Cfte Centenary l^ome IBoarD IBooklet Bumfcer jFour Broken Trails on the Frontier The greatest wealth of the West lies in the gold of the grain rather than in the gold of the mines. The plains which the first pioneers regarded as arid wastes are now yielding a mighty harvest 2 broken Craite Is it surprising that he finds his recreation in a bottle in his hip pocket? PART ONE Our Neighbor the Frontier ~VT OT long ago an Arizona horse- thief was captured by a number of cowboys. Instead of hanging him to a tree in the way demanded by tra- dition, they took him to town in an automobile and turned him over to the constable. Newspapers throughout the country took up the incident to prove, half- facetiously, that the frontier has gone and that the old West is dead. In doing so, they expressed the belief of a great many Americans. Because they no longer read of stage hold-ups, of vigilance committees, and of hang- ings in the courthouse square, they conclude that the frontier has passed forever into history. Yet, whoever has looked from a train window at the new, pasteboard towns standing raw and stark in the middle of the desert will know that the pioneer has not yet departed. Led by the lure of copper or the hint of gold, men are still building in the wilder- ness, either in the scorching sun of the plains or on the bleak tip of a desert mountain. Others are taking up homesteads in forgotten valleys, hid- den behind virgin ranges. In the state of Nevada, there is less than one person to the square mile, as contrasted with 250 in Rhode Island. Montana, the third largest state in the Union, could tuck New England and Pennsylvania away in its boundaries Dn C&e jFromier 3 and still have plenty of room left for New York. Yet its population is only 376,053, about that of New Orleans. These great waste stretches are being populated by an eager stream of set- tlers, who, though they do not travel in prairie schooners, are none the less pioneers. The process of settlement is now much faster than formerly and the church must also move faster or lose out. According to the official divisions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Frontier includes the eleven Rocky Mountain and Pacific Coast states, together with the western third of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Okla- homa and Texas. Roughly, all this region lies west of the one hundredth meridian. Work in Alaska and Haw- aii, together with that among Oriental and Spanish-speaking people, while technically belonging to the frontier division, will in this case be treated elsewhere. Within the boundaries of the United States, the frontier has four distinct phases, each one with its own set of problems. First, there is the stock- raising country, a region which is ever receding before the rush of agri- cultural settlers. Every year the stockman is compelled to seek higher parts of the mountains and lonelier stretches in the valleys. His days on the frontier are numbered. Then there are the mining regions, the lum- ber lands and, most important, the agricultural sections. In regions devoted to stock-raising, the population is necessarily very much scattered. There are but few towns, these generally consisting of a blacksmith shop and a grocery store. The bunk-house takes the place of the home. The roving life of a cowboy and the absence of women and chil- dren make domesticity impossible. It also renders the minister's task dif- ficult and often discouraging. Outdoor work gives the cattle man a generous but at the same time easy going attitude which often prevents him from taking the preacher's mes- sage seriously. Missionaries report that at the ranches in the cattle coun- try they receive the most enthusiastic welcomes and the poorest returns. The picturesque cowboys of the old days are gradually giving place to swarthy little Mexicans who have im- migrated from the South. The cattle king now lives in town, wears a tuxedo to dinner and visits the range only once or twice a year. Its man- agement is entrusted to the foreman. An entirely new program is necessary to reach the modernized sections of the cattle country. What the Western deserts and mountains lack in physical beauty is more than made up by the wealth which lies under their grim exteriors. Nothing less than a bribe of gold could draw men to them in the earlier days. Though other industries flourish, min- ing still contributes a great part of the frontier's wealth. But the type of mine has changed. New methods of extraction have made it profitable to work with ore that was formerly discarded. Low grade ore has meant miners of different type. The prospector who faced the desert alone has been supplanted by Italians, Greeks, and Slavs — unskilled workers capable only of taking orders from a section boss. In Rock Springs, Wyo- ming, a town of 8,000 people, 26 lan- guages are spoken. There is no more bitter industrial strife anywhere in the United States than that which exists between the Western mine owners and their em- ployes. The Cripple Creek riots, the Ludlow massacre and the Bisbee de- portations are examples of the pitch reached in this industrial war. When the church enters such a district, it frequently faces the alternative of lin- ing up with the company and gaining the distrust of the people or of ignor- 4 broken Cratte !:■.. This type of cowboy will soon be found only in the moving-picture studios ing the company and submitting to a long course of persecution. I. W. W. and atheistic propaganda thrive among the dissatisfied miners. The foreign-speaking miners are taking lessons in disloyalty. The challenge of the new mining center must be met by the best young men the church can afford. There are still districts with small mines operated by American labor. But generally, if these mines show signs of paying, the big companies enter. If the mine "peters out," the entire town is abandoned. Motorists in the West are frequently surprised to find a town without a single living creature, except, perhaps, an old In- dian sunning himself in the doorway of what was once a general store . The golden goddess proved fickle and the camp was deserted almost over night . Within a few years the population of Goldfield, Nevada, has dropped from 30,000 to 3,000. Bull Frog, which once had 10,000 people, now has only a few hundred. The Church which enters these com- munities becomes a gambler, too. The pastor never knows when his congre- gation is going to take the trail which leads out into other fields, leaving him with an unpaid salary and deserted church. Yet he cannot always aban- don the charge . The few who cling to a vanishing hope frequently remain behind. Sometimes, after a lull of a few years, a small, steady stream of agricultural settlers comes in to take the place of the miners. Up in Vir- ginia City, Nevada, abandoned tun- nels, holes like shell craters, and rust- ing machinery are all that mark the place of the great Comstock lode. But around the deserted mines has grown up a peaceful fringe of small farms and cattle ranches. The mines which produce low grade ore are much more likely to draw a stable population. Big corporations do not honeycomb the earth with tun- nels and put up expensive smelters unless they are reasonably certain of the returns. The extent of copper, coal and iron deposits can be fairly well determined beforehand. The church which enters such districts stands a fair chance of enjoying an un- interrupted existence. Up in the northwestern mountains are the great lumbering camps, where the logs are being cut from which the nation builds its fleet, where every stroke of the axe means a blow at au- tocracy. The lumber men are fre- quently foreigners who were recruited for the work in gangs. Their only idea of America is gleaned from what they hear in the bunk-houses and from occasional visits to the city to spend their earnings. The work goes on seven days a week. It is seldom in- deed that a preacher climbs the long trail to the camp. Last in time but first in importance are the agricultural regions. The adoption of dry farming has opened up thousands of acres which were for- merly considered unfit for cultivation. A district with only ten inches of rain- £>n Ctje jfrontter 5 fall annually can be farmed under this system, provided its seasonal distri- bution is favorable. Within the last decade the govern- ment has spent over $70,000,000 on irrigation enterprises . This meant the opening of 1,910,000 acres for cultiva- tion. Over 15,000,000 acres more were included in private and industrial projects. Engineers say that fully 40,000,000 acres, now arid, can be watered when the necessary dams and ditches are built. The completion of each project has brought an inrush of settlers, towns almost literally spring- ing up over night. The "dry lands" of Colorado, the desert regions of Nevada and the mesa country of Ari- zona have become the Mecca of agri- cultural pioneers . Over 40,000 home- steads were patented by the govern- The church that would keep up with the rush of the West can't wait to finish a steeple ment last year and over 100,000 orig- inal entries recorded. The agricultural phase of the fron- tier is the newest and least spectacular. At the same time it promises the largest returns, both in wealth and in stable population. PART TWO A Man Sized Job T^\0 you realize, you who live within *^ two blocks of a church, that there are thousands of young people in the United States who never in their lives have had an opportunity to hear a sermon? Do you know that there are towns in which there have been no religious services for twenty years? This is the penalty which the fron- tiersmen often pay for cultivating the waste spots and increasing the coun- try's productiveness. When they and their families turn their faces toward the Western hills, they must turn their backs on the church. The church is not interested enough to follow them. Is it so very surprising, then, that when the pastor does come, the frontiersman is no longer interested? The church cannot hold aloof while the pioneers are struggling to conquer the new land and then expect a cor- dial welcome after prosperity has come. When Dr. John F. Wilson, superin- tendent of the Nevada Mission, was visiting a small mining town, he asked a nine-year-old boy if he went to Sunday school. "Naw," answered the young hope- ful. "What in hell's that?" At a western state university an announcement concerning a Sunday school meeting was once made in the assembly hall. Two young women remained to make further inquiries. "We want very much to go, just to see what a Sunday school is like," they said. "Neither of us ever had a chance to attend one in our lives." 6 15roken Cratte Making the desert bloom like a rose is the work of these irrigation engineers. In the wake of the water will come thousands of settlers and a big opportunity for the church The Home Board of the Methodist Episcopal Church appropriated, in 1916, $22,000 for missions in Mon- tana. During that same year, how- ever, the Montana Methodists them- selves raised, for church work and benevolences, more than $230,000, or ten and a half dollars for every dollar received. This record, good as it is, does not include considerable sums expended on Methodist schools and hospitals. Nevertheless, there are today in Montana 69 organized classes of Methodists without places of wor- ship, and without pastors. Doing his best, the Montana clergyman has to spend his Sundays racing madly over the ranges in order to reach at least some of his charges . A superannuated pastor, nearly 80 years old, opened up 62 school-house appointments in the state of Washing- ton, under the direction of Dr. Jabez Harrison, superintendent of the Olym- pia District. When he preached in one of the valleys, an elderly woman came up to him and wrung his hand. "You are the first pastor who has been here in 20 years," she said. "My children grew up in this valley and were married by an officer of the court. They never saw a clergyman before in their lives." Nevertheless the West is no longer a sort of "rough-neck brother" in the American family, tolerated but not exactly approved. It is a powerful and important member. As time goes on, its influence will increase. The children growing up now will have a good deal to do with guiding the nation in the years to come. And these children are growing up away from the church. During the settlement of the older frontier, including Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, and Nebraska, Methodism was awake . The church and the set- tler were pioneers together, bearing hardships and sharing labor. In 1833 the famous Jason Lee, with his nephew and two laymen, went across the Rockies to what was then called a foreign mission . At that time Oregon was practically farther away from Boston than India is now . Only £Dn C6e jFtontter 7 an occasional ship took the fearful journey of twenty thousand miles around Cape Horn, and crossing the Rockies, together with that unknown "Great American Desert" as it was called on the maps, presented un- imaginable terrors. The little party left New England in March, 1834, and succeeded in making the trip overland in about six months. Jason Lee preached his first sermon at Vancouver on the twenty- eighth of September, and after a time decided to settle in the Willamette Valley. The record of these early years of the Oregon Settlement reads almost like the adventures of mythical heroes. Neither diplomats nor financial mag- nates could have outdone Jason Lee. In 1838 he returned to the East for reinforcements, and succeeded in arousing enthusiasm to such an extent that the greatest missionary expedi- tion which, up to that time, had ever been organized was placed under his hands. This consisted of thirty-six Methodists who sailed round the Cape on board the steamship Lausanne and reached the mission in 1840. With a sum of sixteen hundred dollars, col- lected on the trip for the purpose of building an educational institution, what is now Willamette University was started. Such an expedition and such a sum of money represented enormous sac- rifice and devotion in those days. The Home of Jason Lee Willamette University, as it looked in the old days Can we of today match it? As a re- sult of the work of those early days, the states which made up the old frontier were saved to the United States and are now the strongholds of Methodism. More pastors and mis- sionaries claim them for their birth- place than come from any other part of the country. These states are al- ways near the head of the list in the amounts which they give to benevo- lences. Yet if the church had not been awake in those early days, the story might have been very different. Practically all religious workers come from Christian homes. If the church fails to meet the spiritual needs of the new frontier, it does not mean merely that a few cowboys and ranch- ers fail to find a place of worship on Sunday; it means that when Method- ism calls the roll for workers in the future, there will be no answer from the great West. Nowhere in the United States is a higher caliber man required for relig- ious work than on the frontier. The Western minister has all the problems of the Eastern pastor, with numerous additional ones stirred in. He must break ground in a country where peo- ple are not fundamentally interested in religion, where church-going is by no means a habit. He must work with congregations which change from year to year and seem to promise self-sup- port somewhere around Judgment Day. S IBroken Cratte Being a pastor on the frontier is a man-sized job, requiring both grit and education. There are more college graduates in proportion to the popu- lation than anywhere else in the United States. A minister cannot preach even in a school-house near a remote mountain pass without being likely to address men who can string half the alphabet after their names. He must also know how to deal with the cowboy, the Slovak in the mines, the lumber jack whose head is full of Bolshevikism, the rancher who must watch his irrigation ditches on Sunday as well as any other time, the young civil engineer fresh from college, the Mormon who is spiritually hungry, but who is afraid to desert his church. Infinite patience and infinite tact — these are two of the chief points in the make-up of a successful Western min- ister. How to deliver his message in a town 75 per cent Mormon without antagonizing the Latter Day Saints; how to conduct himself in a mining camp where' the men and the company are waging bitter industrial war; how to fight gambling in a town which de- rives most of its revenue from its reputation of being wide-open, are just a few of the questions which the fron- tier pastor is called upon to face. And what inducement does the Church offer to the young men who are competent to carry Christ's mes- sage in the West? In the state of Nevada the average salary for a Methodist minister is $750 a year. Bear in mind that in Raw- hide, for instance, a quart of milk costs twenty-five cents. This is merely a sample price. Everything else is equally high. In some of the mining camps water retails for one dollar a barrel. In the Butte district, Montana, the salaries average $950 a year with the use of a parsonage. This district is a mining country, and the church is the only recreation center for hundreds of young people. Yet the pastors who shoulder these heavy responsibilities receive considerably less for their services than the average janitor in New York. One part of the Centenary program for the Far West is providing these ministers with enough for a decent livelihood and with automobiles neces- sary for their work. PART THREE Artillery and Intercession A MAN fond of tramping said that he never managed to do much walking in the West; everybody he met so cordially insisted on giving him a "lift" that his hike always turned into an automobile tour. Let your machine break down in the West- ern village and everybody from the postmaster to the saloon man will be out in the street, offering assistance. Building up the West has meant constant working together. Every man had time to "lend a hand" to his neighbor. He who tried to stay aloof from the others went down to prompt defeat in the war with the elements, the desert and hard conditions of life. In the early day the settlers banded together to fight Indians; today they unite to bring water from distant mountains, to organize city govern- ments, to build roads over the desert. On Cfce jfrontter Forests of the great Northwest are falling before the cry of "Ships, ships and more ships!" But it is seldom that even a preacher remembers to visit the soldiers behind the axe The neighborliness that was once ab- solutely essential to existence has be- come a fixed habit. When the West- erner becomes interested in the church his ability to work with other men and to extend warm greetings to the stranger help him to accomplish wonders. The greatest criminal in the eyes of the man beyond the Great Divide is the knocker. Murder is forgiven more readily than pessimism. Who- ever fails to see an embryo Western metropolis in every group of five houses and a blacksmith shop had better pack up his kit bag and move. The wide discrepancies between the population of certain Western towns as given by their Chambers of Com- merce and by the United States Census do not count as deliberate misrepresentation. It means simply that their constructive imagination has been working overtime. A certain presidential candidate lost the West and thereby the office merely because he spent too much time "knocking" his opponent. "If you can't say something decent about the other fellow, keep quiet," is a typical Western motto. The gospel which is to reach the frontier must be one of good cheer and glad tidings, not of threats. The West has a very decided code of its own. Its cardinal precept is loyalty — loyalty to one's comrade, loyalty to one's town. A man is ex- pected to risk his life when his friend is in danger; he receives no unusual commendation for doing so. A frontier superintendent of the Nevada Mission, visiting a small min- ing town recently, was introduced to a stranger with the following words: "Shake hands with a mighty nice fel- low. He shot a man last month." Investigation showed that the man he shot had mistreated a woman. "Wo- man receives the highest respect in the world from a frontiersman, as long as she conducts herself in such a way as to demand it," said the superin- tendent in telling the incident. "It 10 IBtokm Craite In the bare valleys of desert ranges are tucked hundreds of tiny mining towns. A religious service once a year is some- times considered a good average is safer to insult God Almighty in the West than it is to insult a woman." There never was a western jury called in a case of this nature that did not throw the statute books to the winds and follow instead the silent precepts of the unwritten law. This unwritten code, opera'ting in days when the machinery of government was lacking, must, of course, give place to estab- lished law; but the right spirit is there. The nerve, courage and gener- osity of the frontiersman must be used for the country and for the Church. That this spirit still exists is abun- dantly evident . Though the frontiers- man fails to take assault and battery very seriously, he is as unbending as adamant in his attitude toward fair play. He will not permit any advan- tage to be taken of those who cannot well look after themselves. Though he seldom talks about Christianity in the market place, he writes it into the statute books. Eight-hour laws for women, workmen's compensation, woman suffrage, prohibition, and stringent laws against child labor are found in the political codes of nearly every Western state. Nine of the twelve frontier states are dry;' two more are to vote on the liquor ques- tion this year. He may be a little^slow'to admit it, but the fact remains that the West- erner, especially he of the cattle ranges and of the back trails, is very readily touched by sentiment. A woman and child stranded in a rough mining town received a hat full of gold and silver recently, just ten minutes after their predicament was made known. Dr. W. W. Van Orsdell, pioneer superintendent of the Milk River Dis- trict, North Montana Conference, was once called to conduct a service at a little settlement made up of cowboys and miners, about 60 miles from a railroad. He found the town at a fever heat because a man had been killed in his sleep — a form of murder very much against the Western code— and the murderer had gotten away. Since there were no children in the town, there was no school house and consequently no place to preach. A saloon keeper then volunteered the use of his establishment. With cases and kegs for seats, each one with a brand of liquor painted conspicuously upon it, the unusual church opened its doors. Among the first arrivals was the widow of the murdered man, accom- panied by a number of male relatives. Then two of the slayer's brothers en- tered. One movement toward the hip, said Dr. Van Orsdell, would have turned the services into a riot. An old man sitting outside by the door refused to come in, saying that he had not been to a church in fifty years and wouldn't know just how to act. Dr. Van Orsdell, in a flash of inspiration, appointed him custodian of the artil- lery. Every man in the congregation was required to turn over his firearms to the guardian at the door. flDn C&e JFrontter 11 Then to this rough congregation, each member of which had come ready to shoot at the drop of the hat, Dr. Van Orsdell preached on "Mother, Home and Heaven." "Never in my life did I have such a responsive audience," he said. "At the end of the service, the slayer's brother, along with others, came for- ward and confessed Christ. The ap- peal of old-fashioned sentiment to these men was electrical." PART FOUR The Vanishing Border '"PHE West is rich and its people prosperous. Why can't they sup- port their own churches? There are as many answers as there are phases of the frontier. The first thing to be remembered is that the frontiersman is not tlje type to seek the church; the church must seek him. The church must convince him that it deserves his support; that it is worth attending. When once he is won over, he responds with the char- acteristic open-heartedness of the West. But the winning may require years, and in the meantime, the pastor must seek his maintenance outside the district or close the doors of the church. Then too, after a pastor has edu- cated his people to the point of self- support, a drought, a crop failure, or a gold strike in some other region may depopulate the district almost within a month. The frontiersmen are con- tinually on the move . As one district superintendent expressed it, the fron- tier minister preaches to a procession. Work on the cattle ranges, in the lumber camps and even in some of the mining towns must always be of a mis- sionary character. The cowboy's home address is his saddle; the lumber hand carries all his worldly effects in a roll on his back. They are as migra- tory as the swallow and are just as difficult to organize into a religious body. In the mining towns where the foreign-speaking element predomi- nates, the church work entails a con- siderable outlay of money and a minister with special training, but there will be practically no financial return. No one needs the church in- fluence more than the foreign-speaking miner. Anarchists and syndicalists have singled him out as their special objective. He has no decent place for recreation . Frequently illiterate , he is the victim of every demagogue or soap-box orator. Providing for the spiritual and social needs of these lum- ber men and miners is one of the chief items on the frontier Centenary pro- gram. Throughout the mountains and plains of the West are scattered thou- sands of small communities numbering from 100 to 500 people. Some of them show promise, in later years, of becoming thriving towns; others, once prosperous mining centers, are now peopled by men and women who nurse a forlorn hope that the good old days will return. These communities are generally too remote to be served by ministers from other towns. They cannot afford to shoulder all the ex- penses of a church themselves. Yet young people from these far-off places sometimes enter the universities and 12 broken Cratls reach positions of prominence in the state. Methodism cannot afford to neglect them. Even the church in a town of several thousand, with every promise of a stable population, often finds self-sup- port difficult. The frontiersmen must make in a few years all the public im- provements which Eastern communi- ties have taken decades to acquire. They must organize city government, erect court-houses, build roads, con- struct lighting systems and secure water supplies. All this means a tax rate that would delight a Socialist — provided he didn't own any property. The frontiersman's back is bent under a heavy load of paved streets and pub- lic buildings . To pile a church on top seems to him the last straw; especially if he is one of the many who take but passing interest in religion. Yet the church which enters first is the church which will stand first, after the community has cut its wisdom teeth. Above all, the building must be a credit to the town . One Montana city of 8,000 people recently put up a $250,000 high school. If Methodism is going to command respect, it must erect churches which measure up to the town's architectural standards. Interest and pride in the building is but a short step away from interest in what is being preached within the building. The great majority of mines, lum- ber mills and oil wells are owned by people who have never been west of Chicago. A steady stream of revenue pours from frontier industries into Eastern bank-accounts. The dis- tricts which profit from the riches of the West should remember, when the Centenary pledges are passed around, that they are merely paying their just debts. Besides, if the church is not brought in now, there will be but small chance of introducing it after the frontier has become the citadel of the nation. PART FIVE Where Allegiances Conflict VK7TIEN a transcontinental train * * enters Utah, people who were formerly engrossed in Trashy Stories begin to sit up and look out the win- dow. "Now, Willie," said a fond mother recently to the pest of the Pullman, "if you're a real good boy, mama will let you look out at the Mormons." Willie's howl of disappointment when he discovered that they were "just like any other people," was echoed in a less emphatic way by many of the grown-up passengers. "Well, did you expect every resi- dent to come down with nine wives and meet the train?" queried a travel- ing man. "Mormonism isn't anything you can see." "No, you can't see it," returned a quiet-looking man who was returning to Salt Lake City, "but, by George, you can feel it! In business, in poli- tics, in journalism, there's always a force pulling this way or that and no- body can realize how strong it is until he tries to pull in the opposite direc- tion." This, indeed, is the case with Mor- monism in Utah. The Mormons have tried to control the industries, the press, and the government. The CJje jFrontter 13 The prospector of earlier years has been succeeded by the foreign-born miner who knows barely enough English to understand the foreman. His time is divided between the black depths of the pit and the low-class amusements offered by the mining-town church council is a little Vatican from which go forth edicts affecting the actions of thousands of people. Much has been written about Mor- monism that is sensational and much that is untrue. Pressure of "Gentile" opinion coupled with the universal Western desire to "play up" one's home state has succeeded in keeping polygamy out of sight, where it exists at all. But the danger of Mormonism does not lie primarily in plural mar- riages. Polygamy on a large scale was possible only when the state was iso- lated from the rest of the Union. The danger of Mormonism rests in the tendency of the church to become a financial and political factor; in the slavish obedience required in matters quite outside of religion; in its de- cidedly non-Christian doctrines; in its clannishness and absolute intolerance. The Mormon rarely changes his faith. This is not because the creed of the Latter Day Saints has brought him spiritual satisfaction, but because the church skilfully ties up the finan- cial affairs of its members before they are awake to their predicament . When a man has invested every cent in a Mormon controlled company, he is not likely to change his religion, at least, not outwardly. Neither is he likely to do so if he makes his money selling goods to Mormon customers, or if he must depend on a Mormon neighbor for his water supply. If he has held public office, he understands that apostasy means instant political death. Even apart from financial hardships, he knows that conversion to Christianity often implies ostracism among his friends and a long course of petty persecution. There can be no compromise or co- operation between Christianity and Mormonism any more than between the religion of Christ and the teach- ings of Mohammed. While we are sending a few underpaid missionaries to Utah, the Latter Day Saints keep 1,400 of their missionaries in other parts of the United States. The tithing system enables the church to 14 broken Cratte Mormons throughout Utah keep alive the memory of their migration by means of parades and pageants. The church leaders never allow them to forget that they are a race apart amass enough money to make Croesus look like a candidate for the relief home. Mormon temples have been erected in Canada and Hawaii. Not contented with the achievements of its missionaries, the church relies very largely upon the printed page. Through booklets, newspaper articles, and advertisements, it floods the country with its propaganda. The membership of the Mormon church is estimated at 500,000 — of whom 293,000 are in Utah, 78,000 in Idaho, 15,000 in Arizona and 15,000 in Wyoming — the rest being scattered. The yearly increase in membership averages 10,000 — not a very great return, considering the large number of missionaries in the field. The Methodist Missionary in Utah must have the vision of Jacob and the patience of Job. Otherwise, imps of discouragement would be sitting on the foot of his bed every night and waiting for him when he opened his eyes in the morning. After years of effort he can frequently count his con- verts on the fingers of two hands. And it must be added that if Utah were entirely a Mormon state, the work might seem well-nigh hopeless. But people of other denominations are gradually crowding in . There are now 10,000 Roman Catholics, 8,000 Greek Catholics, and 100,000 not affiliated with any religious body. Many of these are of Mormon stock. Less than 10,000 people — about two per cent of the population — are Protestants and of this number only 1,712 are active Methodists. Besides meeting the problem of the Mormon church, the missionaries in Utah must keep alive the faith of these little scattered bands of Meth- odists. Of the twenty Methodist churches in the state, only two are self-supporting. The others are doing as best they can on a share of the $16,900 allotted to Utah last year by the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension. Most important of all, it is neces- sary to remember that just as there are two ways of overcoming Prussian- ism, there are two ways of gaining a *Dn C&e jFrontter victory over the Mormon menace. The frontal attack, consisting of sen- sational speeches on polygamy and denunciations in mass meetings, is no longer accepted by the church. It prefers, by its influence, to lead the Mormon people into modifying their own teachings and practices. Much has already been accomplish- ed. Contrast, for instance, the church that countenanced the Moun- tain Meadow massacre and defied the United States government with the church that is today boosting the Liberty Loans and promoting enlist- ment. The Mormon church formerly considered itself a power quite apart from and above the state. Its atti- tude toward the federal government varied from mere sullenness to active hostility. The influence of the Chris- tian missionaries, who counted their gains so small, has in reality been a large factor in bringing Mormonism to its present display of patriotism. At first Mormonism was adverse to popular education. But when the leading Mormons discovered that the believers were sending their children to "Gentile" mission schools rather then let them grow up in ignorance, they hastily adopted a public school system. Today, Utah boasts of ex- cellent schools and a thriving state university — improvements which are directly due to the sore-pressed and often discouraged missionaries. Gradually, too, the Latter Day Saints are shifting emphasis from the Book of Mormon to the Christian Bible. "Rock of Ages" and "Jesus, Lover of My Soul" are becoming favorite hymns in the Mormon meet- ings . The Methodist missionary with the wheezy little melodeon made the desert ring with these songs in the days when the state was populated almost entirely by Mormons, Indians and rattle-snakes. The claws of Mormonism are being cut. In time, the church may come to resemble a Christian denomination. And it is not for us to count the num- ber of actual converts when asked to contribute toward Utah's Centenary program. PART SIX Is There A Good Indian ? A FEW years ago nobody except a few missionaries applied any thought to the Indian question. It was generally conceded that the tu- berculosis germ and the red man were locked in a deadly conflict and that the germ was getting the better of it. People expected that the aborigine problem would be buried under six feet of sod in a comparatively short time. Meanwhile, they arranged to treat him as most communities treat victims of incurable disease- — keep him comfortable until he died. He was fed, housed and clothed at gov- ernment expense, with no thought of making him self-supporting. But the Indian unwittingly treated his white brother to a little surprise party. The Federal officials woke up one fine day to find that the red skins, in fact, were coming, not going. As soon as the Indian learned from Christian missionaries and govern- ment agents that evil spirits would not enter his home at night, he opened his windows. And when fresh air comes in, tuberculosis goes out. It was not 16 ^Broken Cratls Who said that the Indian has no sense of humor? The man who can laugh has taken a big step toward civilization and is more than ready for the missionary true, as many believed, that the as- sumption of civilized ways was killing the red man. Instead, he was dying off because he tried to take the super- stitions of the tepee into his reserva- tion bungalow. When he learned how foolish the superstitions were, the Indian took a new lease on life. There are now 335,998 Indians in the United States, as many, say some authorities, as roamed the country when America was first discovered. Of this number 119,108 are found in Oklahoma, the states with the next largest Indian populations being Ari- zona, South Dakota, New Mexico, California and Minnesota. All the frontier states have many Indians within their borders, both within and without the reservations. Those who live on their own resources generally work as section hands, as makers of trinkets or as employes of the cattle ranges. The government requires most of the Indians on reservations to till the little plots of ground around their homes. Formerly they were given complete rations, which left them with nothing to do except sit on the ground before their huts, as un- concerned over their next meal as a barnacle on a rock — and just about as progressive . Less than forty per cent of our first Americans are Christian. About 40,- 000 of them are without any mission- aries or church facilities whatever, most of this number never having heard of the gospel. Lost in the back waters of our new civilization, the Indian has been almost completely forgotten by the church. Though the Methodist Episcopal Church works among 19 tribes, the property equip- ment is poor and the helpers too few. The Indian braves are almost the only ones to whom an appeal has been made. While they attend services in the rickety little Mission, the calico clad women make baskets in the door- ways of their houses and the children play games in the dusty road. No- £Dn C&e /frontier 17 body has cared enough about them to invite them into the services. There is hardly one Indian Sunday School in Methodism. The church, however, has its heroes in this field. Dr. Charles L. Bovard, formerly district superintendent in New Mexico, tells of two heroic wom- en — one a college graduate — who conducted an Indian mission in the heart of the desert. The Indians among whom they worked were the Apaches — a tribe so savage that it is controlled directly by the War De- partment. With the thermometer averaging HO degrees, Dr. Bovard found these women engaged in digging a well. An old Indian filled a bucket with earth at the bottom and the two women painfully hauled it to the sur- face by means of a crank. By this slow process they had already reached a depth of eighteen feet. During Dr. Bovard's visit, a party of Indians drove up with a sick baby. "What is the matter with it?" queried Dr. Bovard. "Small-pox," answered the mission- ary calmly. "And you are going to care for it?" "Certainly. I can not fail these people," was the answer. A few months later, when Dr. Bovard again visited the mission, he found this woman in the public pest- house at Las Vegas, a victim of her kindness to another Indian small-pox sufferer. During the painful process of the disease, her one thought was to recover as quickly as possible so that she could go back to her charges. It is men and women like this who, unnoticed and forgotten, are minister- ing to the Indians. It is to help them in their heroic work that the Cente- nary is asking $127,450 for its Indian missions. Recognizing that in the days to come the redskin must learn to stand on his own feet, the training of native workers is provided for in the Centenary program. Indian schools The pastor of this portable church has no fear of a shifting population. If the town moves, the church moves with it do not go beyond the second year of high school; the future pastors must be cared for in other institutions. Equally important is the training of Indian women to go into the homes on the reservations and teach the squaws some rudiments of domestic science. When the aborigine homes reach a higher standard, returning students will not face the heart-breaking strug- gle between their new ideals and the conditions they find on the reserva- tions . Along with the lowly mop and dust-pan will enter the Christian Gos- pel, for these workers will seek to interest the women in the church and the children in the newly organized Sunday Schools. The Indians are loyal. During 1917 they purchased $4,500,000 worth of Liberty Bonds and thousands of their young men voluntarily went into service. When Methodism stretches up to its responsibility, the red man, like the people on the border, will respond with equal devotion. Meth- ods may vary, but the call is one. It is the call to good Citizenship , both in this country of our love, and in that 18 15rofeen Cratls Nobody can look at little George Bone Necklace and believe that the Indians are a dying race realm of righteousness whose boun- daries are wide as the world yet com- prehended by the human heart. When once the frontiersman be- comes affiliated with the church, all his energy, his optimism, his boosting spirit, is turned into the new channel. But though he lives in Montana, he is very often from Missouri. He does not accept the church on the ground of tradition. It must prove its mes- sage to him through the medium of its pastors. From the bare table lands of Wyo- ming; from the high places of Color- ado, where the snow is melted but two months in the year; from Nevada, the land of the lost rivers; from the great salt flats of Utah and from the hot mesas of Arizona, comes the chal- lenge of the frontier. The West is the country of dreamers, of men whose vision has turned deserts into gardens, who have taken gold from the black depths of the Funeral Range, and who have chained rivers and girdled moun- tains. It is to them that the Church must bring its message, lest they miss seeing the greatest vision of all. The Centenary is calling for men and money to shoulder the task on the frontier. It will repeat its summons "Till a voice as bad as conscience rings interminable changes, On one everlasting whisper day and night repeated So ... so 'Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges. Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!' " The Centenary Plans for Frontier Work To build more and better churches. To increase the salaries of pastors in the field. To enlist the service of the finest youth in Methodism in frontier work. To establish social centers in the mining and lumbering districts. To assist in teaching the English language. To extend the work of deaconesses and evangelists. To further a community spirit and community enterprise. Included in this program are plans for new parsonages and other buildings, at a cost of more than three and a half millions, two-thirds of which will be raised in the local fields and one-third at the home base. flDn C&e JFrontier 19 Facts Concerning the Frontier There is still an American frontier TN the state of Nevada there is less than one person to the square mile. Montana, the third largest state in the Union, has a population no larger than that of the city of New Orleans. Though other industries flourish, the mines still contribute a great part of the frontier's wealth. The lone prospector has been sup- plemented by Italians, Greeks, Slavs — unskilled workmen overseen by a "boss." In Rock Springs, Iowa, a town of 8,000 inhabitants, 26 languages are spoken. The life of the mining town is uncer- tain. Within a few years the popu- lation of Goldfield, Nevada, dropped from 30,000 to 3,000. Dry farming has greatly enlarged the frontier. Within the last decade 1,910,000 acres, formerly arid, have been opened for cultivation. Over 40,000 homesteads were patented by the Government last year and over 100,000 original entries re- corded. In Montana there are 69 organized congregations of Methodists with- out, places of worship or pastors. In Nevada, the average salary for a Methodist missionary is $750 a year. But, in Rawhide, milk is 25 cents a quart, and in some mining camps water is a dollar a barrel. In Butte District, Montana, the aver- age salary for ministers is $950 a year, with the use of a parsonage. Nine of the twelve frontier states are dry; two more will vote on the liquor question this year. The Mormon Church is said to have a membership of 500,000, and a yearly increase of about 10,000. In Utah, less than 10,000 people — about 2% of the population — are Protestants. Only 1,712 are active Methodists. There are now 335,998 Indians in the United States, the greatest number living in Oklahoma. Less than 40% of the Indians are Christian. About 40,000 are with- out any missionaries or church facilities whatever. The Methodist Episcopal Church works among 19 tribes of Indians. During 1917, Indians purchased $4,- 500,000 worth of Liberty Bonds. Thousands of their young men are serving in our army. With the thermometer registering 112 degrees, the desert church must have thick adobe walls and a pastor with a large amount of consecration 20 aotiectfeement Cf)e Centenary Jpome Boartr 3Soofeiets Prepared by the Joint Centenary Committee for the Department of Frontier Work of the Board of Home Missions and Chureh Extension of the Methodist Episcopal Church 1701 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pa. jftum&ec £>ne Three Outposts of Liberty Porto Rico, Hawaii and Alaska J13umfiec Ctoo Save the City A discussion of the problems confronting the Church in reaching the industrial and foreign-speaking groups of the cities jftumft-et Cljree The Stranger Within Our Gates A Study of the Americanization problem H3umfter jfouc Broken Trails on The Frontier A view of the work in remote border settlements jftum&ec jfnie Off The Highroad An inquiry into the rural situation in connection with the work of the Church John Stewart's Kinsmen A survey of the needs of the Negro Price five cents each 3totnt Centenary Committee HUtJpriiist Eptarapal (Ehitrth, Urthn&tat Etttarapal (Church, g>uuth 111 Wtl? 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