»,VfSt ■>, \..'',if iU/j Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028910202 Cornell University Library F 594 T31 Colorado: and hoffis ,f",ffi,„K||S^ ^^ 3 1924 028 910 202 olin 8I.' letft/not wairrtfaw trntuutariu*. *'* ^'^''^•••^ W' "ir~j t:^' a.,,'^»Viw""*fv U. Iff liu^ fi: cit" 01 5AR L« PORTI W^ >■' OTfV 3«r,j.„ '■ ^v~F~l~*?r~:jir'ssi;X~^^; MAP OF • COLORADO. Scale of Miles f^ '0 2° 30 V) 50 llv 11 Hv-'ll) B-S^^^l© r* F-^ <:* i v ^ i.ii wm iiii w i uiw , GRANI O MAP OF COLORADO. COLORADO: HOMES IN THE NEW WEST. COL^^^sDO HOMES IN THE NEW WEST. By E. p. TENNEY, president of colorado college. BOSTON: LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS. NEW YORK: CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM. 1882. iiUNIVERSITVi UBRAkY vs Printed by Frank Wood, Boston, Mass. The search for ' ' silver and gold which has taken a noble class of emigrants from England to Australia, reproducing the highest civilization of Europe in the South Pacific, and which has built upon our own Pacific coast one of the foremost States of the Union, is now leading multitudes of our best citizens to make homes RAINBOW FALLS, UTE PASS. lO COLORADO. for themselves upon the Rocky Mountain plateau. This passion for mining is the instrument of Providence in trans- ferring populations to new seats of empire. Albeit the resources of Colorado, and of other portions of the New- West, will sustain so vast a population that these regions would in any event be soon peopled by the ordinary laws of emigration, the process is quickened by the most astonishing discoveries of precious metal. If men once imagine that they can shovel up loose silver and gold as they would sand from a cellar, they will go far to test fortune. And many of them — even if they are disap- pointed in mining — will make for themselves happy homes in mountain valleys or upon sunny plains. When men rushed to California, vast numbers who hoped to gather gold in heaps found themselves too poor to get out of the country, and too much fascinated with its climate and resources to wish to go, they remained to become the founders of a State. There are other employments than mining which prove remunerative ; and the development of the rich and varied resources of the New West will furnish homes for unnumbered millions GATEWAY OF THE GARDEN OF THE GODS. THE NEW WEST. Between the valley of the Mississippi — the Old West — and the Pacific slope lies the New West, a mountain plateau from three to six thousand feet high, upon which rise the Rocky Mountains. Take Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Idaho and Montana ; then add a minute fragment of fifty thousand square miles from western Dakota, comprising the Black Hills region, and you have the New West, — one third part of the United States, — as large as all that portion of country east of the Missis- sippi. Colorado is equal in size to Switzerland, New England, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. Maps of Pennsylvania and New York would need to add Maryland and Rhode Island, to cover Colorado. Ohio could lie down twice within the boundaries of the Centennial State, and then leave room enough for West Virginia and Connecticut. Kansas and Iowa together are not its match in square miles. Colorado / V . r^_,ii^ COLORADO AND will prove a most important contribution to the scientific knowledge of the world. " There are many districts," says Major Powell, " in which the ' country rock ' is composed of incoherent sands and RHODA'S ARCH. Sawatch Range, South River, near Antelope Park. clays ; sometimes sediments of ancient Tertiary lakes ; else- where sediments of more ancient Cretaceous seas. In these districts perennial or intermittent streams have carved deep THE NEtV WEST. Jy waterways, and the steep hills are ever washed naked by fierce and infrequent storms, as the incoherent rocks are unable to withstand the beating of the rain. These are known as the bad lands of the Rocky Mountain region." ^ These are regions most favorable to the discovery of new fossils. " In other areas the streams have carved laby- rinths of deep gorges, and the waters flow at great depths below the general surface. The lands between the streams are beset with towering cliffs, and the landscape is an expanse of naked rock. These are the alcove lands and canon lands of the Rocky Mountain region." ^ Through such a region is cut the deep gorge of the Colorado River of the West. When this river becomes familiar to the eye and to the hammer of science, and all the treasures of this wild West are made known, there will be fewer imperfections in the geological records. " Still other districts have been the theater of late volcanic activity, and broad sheets of naked lava are found ; cinder cones are frequent, and scoria and ashes are scattered over the land. These are the lava-beds of the Rocky Mountain region. In yet other districts, low broken mountains are found with rugged spurs and craggy crests. Grasses and chaparral grow among the rocks, but such mountains are of little value for pasturage purposes." ^ We have then here a world in making. The early processes are evident, and regions waste for other useful purpose are of surpassing interest to the geological student. And it is in this very region, that astronomical observa- tions can be conducted under peculiarly favorable condi- tions. The most eminent astronomers are of the opinion 1 Arid Land Report, p. 20. 2 jbid. s Ibid. /l' ■:kj ^ I, 1 w. :cr- ---^S^r^W. t-^-— - < i V -W-^C^-'v *i>* CLIMBING THE GRAND CANON OF THE COLORADO. THE NEW WEST. 79 that our knowledge of the heavenly bodies would be vastly increased by planting one of the best telescopes in the world upon some mountain plateau, in a clear atmosphere, and where the sky is free from clouds the greater portion of the year. It seemed at one time as if the project to establish an observatory upon the Sierra Nevada was likely to meet this want ; but Mr. Lick's gift will now enrich the University of California upon the coast. Colorado Springs is six thousand feet above the sea,' and it is easy to find in the neighborhood a higher altitude, if it be desirable, where the conditions of climate are most favorable. It is well known that the usefulness of some of the best astronomical apparatus in the world is greatly limited by location upon the coast. In respect to the unrivaled facilities for scientific educa- tion in this remarkable region, men of foresight and ample means are furnishing the instrumentalities needed, so that the homes in the New West may not lack the best culture of the world. It would be indeed strange, if it were a matter of choice that the young people should be half educated, ill-proportioned, narrow, and self-conceited, in a country where the development of the resources so largely depends upon the highest attainable scientific skill, and where the means are so abundant for securing the best scientific schools of the world. Men of native refinement and liberal culture, who gather wealth from the mines of the New West, will be swift to aid instruction in Natural Science. " Most earnestly I believe," says a writer whose eyes are never weary in beholding the forms of these mountains, and whose fame is known to all literature, " that there is to be born of these plains and mountains, all along the great 80 COLORADO. central plateaus of our continent, the very best life, physical and mental, of the coming centuries." In the first four years of the decade now closing, thirty-three million dollars were given by private donors to the higher education in the United States. The annual gifts are from four to eleven millions. " All things considered," says President Eliot, "there is no form of endowment for the benefit of mankind more permanent, more secure from abuse, or surer to do good, than the endowment of public teaching in a well- organized institution of learning." A handful of poor students gathered at first in a barn at Old Cambridge ; and there sprang up the University, which has flourished century after century : lines of kings have reigned a little while and given place to others, but the line of scholars, earnestly searching for truth and nobly con- tending for it, has not failed, nor will until the brine of the British seas ceases to be salt. When, then, we seek homes in new regions, it is of the first interest that the founders of the New West are profoundly in earnest to build the school and the college. A wholesome climate, innumerable herds, exhaustless mineral resources, can never furnish homes for the American people unless there are built upon the slopes of the Sierra Madre educa- tional institutions which will make their vivifying influence felt throughout no small portion of the central regions of America; as "the Mother Mountains " give rise to mighty rivers, — the Athabasca, the Columbia, the Father of Waters, the Colorado of the West, the Amazon and La Plata. MAP OF NEW MEXICO Scale of Milrii. f FORT GARLAND. NEW SPAIN, That part of the State of Colorado south of the Arkansas River, and New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and California, were formerly parts of Spanish America, under the name of New Spain. Of the population of Mexico, to-day, one mil- lion are of Spanish descent, three millions of Indian descent, and four millions of a mixed race, Spanish and Indians, com- monly called greasers. This is about the same proportion which obtains in New Mexico. We have thirty thousand of these people in southern Colorado ; we have nearly a hundred thousand of them in New Mexico. Besides this THE NEW WEST. 83 population, we have in New Mexico nearly ten thousand Pueblo Indians. They dwell in strange houses, — building up first one story, perhaps twelve feet high without any door or window, and climbing up by a ladder ; then there is a little platform, and then there is another story built up some ten feet high with doors and windows in this second story ; then they climb up still another story and descend into the rooms below by trap-doors in the floor of the roof; and in this way they build up perhaps five stories, — the top fifty feet from the ground. One of these blocks will contain two hundred TAOS PUEBLO. and fifty persons. There are two of these buildings at Taos. They have been built some three hundred years or more. Nearly ten thousand people in New Mexico are living in this style of house. Little children are at play upon the tops of these stair-like homes ; and the dogs, even, become skilled in climbing the ladders. The house-keeping arrange- ments are of so primitive a sort that the ladies have very little to do, except to sit out upon the roof in the sun ana converse together. The people are very industrious in then farming operations, raising good crops. 84 COLORADO AND Religiously, they are fetish and fire worshipers ; having the pleasant habit of rising early in the morning and going out to look for the sunrise, hoping that some morning Monte- zuma will come from the East ; and then they will go forth to a little bridge over the water-course at sunset, and look for the going down of the light, and observe certain forms of adoration. In connection with these singular build- ings which I have described, there are underground rooms. You may go down a little orifice, which is very much like the mouth of a jug, and, having once descended below ground, come into a little circular room some twenty feet in diameter. The air is made to pass through it by under- ground passages. These are their places of secret worship NEW MEXICAN CART. and sacred dancing ; and it is in evidence that in some pueblos there is still maintained in one of these secret places the holy fire, which has not been out for three hundred years. They have been taught that the fire must never go out till Montezuma re-appears from the East. They have their own priesthood. But this worship does not at all hinder their being good Catholics ; and they have a Catholic church, and the papal priest goes frequently to collect their money and hear confessions. There are churches in New Mexico, in which THE NEW WEST. 85 there are the symbols of the Catholic worship, and also upon the walls the image of the rainbow, or the sun, and various symbols which have been used from very ancient times by these Pueblos in worship, — the very walls themselves wit- nessing to the mixing of Pagan and Catholic service. Some of these unique Pueblo dwellings are built upon cliffs three hundred feet high, like that at Acoma ; and they can be approached only by clambering up on the debris of fallen ACOMA. rocks, and then by steps cut out of the living rock, and then, perhaps, climbing immense timbers placed near the top, the throwing down of which would entirely cut off all access to the dwellings above. There are in southwestern Colorado, considerable areas of the ruins of houses formerly occupied by these people. Some of them are perched upon the walls of precipitous canons eight hundred feet above the roaring I I 'ill I ■ CLIFF-HOUSES, RIO MANGOS, COLORADO, 700 FEET ABOVE THE RIVER. THE NEW WEST. 87 waters, set like swallows' nests in a little cavity in the rocks. And there are steps cut in the side of the living rock by which to ascend to them. These houses were probably built from three to five hundred years ago at a time when these peaceable, quiet Indians, who originated in the far south of this Continent or South America, were very much disturbed by the incursions of the northern red Indians. The mounds of the Rio Mancos are overgrown with pinon-pine and cedar. "There is scarcely a square mile in the six thousand examined," in the San Juan region, chiefly in southwestern 1# ^>--^ ^ > ^ ^ y I ™ %i M,' >< v v./.r h INDIAN PICTURE WRITING. Colorado, says Hayden's Survey,^ "that would not furnish evidence of occupation by a race totally distinct from the nomadic savages who hold it now, and in every way superior to them." If the cliff dwellings of Colorado are not so celebrated as the remains of Petra in the East, they are, at least, more accessible to the American public. These remains of pri- meval races in America are discovered throughout a great extent of country, — in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Nevada. Painted and glazed pottery, stone implements, 1 Report of W. H. Holmes. 88 COLORADO AND fragments of matting, tied bundles of sticks, — tied up centuries since, — pictures cut upon walls, and other relics of a departed people, excite the interest of the explorer. The models of cave dwellings, low land settlements, and cliff- houses of the San Juan, which have been presented by the United States Government to the South Kensington Museum, have attracted attention in Europe. PUEBLO POTTERY. Twelve centuries since, the country southward from Col- orado to the Isthmus was peopled by the Toltecs. They were, according to Humboldt, in the tenth century more civilized than the nations of northeastern Europe. But their THE NEW WEST. 89 palaces fell into the hands of the Chichemecs, who soon yielded to the Aztecs, advancing from the north. The culture of these people at the time of the Spanish conquest is recorded in the pages of Prescott. It is well known that one of the first things the Romanists did, on arriving in the country, was to gather and burn the historical records of the natives, extending over eight centuries. It remains, there- fore, to train enthusiastic laborers, who will enter this new field in the ancient land of the Toltecs and Aztecs, and there attempt to read in ruins the record destroyed by the barbaric priests of a former age. Careful research will meet rich reward. There are Indians to-day in the New West, who represent in fair measure the semi- civilization, super- stitions, and relig- ious faith, of those who possessed the land before the wild and savage tribes of recent years ; races which flourished and perished before the European stock was planted on this Continent. The condition of those races whose history is yet unwritten, — or which is written only in cliffs, caves, mounds, and lake-beds, — will invite the attention of thoughtful students in the New West, which comprises in its area the most ancient relics of man in America. ANCIENT INDIAN TOWER AND CLIFF-HOUSES, RESTORED. THE NEW WEST. 93 The seven thousand Navajo Indians in New Mexico are a very interesting people ; they are the finest Indians upon the Continent. In respect to the mechanic arts they stand much higher in the scale of civilization than other tribes ; and they are much interested in grazing industries, having immense flocks of sheep. It has been observed by thoughtful students of history, that barbaric populations have risen in the scale of manhood through pastoral life. Those who have given most attention to solving the problem of Indian civilization, have had great success in conducting industrial education among the Indians, especially when they have sought to develop in their wards the desire to accumulate cattle. Multitudes of that race which has roamed the great plains and herded ponies for centuries, will eventually become the herders of the New West. The increase of the Indian population of the country, and the capacity of the race for civilization, indicate that Providence has a future for them ; an honorable future — if even-handed justice, the school and the church, have a hand in their training. NEW MEXICAN PLOW. ADOBE FIRE-PLACE. OLD SPAIN IN NEW SPAIN. I SPEAK of these Indian races in order that it may be more easily understood that nearly the entire native popula- tion of New Mexico is Indian — practically so. Seven- eighths, as I have explained before, are descended from the southern American Indians, or they are of mixed race, — only one-eighth being of Spanish descent. These are the persons who to-day are plowing the ground with crooked sticks, and threshing their grain by driving goats over it ; having the customs observed many centuries since, and which now obtain in some of the oldest and least cultivated of the nations of the world. The majority of these people were slaves, peons, till the emancipation proclamation of Mr. Lincoln. This being so, it is easily seen how it is that they should have been kept in the lowest grade of civilization. They have been systematically neg- lected by the so-called Christian civilization under which THE NEW WEST. 95 they have been living for three hundred years. At the time New Mexico was received into the United States as a Territory there was only one school in the country; and there had never been more than one in all the historic time before. Some eighteen years ago, the question was brought before the Legislature of New Mexico whether they would have a school law and establish public schools; they almost unanimously voted that they would not : and when the question was put to popular vote there were only thirty-seven votes in favor of it and 'five thousand against it. At the present day, if a person visiting this portion of New Spain, were to go to a community of a thousand persons and inquire about the school taught there last winter, — they are only held about two months in the winter time, — he would find it attended by about twenty boys. The girls do not go to school. In these schools there is some- times a teacher who cannot read or write ; being appointed on account of his political influence. The children are poor. Occasionally fragments of newspapers are brought in for read- ing-books. In the average Hebrew store in the country no text-book is found above the Spanish primer of the lowest grade we use in our schools. The common text-book is the Jesuit catechism in Spanish. In more than half of these schools there is no English taught. The American popula- tion is very small, probably — at present — not more than one-fifth of the whole population. There are private papal schools at Taos, Mora, Las Vegas, Santa Fe, Bernalillo, Las Cruces and Albuquerque. It is easy to see, that, in a community so constituted, those who have it in mind to manipulate a population in opposition to our laws and Government, can find a very good foothold. 96 COLORADO AND When Edward Everett Hale was in Rome, just before Gari- baldi entered the city, he bought a little newspaper, hardly fourteen inches square ; there was not one word of news in it in regard to Garibaldi, but it was two-thirds filled with an article upon New Mexico. The Jesuits at that time, prepar- ing to rise and forsake the sacred city, were securing persons to plant a colony in New Mexico, so that a considerable num- ber of these people, born in the worst cities of Southern Europe and educated in Spain, gathered in a company and planted themselves in New Mexico, establising themselves at two points, Las Vegas and Albuquerque. They have been systematically introducing their priests ; wherever one is dis- placed they introduce a Jesuit priest as his successor. They established a newspaper, as well printed as The Nation, and in form much like it. They set out to obtain political con- trol of the Territory. Two years ago they had a majority in the Legislature, and passed a law, giving the Jesuits peculiar immunities and privileges for carrying on educational work. This law was vetoed by the Governor; and passed over his veto, as soon as he left the room. The head of the Jesuits, with his official robes on, sat by the side of the Speaker, and urged the passage of the bill. It was annulled by Congress, the law being in violation of the Constitution of the United States. These men have now taken the strongest possible ground against public schools. They have sent an official notice to the press of New Mexico, warning them to beware of advocating public schools. They have picked up the worst cases of scandal in the United States, during the last twenty- five years, and have retailed it out to the Spanish population, stating that this is what they may expect in New Mexico if they introduce the public school system. In every way, the ignorant Mexican population is warned not to have anything THE NEW WEST. 97 to do with this terrible public school system. The common exhortation is, — "Be Mexicans! Be Mexicans!" It is com- monly said, — "This is a Catholic country ;" and no Prot- estant ideas can have any foothold. So successful have been the efforts of these men who thrive under our liberties in order the better to destroy them, that they prevented the passage of a good school law by the legislature of 1880. They have at the season of the year when our Saviour's Passion is celebrated, an order of men who, in the most horrible manner, celebrate those sad scenes which occurred in Judea in ancient times. The men seize upon stocks of cactus, which grow four or five feet high, covered with sharp thorns, and use them for lashing their naked bodies. They crown themselves with sharp thorns, they bear crosses of heavy timber, and in sad procession go forth to a place where one of their number is to be fastened to the cross as if for crucifixion. There is hardly a year goes by in which there are not some persons who die under this strange ordeal. These are the scenes which take place every spring-time in southern Colorado and throughout a large part of New Mexico. In the Atlantic Monthly for June, 1877, " H. H. " gives some account of these people : — "There still exists among the Roman Catholic Mexicans of southern Colorado, 2.r\ order like the old order of the Flagellants. Every spring, in Easter week, several of the young men belonging to this order inflict on themselves dreadful tortures in public. The congregations to which they belong gather about them, follow them from house to house, and spot to spot, and kneel down around them, sing- ing and praying and continually exciting their frenzy to a higher pitch. Sometimes they have also drums and fifes, gS COLORADO AND adding a melancholy and discordant music to the harrowing spectacle. The priests ostensibly disapprove of these pro- ceedings, and never appear in public with the Penitentes. But the impression among outsiders is very strong that they do secretly countenance and stimulate them, thinking that the excitement tends to strengthen the hold of the church on the people's minds. It is incredible that such superstitions can still be alive and in force in our country. Some of the tortures these poor creatures undergo are almost too terrible to tell. One of the most common is to make in the small of the back an arrow-shaped incision ; then fastening into each end of a long scarf the prickly cactus stems, they scourge themselves with them, throwing the scarf ends first over one shoulder then over the other, each time hitting the bleeding wound. The leaves of the yucca or 'soap-weed' are pounded into a pulp and made into a sort of sponge, acrid and inflam- ing ; a man carries this along in a pail of water, and every now and then v/ets the wound with it, to increase the pain and the flowing of the blood. Almost naked, lashing them- selves in this way they run wildly over the plains. Their blood drops on the ground at every step. A fanatical ecstasy possesses them ; they seem to feel no fatigue ; for three days and two nights they have been known to keep it up without rest. "Others bind the thick lobes of the prickly pear under their arms and on the soles of their feet, and run for miles, swinging their arms and stamping their feet violently on the ground. To one who knows what suffering there is from even one of these tiny little spines imbedded in the flesh, it seems past belief that a man could voluntarily endure such pain. " Others lie on the thresholds of the churches, and every THE NEW WEST. 99 person who enters the church is asked to step with his fnM weight on their bodies. Others carry about heavy wooden crosses (eight or ten feet long), so heavy that a man can hardly lift them. Some crawl on their hands and knees, dragging the cross. Crowds of women accompany them, singing and shouting. When the penitent throws himself on the ground, they lay the cross on his breast and fall on their knees around him and pray ; then they rise up, place the cross on his back again, and take up the dreadful journey. Now and then the band will enter a house and eat a little food, which in all good Catholic houses is kept ready for them. After a short rest the leader gives a signal, and they set out again. "Last spring, in the eighteen hundred and seventy-sixth year of our merciful Lord, four of these young men died from the effects of their tortures. One of them, after running for three days under the cactus scourge, lay all Easter night naked upon the threshold of a church. Easter morning he was found there dead.'' Yet, some years since, a bill to admit New Mexico as a State passed the United States Senate by a political bar- gain; it was thwarted by the opposing party in the House. It is only a question of opportunity when New Mexico as it is, when Utah as it is, may be received into the Union. There is, however, in New Mexico a German Catholic ele- ment opposed to the Jesuits; and there are many young Catholics who stand openly for public schools. The better class of citizens in New Mexico oppose the admission of the Territory as a State until a good school law is enacted. When, therefore, we seek for good homes in the New West, we are little attracted to this foreign fragment of our republic, albeit New Mexico is, in respect to its natural lOO COLORADO. resources, well fitted to sustain a large population. Those men, however, who have entered this region with enlight- ened ideas concerning public education, and who seek to plant an open Bible in the Territory, will soon be reinforced by sturdy emigrants of Eastern training, who will make short work with ancient systems of error and misrule. CHURCH AT SANTA CRUZ. MAP OF ARIZONA. Territorial officers and law-makers of Arizona have laid the foundations of one of the best public-school systems in the New West ; and as their mountains of silver are now echoing to the whistle of locomotives, and two Pacific railways are pushing their lines across the Territory, it will not be strange if Arizona becomes a State before her next neighbor upon the East. I • I , MORMON FAMILY. UTAH, If, however, we now turn northward, we are again shut out of the privilege of planting the American home, the free school and the church, by organized Mormonism, resting like a blight upon an area three times as large as New England. Many persons have wondered that the Mormon system did not break down utterly, at the death of Brigham Young. There are few who know how thoroughly organized is this system. The Jesuits are not better organized than the Mormons. THE NEW WEST lO/ Mormonism is, at bottom, a carefully organized land specu- lation. One-thirteenth part of Utah can be irrigated. If you go north into Idaho, or south into Arizona, or into south- western Colorado, the Mormon leaders are everywhere spying out the most fertile valleys ; and then they send agents abroad to bring over emigrants from Europe. Some of the shrewdest men in Utah — who are not prejudiced by any special religious feeling in regard to the Mormon system, and who have not been so thwarted in schemes of personal ambi- tion that they have become prejudiced witnesses — state in regard to the Mormon system that it is at bottom a grand scheme for land speculation. The elders of the Mormons are most of them Eastern men, able to manipulate the whole Territory according to their own minds. They keep between three and four hundred land agents in Europe every year. These men go into the hamlets and cities of northern Europe, with lists of the names of persons who have settled in certain localities in Utah. They go into a little village and say, — " Here is Mr. Jones or Smith, who was once your neighbor. He is now in Utah, and has forty acres of land ; if you will go there we will give you forty acres." After describing the climate and the soil and the advan- tages of emigration, it is said to them that in order to avail themselves of these precious privileges they must be bap- tized as Mormons. It is a better system of religion than these poor peasants have had at home ; it is a step upward when they are baptized as Mormons. They come into this country, and receive their land under the United States Homestead Law, and they suppose the Mormon church gives it to them. These are very ignorant and degraded people ; and they at once come into a higher state of civilization, and Io8 COLORADO AND have more material comforts than they had in their country or city life in northern Europe. The whole Mormon system is fastened together by secret oaths. It is historically true that the founders of the Mor- mon system were acquainted more or less with the secret organizations that have existed from time immemorial in our older civilization, and they determined to adopt this ancient method, and adapt it to their own uses, in establishing a relig- ious system. The Mormons are baptized, but they are not brought into full connection with the church till they have been through the mysteries of the Endowment House. There are three degrees of oaths. Kneeling at the secret altar they vow to observe the Mormon laws in preference to the laws of the United States if the two come in conflict. They swear to stand by each other. In secret they nourish the purpose to keep out Gentile influences from the country. The polygamous marriages are always celebrated at these secret-society meetings. As there are temples built for dif- ferent secret societies in the East, this Mormon Secret Soci- ety is building immense temples for the performance of their rites ; not less than three of which are costing each more than a million of money. The walls of these temples are nine feet thick, and they will endure as long as the Pyramids ; and the system itself will endure as long as the Pyramids, unless the people of this country are thoroughly aroused to the necessity for establishing education and a higher style of spiritual life, and put forth their utmost energies for the breaking down of the Mormon system by national legisla- tion. One-fifth part of the membership of the Mormon Church are church officers. It is as if every Protestant Church of a hundred members should have twenty church officers. They are some Apostles, some Bishops, some Rulers of Seventies, THE NEW WEST. I09 some Elders ; they are so graded that the head of the Mormon church can through these officers reach every Mormon in any part of the country. And then they have the most admirable system of church discipline. The tithing system in Utah does not go to enrich the priest- hood in any direct way. The Bishops receive no pay for preaching ; they are those shrewd men who understand how to get corner lots and understand how to form rings for making public improvements. The money for building the temples, and building the ditches of the great irrigating system, is raised by the tithing system. The administration of these works is in the hands of church officers, who through this method enrich themselves. Now, having control of the church, having control of the water throughout the whole country, if there is the humblest Mormon in the most remote valley among the mountains who rebels in any way against the church, they take the water away from him. It is a perfect whipper-in. The man is left without help, and all his farming operations must cease if he in the least rebels against the church. When a Presbyterian minister a year ago last summer moved from a community where there were both Gentiles and Mormons among whom he had been work- ing, and went into a community where they were all Mor- mons in order that he might labor among them, the two men who hauled his goods were Mormons. One of them was dis- ciplined for doing this ; he confessed and was received back into the church ; the other man was excommunicated. And the minister found that in this new settlement no one would sell him food, and he had to go back to the place he came from to get food for his family. Among these people there is very little demand for any high spirituality in the services of the church. The leaders I lo COLORADO AND of the community are engrossed in affairs ; and they are not the kind of men who will elevate these low populations pour- ing in from the lowest grade of society in northern Europe. The gentleman who has said more in defense of the Mor- mon system than any other Gentile, not defending it, but seeing more ground for toleration than any one else, has said that — by observation extending through many years — not more than one sermon out of ten has any reference in it at all to religion. There are meeting-houses in every ward of Salt Lake City. It is only in the summer-time that they meet in the great Tabernacle ; in the winter they meet in these meeting-houses. Here, and throughout the country, the Bishops gather the people together and talk with them on Sunday about their farming operations. Dr. Sheldon Jackson, who attended one of their gatherings a little while since, states that the sermon was on the advantage of having blooded stock. The sisters as well as the brethren were invited to subscribe for the purchase of the new stock before the service was closed. These people do not demand any high grade of education. There is a local law by which a certain amount of money is furnished for schooling, but it is so little that the schooling is pieced out by the payment of tuition, so that there is hardly a free school in Utah ; and these schools are under the control of the church officers. These schools are held in their meet- ing-houses ; they are properly parochial schools ; they give a little instruction in the rudiments of education, and they propagate the doctrines of the Mormon faith, — teaching that God has a bodily form, that Jesus practiced polygamy, that polygamy is essential if one will have rank in heaven, teaching the doctrine of celestial marriage, by which persons here upon the earth may be married on behalf of dead friends or THE NEW WEST. Ill eminent statesmen, in order that they may have the felicities of heaven. It is said that the spirit of George Washington could not get to heaven if he did not have another wife, and so these Mormons have been patriotically — and repeatedly — married in behalf of George Washington. MARRIED IN BEHALF OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, It may be very easily imagined that, in such a state of society, there are some intelligent men who come from over the water who are much disturbed on account of the state of things they find. Especially under Brigham Young's admin- istration, a great many broke away from their religious tenets and the hold of the church, on account of the abuses of the system. And then there are multitudes who desire better schooling for their children. The Gentile population — of per- haps twenty thousand — has established private schools to some extent, and the contrast is very readily seen by Mormon parents. At this time it is supposed that about one-third of THE NEW WEST. II3 the Mormon population of Utah hang somewhat loosely to the system. There are perhaps one hundred and twenty thousand Mormons in Utah and neighboring territories. The method by which one-third of the Mormons can be most easily torn away from the system is by introducing good schools. From what has been said in regard to the organiza- tion of the church, their power of discipline, their occupation of every fertile valley, holding the whole Territory under foot, it is seen that it will be very difficult to introduce a Gentile element there which can improve matters. It is almost impossible to introduce farmers or men in other industries unless they are approved by the Mormon leaders. On account of lack of present material to work upon, it will be very difficult to promote the Gospel by the ordinary means of public preaching. The true method is to promote education and to get hold of the children, and such parents as desire better schooling. This method has been adopted to some extent, and carried on very successfully during some years. We look to such institutions as Salt Lake Academy to help solve the Mormon problem, as we look to the Christian academies in Santa Fe and Albuquerque to become fount- ains of fire in dark New Mexico. Salt Lake City is one of the most beautiful places in the world. The Territory will some day be filled with the pleasant homes of an enlightened Christian People. BLACK ROCK. IDAHO, MONTANA, THE BLACK HILLS AND WYOMING. The vast area north of Utah and Colorado holds out to-day the strongest inducements to settlers. The peculiar characteristics of the New West, which are mentioned in the first part of this work, are nowhere more attractive than in the northern portion. THE NEW WEST. 115 Some parts of the country are indeed suffering very much for want of good training-schools for teachers; but Montana raises more money for schools than most of the States in the Union, in proportion to her population, standing the seventh upon the list. It would be a vast advantage to all the Territories if the counsel of the United States Commissioner of Education were heeded in the appointment by the national Government of Territorial Commissioners of Education, as other officers are appointed. This would be effective in bringing order out of confusion in Utah and New Mexico, and would be so helpful in the development of the best public school system in all new regions as to make them at an early date attractive IN YELLOWSTONE PARK Ii6 COLORADO. to those who are seeking; homes in the New West. It is a remark of De Tocqueville that good homes are at the founda- tion of all national prosperity. To establish good homes we need the school and the church. BUTTES AT GREEN RIVER. * s 31 I 1^, 4H ^1 lln ^ I -5 ^ -B >i i^ f^ t PRESS NOTICES. COLORADO : And Homes in the New West. Price: paper cavers, 75 cents ; cloth, $1.00. " ' The New West ' is the most breezy, interesting, and instructive little vol- ume which has fallen in our way for a long time." — Boston Traveller. " It is made as fascinating as a work of fiction by the charm of the style in which it is written, while it is also one of the best and most beautiful hand-books for travel in the West." — Zioii's Herald. "My six days' sojourn in Colorado last summer has made that wonderful State a reality to me instead of an abstraction. Its Alpine peaks haunt me still ; its crystal air seems like the memory of an upper sphere. All my enthusiasm has been kindled afresh by reading Rev. E. P. Tenney's small volume, ' The New West.' " — Theodore L. Cuyler, in N. Y. Evangelist. BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. CORONATION : A Story of the Forest and the Sea. One vol., square i6mo. 394 pp. Price, $1.50. "A book of singular freshness, power, and originality. . . . Beyond any thing since Thoreau, it is an out-of-door book. . . . One seems to breathe the salt air, and hear the sound of the surf, till one is homesick for the sea." — Literary World. "The author reconciles one to storm, mud, and swamp, and all sorts of things disagreeable to the natural man, as commonly found. . . . The book is instinct with the very life of forest, mountain, and sea." — The Advance. " 'Coronation ' exhibits remarkable vividness of imagination, intense love of nature, and deep knowledge of the New England and the universal human heart. But the subduing charm of the book is its combination of Greek and Hebrew fire. Its thought is cultured, incisive, and perfectly free ; but its loyalty to the highest ideas of the religious life is so manly and unapologetic as to be at times overawing." — Joseph Cook. "A book which has given me a pure joy, unlike any I have felt since I first read Emerson's 'Nature.' " — Caroline H. Dall, in Christian Register. " Wholesome, hopeful, and faithful the book is, showing an individuality in the author a little like some of the wild fruits on which his wanderers feed. We recommend ' Coronation ' to the enforced dwellers in cities. They . . . will feel, while they read, as if they too went * Plod, plod, along the featureless sand,' and caught the blowing surf on their faces." — The Nation. AGAMENTICUS. i6mo. 267 pp. Price, $1.25. " President Tenney has founded his little book upon very thorough and careful studies of the time and people pictured, and his reproduction of the picturesque life of Agamenticus is a particularly fine bit of artistic work." — New York Evening Post. "It is by far the best picture we have of the colonial life of that day." — Rev. Edward Everett Hale, D.D. 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