Fulfillment of Joseph Smith's Rocky Mountain Prophecy

PRESIDENT HEBER J. GRANT ¶

You may not be aware of the fact that for some time — I think it is about thirty weeks — at four o'clock every Monday afternoon, the Tabernacle Choir and the Organ are broadcasting throughout most of the United States. This is being done by means of the largest and most powerful radio stations to be found in the country. These broadcasts go to New York, Washington, Baltimore, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Toronto, Kansas City, St. Paul, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Denver, Portland, Oakland, San Francisco, and other cities; and it is estimated that more than eight million people hear them. ¶

We would be pleased to hear from another speaker this afternoon, but time will not permit. By the time we have heard the closing anthem ¶

and the benediction it will be necessary for this body of people to withdraw, unless they would like to remain here and listen to the broadcast. If you stay we request that you be very quiet. There must be no whispering. Ordinarily, when this broadcast is going on, no one except the choir is allowed in the building. If someone has to cough we hope that he will smother it as best he can by the use of a handkerchief. ¶

As I look upon this audience I am impressed with the wonderful fulfilment of the prediction of Joseph Smith which was delivered on the west side of the Mississippi river and recorded in the journal of Brother Anson Call: ¶

"I prophesy that the saints will continue to suffer much affliction, and will be driven to the Rocky Mountains; many will apostatize, others will be put to death by our persecutors, or lose their lives in consequence of exposure or disease; and some will live to go and assist in making settlements, and build cities, and see the Saints become a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains." ¶

What a mighty people we are ! As I look upon this audience today and think of the wonderful audiences that we had at all our meetings yesterday, and when I think of the seven hundred thousand people who are now members of the Church, I rejoice in the fulfilment of this prediction by Joseph Smith. ¶

Daniel Webster, acknowledged to be one of the greatest, and claimed by some to be the very greatest, of all our senators in his day, referring to this country where the Prophet of the Lord said we should become a great and a mighty people, made the remark: ¶

"What do we want with this vast, worthless area? This region of savages and wild beasts, of deserts, of shifting sands and whirlwinds of dust, of cactus and prairie dogs? To what use could we ever hope to put those great deserts or those endless mountain ranges, impenetrable and covered to their very base with eternal snow? What can we ever hope to do with the western coast of three thousand miles, rock-bound, cheerless, uninviting, and not a harbor on it? Mr. President, I will never vote one cent from the public treasury to place the Pacific Coast one inch nearer Boston than it now is." ¶