over to the new building, picking our way among redoubts of the
sparkling blocks of granite. A picture of the building as it will appear
when the work is finished, hung under glass, at the closed door of the
superintendent's office, and enabled us to get a very good idea of how
the great structure would look. The Madame joined the rest of us in
admiration for the massive character of every part of the work.
[Illustration: MORMON TEMPLE, TABERNACLE AND ASSEMBLY HALL.]
We found that above the enormous foundations the wall had a thickness of
nine feet, which decreases to seven at the height of the roof. Nor was
this wall hollow, or filled or backed with brick or anything else, but
was made solid throughout of hewn granite. Even the pillars, the
partitions, the stairways, the floors and ceilings in many apartments,
were of solid matched stone. The beveled window openings through these
thick walls are like embrasures of a fort; and the many small rooms in
which it is to be divided, will cause the structure to seem more like a
prison than a religious temple. In fact it is not designed as a house of
worship,--the Tabernacle remains for that--but is intended as a sacred
edifice within which various ordinances of the Church, closely allied to
those of Masonry, now performed in the Endowment House, shall be
celebrated.
The external ornamentation of the great building is original and
symbolical in its plan. The wall is pierced with four tiers of large
windows, the second and fourth tiers being circular. The keystone of
each of the arches over these windows, as well as over the various
doors, bears a star in high relief; and between the windows room is
found for three tiers of circular bosses, eight on each side, upon which
symbols will be carved in high relief. The lowermost of these rows will
bear maps of various parts of the world; the second tier, eight phases
of the moon; and the topmost tier eight blazing suns. The suns, moons
and stars are already cut, but the maps of the earth remain to be
carved.
The cost of the temple has been the subject of much public questioning
and careless slander. A man assured us that it had cost sixteen millions
of dollars. This is certainly an exaggeration. I have the word of
President Taylor that the total cost up to the present time has been
about two millions of dollars, derived from the church tithings. The
same work could be duplicated now for a far less sum; but a large part
of this was done before the railway was built, when the stone had to be
hauled from the distant quarries by ox-teams. It is supposed that
another million dollars and two years more time, will complete and
furnish the building. That will be a great day for Salt Lake.
By the time we had finished our inspection of the temple, the Tabernacle
had been pretty well filled by the crowds of people who poured into its
many doors. One of these streams we followed.
The Tabernacle has been so often described and figured that I need spend
little time over it. Imagine an elliptical dome, shingled, set upon a
circle of stone piers about twenty feet in height, and you will have an
image of this extraordinary building. Were it set upon an eminence it
would be as grand in its place (perfectly fitting Utah scenery in its
severely simple outlines) as the Acropolis at Athens.
Service in the Tabernacle is held on Sundays at two o'clock in the
afternoon. The people assemble not only from the city but from all the
country around. Women and children are in great force. The great
amphitheatre supplies seats for thirteen thousand people, and it is
nearly filled every Sunday. A broad gallery closes around at the front
end where the choir sit in two wings, facing each other--the men on one
side and the young women on the other. The space between is filled by
the splendid organ (back high up against the wall) and by three long,
crimson-cushioned pulpit-desks, in each of which twenty speakers or so
can sit at once, each rank overlooking the heads of the one beneath. The
highest of these belongs to the president and his two counselors; the
second to the twelve apostles, and the lowest to the bishops. The
acoustic properties of the building are wonderful; a person standing in
a certain space near one end, can hear the gentlest whisper, or, that
universal test, a pinfall, from quite the other end. A former deficiency
of light, has been overcome by the use of gas and electricity; and the
chilling barrenness of the vast whitewashed and unbroken vault is
relieved by a liberal hanging of evergreen festoons, and trailing
wreaths of flowers made of colored tissue paper. These trimmings are far
enough away from the eye, and in masses of sufficient size to make their
effect very satisfactory.
Every Sunday the sacrament is administered, the tables loaded with the
baskets of bread and silver tankards of water (never wine) occupying a
dais at the foot of the pulpits, upon which several bishops take their
places, and break the bread into fragments. Precisely at two o'clock the
great organ sends forth its melodious invocation, and the subdued noise
of neighborly gossip, which, as the Madame said, "seemed the veritable
humming of the honey bees of Deseret in their house hive," is wholly
hushed. The music at the Tabernacle is far-famed in the west, and gives
constant delight to all the people. The singing is followed by a long
prayer by some one of the dignitaries in or about the pulpits, during
which the time is utilized to prepare the bread and water; and as soon
as the prayer has ceased a large number of brethren begin to pass the
sacred food and drink. Everybody, old and young, partakes, and it is an
hour and a half before the communion is completed. Meanwhile some one of
the highest officers of the church, or perhaps two or three of them in
succession, has been preaching; so that two long hours are exhausted
before dismissal. Such was the experience of our visit, and it was an
average occasion.
The history of Salt Lake City is the history of the "Mormons,"--of the
Church of the Latter-Day Saints in Utah. It begins on the 24th of July,
1847, when Brigham Young, leading the people, who likened their
pilgrimage to a second exodus of Israel, emerged from the long cañon
that had let them through the westernmost range of the Rockies. As the
head of the weary train passed the last barrier they saw spread before
their eager vision a huge basin--miles of sage-green, velvety slopes,
sweeping down on every side from the bristling mountain-rim to the azure
surface of the Salt sea set in the center.
Here, their leader told them, the Lord commanded a halt; here his
tabernacle should be raised. It was done, and to-day a populous city
stands on the site of the first camp of the religious host,--a city as
baffling to describe in its appearance, in its social aspects, in its
pervading sentiment as any which can be found in Christendom. It was
with an intense sympathy for Mr. Robinson, that I listened to the Madame
reading the opening paragraph of the fifth chapter of his "Sinners and
Saints," a part of which I have selected as the motto of the present
chapter.
Yes, like Mr. Robinson, I would have liked "to shirk this part of my
experiences altogether," but the reader would never have pardoned me.
"What? Leave out Salt Lake City!" I hear you exclaim. "What's the good
of mentioning Utah at all, if you do that?"
Well, to begin with, the city is not on the lake nor within a score of
miles of it. When the pioneers came they descended to the foot of the
last "bench" in which the foothills yield their rights to the plain, and
there made their camp. In the same spot was founded the city. It was
quite as good a locality as any other, no doubt they thought,
considering that the whole region alike was nothing but a plain of
sagebrush. Indeed, you cannot see the lake at all from the city, except
by going up upon the "bench" of higher ground to the northward and
eastward, whence it appears only as a line of distinct color between the
dusty olive of the wide foreground, and the vague blue of the distant
hills.
The habitations of the pioneers were not built hastily and at random.
Brigham Young caused a town-site to be carefully surveyed and accurately
laid out, and it was done on a generous scale. The streets were made one
hundred and thirty feet wide, placed true to the points of the compass
and crossing one another at right angles. Each square contains ten
acres, so that when the Madame and I merely walked "around the block"
while I smoked a post-prandial cigarette, we tramped precisely half a
mile. A square of nine blocks was made to constitute a "ward"--now the
city has twenty-four-presided over by a bishop of the church. Despite
his title, he was more a temporal than a spiritual head, deciding all
small matters in dispute in those simple first days when there was no
appeal, nor desire for one, from ecclesiastical decisions to civil
judgment. Even yet, this ward classification enters largely into the
social constitution of the city.
When the streets and wards had been determined each pioneer was given an
acre and a quarter as a town lot, and as much outside land as he could
occupy. This accounts in a great measure for the ample space and
farm-like appearance of the grounds around most of the houses in this
widely dispersed city.
To make this real estate of value, however, water for irrigation must be
brought to it. This was supplied by the "City" creek flowing down from
Emigration cañon, whose current was led into ditches all over the new
colony, and still fills the roadside gutters with sparkling streams,
nourishing many gardens, and the roots of the long lines of varied shade
trees, whose boughs almost reach over the thoroughfares. All the
brethren worked in common at this ditching, and it was done so soon that
within a few days after their arrival seeds had been put in the ground
for the first crop.
"Yes," says the Madame, as I relate this history, "and they say that old
Jim Bridger watched them cynically and said they were a pack of--well,
no matter what kind of fools, and that he would give a thousand dollars
for the first ear of corn raised there."
"That's said to be true," I assent.
"But he had to acknowledge the corn," Chum puts in--and flees!
Formerly this water alone was available for domestic purposes and
drinking, as well as for irrigation, and even yet the poorer part of the
population dip it up at the curbstone for daily service. But the
introduction of pipes and hydrants has now superseded this old way,
though the water is no better; for table use, therefore, the sweet pure
beverage drawn from very deep wells is preferred. Experiments are making
in this respect to artesian wells also.
The houses built by the first settlers were mainly log cabins, and some
relics are still to be found hidden away in blossoming orchards. The
Spanish-American _adobe_ house was also a favorite, and has continued so
to the present, though instead of almost shapeless chunks of mud,
plastered in Mexican fashion, regular unburnt bricks are made by
machinery. These _adobes_ are twice the size of ordinary bricks, and the
wall into which they are formed is made twice as thick as one of burned
bricks would be. Of course this material lends itself to any style of
architecture, and many of the elaborate buildings, as well as cheap
cottages, are made of it, the soft gray tint of the natural _adobe_, or
the gentle tone of some overlying stucco harmonizing most tastefully
with the crowding greenery. Low houses, with abundant piazzas and many
nondescript additions, are the most common type in the older part of the
town; and over these so many vines are trained, and so much foliage
clusters, that one can hardly say of what material the structure itself
is formed. The residences recently built have a more eastern and
conventional aspect, and some are very imposing; but, big or little, old
or new, it is rare to find a house not ensconced in trees and shrubs and
climbing plants, while, smooth, rich, well-shaven lawns greet the eye
everywhere in town, in brilliant contrast to the bleak hills towering
overhead just without the city. As for flowers, no town east or west
cultivates them more universally and assiduously.
"There are no florists here," says the Madame.
"And no need for any--each man has his own plants if not the luxury of a
greenhouse."
Salt Lake City, then, is beautiful--a paradise in comparison with the
buffalo plains or the stony gulches in which the majority of Rocky
Mountain towns must needs be set. Nor is there any question as to the
fact that this is wholly to the credit of the Mormons--not because they
were Mormons, but because they were diligent and foresighted, and came
hither not to make a fortune and escape, but to stay and build up
pleasant homes and a prosperous commonwealth. Any other set of men might
have done the same; but certainly no other set of men _did_, for to no
others was presented the same compelling motive.
The suburbs--except toward the rocky uplands northward--grade off quite
imperceptibly, the streets continuing straight out into country roads
between dense jungles of sunflowers,--glorious walls of gold, and green;
and in these suburbs you may find some of the queerest, most idyllic
cottages.
The two broad distinctions of "Mormon" and "Gentile," are not enough to
represent the elements of Salt Lake society. At least three divisions
ought to be counted. First, the Latter-day Saints; second, the seceders
from the Mormon Church; third, the Gentiles--respectable people, mostly
attendants at Christian churches.
"Such a classification must make queer comrades," remarks Chum, as we
sit talking over these matters.
"I should say so," I reply, "the Jew becomes a Gentile, and the Roman
Catholic becomes a Protestant, making common cause with Calvinism
against the hierarchy of the Temple."
"I do not suppose," the Madame observes, "that they can sink their own
little differences, although allied in one fight; so that society must
necessarily be divided into a lot of little groups, and thus lose a
great deal."
"Yes, the people who profess no religious adherence have rather the
easiest time of it in Salt Lake, I believe."
The non-Mormon part of the citizens probably enjoy themselves more than
they would if the isolation of the locality did not compel them to be
self-centered and contrive their own amusements to a great extent. It is
a society made up of the families of successful merchants and mining
men, of clergymen and teachers, of the officers of the army stationed at
Camp Douglass, and the representatives of the government in the judicial
and other territorial offices. This composition, it will be seen,
presupposes considerable intelligence and cultivation. It was not until
Gentile gold came in to break up the old custom of barter, that the
resources of the Mormon community became really available either to
themselves or to others.
Utah has always been pre-eminently an agricultural district. Out of her
one hundred and fifty thousand people probably one hundred and twenty
thousand are now farming or stock-raising in some capacity or other.
When you look down the valley from the city, your eye takes in a wide
view of fields, orchards and meadows, green with the most luxuriant
growth, and marked off by rows of stately trees or patches of young
woodland. All these farms are small holdings, and though cultivated by
no means scientifically, have long produced well up to their several
capacities.
[Illustration: GREAT SALT LAKE.]
The exports of all sorts of grain, produce and fruit are large, and
increasing, thanks to this new railway of ours and its encouraging rates
of freight.
The Mormon leaders, and particularly Brigham Young, at first opposed any
attempt at a development of the mineral resources of the territory,
though the latter is said to have been well informed of their character
and value. He forbade all mining to his people, and would have closed
the mountains to Gentile prospectors if he had been able. So far as a
desire existed to avoid the evils of a placer-working excitement,
drawing hither a horde of gold-seekers, this course was a wise one; but
as years went on, it was seen by the shrewder heads among the Mormons
themselves that this abstinence from mining was harmful. There was no
cash in the treasury, and none to be got (I am speaking of early days).
If a surplus of grain was raised, or more of any sort of goods
manufactured than could be used at home, there was no sale for them,
since at that time, the market was so far away that the profits would
all be lost in the expense of transportation.
It is funny to hear the tales of those days. Business was almost wholly
by barter, and payments for everything had to be made by exchange. A man
who took his family to the theatre wheeled his admission fee with him in
the shape of a barrel or two of potatoes, and a young man would go to a
dance with his girl on one arm and a bunch of turnips on the other with
which to buy his ticket. Gentile emigrants and settlers soon began to
bring in coin, but the relief was gradual and inadequate.
Finally, about fifteen years ago, it was publicly argued by more liberal
minds that the only things Utah had which she could send out against
competition were gold and silver. When, from preaching they began to
practice, and enterprising men encouraged outside capital to join them
in developing silver ledges in the Wasatch and Oquirrh ranges, then Salt
Lake City began to rouse herself. Potatoes and carrots and adobes
disappeared as currency, and coin and greenbacks enlivened trade which
more and more conformed to the ordinary methods of American commerce.
One quite legitimate means taken for centralizing of trade was the
establishment, twenty-five years ago, of Zion's Coöperative Mercantile
Institution. In the early days it was extremely difficult for country
shopkeepers to maintain supplies when everything had to be hauled by
teams from the Missouri river, and the most extortionate prices would be
demanded for staples, whenever, as frequently happened, a petty dealer
would get a "corner" on some article. A few great fortunes were quickly
made, but a stop was put to this by setting on foot the coöperative
establishment, which was imitated in a small way in many rural
settlements.
The design of this institution was to furnish goods of every sort known
to merchants out of one central depot in Salt Lake City under control of
the Church and partly owned by it. This was a joint-stock "coöperative"
affair, however, and the capital was nearly a million dollars. The
people were advised from the pulpit to trade there, but they would have
done so anyhow, for the "Coöp," as they called it, was able to reduce
and equalize prices very greatly. Branches were established in Ogden,
Logan, Soda Springs, and lately a warehouse built in Provo. These and
other additions were rapid. The central salesrooms in this city now
occupy a four-story brick building, three hundred and eighteen feet long
by ninety-seven wide, where every species of merchandise is to be found.
In other quarters are a drugstore, a shoe factory (supplied by its own
tanneries and running one hundred and twenty-five machines propelled by
steam), and a factory for making canvas "overall" clothing. Altogether
about two hundred and fifty persons are employed, working reasonable
hours and for reasonable wages. The stock, which originally was widely
scattered, has been concentrated for the most part in the hands of a few
astute men, who are credited with large profits. There is an air of
great prosperity about the institution, whose business is stated to
reach five million dollars annually, derived almost wholly from Utah.
Though this concern had a practical monopoly at first, as soon as the
railways came to Salt Lake, individual merchants could sell goods about
as cheap, and opposition to it arose.
Religious competition has arisen. Among the first of these local
Protestants was a mission of the Roman Catholics. Now they have a
considerable colony here and in Ogden. The St. Mary's Academy, in charge
of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, has a large building, beautiful
grounds, and the reputation of being a first-class higher school for
girls. There is a school for little boys in the same enclosure. The
boarders at the Academy amount to about one hundred annually, and the
day scholars to one hundred and fifty. The Sisters of the Holy Cross
also have charge of a large and finely-conducted hospital in the eastern
part of the city.
Another hospital is the St. Marks, supported partly by monthly dues from
miners, and otherwise by special contributions. This is in charge of the
Episcopal Church, which has been active in Utah for many years under the
guidance of Bishop Tuttle. St. Mark's School, belonging to the local
church organization, had three hundred and thirty pupils during its last
term. The Methodist Episcopal denomination, also, has churches scattered
about the territory and schools in Salt Lake City, among the rest night
schools for Chinamen, who are an important element of the population.
The Presbyterian Church has set up here a Collegiate Institute, owning
property worth about seventy-five thousand dollars and giving
instruction to about two hundred pupils, from the primary to a
high-school grade. This is unsectarian, as, I suppose, are all the rest
so far as any active religious pressure is brought to bear. The most
exclusive school, probably, is that sustained by the Hebrew Society. As
in other western towns the Jews are in large force in Salt Lake City,
their characteristic names occurring on many a signboard.
The Mormons themselves sustain a system of public schools, in which, in
addition to the usual branches, the tenets of their faith are taught.
These schools are well conducted and will compare favorably with those
in any city the same size.
Salt Lake City is a great center of wholesale trade in provisions and
textile fabrics not only, but in machinery and mining supplies. She has
smelters; a lead-paint factory; foundries and boiler works;
sampling-mills handling two hundred tons of ore a day, brought from far
and near; breweries, carriage and furniture shops; and all sorts of
small factories. Traction engines and locomotives, if not wholly built
there, are reconstructed; and complicated machinery of other sorts is
manufactured. Her salt business, now that a liberal minded railway has
come to her relief, is likely to become of the greatest importance,
which will be a benefit to her, not only, but to all the smelters and
chlorodization works in the Rocky Mountain region.
The city grows rapidly and becomes daily more cultivated and beautiful,
and less _outre_. Every appliance of civilization is utilized, and she
has the best hotels by far between Denver and San Francisco--some think
even better than either, but that is an extravagant estimate. Statistics
show that six hundred new houses were built, five hundred and
seventy-four of them dwellings, at a cost of $1,636,500. By the time the
next census is taken, in 1890, she may contain fifty thousand
inhabitants. The Madame and I thought we would rather make our home in
Salt Lake than in any town west of the Plains; but Chum cast his vote in
favor of Denver.
XXXVI
SALT LAKE AND THE WASATCH.
Behind, the silent snows; and wide below,
The rounded hills made level, lessening down
To where a river washed with sluggish flow
A many-templed town.
--BAYARD TAYLOR.
One day we all went out to the great Salt Lake, as in duty bound. You
might as well go to Mecca and fail to see the tomb of the Prophet, as to
visit Deseret and avoid the lake. It is a ride of twenty miles by rail,
and the fare for the round trip is only fifty cents. Two trains are run
every day in summer, and they are especially well-filled on Sundays. The
cars used are chiefly open ones, with seats crosswise, like those run to
Brighton and the other Beaches from New York, and it would be good fun
in itself to go racing in this free way across the breezy desert between
the city and the lake, even if there were not the salt waves at the end
of the journey.
For, of course, the only object in going to the lake--or at any rate the
prime object--is the bathing. There are two or three landings, all much
alike, and not far apart; which one it was we stopped at, I have
forgotten, and it doesn't matter. One is called Garfield and another
Black Rock, after a great cubic mass of lava that stands out of the
water a little way from shore like the end of a huge ruined pier.