" were alomst alone in these valleys. There was scarcely any one here who did not belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is very interesting indeed to read of the good morals and tenets of the people as they were reduced to practice at that time — a people who showed by their actions that they were indeed a God-fearing people, though suffering with poverty and want and beset with very many difficulties incident to western pioneer life. But they were a moral and virtuous people. Scarcely an oath or anything tending to vulgarity or blasphemy were heard in the streets of Great Salt Lake City in these early days. There was no drunkenness or immoral practices to speak of. The vices that try good men's souls and which are so detrimental to the progress of a moral community were almost unknown. ¶

But in the year 1849, after the gold had been discovered in California, a certain class of travelers commenced to pass through the Great Salt Lake Valley. Some of these were very good people, who not only behaved themselves like gentlemen, but who also spoke truthfully of the Latter-day Saints, calling them an honest and a Godfearing people. Some of these transcontinental travelers who had listened to slanderous reports circulating in the East were indeed surprised to find that the "Mormons" in the far-off valley of the Great Salt Lake consisted chiefly of men and women of most excellent character and morals. Some of these travelers, however, were men of bad morals who endeavored to introduce vice of a serious nature among the Latter-day Saints. Thus, barring a few isolated cases, the year 1849 witnessed the first introduction into these valleys of real blasphemy, theft, robbery, and other things repugnant to the feelings of a true Christian. ¶

In course of time, or after the lapse of a few years, the evils introduced into the midst of our people by these travelers (who were mostly bound for California and Oregon) subsided, and the "Mormons" were again left almost alone for a season. During that period we enjoyed comparatively speaking immunity from nearly all the vices prevailing at that time in what we generally called the outside world, and the "Mormons" in. the Great Salt Lake Valley again made a record that reads well as matters of history at the present time. ¶

These happy conditions, however, were overturned to a very great extent in the year 1858, when the socalled Johnston Army entered the Great Salt Lake Valley. There were about six thousand American troops and upwards of eleven thousand camp-followers. Most of the latter were men of questionable character, and there were also a few women whose morals were calculated to disgrace any community who would encourage their nefarious practices ; and yet these same people claimed that they came to Utah to teach the "Mormons" better morals. The complaint had been made against us in the East that we were not moral, and that we were the opposite to a ¶

,good people. Hence, these men and women, to whom I refer, were sent here, or came here of their own free will and choice, to introduce a higher and better civilization than the one which had existed before. Without going into details I will simply say in this connection that for the time being a most wonderful change took place in the moral status of certain localities in this intermountain region, particularly in Salt Lake City and Camp Floyd where most of the soldiers and camp-followers made their headquarters. Quarreling, fighting, stealing, robbing and killing became common occurrences among the non-"Mormon" element in these valleys. One old settler said, "I have now lived in Provo ten years and I have heard more blasphemy and witnessed more vice in Salt Lake City in twenty-four hours than I have heard or witnessed all the time I have lived in the 'Mormon' town of Provo." ¶

I do not desire to draw an extreme picture of these changing conditions. I desire simply to refer to facts and present the truth as I find it recorded in the annals of a people who have ever been known to keep good records. Nor do I take as my authority "Mormon" statements alone, but the statements of other honest men and women who were not afraid to tell the truth and to speak of things as they found them. ¶

The Latter-day Saints are by no means a perfect people, but whatever may be said in regard to the "Mormons" on the one hand and the non-"Mormon" element on the other, the facts are these that at such times when the "Mormons" have been almost the sole inhabitants of these mountain valleys and have lived according to the religion of the ¶

Latter-day Saints — the principles or creed known as "Moimonism," which we call the true Christian religion— they have excelled in purity, honesty and sobriety. We have, in other words, fostered a practical Christian civilization whenever we have been let alone and given liberty to show our real characteristics. ¶

Passing on in my observations I will merely state that after the episodes of 1858 and the few following years most of the soldiers who had arrived in the Valley were ordered away to participate in the war between the North and the South, and most of the camp-followers left the territory about the same time. After their departure we had another season of peace, comparatively speaking, and Christian civilization, in which purity of life again played a most prominent part. This condition continued until the year 1869, when the Union Pacific Railroad was finished, and with that event came the introduction into Utah of a civilization of which we have never been proud. Then it was that we got the perpetual saloon, the perpetual house of ill-fame and those other perpetual things of evil which we often shudder to think of, especially when we realize what it means as temptations and inducements to out young people. ¶

After a while conditions again changed a little for the better. Our people succeeding to a considerable extent to maintain law and order in a mixed community. But then came the remarkable year of 1890 when the "Mormons" lost permanent control of Salt Lake City, Ogden and a few other towns. Since that time we have had to submit to the presence of nearly all the vices, evils, and abominations which are cursing nearly every large city in the whole ¶

so-called civilized world. We are endeavoring to keep our young people as well as ourselves away from evil doing, but in many instances we are not as successful as we would like to be. ¶

From the various examples which I have quoted from history we can judge pretty well of "the fruits of the tree." We have had the privilege of looking upon the different pictures of conditions in the different periods of our territorial and state history. We can compare notes with conditions when the inhabitants of Utah were almost purely "Mormon" and when they have been mixed with other people. ¶

While I do not desire to laud my people, the Latter-day Saints, to the sky as a perfect people, I nevertheless glory in telling the truth. I have belonged to the Latter-day Saints since I was a little boy and I love my people. I cannot feel satisfied to stand silently by always, when I witness the wrongdoing of those who oppose us and listen to the vituperation and false accusations which come from the outside world or from people who do not know us, or. worst of all, from those enemies in our own midst who know that they are not telling the truth. Once in a while I feel like raising my voice against the false accusations concocted against us and endeavor to make such corrections as are within my power. ¶

Without exaggeration and without stating anything bordering on the extreme the facts are, that when we as Latter-day Saints have had an opportunity to live by ourselves and to regulate our domestic and civil affairs according to our belief and preferences, we have ever built up model Christian communities. On the other hand, when we have been more or less in the power and under the influence of people opposed to us, we have to a greater or less extent become mixed up with worldly affairs; for with our best efforts to steer clear of the "evils and vices introduced amongst us, we have occasionally yielded through weakness to that which is forbidden in the Word of God. ¶

In conclusion I assert that history bears out the fact that the fruit of the "Mormon" tree is good, far better than the fruit plucked from the so-called up-to-date Christian civilization which has been introduced amongst us from time to time. Whenever we have been mixed up with outside influences our high standard of morals has invariably been reduced. ¶

God bless you, my brethren and sisters. May the Lord God, our Heavenly Father, enable us to be faithful and true to the commandments which He has given us and to the teachings of the Savior of the world, whom we adore and in whom we believe. May we continue to be a practical Christian people, and while we are at the present time a mixed community, let us take a consistent stand and be determined to serve the God of our fathers, remain true to our covenants, and ever have our eyes and ambition directed toward the Kingdom of God. While others may do wrong, let us endeavor to retain our characteristics of purity, honesty and uprightness. I ask it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶