Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 49, Number 2, 1981

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Voices of Harmony and Discord

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY ( I S S N 0042-143X)

EDITORIAL STAFF MELVIN T. SMITH,

Editor

STANFORD J . L A Y T O N , Managing M I R I A M B. M U R P H Y , Associate T H O M A S J. ZEIDLER, Assistant

Editor Editor Editor

ADVISORY BOARD OF EDITORS M R S . I N E Z S. C O O P E R , Cedar City, 1981 S. G E O R G E E L L S W O R T H , Logan,

1981

P E T E R L. G O S S , Salt Lake City, 1982 G L E N M . L E O N A R D , Farmington,

1982

L A M A R P E T E R S E N , Salt Lake City, 1983 R I C H A R D W . SADLER, Ogden,

1982

HAROLD SCHINDLER, Salt Lake City, 1981 G E N E A. S E S S I O N S , Bountiful,

1983

Utah Historical Quarterly was established in 1928 to publish articles, documents, a n d reviews contributing t o knowledge of Utah's history. T h e Quarterly is published b y the U t a h State Historical Society, 300 Rio Grande, Salt Lake City, U t a h 84101. Phone (801) 533-6024 for membership a n d publications information.

Members of the Society receive the Quarterly, Beehive History, a n d the bimonthly Newsletter upon payment of the annual dues; for details see inside back cover.

Materials for publication should be submitted in duplicate accompanied by return postage a n d should be typed double-space with footnotes a t the end.

Additional information on requirements is available from the managing editor. T h e Society assumes n o responsibility for statements of fact or opinion by contributors.

T h e Quarterly is indexed in Book Review Index to Social Science Periodicals, America: History and Life, Combined Retrospective Index to the Book Reviews in Scholarly Journals, 1886-1974, a n d Abstracts of Popular Culture.

Second class postage is paid at Salt Lake City, U t a h .

HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

Contents SPRING 1981/VOLUME 49/NUMBER 2 IN T H I S ISSUE

107

T H E CATHEDRAL O F T H E MADELEINE: T H E BUILDING AND EMBELLISHMENT OF A H I S T O R I C PLACE BERNICE T H E E V O L U T I O N O F C U L T U R E AND T R A D I T I O N I N UTAH'S MEXICAN-AMERICAN C O M M U N I T Y

.

.

.

MAHER

MOONEY

H.

108

MAYER

133

PAUL A. FRISCH

145

EDWARD

LABOR CONFLICT A T EUREKA, 1886-97

OGDEN'S "HORRIBLE TRAGEDY": T H E LYNCHING O F GEORGE SEGAL GOSIUTE-SHOSHONE

LARRY

GERLACH

157

DRAFT

RESISTANCE, 1917-18

T H E UNWANTED INDIANS: T H E SOUTHERN U T E S IN SOUTHEASTERN U T A H IN M E M O R I A M :

R.

DAVID L. WOOD

THOMPSON

189

EVERETT L, COOLEY

204

GREGORY

C.

173

FAWN MCKAY BRODIE,

1915-81

BOOK REVIEWS

209

BOOK NOTICES

215

THE COVER Detail from the presentation of the child Jesus in the temple, one of the joyful mysteries executed in 1906 by F. X. Zettler of Munich for the west nave of the Cathedral of the Madeleine. Cathedral Archives. © Copyright 1981 Utah State Historical Society

BETTY M . M A D S E N and BRIGHAM D .

M A D S E N . North to Montana!

Jehus, Bullwhackers, and Mule Skinners on the Montana Trail

W I L L I A M E. L A S S

209

RICHARD D . POLL

210

STEVE SIPORIN

211

T H O M A S D. ISERN

213

M . EDWARD H O L L A N D

214

E V E R E T T L . COOLEY., ed. Diary of

Brigham

Young,

1857

.

.

.

H A L C A N N O N , ed. Utah Folk Art: A Catalog of Material Culture

Books reviewed Eâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; R I C H A R D H A R T , ed. The

of Agriculture

Future

in the

Rocky Mountains

M A R K SIMMONS and FRANK TURLEY.

Southwestern Colonial Ironwork: The Spanish Blacksmithing Tradition from Texas to California

In this issue Few human achievements call for more vision, time, and variety of skills than the building of a great edifice. Begun in 1899, the Cathedral of the Madeleine required the special talents of several bishops and countless workers, artisans, and artists before it could be consecrated in 1936. That it continues to create feelings of spiritual and artistic harmony for the community at large confirms the worth of the endeavor. But when communities face jarring social change or the stress of particular events, the resulting conflicts destroy harmony as the succeeding articles illustrate.

Although the Hispanic heritage in Utah dates back more than 200 years, a sizable Mexican-American presence is a more recent phenomenon. That fact, plus a lesser tide of Mexican immigrants than in other western states, has produced a pattern of cultural evolution different from much of the Southwest and, at times, a fractured sense of identity.

Fracturing events disturbed two Utah towns in the nineteenth century.

When the hardrock miners at Eureka struck the Bullion-Beck (above) they found local support for their cause, but mine management reached beyond the community to bring the more powerful agents of government to its aid. In Ogden a man who felt wronged shot a woman and was lynched. Such bloodletting fits an awful pattern and scars the body politic more deeply than it realizes.

For the Gosiutes on their isolated reservation, World Wrar I was remote and the draft threatening; therefore they resisted registration until they provoked an overwhelming response from local officials. Another group of Indians, the Southern Utes, found itself caught in the seesawing power plays of politicians, developers, cattlemen, settlers, and reformers. So do the sounds of discord endlessly play against the call to harmony.

The Cathedral of the Madeleine: The Building and Embellishment of a Historic Place

BY BERNICE MAHER MOONEY

City engineer's photograph shows cathedral under construction and, further east.

First Presbyterian Church.

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of Mormon pioneering, in a remarkable juxtaposition of culture and belief, stands the silhouette of the Cathedral of the Madeleine. In the late nineteenth century Lawrence J. Scanlan, thefirst bishop of the Diocese of Salt Lake, virtually drew this Gothic cathedral out of the western wilderness. A strong private man of faith, he constructed the solid durable building against seemingly insurmountable odds and designated to his successors the work of decorating it and, later, restoring and preserving it for posterity.1 Only a few priests before him had ventured into the uncertain beginnings of Catholicism in Utah, but these few had laid some basic foundations for the young Father Scanlan to build on.2 One, Father Edward Kelly, had purchased land on the west side of Second East just north of First South Street on November 6, 1866. It turned out that a flaw in the title was to be legally contested:

A G A I N S T THE HISTORICAL LANDSCAPE AND TRADITIONS

F a t h e r Kelly told the contestant that he w a n t e d no legal proceedings; t h a t he bought t h e property in good faith a n d h a d paid the m a r k e t price for it, and would abide by the decision of Brigham Young. As a compromise it was so agreed. T h e y called o n Brigham Y o u n g a n d his decision was t h a t a clear title should be given to the F a t h e r a n d all adverse claims should be surrendered. This decision was final and a perfect title to the property secured. 3

On this property arose the parent structure of the present cathedral.

The small church served until it was outgrown and replaced by the Cathedral of Saint Mary Magdalene constructed during the period from 1899 to 1909 at its present location on South Temple at B Street.

The "Age of Scanlan" 4 witnessed the vision of a Catholic missionary ripen into reality. The young priest dreamed of a cathedral that would Mrs. Mooney is the author of a forthcoming book on the Cathedral of the Madeleine.

The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Msgr. Jerome C. Stoffel, Utah historian, and Msgr. William H. McDougall, rector of the cathedral, in the preparation of this article.

1 Background histories of events leading up to the construction of the cathedral are provided in W. R. (Dean) Harris, The Catholic Church in Utah, 1776-1909 (Salt Lake City: Intermountain Catholic Press, 1909), and Louis J. Fries, One Hundred and Fifty Years of Catholicity in Utah (Salt LakeCity: Intermountain Catholic Press, 1926).

2 Jerome G. Stoffel, "Hesitant Beginnings of the Catholic Church in Utah," Utah Historical Quarterly 36 (1968) :41-62. See also, Sister M. Stephanie Burns, C.S.C., "The Role of Catholics in the Early History of Utah, a Biographic Essay" (M.S. thesis, University of Portland, 1956). â&#x20AC;˘ Denis Kiely, "A Brief History of the Church in Utah," July 22, 1900, Utah State Historical Society Library, Salt Lake City.

4 John Bernard McGIoin, "Two Early Reports Concerning Roman Catholicism in Utah, 1876-1881," Utah Historical Quarterly 29 (1961) : 333-44.

Cathedral of the Madeleine

HI

be the mother church of his vast pastorate, providing that same protection, guidance, and inspiration that Old World cathedrals traditionally offered their peoples. It would stand as a tribute to the missionary efforts that preceded his own in the American West, beginning as far back as 1540 when the expedition of the Spanish explorer Coronado made its dramatic thrust into the Southwest and, later, when the Franciscan missionaries Escalante and Dominguez penetrated into the heart of the Great Basin with an eye to mission settlement as well as an overlaid route. Scanlan's cathedral would unite his once-isolated territory with its fellow pioneer missions in Boise, Helena, Cheyenne, and Denver and symbolize its attachment to the Archdiocese of San Francisco and, beyond that, to the Holy See itself in Rome. It would form the Catholic response to the economic, social, and political environment at the turn of the century and to the swell of immigration sweeping through the country. It would immortalize the spirit and the story of the Utah mines and the miners who would help to build it. And it would express the abiding presence of Catholicism in Salt Lake Valley.

For those were the years that absorbed the Catholic Gentile into the Mormon milieu. Both communities had found their way into Salt Lake out of frontier America and both were united in a sense of mutual compassion: Catholics had experienced their own nights of terror when, for example, two of their churches were burned by rampaging mobs in the May 1844 riots in Philadelphia where the American Protective Association had arisen in 1842. Catholic churches had also been burned to the ground in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and New York.

The Mormons, meanwhile, carried scarring memories of days when they themselves were a minority among the "ferocious antagonisms of Missouri and Illinois"5 that culminated in the murder of Joseph Smith at Carthage. Against this background "Bishop Scanlan's preoccupation with the spiritual welfare of his own people afforded pleasant relief in a story of religious antagonism as bitter as any which mars the pages of American history."6 Under his guidance "Catholics, numerically the largest of the Gentile religious bodies, pursued a quiet course. . . ."7 With what could almost be called a financial prowess, abetted by the personal charisma of this humble priest who had been known to go with5

Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960), p. 380.

R o b e r t J. Dwyer, The Gentile Comes to Utah: A Study in Religious and Social Conflict (1862-1890) ( 1 9 4 1 ; reprint ed., Salt Lake City: Western Epics, 1971), pp. 188-89. ' I b i d . , p. 156.

Prophet

6

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out the necessities of life in the early years, Father Scanlan became responsible not only for the construction of the cathedral but also for all of the Catholic institutions in Utah over a period of forty years. These included Catholic schools, among them Saint Mary's Academy and All Hallows College in Salt Lake.8 "In after years many of their (Mormon) children attended the school and the Sisters experienced much kindness from the Mormons with whom they came in contact."9 There was a reciprocal effort at peaceful association between the two faiths throughout the territory. In 1871 when the first midnight mass was celebrated in the newly dedicated, Saint Mary's on Second East Street the church was packed with a congregation made up principally of nonCatholics "attracted by the novelty of midnight services."10 In 1879 Apostle Erastus Snow, leader of the Latter-day Saints at St. George, invited Bishop Scanlan to offer high mass in the Mormon tabernacle there.

The bishop did so on September 25, 1879. The tabernacle choir had obtained the music for the "Kyrie," "Gloria," and "Credo" and practiced diligently for some weeks. Scanlan was delighted with their beautiful rendition of the Mass in Latin.

Although Scanlan could not approve of the practice of polygamy, he generally confined his remarks about it "to his own pulpit in moral discourses to his own people, and chose rather to cultivate amicable relations with individual Mormons, some of whom recall his friendly spirit toward them during the periods of sharpest antagonism."11 Upon the occasion of Scanlan's death, an apostle of the Latter-day Saints commented that he considered the bishop "a saintly man who has won the sincere love and respect of every man and woman in the state of Utah by the true godliness of his life."12 It was in such an atmosphere of good will that Scanlan was able to establish his cathedral throne in Salt Lake City when the diocese13 was created in 1891. He proceeded to raise up the cathedral without compromise but also without offense. s "Some six years ago, Rev. F a t h e r Scanlan took the initiatory steps toward the establishment of an academy in this city and secured the cooperation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, at the well-known Notre Dame school, located at South Bend, Ind. St. Mary's Academy became the fruits of the earnest endeavors of F a t h e r Scanlan, who has all along, and still labors for the good of the institution, a n d much of its success has come from his efforts in its behalf." Salt Lake Tribune, January 3, 1881.

8 "Archives of Saint Mary-of-the-Assumption, Salt Lake City, U t a h from its Foundation

by M o t h e r M . Angela in 1875," p . 6, cited by Dwyer, Gentile Comes to Utah, p. 160.

10 Salt Lake Herald, December 26, 1871.

11 Dwyer, Gentile Comes to Utah, p. 159.

12 Intermountain Catholic, December 29, 1906.

13 W h e n the Catholics of a given territory are sufficiently numerous, a diocese is created u n d e r the direction of a bishop. Final decision to establish a new diocese or to alter the territorial limits of an already existing one rests with the pope.

Interior of Saint Mary Magdalene Cathedral as completed by Bishop and photographed by the Salt Lake Tribune at its dedication in 1909.

Scanlan

Carl M. Neuhausen was chosen as the architect. Born in Germany in 1853, he was educated in Stuttgart and shortly thereafter came to America, settling in Minneapolis where he took an active part in the upbuilding of that city. After extensive traveling throughout the United States and Canada to study architecture, he chose to settle in Salt Lake in 1892.14 He worked on the Saltair Pavilion and gradually became responsible for the design of some of Salt Lake's most beautiful buildings, among them the residences of Sen. Thomas Kearns and mining magnate J. D. Wood, Saint Ann's Orphanage, and the D. F. Walker Block, all of which continue to keep the architectural record of their times.

His original plan for the cathedral called for a structure that "will cover a ground space of 99 x 185' and will be built of gray Kyune stone"13 with an interior brick lining placed on a granite block foundation. It was to be unadorned by towers; but the plan expanded as the work progressed. The style became Transition, a mixture of Gothicâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the facade 14 Biographical Record of Salt Lake City and Vicinity (Chicago: Historical Record Company, 1902), p. 629. See also, Utah, the Inland Empire (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1902), p. 79.

15 Salt Lake City Mining Review, May 30, 1900, p. 7, Utah State Historical Society Library.

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and much of the interiorâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and Romanesqueâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the sides and rear. The blueprints were evidently revamped from time to time to adapt to the ecclesiastical purse. Towers were added as additional funds justified the expense.16 Because Bishop Scanlan preferred to delay the progress of the work rather than accumulate debts, the construction went forward at a leisurely pace from 1899 until 1907. The death of Neuhausen in 1907 caused further delay. Bernard O. Mecklenburg was hired to finish the Norman towers and roof. The clerestory planned by Neuhausen was eliminated and all three aisles covered under a single roof, an unusual and distinguishing feature of the structure. By 1909 the cathedral stood substantially as it is today except for the decoration of the interior which was then a plain plaster finish.

At the dedication ceremonies on August 15, 1909, James Cardinal Gibbons, archbishop of Baltimore, suggested to the aging Bishop Scanlan that this great edifice, the culmination of all his efforts, should be his resting place.17 Thus it is that the Bishop of the Sagebrush lies interred beneath the sanctuary of the cathedral he founded on the frontier.

It fell to his successor to complete and beautify the interior of the cathedral. As Bishop Scanlan's personal energies waned and his funds were depleted, he had simply painted the inside of the vast building in white walls and green pillars. The pioneer people who had produced the structure gradually emerged into a more sophisticated society able, eventually, to consider the interior adornment of their cathedral. Following Scanlan's death Pope Benedict XV appointed as their shepherd Joseph Sarsfield Glass, a member of the Congregation of the Mission known as the Vincentians.18 European-educated and an urbane art fancier, he proved ideally suited to carry out the task that Bishop Scanlan left to him. His wide experience included work as president of Saint Vincent's College and pastor of Saint Vincent's Church, both in Los Angeles. There his long association with the great American architect John Theodore Comes had begun.

Born in Luxembourg, Comes came to America as a young man and is believed to have studied with Ralph Adams Cram, the president of the American Institute of Architects and the foremost architect in the United States at that time. Cram considered Comes "strikingly able" 18

Register, August 17, 1952.

Ibid.

38 For biographical sketches of Bishop Glass see the Diocesan Monthly, Salt Lake City, February 1926; Los Angeles Times, January 27, 1926; and Los Angeles Tidings, January 29, 1926, and January 25, 1974.

17

Cathedral of the Madeleine

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and principally responsible for the restoration of Gothic architecture to Catholic church building in this country.19 Comes himself felt that "The church of stone must be a speaking manifestation of the living church and her mysteries . . . a sermon full of Truth. . . ."20 Comes had in common with his friend Joseph Glass that he was first a believer and then a builder.

The two men had collaborated in the design of a new Saint Vincent de Paul Church in Los Angeles after traveling together to Spain to study traditional church architecture at firsthand.21 The record does not indicate whether Comes attended the episcopal consecration of Bishop Glass on the morning of August 24, 1915; but it can be assumed that two weeks later when the new bishop was installed in Salt Lake as pastor and rector of the Cathedral of Saint Mary Magdalene both were already pondering its interior adornment.

Although Bishop Glass undertook a variety of projects throughout his diocese, the work to which his own natural gifts and inclination seemed constantly to beckon him remained the renovation of the cathedral. In the midst of other duties he contacted John Comes, setting about the task and bringing to it both their individual and joint expertise. They entered into a contract by which Comes agreed to "provide all sketches, plans, specifications and details for the furnishings and all other improvements in and around the St. Mary Magdalene Cathedral, Salt Lake City, which includes also the acoustical treatment and wall decorations." Glass agreed to pay the architect 4.5 percent of the total cost of the project, except for those items requiring a "great amount of full size details and study" which the bishop agreed to pay a 15 percent commission on.

They were: o n e high altar, two side altars, two large transept shrines, two small shrines n e a r e n t r a n c e , pulpit, sanctuary d a d o , Bishop's t h r o n e , sedilia, choir stalls, p r a y e r benches, C o m m u n i o n rail, Stations of the Cross, candlesticks, credence table, Ostensorium, T a b e r n a c l e door. 2 2 19 R a l p h Adams Cram, Church Building (Boston: Marshall Jones Company, 1924), p p .

239, 320.

20 J o h n Theodore Comes, "Catholic Art a n d Architecture, a Lecture to Seminarians," 1918, Cathedral of the Madeleine Archives, Salt Lake City.

21 "An O l d World Shrine in Salt Lake City," Intermountain Catholic, November 17, 1917.

See also, " T h e New St. Vincent de Paul Church, Los Angeles, California," undated typescript, Cathedral of the Madeleine Archives.

22 "Agreement between John T . Comes, Architect, a n d Bishop Joseph S. Glass, Rector, St. M a r y Magdalene Cathedral," October 2, 1916, Cathedral of the Madeleine Archives.

For the reader unfamiliar with these architectural a n d ecclesiastical terms: a transept is either of the two lateral arms of a cross-shaped c h u r c h ; a sedilia is a bench in the sanctuary for use of the celebrant at liturgical functions; stations of the cross consist of fourteen crosses usually accompanied by images placed around the sides of the main body of the church, each

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Although in theory Comes w7as in charge of the overall project he worked closely with Glass who in practice sometimes acted as contractor and throughout the work made specific recommendations for the various phases.

The problem of acoustics was tackled early on. A representative of the H. W. Johns-Manville Company in Pittsburgh said that acoustically the cathedral was one of the notably bad buildings in the country. . . . W e could . . . guarantee to produce a m a r k e d i m p r o v e m e n t . . . as good as can be reasonably expected in an auditorium of this size u n d e r varying requirements of music and speech. 2 3

Bishop Joseph S. Glass at site of Saint Mary-of-the-Wasatch.

Courtesy of Bernardine Ryan Martin.

Wallace C. Sabine, a consultant whose advice Comes sought and whose recommendations were built on his work in some fifty churches throughout the country, confirmed that "It is necessary to treat the ceiling surfaces in a church in which not merely the nave but the side aisles as well are sixty-four feet in height. . . ,"24 In 1978 specialists consulted during restorative work on the cathedral confirmed the findings of these early acoustical engineers.25 The ongoing resolution of these basic problems paved the way for the artistic phase of the renovation. Bishop Scanlan had built well and the exterior structure required little alteration except for the approach to the main entrance, elevated above street level, in the form of a double flight of steps that was changed by Comes to its present form. At the entrance to the steps, on the right side below the light fixture, was installed a plaque bearing Bishop Glass's coat of arms with its motto, "Fortitude commemorating an event in the last hours of Our Lord's life from his condemnation by Pilate to his burial; the credence table located on either side of the altar holds the sacred vessels used at the Mass; the ostensorium (or monstrance) is a receptacle in which the Sacred Host is displayed at times of public veneration; the tabernacle is a boxlike receptacle fixed upon an altar to preserve and protect the Sacred Hosts between times of public celebration.

23 W. Slocum to John Comes, February 9, 1916. Cathedral of the Madeleine Archives.

24 Wallace C. Sabine to John Comes, March 20, 1916. Cathedral of the Madeleine Archives.

25 Interview with John J. Leete, Salt Lake City, March 11, 1980.

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Sculptor Francis Arctz portrayed Christ the King-Teacher in the above the cathedral's main portal. Courtesy of Msgr. Jerome C.

tympanum Stoffel.

and Peace." Up a few steps, in the center of the first landing, Glass erected a bronze tablet in memory of Bishop Scanlan, an official epitaph to an indestructible missionary spirit.

Farther up the steps, over the cathedral's main portal, was the unfinished tympanum.26 For its completion, John Comes chose the noted sculptor Francis Aretz of Pittsburgh with whom he had previously worked and who was becoming known as one of the most gifted of his profession in the United States. The completed tympanum, a masterful creation in concrete, was the result of seven years of quiet work by Aretz in an old gray building, almost a shack, that served as the sculptor's studio. According to a newspaper report, T h e cast of the work will be m a d e immediately and within the next two m o n t h s the carved stone pieces which are to be put above the door of the C a t h e d r a l will be forwarded to Bishop Glass of Salt Lake City. With (these) will go smaller works for the two small doors in the facade and two life-size statues of Saints Peter and Paul. 2 7

M

The sculptural area enclosed by the arch above the doors of a cathedral.

-" Pittsburgh Sun, March 1917.

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On the panels over the door-arch Aretz carved symbols of the seven sacraments on the east side and of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit on the west side. He presented Christ on the center portal as high priest, clothed in sacerdotal garments and flanked by two angels. The Twelve Apostles, six standing and six kneeling, each holding his traditional symbol, occupy the field on either side of Our Lord. The four great western doctors, Augustine, Gregory, Ambrose, and Jerome, complete the group.

This entourage in whose spiritual company one enters the cathedral forms a "bridge of ages between us and our ancestors."28 The only other major modification of the original cathedral building is visible from the outside at the rear of the structure where the five original stained-glass windows in the sanctuary were removed and the openings covered. These windows were among those executed by F. X. Zettler of the House of Littler, Royal Bavarian Institute in Munich, Germany, from where it is believed they were shipped piecemeal to the cathedral for assembly in 1906.29 They depicted the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary30 and had been designed in unison with the five joyful mysteries on the west side of the cathedral and those representing the glorious mysteries on the east side, all "excellent examples of artistic realism" and "among the best of their particular school in the United States."31 George W. Softer of Pittsburgh contracted to cast two new sanctuary windows, one for the east and one for the west side, bearing the symbols of the Twelve Apostles.32 Although inconspicuous because of their position, these windows are of exquisite detail and outstanding workmanship.

The Rambusch Decorating Company of New York submitted specifications that detailed each phase of the decorative work. Four coats of the best oil paint were to be used. The ceiling of the sanctuary was to be painted deep blue with gold stars and an ornamental design in the center.

Ribs, columns, and caps were to be ornamented. The three rear walls 25

H e n r y Adams, Mont-Saint

Michel

and Chartres

(New York: Heritage Press, 1905),

p . 64.

29

Salt Lake Tribune, M a r c h 30, 1975.

A rosary in the most familiar form is a circular string of beads separated into groups of ten called decades. While repeating the very simple prayer, the "Hail Mary . . ." the beads become a counting device while the mind is called to contemplate one of fifteen events in the life of Jesus a n d his mother Mary. These events, understood in their full implications only by faith, are called "mysteries." Five of these meditations pertain to the early life of Jesus (e.g., his birth) a n d are called the joyful mysteries because they brought joy to his mother Mary.

Five pertain to his suffering and death and hence are known as the sorrowful mysteries; and five pertain to the resurrection of Jesus a n d the beginning of his kingdom and are therefore known as the glorious mysteries. " R o b e r t J. Dwyer, Story of the Cathedral, History of a Church (Salt Lake City, 1936), p . 11.

"Register, March 30, 1962.

30

Cathedral of the Madeleine

Resurrection window crafted by F. X. Zettler for the east transept of the cathedral. Center of rosette depicts Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene. Cathedral Archives.

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were to have large mural paintings: "subject of the crucifixion, saints, prophets and angels, as approved. All halos, etc. in relief and gold."33 Similar, meticulously outlined instructions followed for the decoration, painting, and murals of the side chapels, ceilings, and walls; soffits of the arches; window jambs, face of gallery rail, vestibule, baptistry, and sacristies. Harold William Rambusch complained to Comes that his bid of $9,000 turned out to be "too small" when he realized that, because labor organizations in Salt Lake City commanded wages for their painters and decorators that were 25 percent higher than those paid in the East, he would be compelled to pay his New York men (about five in number) this higher wage as well as board, while they carried out the work in the cathedral. Rambusch added, "but as you assure us that more money cannot be spent we shall do our utmost to make the work a success anyway.

The altars now became a major concern. The work of their planning culminated in a note of April 18, 1917, from Comes to Bishop Glass indicating the contribution of both: We are enclosing a new blueprint showing a clearer indication of the marbles, embodying your suggestions as well as my own.. . . The risers for the High Altar to be alternate lengths of dark Golden Travise and Nebo Cream Travise marbles. . . . All treads and floor borders to be Pink Tennessee as per your suggestion. . . .

Decker Little, a cathedral parishioner who was then a boy of seventeen, recalls helping knock out the old altars and refilling with concrete where necessary. "The new altars were brought in all made," he remembers.

"We assembled them, did the heavy work on steps and cement, and put in the three altars."35 Canon law36 required that a relic be imbedded in the altar stone.

Tiny pieces of the bone of Saints Gratus and Fenusta are the relics Bishop Glass placed in the high altar. He also obtained in Rome a sliver of the wood of the true cross found about A.D. 318 by Saint Helen, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Housed in an ornate reliquary,37 this relic is brought out each year for public veneration on the Feast of the Holy Cross, September 14, and on Good Friday.

23 "Specifications for the Decoration of the Cathedral," undated, Cathedral of the Madeleine Archives.

34 Harold William Rambusch to John T . Comes, February 11, 1916. Cathedral Archives.

35 Interview with Decker Little, Salt Lake City, March 16, 1979.

38 T h e law by which the church is governed.

37 A vessel in which relics are sealed and kept. A relic is an article reputed to be associated with a saint or martyr and is an object which calls forth respect and devotion because it has been associated with a holy person, in this case the crucified Saviour.

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Meanwhile, Bishop Glass had met Felix B. Lieftuchter of New York City and observed his work in Saint Agnes Church, Cleveland, Ohio, when the bishop participated in dedication ceremonies there. In September 1916 Lieftuchter agreed, through John Comes, to paint murals that would be completed by March 21, 1917. However, Comes reported to Glass the following April that "Lieftuchter says it's taking a great deal more time than he figured on, but I think he will stick and do a good job." 38 The young artist had signed the contract with Comes before he even saw the cathedral. Though Comes's specifications dictated the subjects of the murals, Lieftuchter exercised artistic freedom in selecting the saints portrayed. He chose saints from the New Testament for the left side, and from the Old Testament for the right side, of the main altar and turned them in reverent adoration toward the central figure of Christ crucified upon a cross suspended from the outstretched arms of the Eternal Father. Below these panels and just above the oak woodwork of the sanctuary are" printed in Gothic letters quotations from the Old and New Testaments. In the transept, on the large wall space over the left side altar, Lieftuchter brought to life the scene of Mary Magdalene, titular saint39 of the cathedral, anointing the feet of Christ and, over the right side altar, the risen Christ appearing to the Magdalene at the tomb.

Above each panel is the conventional figure of an angel blowing a trumpet.

Eight decorative figures forming a circular design fill the spandrels over the arches in the nave. Lieftuchter reminisced: T h e ceiling was covered with cork for acoustical purposes and then canvas was stretched over that. I then painted directly on the walls. I would work six or seven hours a day, and get very tired sometimes. 40

His theme has been described as the "Apotheosis of the Crucifixion," the story of the coming of Christ into the world and his triumphant return to the Father, portrayed throughout the cathedral in the timeless language of art and symbolism. Shocks of grain and grapes, for example, represent the Eucharist and the dove depicts the Holy Spirit. The pelican, pictured above the main altar, tearing open her breast to feed her young with her own lifeblood, alludes to the Atonement of Christ upon the cross.

41

38

John T. Comes to Bishop Joseph S. Glass, April 18, 1917. Cathedral Archives.

The saint in whose name the church is consecrated.

40 Salt Lake Tribune, September 9, 1972. (Interview of Patricia R. McCoy with Felix B. Lieftuchter, then ninety-one years of age, in Mexico City.)

41 Intermountain Catholic, November 17, 1917.

39

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Overview of redecorated interior showing the murals painted by Felix B. Lieftuchter: saints of the New and Old Testaments facing the central figure of Christ crucified. Courtesy of Msgr. Jerome C. Stoffel.

Quarterly

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The imagery of the four evangelists featured in gold at the base of the four arches reaching to the height of the sanctuary shows Mark as a winged lion cub licked into wakefulness by its father, Luke a winged ox signifying sacrificial death, John a winged eagle soaring upward, and Matthew a winged man because his Gospel dwells more on the human side of Christ than do the other Gospels. Such figures preserve age-old symbolism within the cathedral.

Another artist whose services Bishop Glass attracted to the cathedral was Robert S. Chase of Boston who contracted to provide fourteen paintings of the Stations of the Cross 3 ' x 4 ' outside dimensions, to be d o n e in t e m p e r a . . . to the satisfaction of the Architect J o h n T .

Comes . . . a n d M r . R a l p h A d a m s C r a m of Boston . . . . Not more t h a n four or five figures are needed for each Station. . . . T h e figure of Christ is to be the d o m i n a t i n g note in the composition. 4 2

The statuary in the cathedral is the work of several of America's foremost ecclesiastical sculptors, including Henry Schmitt of Buffalo, New York, who produced three carved statues in linden wood of Saint Anthony of Padua, Saint Vincent de Paul (both three feet high and standing on the altars of the shrines at the rear of the church), and Our Lady of Lourdes (five feet high, gracing the altar of Our Mother of Perpetual Help in the west transept) ,43 Other sculptors whose names are not known also worked in the cathedral. A father and son pair, believed not to be of the Schmitt family mentioned above, left an ingenious signature to their work. The story is told that when they completed their carvings there was no place to sign their names. The father then gave his son a piece of wood and took one also in his own hands. Each carved the head and face of the other to identify their work. To this day these two carvings confront each other at two places atop the sedilia in the sanctuary.44 Isaac Kirchmayer, among the ablest American woodcarvers of the early twentieth century, carved the statues and reredos45 on the altars.

42 "Agreement between Robert S. Chase, hereinafter known as the Painter, and the R o m a n Catholic Bishop of Salt Lake, hereinafter known as the Owner," February 7, 1917, Cathedral of the Madeleine Archives.

43 "Agreement between Henry Schmitt of Buffalo, New York, hereinafter known as Sculptor, and the R o m a n Catholic Bishop of Salt Lake City, Rt. Rev. Joseph S. Glass, C M . , D.D., Incumbent, hereinafter known as Owner," February 7, 1917, Cathedral of the Madeleine Archives.

44 Interview with Valentine Gorlinski, Salt Lake City, February 6, 1979. ( T h e young Father Scanlan took Robert Gorlinski, father of Valentine, to San Francisco to be the soloist a t his consecration ceremonies. Valentine's life has spanned the reigns of each of the bishops of the cathedral. She has conducted tours of the great building for many years.)

45 A carved or otherwise ornamental screen of wood or stone at the back of an altar.

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Detail of side altar honoring Saint Joseph shows child Jesus in the temple and, on the right, Saint Sylvester who convened the first ecumenical Council of Nicaea where the Nicene Creed was formed. Altar exemplifies the fine wood carving of Isaac Kirchmayer and others. Courtesy of Msgr. Jerome C. Stoffel.

(In the case of Blessed Sacrament Church in Rochester, New York, William F. Ross and Company was responsible for the design of the reredos and altar statues, and the actual carving was done by Kirchmayer. 46 ) His artistic skill was indisputable. Ralph Adams Cram in his book, Church Building had special praise for the sculptor he considered "the best in the United States." Cram's own education and genius gave him a sensitive insight into the creative spirit of Kirchmayer whom he described as "that amazing craftsman out of the fifteenth century, living and thinking and working in the twentieth century."47 Cram and John Comes had similar taste and both had employed Kirchmayer at various times. Bishop Glass's association with the artist brought attention to Salt Lake City from the East: "Kirchmayer says he has your statue on exhibition at St. Dunstan's Guild showroom in Boston . . , , " Comes informed the bishop on August 18, 1917.

At the same time, Comes advised the bishop that the monstrance, a work of art in itself, was "now on exhibition in Philadelphia." Synchro48 47

Robert B. McNamara to Joseph Lennox Federal, June 25, 1975. Cathedral Archives.

Cram, Church Building, pp. 222, 228.

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nizing the various phases of decoration required frequent consultation.

On April 18, 1917, Comes asked the bishop to please advise me concerning the Schmitt statues, the rear shrines, photographs of which were sent, also the Bishop's throne draperies and the photograph of the Bishop Scanlan bust, besides your action on the bid sent for the reflectors.

Tabernacle doors and candlesticks had been ordered and sketches prepared for the processional cross and missal stand. Comes sought to maintain harmony between the building and all its furnishings and have both comply with the liturgical laws of the church.

William F. Ross and Company contracted on January 2, 1917, to provide installation of furniture including the altars, shrines in the transepts and rear of the church, confessionals,4* the bishop's throne (including brocade velvet), a sedilia, credence table and pulpit, choir stalls, two prayer benches, the communion rail, dado in the sanctuary, and, as noted above, fourteen frames for the stations of the cross. This firm paneled the lower portion of the church in dark oak entirely around the interior, appropriately setting off the brilliant decorations above.

The episcopal throne was placed at the left of the sanctuary on a raised platform. The coat of arms of the incumbent bishop decorates the canopy above. Bishop Glass's motto would yield over the years to those of succeeding bishops.

The classic bells of the cathedral express varying moods. McShane Bell Company contracted for two bells to be cast at the Maryland Brass Foundry, one in the tone E-flat and the other in tone G. The bells bore Latin inscriptions and were the gift to the cathedral of Mrs. Joseph Geoghegan in memory of her husband. Bishop Glass blessed the bells as "the voice calling people to prayer, a voice also of either sorrow or joy."10 Bishop Scanlan had installed a Kimball organ in the choir loft in 1908 at a cost of approximately $25,000. The organ pipes were carefully designed to frame the rose window which climaxes the stained-glass windows throughout the cathedral. At its center is Saint Cecilia, patroness of music, surrounded by twelve angels holding various instruments of ancient times in twelve petals or medallions. Despite its beauty, the organ proved less than a perfect musical instrument: 48 Enclosures within a church in which sins are disclosed to a priest for absolution in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. T h e purchase of the confessionals for the cathedral was recorded in the Herald of February 11, 1918. They were remodeled in 1977 in accordance with the reformed Rite of Reconciliation.

49 Deseret News, November 12, 1917.

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Utah Historical Quarterly Unfortunately, the organ was typical of those constructed during the period from 1900 to 1915, a transition period from the traditional mechanical action to the more modern electrifying techniques of organ building. During this period it was customary to use rubberized cloth for the stops, which were controlled pneumatically. In time this cloth hardened and cracked, rendering the stops unuseable. 5 0

In 1920 the Kimball organ was improved with the addition of a specially constructed hard stop and a set of chimes. But, as time progressed, the organ gradually fell into disrepair. It was not used for some years; in fact, only by chance did Father John LaBranche see and stop a man ascending the stairs to the organ loft with tools and every intention of removing the copper and brass out of the silent organ pipes to sell for scrap. In 1936 the Kimball was replaced by a Hammond electric organ. In 1952 Robert J. Dwyer, then monsignor and later archbishop, contracted to refurbish the Kimball in memory of his parents, Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Dwyer. The work included the complete reconstruction of the console to conform to the standards of the American Guild of Organists.

There always existed a very good relationship between Catholic and Mormon musicians in Salt Lake City. LaMar Petersen, an accomplished musician and a Mormon, remembers teaching cathedral organist Adine Bradley how to play the electric Hammond. At the dedication of the restored organ in 1952, Alexander Schreiner, the prominent organist of the Salt Lake Tabernacle, participated in the program, performing a "Kyrie Eleison" that he himself had composed.51 Schreiner's predecessor at the Mormon tabernacle organ was Frank Asper who had studied music in Europe and was familiar with Gregorian chant and liturgical music.

Mrs. Marguerite D. Sullivan, director of the cathedral choir for many years, recalls that Asper played the cathedral organ for a Thanksgiving mass at which Mrs. Bernard W. Hanson, the regular organist, was unable to be present.52 This interchange of goodwill enhanced the tradition of music that flowed from the cathedral down through the years.

As the renovation moved toward completion, gargoyles, reminiscent of the Middle Ages, were hoisted to the heights of the cathedral exterior to add an ornamental authenticity to its Gothic architecture. It is believed 50

Intermountain Catholic Register, December 23, 1951.

Telephone interview with L a M a r Petersen, Salt Lake City, January 18, 1981. See also Salt Lake Tribune, January 13, 1952.

52 Telephone interview with Marguerite (Margaret) Sullivan, Salt Lake City, January 18, 1981.

51

Cathedral of the Madeleine

Close-up of rose window, featuring Saint Cecilia and ancient musical instruments, framed by organ pipes, and view of window from altar area with bishop's chair on right.

Photographs

by Lynn Johnson.

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that they were originally positioned in 1917. Over the years they slowly deteriorated to the degree that they were deemed hazardous and removed in 1930, after which they were apparently lost. Replacements were added to the building in 1977.53 Both Bishop Glass and John Comes must have been relieved when the renovation entered its final stages. It had proved a daring and demanding project, taxing the talents of them both. Cancelled checks suggest an overall cost totaling $104,287, though the actual estimate was eventually determined to be $130,000.54 Something of the appreciative and supportive feeling between the two men can be sensed in Glass's note of December 21, 1917, to Comes enclosing a payment of $1,000: "I hope that it [the check] will cheer things up a little bit around your neighborhood, and I regret that it isn't a million."

Meanwhile, cathedral parishioners, originally preoccupied with survival, came to feel what Comes had called the "quasi-divine hand of art." 55 "Last Sunday," the bishop's letter to Comes continued, was the first time that Mass was said on the High Altar a n d that people h a d a chance to see the whole interior. Some w h o were critical said they h a d never expected to see it come out so beautifully, and they now cheerfully a d m i t that it is wonderful.

The renovation created in the Catholic community a sense of pride that was reflected in cultural overtones. At the invitation of Bishop Glass, Archbishop Edward J. Hanna lectured in the Salt Lake Theatre in November 1916; the world famous Paulist Choir of Chicago sang at the Orpheum Theatre; noted soloist John Finnegan came in concert to the cathedral, and the great Irish tenor John McCormack held an audience of 10,000 spellbound in the Mormon tabernacle in March 1918.

Although Bishop Glass is best remembered for his artistic achievement, he also was active in diocesan, archdiocesan, and civic affairs.

Following the policy established by Bishop Scanlan he maintained cordial relations with his neighbors to the extent that he came to be considered "a man of intense convictions but always fair and frank. Bishop Glass did much to build up his church in Utah, and with it all he was never

'"Deseret News, September 21, 1977; Salt Lake Tribune, September 24, 1977.

Canceled checks recorded in the Cathedral of the Madeleine Archives as paid by Bishop Glass to the architect, artisans, and contractors for the various phases of the restoration in 1916 1917, and 1918 total $104,287.17. The $130,000 figure is recorded in "General Notes," p. 1,' undated, mimeographed, Cathedral of the Madeleine Archives.

55 Comes, "New St. Vincent de Paul Church."

54

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Bishop Glass, left, in Rome, 1925, photographed

by G. Felici of famous family that photographed the popes. On this visit Glass purchased the painting of Saint Mary Magdalene by Cigoli, right, for the cathedral. Courtesy of Bernardine Ryan Martin and Msgr. Jerome C. Stoffel.

known to attack the religious convictions of his friends."56 On September 14, 1918, he registered for service, being one of the few bishops in the country young enough to come within the provisions of the Selective Service Act. (He was not drafted.) When Bishop John Joseph Cantwell of Los Angeles and Archbishop Hanna traveled to Rome in 1920, Bishop Glass administered the Archdiocese of San Francisco during their absence.

In fact, his commitments outside the state were so extensive for a time that he came to be called facetiously the "Bishop of Tours."

Glass visited Pope Pius XI in Rome in 1924. While abroad he obtained in southern France a relic of Saint Mary Magdalene for the "only Cathedral in the United States dedicated to God under the patronage of this great Saint."57 Before returning home he ordered a reliquary to be used in the cathedral and another work of art: I n a very short while, we hope to place upon the reredos of our H i g h Altar the superb painting of St. M a r y Magdelene which we obtained in 58 57

Deseret News, January 27, 1926.

Diocesan Monthly, July, 1925.

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Utah Historical Quarterly Florence. It is an original work by the famous Cigoli (1585â&#x20AC;&#x201D;1635) many of whose paintings are in the Pitti gallery of Florence and the galleries of Italy.... 5 8

Glass also acquired a collection of statuary, carvings, and some forty paintings in what was considered at that time the finest collection of Renaissance art in the Intermountain West.59 From Switzerland he brought a complete set of pontifical vestments of each liturgical color, made partially with thread of gold by Fraeful and Company of Saint Fall, Switzerland, to enrich the solemn pageantry of ceremonial services in the cathedral.60 By the time Bishop Glass's life ended in 1926, he had compiled as his enduring legacy the renovation of the great building he transformed from Bishop Scanlan's basic Cathedral of Saint Mary Magdalene into the artistically adorned Cathedral of the Madeleine.61 The cathedral throne was next occupied by John Joseph Mitty who consecrated the three marble altars in 1928. Along with the crozier he also inherited the heavy debt that had insidiously progressed along with the redecoration. So adept was he at lifting this burden of debt and reducing expenses all along the line that he earned the nickname of "Iron John." In his comparatively short reign of six years he restored economic stability to the diocese and brought the encumbrance on the cathedral down to $50,000, a balance his successor, James E. Kearney, paid off in 1936. Finally, free from debt, the cathedral could be consecrated.

During the ancient ritual of consecration, on November 28, 1936, twelve crosses were affixed to the inner walls of the church and fitted with twelve slender tapers. The essence of the service lay in Bishop Kearney's anointing these crosses with the words, "May this temple be sanctified and consecrated." Subsequently the crosses, still decorating the cathedral walls, would be lighted only on the solemn festival of the anniversary of the day of consecration.

Bishop Kearney's tenure, too, was of comparatively short duration.

The elevation of the warmly loved prelate to the Episcopal See of 58 59

ibid.

Register, April 20, 1962.

00 Once at a festive Christmas Mass celebration, Bishop Glass was elaborately vested in the formal ornate robes of the time, wearing an ermine cape, during the procession up the center aisle of the church to the sanctuary. A woman of humble means was heard to exclaim afterwards, " T h e Mass was beautiful! T h e Bishop came in all covered with vermin." As told by Bernardine Martin, secretary to Bishop Glass, February 10, 1980.

61 Dwyer, "Story of the Cathedral," p . 32, notes this name change: "thus rechristened

by Bishop Glass."

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Rochester, New York, in 1937 brought an end to that era of the Catholic church in Utah that had wrested a cathedral out of the wilderness and consecrated it to God. The cathedral stood physically stable and secure, a civic channel of Christianity. Its ancient architecture would continue to carry the good news of the gospel into the contemporary stream of consciousness. There followed upon the cathedral throne the eloquent orator, Duane G. Hunt (1937â&#x20AC;&#x201D;60)62 who built a superstructure of spiritual growth that earned for him the title of Second Builder of the Diocese of Salt Lake. A convert himself, he maintained considerable rapport with those outside his faith.

He considered the Mormon people "as generous as the people of any Diocese or State in this Union."63 Dr. Donald G. Christiansen, pastor of Wasatch Presbyterian Church and president of the Salt Lake Ministerial Association, commented that "Bishop Hunt knew Christ and had the quiet confidence of a dedicated man . . . all good men in and out of his Church recognized him as a true man of God. . . ,"64 The compendium of events during his reign marked the gradual phasing out of the Catholic church's missionary status in Utah and established Bishop Hunt as the precursor of the present. His life and work led ultimately toward the era of Vatican II and contemporary Catholicism.

Bishop Joseph Lennox Federal (1960-80) undertook the monumental task of implementing the decrees of the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65. The portable altar, imposed in 1965 upon the traditional fitments of the sanctuary of the cathedral, represents both the renewal called forth by the council and the resultant chaos and confusion. And yet, upon both altars, the historical and the modern, is sacrificed Jesus Christ whom Pope John Paul II calls "the center of the universe and of history."

Having stood seventy years as the "Catholic contribution to the Utah heritage â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a reminder of the roots of western man,"65 the cathedral was officially declared a Utah State Historic Site in April 1970. The following year it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

But its physical structure, subjected to a slow deterioration by Salt Lake's weather extremes, began feeling the weight of its years. As early as the 82 Register, December 13, 1957. (Special edition honoring Bishop H u n t on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of his ordination as bishop of Salt Lake and providing details of his life, conversion, and accomplishments.)

83 Diocesan Monthly, November, 1926.

84 Register, April 8, 1960.

83 " T h e Cathedral of the Madeleine," undated, mimeographed, p. 8, U t a h State Historical Society Library.

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Cathedral facade framed in scaffolding during restoration of 1975-80.

Courtesy of Msgr. Jerome C. Stoffel.

late 1940s, when some exterior refurbishing was carried out on the facade and towers, it was apparent that the annual freeze-thaw cycle and the increase of industrial gases in the valley were eroding the sandy limestone.

In the fall of 1960 major repair work was undertaken to lengthen the life of the roof and halt damage from leaks onto the interior plaster and the priceless murals. However, the atmosphere, erosion, and time itself continued their destructive work, and by 1975 Bishop Federal was forced to launch the million-dollar restoration drive successfully spearheaded

by John W. Gallivan.

The projected work was carried out over a period of five years.

Actual costs and unanticipated needs gradually depleted the funds to the extent that only essential work, mostly on the exterior, could be completed, forcing the bishop to leave to his successors the major part of the interior restoration. Federal announced his resignation at the age of seventy on April 21, 1980. The following November 17 to the incumbent bishop, William Keith Weigand, he bequeathed the Cathedral of the Madeleine as a museum of Utah's historical past and a majestic motif in the fabric of her modern life.

When Mexican girls turned fifteen they often were given a special party and a birthday mass as in this photograph taken outside a church in Guadalajara.

The custom was observed in Utah, too. USHS collections, courtesy of Maria Munoz.

The Evolution of Culture and Tradition in Utah's Mexican-American Community

BY EDWARD H . MAYER

the early Spanish and Mexican history of Utah â&#x20AC;&#x201D; particularly the Dominguez-Escalante expedition of 1776-77 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the establishment of an energetic Mexican-American culture has been a twentieth-century phenomenon. That culture varies from those developed in other states of the Southwest, perhaps because of population D E S P I T E LOCAL EMPHASIS ON

Dr. Mayer is director of Ethnic Studies at the University of Utah.

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Quarterly

density. New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona have substantially larger Mexican-American populations and a greater attachment to Mexican culture. 1 Additionally, many Southwest communities are continuously rejuvenated by immigration. M u c h of the history of U t a h ' s Spanishspeaking peoples has been chronicled. 2 It is time now to look at the culture more specifically and see how it has changed and why it developed differently in U t a h .

EARLY I M M I G R A N T S PRESERVED TRADITION

I n the early part of the twentieth century most Spanish-speaking people who lived along the Wasatch Front were forced here from Mexico by the Mexican Revolution of 1910-20. They found work on the railroads, in the mines, and on the farms around Salt Lake City and Ogden.

Initially, most were young single men who came to make some money and return to Mexico. Few ever intended to remain in U t a h . As the revolution and subsequent depression intensified, more and more family groups came to U t a h until there were sizeable communities in Salt Lake, Bingham, and Ogden. Approximately 2,300 first- or second-generation Mexicans (about .5 percent of the total population) lived in U t a h in 1920. 3 I n more rural areas, such as Monticello, Spanish-speaking families from northern New Mexico and southern Colorado moved in to work as sheepherders and on farms and ranches. In both rural and urban areas Mexican traditions and culture were preserved.

Among these early immigrants the importance of the traditional Mexican family was deep. In the rural areas of Utah, life on the farm and ranch strengthened family ties. T h e burdens and responsibilities of the farm kept the individual rooted both physically and socially to the family. Within the Mexican-American farm family the parents preserved the language and customs of their heritage. As Leonor Gonzalez Edmunds recalls: " I remember sitting on the floor on Sunday evenings while our father would lead us in the Rosary." 1 This was said in the language of 1 Figures compiled in 1976 showed the Hispanic population of U t a h at 51,000 (4.7 percent of the total p o p u l a t i o n ) ; New Mexico, 400,000 (35.3 p e r c e n t ) ; Colorado, 278,000 (10.6 percent) ; a n d Arizona, 350,000 (15.2 p e r c e n t ) . U.S., D e p a r t m e n t of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Current Report: Population Characteristics, "Persons of Spanish Origin in the United States, M a r c h 1976" (advance r e p o r t ) , Series P-20, no. 302 (Washington, D . C : Government Printing Office, 1976).

2 See, for example, Vicente V. Mayer, "After Escalante: T h e Spanish-speaking People of U t a h , " in Helen Z. Papanikolas, ed., The Peoples of Utah (Salt Lake City: U t a h State Historical Society, 1976), p p . 4 3 7 - 6 8 .

3 Vicente V . Mayer, Jr., Utah: A Hispanic History (Salt Lake City: American West Center, University of U t a h , 1974), p. 39.

4 Interview with Leonor Gonzalez Edmunds, August 1, 1979, Salt Lake City.

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the home â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Spanish. Outside of the home the children spoke English and participated in the dominant culture.

The extended family and kinship ties among Mexican-Americans were very important in reinforcing traditions. Emotional, financial, and spiritual needs were met within the family, and it was considered shameful to seek outside help. Although the extended kin network is found within some other American families, reliance on kin is much more important to the traditional Mexican-American family than to the dominant Anglo-American culture.

One important factor not found in Anglo culture that strengthens the family and buttresses tradition is the compadrazgo (the spiritual relationship between a child's parents and the godfather). Among Mexican-Americans, as with most Catholic groups, godparents have certain obligations toward their godchildren. In the Mexican and MexicanAmerican structure the responsibility is even greater than in other Catholic ethnic groups, for the compadrazgo establishes an influential relationship between the parents and godparents. The two couples become compadres or comadres, thus forming a bond even stronger than that between the godparents and godchildren.5 The compadrazgo had a definite reinforcing effect on the extended family and the maintenance of traditions: Our family was made up of grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins.

Besides them, the people who influenced me most were my "padrinos" (godparents). They came to our house for every family celebration, birthdays, anniversaries, baptisms, confirmations and deaths. They also gave me advice and an occasional scolding. This is what I expected from my "padrinos." 6

Although this influence has diminished somewhat in more recent times, it remains a cultural factor in both urban and rural settings.

In urban areas the Mexican community created other support systems that helped to sustain tradition and culture, organizations such as Comite Patriotico Mexicano ("Patriotic Mexican Committee"), 1914; Comision Honoriftca Mexicana ("Honorary Mexican Commission"), 1921; and the Centro Civico Mexicano ("Mexican Civic Center"), 1943.

The principal objectives of these societies were to aid Mexican immigrants and to maintain Mexican culture, tradition, and language. Because many Mexican families planned to return to their native land they 5

Leo Grebler, Joan W. Moore, and Ralph C. Guzman, eds., The Mexican American People (New York: Free Press, 1970), p. 68.

6 Interview with Graciela Ortiz, October 15, 1976, Salt Lake City. This and other 1976 interviews were filmed for the U t a h Endowment for the Humanities project "La Raza en Utah, Ayer yi Hoy" directed by E. H . Mayer.

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Utah Historical Quarterly

remained Mexican citizens for many years and also retained the celebrations and customs of Mexico. The celebration of Mexican holidays by Utah residents is still observed: Cinco de Mayo (Battle of Pueblaâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;independence from the French) and 16 de Septiembre (independence from the Spanish) are the two most important holidays. Finally, up until the most recent times children were taught reverence for the Mexican flag and sang the Mexican national anthem, a practice that is apparently fading.

According to one informant: "I don't know what is the matter with the Mexicano today. They have no pride in the flag (Mexican) and they don't even know the words to the 'Himno NacionaP ('Mexican National Anthem')." 7 Other institutions that lent support to the developing Mexican community were churches. Ironically, although most Mexicanos are Roman Catholic the first Mexican church in Utah was la Rama Mexicana, the Mexican Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints established in 1920. Many Mexican Mormons from Mexico and other parts of the country had come to Utah to be close to the center of the church.

Because families are important to both Mexicans and Mormons they came as families. Thus, although smaller in number, they probably constituted a more community-minded group than the majority of early Mexican-Americans in Utah who were mostly single and not concerned about putting down roots. Although they were part of a church with a strong American tradition, the Mexican Mormons attempted to preserve their Mexicanness. The Mexican Branch, later the Lucero Ward, conducted all its meetings in Spanish. Some efforts were made (and still are) to teach the dances and songs of Mexico. Most of the young men of the Lucero Ward were sent on proselytizing missions to Mexico or other Spanish-speaking areas, helping to maintain a strong Spanish language base within the Mexican Mormon community.

The Catholic Mission, after having served the Italian community in Salt Lake City's westside, changed its focus to the Spanish-speaking Catholics in the late 1920s. The Mission of Our Lady of Guadalupe was established in 1930, and with the help of Mexican nuns of the Order of Perpetual Adoration and Father James Earl Collins, the parish became a center for cultural activities and celebrations.

Factors other than the support systems mentioned above also helped to preserve culture. Prior to World War II, for example, families in Salt Lake, Ogden, and Bingham remained somewhat isolated from the influ7

Interview with Simon Manzano, May 5, 1976, Salt Lake City.

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ences of the non-Mexican world. The language of the home, friends, church, and celebrations w7as Spanish. The first-generation immigrants also took a great pride in being Mexican. Frances Yafiez recalls what her father told her as a young girl: "Remember, no matter how light you are, or how dark you are, you are a Mexican. And always be proud that you are a Mexican." 8 However, by the end of World W a r I I the nature of the Mexican-American in Utah began to change.

D E C L I N E OF M E X I C A N C U L T U R A L I N F L U E N C E S

Although fewer immigrants came from Mexico and some who had come earlier moved away, the Mexican-American population increased in the postwar years through new Spanish-speaking immigrants from Colorado and New Mexico and because of the large size of many Mexican-American families. As the number of second- and third-generation Mexican-Americans increased, the Mexican cultural influence began to decrease. As acculturation took place in the young Mexican-American, certain losses of culture could be measured. Perhaps the most important cultural trait, and one of the most easily measured, is bilingualism.

Although bilingualism does not necessarily measure the Mexicanness of a person, it bears some relationship to the degree of acculturation.

Four stages of bilingualism can be observed. 9 An example of stable bilingualism can be found along the U.S.-Mexican border where business and local government employees are equally proficient in both languages, and radio and television as well as all types of written materials are available in both languages.

In Utah dynamic and transitional bilingualism have been most evident in the Mexican-American community. With the attempt to assimilate into the dominant society, most Mexican-Americans appropriated English as the language of literacy, work, education, and recreation.

Spanish was limited to intimate situations, especially in the home. The acquisition of English was facilitated because the use of Spanish among Mexican-Americans was primarily oral rather than written. In a family setting it was not uncommon for parents to address each other in Spanish while addressing their children in English. In other cases parents ad8

Interview with Frances Yaiiez, July 12, 1976, Salt Lake City.

See Glyn Lewis's Multilingualism in the Soviet Union (The H a g u e : Mouton, 1973), for a fuller study of bilingualism and socio-linguistics. (Dynamic bilingualism is typical of people "on the move socially and geographically" who acquire a second language to meet different roles and to prepare for assimilation. Transitional bilingualism occurs when two languages assume overlapping functions, inevitably leading to the exclusive use of one language for those functions. Stable and vestigial bilingualism are defined in the article.)

9

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dressed their children in Spanish but their children responded exclusively in English: I wish that I had kept up with my Spanish. When my parents would speak in Spanish I would answer in English. I n public, many times I would ignore my parents if they spoke to me in Spanish. I was ashamed of being Mexican. Nowadays it is different, but it is too late nowâ&#x20AC;&#x17E; 10

Thus, even when parents wanted their children to maintain the Spanish language, peer and social pressures had a greater impact on the language choice of the child. The reduced use of spoken Spanish and the exclusive use of English as the written language soon caused a significant language shift in the Mexican-American population.11 The loss of frequent Spanish usage has placed the majority of second-, third-, and fourth-generation Mexican-Americans into the category called vestigial bilingualism. This group has completely assimilated the English language but retains a few words or expressions in Spanish as ethnic markers.

Many second- and third-generation Mexican-Americans were caught between two cultures: the Mexican and the Anglo-American. Even many who came from Colorado and New Mexico were caught in this identity crisis when they left strongholds of Mexican and Spanish culture to come to Utah, an area predominantly Anglo. The young MexicanAmericans of the late forties and fifties soon felt the influence of the world beyond the home and the Mexican community. At school and outside the family they experienced prejudice toward the Mexican. The Spanish language used in the home, at church, and at celebrations was discouraged in the schools: I remember in Bingham being kept Spanish to a friend. I was told by class or at the playground. From Spanish and was ashamed when my home. 1 2

after class because I was speaking the teacher to only use English in that time I didn't want to speak parents would use it outside of the

The attitude of the Anglo-American tow7ard Spanish, especially Mexican Spanish, was only one of the negative images of the Mexican10

Interview with Maria Contratto, July 4, 1976, Bountiful.

Lewis, Multilingualism, claims that some bilinguals are literate in only one language.

E d n a Acosta-Belen in "Spanglish: A Case of Language in Contact," New Direction in Second Language Learning, Teaching, and Bilingual Education, ed. M . Burt and H . Dulay (Washington, D.G.: Teachers of English to Speakers of O t h e r Languages, 1975), describes the mixing of Spanish and English common to many transitional bilinguals and the stigma attached to this usage.

12 Interview with Carola Lopez, July 18, 1976, Salt Lake City.

II

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American, images as prevalent in Utah as elsewhere. These myths and stereotypes proved destructive because people acted as if they were true: "I remember as a young girl that the only way I could see a Mexican was sleeping against a tree under a big hat."33 Even though Frances Yafiez was herself a Mexican and from an industrious family, she saw the Mexican as others had painted him. This stereotype of the Mexican as a passive peasant, fat and lazy, may have derived from the siesta as an institution in Mexico; otherwise, it has little ascertainable basis in fact. Guy Lane of Provo, who employed many Mexicans, said "I have never met a harder working group of people. They are willing to do the dirtiest and hardest jobs for the longest hours. It is not unusual to see them work in fields from five o'clock in the morning until eight in the evening."14 Another characteristic attributed to Mexican-Americans accuses them of being dirty, greasy, and unkempt. The lack of personal cleanliness, as viewed by middle-class Anglo-Americans, also served as a measure of one's virtue and morals. This attribute was generally based on observation of the Mexican laboring in the fields, railroads, and mines, hardly the type of environment that allowed the same kind of hygienic practices found among white-collar workers. One informant remembers how important cleanliness was: "It was very important that all of us children were clean and neat whenever we went to church or to town.

Mother didn't want us to look like poor and dirty Mexicans."15 One of the most negative images to plague the Mexican-American has been that of inveterate drunkenness and criminal tendencies. It is true that drinking is an accepted activity among most Mexican-Americans, and total abstinence is rare. But the image of excessive drinking has created ongoing problems with local police. The continued mistrust between Mexican-Americans and law enforcement personnel has been magnified by the press to the point where authorities and the community at large expect violent behavior from the Mexican. As one man stated it: Sure it's true that we have our problems with alcohol. O u r people feel a frustration which they hope to alleviate through drinking. Yet, because of the press coverage it appears the Mexicans are always drunk and violent. Whenever there is a shooting a m o n g Mexican Americans the

10

Yanez interview.

Interview with Guy Lane, August 20, 1976, Provo.

15 Interview with Carola Lopez, August 24, 1976, Salt Lake City.

14

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Utah Historical Quarterly Spanish surname will give us away every time, a n d then everyone says: "See, there they go again. Another d r u n k Mexican involved in a shooting." 1 6

However, not all images are as negative as these. Among those usually meant to be complimentary, yet are equally stereotypical, are: all Mexicans are musical and play a guitar, they are always ready for fiesta, and they are very romantic. A particularly vivid personal account is recalled as follows: O n e evening after a dinner party, everyone went into the living room for entertainment and [to] socialize. T h e hostess came into the room and h a n d e d m e a guitar. Y o u can image her embarrassment when she learned that not all Mexicans play the guitar. 1 7

These images and the decline of Spanish language usage marked the low point in Mexican cultural identification.

CULTURAL REAWAKENING

Recently there has been a concerted effort among some MexicanAmericans to resist acculturation and to retain portions of their Mexican culture. The Chicano movement is a political and social reform movement that calls for the improvement and social well-being of all Chicanos in a manner that preserves their culture and personal dignity. The attitude of Basta! ("Enough!") has become characteristic of the group of Mexican-Americans who prefer to be known as Chicanos.18 Chicanos a r e not identified with all Mexican Americans but basically with t h e poor Mexican Americans. W e are identified with the worker.

Chicanos w a n t to do something to eliminate the injustices of the system as these work against the Mexican Americans. American society as it exists today lends itself to group association, to class association, to class struggle, not to individual struggle. You see we are Mexican Americans: w e are a m e m b e r of a group. We are labeled as a g r o u p by the rest of society a n d more important, we are a m e m b e r of a class, usually the lower economic class. Therefore, we are not just involved in individualistic struggle, b u t in a class struggle. 1 9

18

Interview with Ed Campos, August 15, 1976, Salt Lake City.

Interview with Ed Mayer, August 1, 1976, Salt Lake City.

18 Once a derogatory term signifying a poor, uneducated individual without cultureâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Mexican or Angloâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Chicano was derived from Mexicano with the first syllable dropped and the X pronounced Ch. Today it is used to apply to those Mexican-Americans actively involved in social reform.

19 Grebler et al., The Mexican American People, p. 17.

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The Chicano movement also involves a cultural struggle as defined in the following statement: Chicanos identify with Mexico, not as a nation but as a culture. We are socialized here in this environment by Anglo institutions. We can't be molded into Mexicano, our personalities, our behavior is different, our outlook on life is different from the Mexican. We cannot reject ourselves and part of us is Anglo whether we admit it or not. We are Americans.

Although we want to change the existing system with new ideology and a new economic system, we cannot change our personalities. We want to accept ourselves as having historical roots in Mexico, of being descendants of a culture that is not inferior. We want to appreciate those things of which we are descendants, but also, we will have to appreciate those things which are not Mexican. 20

There are some who believe that there is a Chicano renaissance taking place, a reawakening of those aspects of life that nurture and sustain language and the cultural heritage. The maintenance and development of Mexican folk music, folk dance, and folklore is gaining greater importance among writers and teachers. The 1970s proved to be important in the Mexican-American's quest for sociopolitical and economic status. This new social and political consciousness brought forth a literary and artistic awareness. Newspapers, magazines, and journals are springing up throughout the Southwest, and MexicanAmerican writers and scholars are being published in recognized journals.

The emergence of El Teatro Campesino, the Chicano Migrant Theatre, in Delano, California, in 1965 and its performances throughout the United States and abroad encouraged the creation of similar theater groups elsewhere.

In Utah several Mexican-American organizations were established prior to the Chicano movement, but it was not until 1968 that a statewide organization was formed. Under the leadership of Jorge ArceLarreta, Richard Barbero, and Father Jerald Merrill, SOCIO (Spanish Speaking Organization for Community, Integrity, and Opportunity) was established to give a voice to all the Spanish-speaking in Utah.

In addition to establishing the Utah Migrant Council, SOCIO has been instrumental in forming and supporting the Chicano Studies Program at the University of Utah, the Utah Ballet Folklorico Company, and the Chicano ombudsman position for the state. The importance of these organizations and positions cannot be overestimated. First, they have established a political base from which Chicanos can unify in an attempt 20

ibid.

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to better the Mexican-American position. Second, their visibility and the visibility of Chicano leaders in the state has created a different attitude among the people of the community. Young Mexican-Americans can now envision careers that previously appeared out of their grasp.

This same attitude has fostered a pride in the heritage and language of their ancestors, a pride which had all but been lost among the young of the forties, fifties, and sixties in Utah. It is the rule rather than the exception now that most Mexican-Americans will admit to being of Mexican descent, whereas some ten to thirty years ago they would rather have been called Spanish.

This new aggressiveness causes some concern within the MexicanAmerican population of Utah. Not all consider themselves Chicanos, and many of the older generation prefer to be called Mexicanos: "I don't know7 what it is with Chicano this or Chicano that. As far as I'm concerned you are Mexican because both your father and I are Mexican.

This is something you should be proud of."21 It remains to be seen whether all Mexican-Americans can be convinced that the more aggressive course is better, but many do recognize the impact culturally as well as politically that El Movimiento is having: "The word Chicano doesn't bother me anymore. I see the good that all these things have done for our people. I only wish that my husband would let me get more involved. We need this kind of help here in the West side."22 The cultural implications for Utah are significant. The new attitude of the Mexican-American is to retain and in many cases regain those portions of the culture that express a degree of Mexicanness. No longer does he want to become totally assimilated into Anglo society.

He is American but wants to enjoy his Mexican heritage: And finally after having found an identity I think w h a t we seek then is cultural pluralism. W e are no longer striving very diligently for assimilation. We're not too happy with compensatory programs such as " E n glish as a Second L a n g u a g e " ; it tries to help us fit into the total society.

W e feel t h a t we are w h a t we are, that we are richer because of it, and t h a t we can be good contributors a n d citizens of this country without having to compromise our heritage a n d traditions. 2 3

Nevertheless, the Mexican-American in Utah is not experiencing the same renewal as in other, more heavily populated areas of the South"Interview with Bertha Amador Mayer, June 5, 1976, Bountiful.

Yanez interview.

23 Statement of Orlando Rivera at Chicano Conference, 1974, Brigham Young University,

22

Provo.

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west and urban centers of the Midwest. There are some important reasons for this: U t a h is not in the mainstream of the immigration of Mexican or other Spanish-speaking people. Many Mexican immigrants who do come to U t a h come on a temporary basis to harvest seasonal crops. T h e once close-knit Mexican community is not being culturally rejuvenated by new immigrants as it was prior to the 1930s. Although there are areas where more Spanish-speaking are found, there is not a barrio or a large concentration of the Spanish-speaking as in New Mexico and Colorado. Unless contact is maintained with others who share the Mexican-American culture, people soon become assimilated, intentionally or not.

S U M M A R Y AND C O N C L U S I O N S

It is impossible to measure accurately the rate of assimilation or acculturation of the U t a h Spanish-speaking, but certain changes seen within this culture suggest some conclusions. During the early settlement in U t a h by the Spanish-speaking the Mexican culture remained very strong within that community. The pride of the first-generation Mexicans for their native land and its culture received support not only from family and kinship systems, i.e., compadrazgo^ but from civic and religious institutions. T h e actual physical location of the Mexican community in the urban centers made it both a refuge and a barrier to assimilation. I n the rural areas the emphasis on the family served to preserve language and culture.

T h e post-World W a r I I years witnessed the dissolution of the Spanish language and Mexican culture. Second- and third-generation Mexican-Americans rejected the language and culture of their parents.

An identity crisis caused by the lack of pride in the Mexican heritage and the prejudice of society forced many young people to seek assimilation into the Anglo culture.

T h e Chicano movement of the sixties and seventies has done much to increase the sociopolitical and economic consciousness of the MexicanAmerican in Utah. Leaders and agencies have emerged to attempt to deal with problems such as education and employment. Much has been and is being done to accomplish the goals of the Chicano movement.

I n parts of the Southwest the Mexican-American culture is closely knitted to the Chicano movement, but in Utah situations exist that prevent this close relationship. Many Mexican-Americans here have difficulty relating to the word Chicano and the methods outlined to reach

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Chicano goals. This tends to fragment the community. Many of Utah's first- and second-generation Mexican-Americans lack sufficient political motivation to participate in confrontation to bring about change. Ironically, many of these same people are the ones who retain most of the important aspects of Mexican culture such as language, religion, compadrazgo. A middle group consists of those who are politically active and still maintain some cultural identity. Even though they generally recognize the great importance of the Mexican-American culture they are unable to maintain it to the degree their parents have and rarely transfer it to their children. T h e third identifiable group includes young Chicanos who have become politically active and want to regain the language and traditions of their parents. In most cases this is difficult because they have lost so much, especially language, and in some cases have known only the Anglo culture. For these young people much of their heritage and culture must be learned for the first time.

Classes in Spanish culture, history, and literature are now available at Utah's major universities. Community organizations provide cultural events. Movies and local celebrations in Spanish are available to the Mexican-American community. And bilingual education is offered in school districts. Yet, a continuous dissolution cf language and culture continues among the young. This is especially tragic at a time when pride and a positive attitude toward being of Mexican ancestry has developed anew among many Mexican-Americans in Utah. However, until such time that the community can be continually rejuvenated by first- and second-generation Mexican-Americans â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as is the case in much of the Southwest â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the U t a h Spanish-speaking will have to expend as much energy to preserve their culture as they have given to achieve their sociopolitical objectives.

Labor Conflict at Eureka, 1886-97

BY P A U L A. F R I S C H

the closing decade of the nineteenth century brought dramatic and occasionally violent confrontations between hardrock miners and mining corporations. By the 1890s the West's rugged individualists, the prospector and the gold panner, existed mainly in folklore. These celebrated stereotypes gave way to the underground wage miner employed by highly capitalized corporations. Miners founded unions to provide sick and death benefits, maintain a wage commensurate with their difficult and dangerous occupation, and lobby before state legislatures for reduced working hours and minimum safety standards. During the 1870s and 1880s local miners' unions struggled to gain a respectable living for their members from an expanding inI N

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146

Utah Historical Quarterly

dustry. The precipitous decline of silver's market value in the 1890s intensified the struggle between miners attempting to maintain their wage level and corporations equally determined to keep their ledgers in the black.1 Over the past fifteen years the field of labor history has been enriched by several important studies on class conflict in single-industry towns. A theme common to all of these studies has been the alliance of the working class and middle class against the emerging corporation.

The entrepreneurial status of the middle class made it dependent upon the wages of the working class. Some studies have explored the close relationship between farmers and urban wage earners. Farmers' support for local workers arose from such varied reasons as kinship, a desire to sell produce to workers, and resentment towards the corporation as a usurper of resources.2 In exploring the applicability of these arguments to the mining town of Eureka, Utah Territory, it is clear at the start that in one respect at least Eureka was distinctly different from other industrial towns studied: Farmers living in the nearby valleys failed to make common cause with miners in defense of producer consciousness but instead turned against the miners due to religious antipathy and job competition.3 Surprisingly little has been written on nineteenth-century labor conflict in Utah's metal mining industry. Although the mining camps of nineteenth-century Utah were numerous, none approached the size of Virginia City, Nevada, Butte, Montana, or some of the mining towns in Colorado.4 Taken as a unit, however, Utah's mining industry stood 1 For a depiction of the hardrock miner's life both in and out of the mine, the changing nature of the industry and its effect on the labor force, and the struggles to initiate and maintain unionism, see Richard E. Lingenfelter, The Hardrock Miners: A History of the Mining Labor Movement in the American West, 1863-1893 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974). A good account of the turbulent labor relations in hardrock mining during the closing decades of the nineteenth century can be found in Vernon H . Jensen, Heritage of Conflict: Labor Relations in the Nonferrous Metals Industry up to 1930 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1950), chaps. 1-7.

2 For a pioneering essay on community support for workers, see Herbert G. Gutman, " T h e Workers Search for Power," in The Gilded Age, ed. H . Wayne Morgan, 2d ed., (Syracuse, N.Y., 1970), pp. 3 1 - 5 4 ; additional studies amplifying this theme are collected in Herbert G. Gutman, ed., Work, Culture & Society in Industrializing America: Essays in American Working-Class and Social History (New York, 1976). T h e importance of the miners' purchasing power as a cause of middle-class support is discussed in Melvyn Dubofsky, " T h e Origins of Western Working Class Radicalism, 1890-1905," Labor History 7 (1966) : 131-54. For a discussion on agrarian support of workers, see James R. Green, " T h e Brotherhood of Timber Workers, 1 9 1 0 - 1 9 1 3 : A Radical Response to Industrial Capitalism in the Southern U.S.A.," Past and Present 60 (1973) : 161-200.

3 For a study dealing with Mormon miners and M o r m o n church influence on unionization, see Allan K e n t Powell, "Mormon Influence on the Unionization of Eastern U t a h Coal Miners, 1903-1933," Journal of Mormon History 4 (1977) : 9 1 - 1 0 0 .

4 Lingenfelter, Hardrock Miners, pp. 132, 158-62, 194, 216-17, 220, 2 2 4 - 2 5 ; Jensen Heritage of Conflict, chap. 15. A quote from Jensen probably best describes why historians have neglected Utah's mining industry as an area of study: p. 259, "Mining development in

Labor Conflict at Eureka

147

high among the states and territories as a producer of precious metals (gold and silver). Although only eleventh on the list of gold producers in the United States from 1886 to 1892, Utah placed third in silver output. By the 1890s Utah ranked fourth on the list of precious metal producers. 5 Utah's mining industry operated within a different context from that of its Rocky Mountain neighbors. In terms of settlement pattern, population composition, and economic base, Utah stood apart from the region. T o avoid religious persecution, Latter-day Saints began settling in Utah in 1847. The Mormons took as their mission the building of the kingdom of God in the commonwealth of Deseret. Their past sufferings and future hopes made the Saints a very cohesive community. In order to avoid conflict and cultivate religious purity the Mormons sought to break all contact with the Gentile (term used by the Saints to describe all non-Mormons) world by practicing self-reliance. With a bitter past still fresh in their memory and a better future beckoning them on, the Mormons set about constructing their kingdom. By the Civil War the Latter-day Saints had established a predominantly agricultural economy. This pattern of agricultural settlement contrasted sharply with the mining booms that brought the initial burst of settlement to Colorado, Montana, and Idaho. 6 During the Civil War the United States government established a garrison of California volunteers at Salt Lake City. Col. Patrick E. Connor, commanding officer of the garrison, hoped to counter Mormon influence in Utah by encouraging an influx of non-Mormons. In hope of finding a lure for Gentiles, Connor encouraged his troops to prospect during furloughs. T h e discovery of silver in 1863 started the migration of non-Mormons to Utah. The completion of the transcontinental railway through Utah in 1869, and a growing network of railroad lines in the 1870s, made the territory's mining industry more profitable and attracted more Gentiles to the mining communities. 7 U t a h was not as spectacular as elsewhere. There were mining camps but none as big as some in other places."

5 U.S., Geological Survey, Mineral Resources of the United States (1893) (Washington, D.C., 1894), pp. 5 9 - 6 1 . U t a h ranked behind Colorado and Montana in silver output, while Colorado, Montana, and California surpassed Utah in the combined production of silver and gold.

8 For a discussion of Mormon persecution and the insular commonwealth they developed in Utah, see Nels Anderson, Desert Saints: The Mormon Frontier in Utah (Chicago, 1942), pp. 1 7 - 5 5 ; and Leonard J. Arrington, Feramorz Y. Fox, and Dean L. May, Building 'the City of God: Community and Cooperation among the Mormons (Salt Lake City, 1976), passim.

5 Rodman Wilson Paul, Mining Frontiers of the Far West, 1848-1880 (1963; reprint ed., Albuquerque, 1974), p. 150; J. Kenneth Davies, " U t a h Labor before Statehood," Utah Historical Quarterly 34 ( 1 9 6 6 ) : 212: Jensen, Heritage of Conflict, p. 257; William D. Hay-

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Though the influx of Gentiles ended the Mormons' hopes for a homogeneous society and raised fears of social decay, it proved an economic boon. The mining communities reinforced the Mormons' commitment to agriculture by providing a market for their surplus produce.

Some of the Mormon population, no longer able to make a living on the limited, arable land base, went to work in the mines. In addition, some Mormons labored in the mines on a seasonal basis. Farmers and their sons journeyed to the mining camps from adjoining agricultural districts when farm work slackened.8 Though Mormons frequently worked alongside Gentile miners, the Saints refused to join miners' unions. Church elders counseled against unionism because of the Latter-day Saints' policy of nonassociation with Gentiles and the risk of divided loyalty. The fact that the Mormon church itself and many of its leaders were employers probably contributed to the church's antiunion stance.9 In addition to the religious antipathy between Mormons and Gentiles and the antiunion attitude of Mormon leadership, the seasonal nature of Mormon mining employment placed them in a disadvantaged position. Because of their irregular stints as hardrock miners, Mormons generally lacked the knowledge and skill of Gentile miners. Due to these occupational deficiencies, Mormons could not command the same wage as Gentiles. Since Mormon miners earned most of their income from their farms, the supplementary nature of their mining income allowed them to accept substandard wages. Mormon farmer-miners aided the mining corporations by augmenting the labor force and depressing the wage level.10 A major strike during 1893 makes Eureka an interesting town for the study of local alignments under the stress of industrial conflict.

Eureka lies in the Tintic mining district about sixty miles south of Salt Lake City.11 Although an initial discovery of silver occurred in 1869, wood, Big Bill's Book: The Autobiography of William D. Haywood (New York, 1929). Chap. 1, "Boyhood among the Mormons," provides a sense of the depth of antagonism between Mormons and Gentiles.

8 Haywood, Big Bill's Book, p. 32; Jensen, Heritage of Conflict, p. 258; U.S., Industrial Commission, Capital and Labor Employed in the Mining Industry, 1900-1902, 19 vols. (Washington, D . C , 1901),12:570, 5 8 6 ; Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-Day Saints 1830-1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958), p p . 2 4 2 - 4 3 ; Duane A. Smith, Rocky Mountain Mining Camps: The Urban Frontier (Bloomington, Ind., 1967), p. 133.

9 Jensen, Heritage of Conflict, p. 2 5 8 ; J. Kenneth Davies, Deseret's So7is of Toil: A History of the Worker Movements of Territorial Utah, 1852-1896 (Salt Lake City, 1977) pp. 26-29.

10 U.S., Industrial Commission, Capital and Labor, pp. 570, 586.

11 U.S., Bureau of the Census, T e n t h Census, 1880: Statistics and Technology of the Precious Metals, 13:456.

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large-scale development awaited completion of the railroad to Eureka in 1883.12 Tintic's output of gold and silver climbed from sixth among Utah's mining districts in 1880 to second place by 1890.13 The mining boom pushed the district's population from 550 in 1880 to 2,354 ten years later. Eureka, center of Tintic's mining activity, grew from 122 residents to 1,733 during the same time span.14 The arrival of a resident priest in 1885 suggests that Catholics represented a substantial part of the community. By 1886 Eureka's Catholics had constructed a church and founded a night school patronized largely by miners. The growing Catholic population required the construction of a separate parochial school building in 1891.15 The number of miners also expanded at a comparable rate. In the 1880 manuscript census, 99 men at Tintic listed their occupation as miner; 24 of these miners resided at Eureka.16 By 1890 the average number of hardrock men employed at Tintic had increased tenfold.17 Eureka's hardrock miners, in 1886, formed a local union and affiliated with the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor.18 The declining price of silver in the 1890s set the stage for a confrontation between mine owners and the organized miners. As Tintic's mines produced mainly silver, the falling market value of the white metal adversely affected the local economy. After reaching almost $4 million in 1890, the value of Tintic's silver output dropped below $3 million in 1891.

This trend continued for the following two years as the value of the district's silver production plummeted to $1.5 million by 1893. The poor market for silver led to reduced work forces in Tintic's mines.

In the face of declining profits, mine owners in Idaho sought a reduction in their labor costs. In 1892 a major confrontation over a wage reduction occurred in the Coeur d' Alene region. The increasing competitiveness of the silver market made the outcome of this strike 33 David F. Johnson, " T h e History and Economics of Utah's Railroads," in Wain Sutton, ed., Utah: A Centennial History, 3 vols. (New York, 1949), 2 : 8 2 6 .

13 T e n t h Census, 1880: Precious Metals, 1 3 : 3 1 4 ; U.S., Bureau of the Census, Eleventh Census, 1890: Report on Mineral Industries in the United States, 8:94.

14 Eleventh Census, 1890: Population, 1:342.

33 Duane G. H u n t , "History of the Roman Catholic Church in U t a h , " in Sutton, Utah: A Centennial History, 2 : 7 7 0 - 7 1 ; Alice Paxman McCune, History of Juab County, 1847-1947 (Springville, Ut., 1947), pp. 195-96.

18 T e n t h Census, 1880: Utah (manuscript), 1, microfilm of the census schedules available at U t a h State Historical Society Library, Salt Lake City.

17 Eleventh Census, 1890: Mineral Industries, 7 : 9 5 .

18 J o n a t h a n Ezra Garlock, "A Structural Analysis of the Knights of Labor: A Prolegomenon to the History of the Producing Classes" (Ph.D. diss., University of Rochester, 1974), p. 411.

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vital to both mine owners and hardrock miners throughout the West.

To aid Coeur d'Alene miners and protect against the likelihood of wage reductions throughout the Rocky Mountain region, the Eureka Miners' Union contributed $500.00 to the Idaho miners. Unfortunately for the hardrock men, the Coeur d'Alene miners suffered defeat.19 Spurred on by their victory at Coeur d'Alene, mine owners elsewhere in the West resorted to wage cuts. The war reached Tintic on January 14, 1893, when the Bullion-Beck announced a 50 cent wage reduction that cut the miners' daily wage to $2.50 per day and the laborers' to $2.00. The Eureka Miners' Union held a meeting that evening at which they decided not to accept the wage reduction. A committee representing the union met with the Bullion-Beck's manager, A. E. Hyde, to inform him of the miners' decision. On the following day the Bullion-Beck shut down when its nearly two hundred fifty employees went on strike.20 While the strike proceeded peacefully during February, the union reportedly "received many offers of assistance from outside labor organizations" that left it "in a position to hold its own for some time."

When the miners offered to accept a sliding scale that would have linked their wage to the price of silver and received a negative reply from the Bullion-Beck's management, the strikers came to perceive the wage cut as a permanent move.21 When the Bullion-Beck attempted to resume operations in March, Eureka began to receive considerable press coverage. John Duggan, secretary of the Eureka Miners' Union and one of its founding members, busied himself with keeping the union's side of the strike before the public. Newspapers throughout Utah and even as far away as Butte, Montana, mining capital of the West, received regular dispatches from Duggan.22 The Bullion-Beck's initial attempt to reopen with nonunion outsiders failed when a crow7d of strikers met the nearly fifty recruits at " U . S . , Geological Survey, Mineral Resources of the United States (1892) (Washington, D . C , 1893), p. 8 3 ; Waldemar Lindgren and G. F. Loughlin, Geology and Ore Deposits of the Tintic Mining District, Utah, U.S., Geological Survey, Professional Paper no. 107 (Washington, D . C , 1919), p. 108; Engineering and Mining Journal 52 (August 1, 1891)- 133 â&#x20AC;˘ (September 19, 1 8 9 1 ) : 3 4 3 - 4 4 ; 53 ( M a r c h 5, 1 8 9 2 ) : 2 8 8 ; (April 30, 1 8 9 2 ) : 4 8 2 ; (June 4^ 1 8 9 2 ) : 6 0 2 ; 54 (July 23, 1 8 9 2 ) : 8 8 ; Robert Wayne Smith, The Coeur d'Alene Mining War of 1892: A Case Study of An Industrial Dispute (Corvallis, 1961), p. 54.

20 Salt Lake Herald, January 14, 15, 17, 1893; Deseret News, January 16, 1893; Salt Lake Tribune, J a n u a r y 17, 1893; Park Record, January 21, February 25, 1893; Engineering and Mining Journal 55 (January 28, 1893) : 87.

21 Park Record, February 11, 25, 1893.

22 From April 1893 to June 1894 Duggan sent letters from Eureka to the Butte ( M o n t a n a ) Bystander, a labor weekly in the most highly unionized western city.

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the train depot and persuaded them to refuse the positions at the BullionBeck. The union provided these men with board, lodging, and a return ticket to Salt Lake City. On March 9 the mine started with a force of twenty-seven men but ran into almost immediate opposition. A crowd, with about forty women in the vanguard, marched to the Bullion-Beck at noon to dissuade these men from continuing at the mine. The procession persuaded six men to quit, including the three operating engineers. This union coup crippled the Bullion-Beck's ability to function since the highly skilled operating engineers worked the hoists that transported men, supplies, and ore up and down the mine shaft.23 Prior to this demonstration, the non-Mormon Salt Lake Tribune reported that "the miners are going about the streets, armed with revolvers and with clubs secreted in their sleeves, intimidating all who have the temerity to express an opinion adverse to their interests." The report also predicted "that bloodshed will result unless a compromise is arrived at by the 17th."24 Since March 17 is Saint Patrick's Day, and the Irish represented a substantial part of the strikers, some feared that the holiday's festivities might lead to a riot. Capitalizing on a tense situation, the Bullion-Beck's management â&#x20AC;&#x201D; including Mormon apostle Moses Thatcher, prominent Mormon businessman and church leader William B. Preston, and A. E. Hyde â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and the company's attorneys met with Gov. Arthur L. Thomas to request help in keeping the mine open. According to the newspaper report of this meeting, U.S. Marshal Irving H. Benton was on the scene at Eureka investigating.25 The same issue of the Deseret News also contained John Duggan's communication to Governor Thomas refuting charges of riot and asking that federal marshals not be used as an extension of the mining companies. One passage from Duggan's protest suggests the importance to the strikers of free access to the streets for public demonstrations: T h e evident intent, we fear, on the p a r t of those having this business in h a n d , is either to provoke a riot, or to embarrass us as to compel us to quit asserting o u r rights to maintain our former wages, by ceasing to use m o r a l suasion to induce men to not hire with the Bullion-Beck company, or to leave their employment.

33 Salt Lake Tribune, March 9, 11, 1893; Deseret News, March 9, 1893; Salt Lake Herald, March 9, 1893; Provo Enquirer, March 11, 14, 1893; Engineering and Mining Journal 55 (March 18, 1893) : 256.

21 Salt Lake Tribune, March 8, 1893.

25 Deseret News, March 15, 1893. T h e Salt Lake Tribune, March 7, 1893, reported the results of the Bullion-Beck annual meeting and the election of the board of directors with Thatcher, president; John Beck, vice-president; Preston, treasurer; Hyde and George Q .

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In order to stifle the miners' power of persuasion, the BullionBeck's management requested outside help in the form of federal marshals. The force of approximately twenty marshals curtailed the miners' chances for a successful strike by discouraging demonstrations. In early March the marshals sought warrants against some fifty miners and sympathizers on the charge of riot. Because they stood little chance of attaining the warrants from local officials, the federal marshals traveled to Provo but still received no warrants. 26 Saint Patrick's Day brought no disturbances to Eureka, but tension mounted as the Bullion-Beck obtained more strikebreakers from both Salt Lake City and farming communities.27 John Duggan accused the federal marshals of committing acts that showed their favoritism towards the Bullion-Beck Company: O n arrival of Rio G r a n d e Western train last night ( M a r c h 7) the BullionBeck people and deputy U n i t e d States marshals requested the union m e n to not take hold of any of the new arrivals to induce them not to go to work, a n d on their p a r t they would do the same. This is, each side would use argument, not force of any kind. An engineer being a m o n g the new m e n two deputy marshals first took hold of him a n d dragged him along toward the Bullion-Beck. We are not aware t h a t t h a t is any p a r t of a marshal's duty, a n d c a n n o t help thinking t h a t the m e n who would d o it are not fit to b e entrusted with the responsible duties of the marshals. 2 8

In the same dispatch to the Salt Lake Tribune Duggan claimed that a marshal had entered "several mining camps to recruit men for the Bullion-Beck Company."29 Since Mormons controlled the Bullion-Beck, anti-Mormonism rallied Gentile support and made the strike more bitter. As the company began to successfully employ strikebreakers, some of them Mormons, antiMormon feelings came into the open. Frank Hunter, a long-time supporter of the miners' union, claimed that Latter-day Saints' Bishop Tanner of Payson, an agricultural community about twenty-five miles northeast of Eureka, received orders from church authorities to supply twenty men to the Bullion-Beck Company.30 This charge led to an exchange of letters between a committee of the Eureka Miners' Union Cannon, like Thatcher an apostle in the LDS church, as directors. W. J. Beattie was elected secretary.

28 Provo Enquirer, March 14, 1893; Salt Lake Tribune, March 14, 1893.

27 Salt Lake Herald, March 7, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 31, 1893; Salt Lake Tribune, March 14, 17, 18, 19, 1893; Deseret News, March 30, 31, 1893; Park Record, March 25, 1893.

28 Salt Lake Tribune, March 15, 1893.

29 Ibid.

Z0 Park Record, March 25, 1893.

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and Wilford Woodruff, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Woodruff responded to the union's claim that the Latterday Saints acted as an employment agency of the Bullion-Beck: You refer to the Bishops of our Church. It is a part of their duty to help the needy and to aid in finding employment for those who are in need of it. It is possible that in this way some may have suggested for men to go to the mine; in that way they would be justified but, if they have acted as employment agents with a special view to the present misunderstanding at Tintic, they have been indiscreet, or possibly thoughtless, and have gone beyond what we consider their jurisdiction.31

A Eureka citizens' committee consisting of Rev. G. W. Comer, pastor of the Methodist Episcopal church; Ben D. Luce, proprietor of a general store; and George Hanson, a blacksmith; surveyed public opinion concerning the strike. Forty-six statements from some of Eureka's professionals, artisans, and entrepreneurs ran overwhelmingly in favor of the miners' union. Specifically, the statements demonstrate the degree of the middle class's dependence upon working class patronage as suggested by Dubofsky in his study of western mining towns. Small entrepreneurs who sold goods and services to the working class realized the importance of maintaining high wages within the community.

Peter Steffens, a cigar manufacturer, summed up the business perspective on the Eureka miners strike: I think the Miners' Union are [sic] right in striking to maintain the wages of $3 per day and to board and trade where they please, and I am ready to help the miners any way I can, with money if necessary. I think they deserve the support of every businessman in town.32

Local support, as Gutman hypothesized, also grew from a complex sense of community. In a small industrial city daily face-to-face contact made the middle class aware of the hardships of working-class life.

Since many of his patients were hardrock miners, Dr. F. E. Bostwick knew very well the unhealthy nature of underground work: I consider the Beck mine the worst mine in the district to work in. I have had more patients coming from that mine suffering from lead poisoning than all of the rest of the mines in the district. I most certainly endorse the action of the Miners' Union. Their cause is a just one.33

In the process of looking after the souls of Eureka's Irish Catholics, 31

Deseret News, April 4, 1893; Salt Lake Tribune, April 4, 1893.

Salt Lake Tribune, April 7, 1893.

33 ibid.

32

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Father Donohue saw daily reminders of the deleterious effects of hardrock mining, and he advocated just compensation: I am certainly in favor of the poor man: $3 is small enough for a man to work underground in lead and powder smoke. The union is certainly right. 34

Individuals who had experienced some minimal, upward mobility, such as movement from the working class to the status of small proprietor, frequently still related to the struggles of working-class existence. Frank Scappatura, a grocer and former miner, knew firsthand of the dangerous nature of hardrock mining: I think the miners have acted perfectly right. No man should be made to work underground for less than $3 per day, I have been a miner myelf and know the dangers that attend it. I indorse the peaceful and lawful manner in which the union have [sic] conducted the strike.33

James Driscoll, postmaster, small businessman, and former leader in the Knights of Labor and the Eureka Miners' Union, still identified with wage earners: I congratulate the union men on the manner in which they have conducted themselves, resorting to none but persuasive means to convince scabs that they should not go to work until the existing difficulty was [sic] settled. I think they have the sympathy and support of almost the entire community. 36

In late April approximately six hundred supporters of the Eureka Miners' Union participated in a torchlight parade and mass meeting.

Such local notables as Dr. F. E. Bostwick and Rev. G. W. Comer exhorted the crowd to continue the strike. Although community support remained strong, this display of enthusiasm could not mask the deteriorating position of the miners' union. An extensive recruiting program provided an ample supply of strikebreakers. By mid-April the mine employed over one hundred hands. A report that Bullion-Beck employees held a dance in the Latter-day Saints' meetinghouse suggests that the Mormon-controlled company attracted many strikebreakers of the Mormon faith.37 In early May the indefatigable John Duggan journeyed to Butte, Montana, for a convention of western hardrock miners. The debacle 34

ibid. ibid.

36 Ibid.

37 Deseret News, April 24, May 19, 1893; Salt Lake Tribune, April 24, 1893: Salt Lake Herald, April 11, 1893.

35

155

Tombstone of labor leader John Duggan who died not long after the Eureka strike.

USHS collections.

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••,

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at Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in 1892 and struggles such as the one at Eureka motivated the Butte Miners' Union to invite all metal miners' unions to a meeting. Eureka represented one of seventeen miners' unions at the birth of the Western Federation of Miners on May 15, 1893. The founding convention elected Duggan as second vice-president. The federation gave the Eureka local $600.00 in strike relief during 1893.38 After seven months of conflict, the Eureka Miners' Union formally ended the strike on August 27 when it voted to allow members to accept employment at the reduced wages. In late 1896 the Eureka local of the Western Federation of Miners passed out of existence. Eureka's hardrock men did not reorganize until 1902.39 Although the strike proved disastrous to the Eureka Miners' Union it seems to have improved the position of the Mormon miners from that of a supplemental labor force to a significant part of the regular underground work force. In 1897 the management-oriented Engineering and Mining Journal attributed the resurgence of the Tintic mining district to its new labor force: 38 Butte Bystander, M a y 20, 1893; John E. Brinley, Jr., " T h e Western Federation of Miners" (Ph.D. diss., University of Utah, 1972), p. 39.

39 Engineering and Mining Journal 56 (September 9, 1 8 9 3 ) : 2 7 5 ; Butte Bystander, November 29, 1896; Miners'Magazine (March 1902) 235.

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Utah Historical Quarterly Prior to that time [1893-94] Mormons rarely worked underground; now 60% of the miners, probably more3 are men who three years ago were farming in the valley nearby. They are largely men of family, and in brief more quiet, more contented, or better miners are not found anywhere.

This change in the force underground has been going on, until there is not an agitator on the payrolls, and it will be long before they have a foot-hold again. In consequence of these favorable labor conditions Tintic has come to be looked upon as affording a most desirable field for mining investment. . . .40

The struggle of the Eureka Miners' Union corroborates the studies

by Melvyn Dubofsky and Herbert Gutman on community support for workers. When John Beck, Mormon proprietor of the Bullion-Beck mine attempted to rid himself of Eureka's intractable hardrock miners through the importation of strikebreakers, the townspeople, especially the middle class, rallied to the aid of the union. Eureka's middle class found an alliance with miners desirable for a number of reasons. Most immediate, the entrepreneurial role of the middle class made them dependent upon the maintenance of high wages for the miners. Second, the small-scale operations of Eureka's business community gave them a class perspective (producing class) more in line with the workers than with the owners of large-scale mining corporations. Furthermore, the middle class knew the dangers of hardrock mining through daily contacts with the miners and in some cases through previous underground employment. Consequently, the middle sector believed that the hardrock men merited decent remuneration for their dangerous and unhealthy occupation.

Religious antipathy supplied another motivation for middle-class support of the miners' cause. As previously mentioned, Eureka's working and middle classes were mostly Gentile (non-Mormon) and especially Irish Catholic. On the other side of the struggle stood the BullionBeck's management that included two Mormon apostles in its ranks.

Since Gentiles controlled Eureka's politics and therefore local law7 enforcement, the company, in a now-familiar scenario, had to reach beyond the community for the power necessary to crush the miners' union.

Because Utah was in territorial status, Beck sought and procured federal marshals to protect his strikebreakers.

Local studies such as Eureka might contribute to a better assessment of the successes and failures of western labor radicalism, as typified by the Western Federation of Miners and Industrial Workers of the World, from the closing decade of the nineteenth century through the end of World War I. 40

Engineering and Mining Journal 63 (March 2, 1897): 235.

Ogden's "Horrible Tragedy": The Lynching of George Segal

BY LARRY R. GERLACH

Elizabeth Gudgell was shot outside the Gem Restaurant in the middle of this block. Photograph from Ogden Union Station collection.

Pi. s EVIDENCED BY T H E ENORMOUS POPULARITY of Marlboro Country, the American West continues to excite the imaginations of modern Americans. T o many people the term American West immediately calls forth a series of mental images associated with the heroic frontier â&#x20AC;&#x201D; cowboys and Indians, farmers and trappers, wagon trains and mining camps. Less well appreciated is the ignoble dimension of the West as suggested by the term back country â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a land of gamblers, prostitutes, thieves, killers, and a host of other social misfits trying to keep a step Dr. Gerlach is professor of history at the University of Utah. This paper was originally presented at the September 1978 Annual Meeting of the Utah State Historical Society in Ogden.

The author is currently preparing a study of Utah lynchings for publication.

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ahead of civilization or the law7. Because law and order was an essential yet fragile commodity in nascent communities on the wild frontier, it is not surprising that among the most vibrant images of the Old West are those associated with law enforcement — the posse heading off a band of desperadoes at the pass, the cavalry rescuing beseiged pioneers, the sheriff confronting a gunslinger at high noon, a bad hombre dangling from a cottonwood tree. In the public mind two-gun law enforcement and hempen justice appear as the dual symbols of the Code of the West.

It is instructive that although a great deal is known about the quick-onthe-draw peace officer of the frontier, relatively little is known about his back country counterpart, the lyncher.

Lynching, like its corollary, vigilantism, is a uniquely American phenomenon. Lynch law originally referred to corporal punishment, the term deriving from the floggings administered by Judge Charles Lynch of Virginia to Tories during the American Revolution. As Americans spread across the Missouri in the nineteenth century, lynching became increasingly identified with the extralegal hangings that resulted when citizens took the law7 into their own hands in imitation of the famous English hangman, Jack Ketch. The popular tribunals caught on, and throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth lynching became an accepted, albeit abhorrent, method of administering capital punishment.1 From 1882 to the present at least 4,743 persons have been lynched in the United States. The year 1952 was the first in more than three-quarters of a century in which no lynchings w7ere recorded. From 1953 to 1964, 10 persons w7ere lynched; there have been no lynchings since 1965. Only four states — Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont — are without a recorded lynching.2 1 On lynching in America see Jessie Daniel Ames, The Changing Character of Lynching (Atlanta, 1942) ; Arthur F. Raper, The Tragedy of Lynching (Chapel Hill, 1933) ; James Harmon Chadbourn, Lynching and the Law (Chapel Hill, 1933) ; Walter White, Rope & Faggot: A Biography of Judge Lynch (New York, 1929) ; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889-1918 (New York, 1919) ; a n d James Elbert Cutler, Lynch-Law: An Investigation into the History of Lynching in the United States (New York, 1905). General studies of lynching and vigilantism include Richard Maxwell Brown, Strains of Violence: Historical Studies of American Violence and Vigilantism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1 9 7 5 ) ; Robert Brent Toplin, Unchallenged Violence: An American Ordeal (Westport, C o n n . : Greenwood Press, 1 9 7 5 ) ; Thomas F. Parker, ed., Violence in the United States, 2 vols. (New York: Facts on File, 1 9 7 4 ) ; H u g h Davis Graham and T e d Robert Gurr, Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (Washington, D . C : Government Printing Office, 1969) ; John W. Caughey, Their Majesties the Mob (Chicago, 1960) ; and H u b e r t Howe Bancroft, Popular Tribunals, 2 vols. (San Francisco, 1887).

2 These figures a r e taken from " T h e Lynching Records at Tuskegee Institute," a typescript tabulation which is the most comprehensive compilation of lynching yet made. However, because there has been no detailed state-by-state study of lynching, the figures, derived mainly from national newspapers, are clearly conservative. T h e usual number of lynchings given for U t a h is eight, at least four fewer than actually occurred.

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Although it is generally known that Judge Lynch practiced his extralegal brand of summary justice in Utah, the nature and extent of his bloodthirsty tenure has not yet received systematic investigation.

A. J. Simmonds's recent studies of the hangings of Charlie Benson and Ah Sing are the only substantive published accounts of Utah lynchings.3 Contemporary chronicles either ignored or gave incomplete tallies of lynching victims,4 while the modern state histories are virtually silent on the subject of lynch law7.5 Indicative of the meager knowledge of extralegal justice in the state are the conflicting and inaccurate reports that state the number of lynchings in Utah variously from two to five.6 A study of early Utah executions — legal as well as illegal — reveals that at least twelve lynchings have taken place in the state.

Except for the lynching of Robert Marshall in Price on June 18, 1925, mob justice in Utah was confined to the territorial period. Research to date indicates that Judge Lynch claimed the lives of the following men prior to statehood: 7 3 A. J. Simmonds, "Chinaman's Chance," Real West, November 1972, pp. 46-49, and "Cause of Death — Lynching," The West, January 1974, pp. 26-27, 48. See also Simmonds's provocative connection between Mormon apostacy and the Benson lynching in The Gentile Comes to Cache Valley...

(Logan, U t . : Utah State University Press, 1976), pp. 9 - 1 1 . Other extended accounts of U t a h lynchings are Lucille Randall, "The Hanging of Charley Benson," Salt Lake Tribune, September 7, 1975, a popular, derivative account; William M. McPhee, The Trail of the Leprechaun: Early History of a Utah Mining Camp (Hicksville, N.Y.: Exposition Press, 1977), pp. 57-59, offering a brief account of the Murphy lynching; T e d Deffendol, " T h e Lynching of Robert Marshall in Carbon County," an undergraduate essay on deposit in the College of Eastern U t a h Library, Price, which is based on newspaper accounts, and Steve Lacy, The Lynching of Robert Marshall (n.p.: Castle Press, 1978). See also my manuscript accounts: "Cops and Mobsters: The Lynching of Sam Joe Harvey" and "Forrest from a T r e e : T h e Lynching of T o m Forrest."

4 Edward W. Tullidge, in his Histories, 2 vols., (Salt Lake City, 1889) makes no mention of lynchings; Robert W. Sloan, Utah Gazetteer and Directory . . . 1884 (Salt Lake City, 1884), pp. 41-42, notes the lynching of James Harvey, John Murphy, and "a Japanese" [Segal]; Andrew Jenson, Church Chronology..., 2d ed. (Salt Lake City, 1914), pp. 112-13, mentions the lynchings of Harvey and Murphy in 1883.

5 For example, the standard school text by S. George Ellsworth, Utah's Heritage (Santa Barbara: Peregrine Smith, 1972), does not mention lynching, while Charles S. Peterson, Utah: A Bicentennial History (Nashville and New York: W. W. Norton, 1977), p. 115, notes only the Marshall lynching. Of the contributors to Richard D. Poll, ed., Utah's History (Provo, U t . : Brigham Young University Press, 1978), Richard O. Ulibarri in " U t a h ' s Unassimilated Minorities," p. 634, alone mentions lynchings — the Uintah hanging, the Marshall lynching, and the mob execution of "Sam J. Hairney in Salt Lake City in 1885." T h e latter reference, apparently marred by typographical errors, is to the lynching of William H. ("Sam, Joe") Harvey in 1883.

8 T h e Salt Lake Telegram, June 18, 1925, listed the lynchings of Marshall, Charles Benson, and Harvey. T h e June 18 and 19 editions of the Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune, respectively, listed four earlier lynchings — Marshall, Benson, Harvey, Thomas Forrest, and "one Donovan" in Park City in 1888. There was no lynching of a man named Donovan in Park City in 1888; the newspaper accounts of the incident suggest confusion with the Murphy hanging. In the March 14, 1926, issue of the Salt Lake Telegram, Albert F. Phillips, in a supposedly comprehensive chronicle of capital crimes, claimed that "two lynchings have occurred in U t a h since the pioneers came in 1847, one in Logan and the other in Salt Lake City. ' Information pertaining to eight of the lynchings can be found in public as well as private records. The lone account of the lynching of the black man at U i n t a h is an entry in the diary of O. C. Smith, quoted in Robert G. Athearn, Union Pacific Country (New York: R a n d McNally, 1971). T h e statement that three persons were hanged at Wasatch comes from

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Utah Historical Quarterly Three unidentified men at Wasatch Station, during the winter of 1868-69 A black man identified only as "a damned nigger" in Uintah, June 29, 1869 Charles A. Benson in Logan, February 18, 1873 Ah Sing in Corinne, April 13, 1874 Thomas Forrest in St. George, October 5, 1880 William H. ("Sam Joe") Harvey in Salt Lake City, August 25, 1883 John Murphy in Park City, August 26, 1883 George Segal in Ogden, April 20, 1884 Joseph Fisher in Eureka, July 6, 1886

In addition, there is the rumored lynching of John Fletcher at SpringHill Station on August 24, 1883, and the mob execution of William Thorrington on June 14, 1858, in Carson Valley, now7 part of Nevada but then part of Utah Territory.8 Whatever the documented number, undoubtedly illegal executions in Utah went unrecorded. And had it not been for the special vigilance of law enforcement officers, Judge Lynch would have claimed additional victims from the approximately two dozen "near lynchings" reported in the press from the 1860s through the 1920s. (For the record, there were eleven judicial executions in territorial Utah beginning with the hanging of two Indians in 1854 to the death by a firing squad of Patrick Coughlin in 1896.)9 The Ogden entry in Judge Lynch's docket book, the little-known lynching of George Segal, is dated April 20, 1884.10 The drama of a lynching by popular tribunal in Utah's Junction City began at approximately 11:30 P.M. on April 19 when Lizzie Gudgell w7as gunned down in Fourth Street in front of the Gem Restaurant. It ended shortly after 4:00 A.M. the next day when Segal was hanged from the south end of the fire bell tower located near the new Ogden City Hall. Although the circumstances and some of the proceedings of those fateful five hours are shrouded in uncertainty, the night of April 19-20 was indeed, George Hanson Beadle's The Undeveloped West; or, Five Years in the Territories (Philadelphia, 1873), p. 139, and Western Wilds and the Men Who Redeem Them (Cincinnati, 1878), p. 52.

Beadle does not use the term "lynched" when referring to the hanged man, but I have assumed the executions were Judge Lynch's handiwork because there was at the time no duly constituted judicial apparatus in the railroad camp. Beadle elsewhere, Western Wilds, p. 127, comments on the prevalence of lynching in such isolated communities.

8 Deseret Evening News, August 27, 1883, and Salt Lake Herald, August 28, 1883, report the Fletcher lynching. Bancroft, Popular Tribunals, 1:594â&#x20AC;&#x201D;98, and History of Utah, 15401886 (San Francisco, 1889), p. 592, report the Thorrington execution.

8 Although Coughlin's execution was on December 15, 1896, his sentence was imposed prior to statehood (January 4, 1896).

10 T h e Segal lynching is not widely known. Sloan, Utah Gazetteer, p. 42, notes that on April 22, 1884, (the date is wrong) "A Japanese shoots a woman in Ogden and is lynched."

T h e WPA's A History of Ogden, 2 vols. (Ogden, 1940), 1:53, mentions that "in 1884 a mob hanged a Japanese near the city jail." T h e WPA account is derived from an interview with Gilbert A. Belnap in the Ogden Standard Examiner, February 3, 1924, in which he recalls the night he returned to Ogden from a church mission in Minnesota: "I walked up Twenty-fifth street and over near the jail, there was a man hanging from a pole, where he had been strung up a short time before. Calling the jailer's attention, he looked out and was as surprised as I was,

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as the Ogden Daily Herald put it, "the darkest in the annals of Ogden City."11 Frustratingly little is known about the two principals in the tragedy.

Forty-eight-year-old Elizabeth Gudgell, who was apparently a widow, had come to Salt Lake City around 1880 and opened a dressmaking shop. In July 1883 she moved to Hailey, Idaho, but soon returned to Salt Lake City to receive treatment for a disease, erysipelas, which eventually destroyed the sight of one eye. About six months prior to her death she moved to Ogden and assumed operation of the Gem Restaurant owned by Charles B. Irish. Her son, Frank B. Gudgell, and eldest daughter, the wife of produce merchant J. W. S. Smith, lived in Salt Lake; her youngest child, May, attended Sacred Heart Academy in Ogden. Even less is know7n of Segal, a twenty-seven-year-old Japanese laborer. According to one report, he was a "bad character" who had recently left Nevada, "where he had a brother lynched for killing a man," and who himself "had been obliged to leave San Francisco because of some crime." But another report claimed that Segal had been in the United States since age ten, was "smart and intelligent, and as a rule honest and industrious," and was "liked by those who well knew him." All that is known for sure is that at the time of the lynching he was employed at the Chamberlain House earning $60 a month as a cook and waiter.12 Also unclear is the matter of motivation. The testimony of contemporaries, most of it hearsay, is fragmentary and confusing. This much is certain: three or four weeks before the murder Segal had been discharged from the Gem Restaurant, reportedly because of "insolent conduct." Most people believed that Segal harbored a grudge against either Mrs. Gudgell, Mr. Irish, or both; but the nature of the hostility is uncertain. Some believed that Segal was simply irate over his dismissal. Others, noting that during the weeks following his discharge for the mob h a d done its work so quietly and effectively that none of the officers had been aroused. T h e victim was a Japanese who had killed a white w o m a n in a fit of anger, and unceremoniously a group of m e n took him, I am told, and lynched him within a few minutes after the crime was committed." Parts of the narration are erroneous. Neither J o h n Q . Blaylock, "History of N o r t h O g d e n : An Economic a n d Social Study" (M.A. thesis, University of U t a h , 1922), Milton R. H u n t e r , Beneath Ben Lomond's Peak: A History of Weber County, 18241900, 2d ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1945), nor any other historical study I have seen mentions the Segal lynching.

11 T h e most detailed reports of the murder-lynching are to be found in the April 21, 1884, issues of the Deseret Evening News a n d the Ogden Daily Herald and the April 22 editions of the Salt Lake Daily Herald a n d the Salt Lake Daily Tribune. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations in this p a p e r are from these newspaper accounts.

12 Ibid. Some reports say that he was a cook, others that he was a waiter. T h e evidence, and common practice at the time, suggests that he worked in both capacities.

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Segal had "frequently" returned to the Gem seeking to recover sundry personal articles as well as back wages of between $150 and $200, stressed that his anger stemmed from Mrs. Gudgell's alleged refusal to respond to his demands. Moreover, rumor had it that the "love-crazed" Segal had become enraged when Mrs. Gudgell rebuffed his amorous advances; to compound matters, it was reported that Irish, who had allegedly purchased the Gem for Mrs. Gudgell, was Segal's rival for the woman's affections. Sad but true, the Salt Lake Daily Herald had the final word on the nature of the quarrel between Segal and Gudgell: "what passed between them will never be known."

Fortunately, eyewitness testimony permits a more accurate reconstruction of the immediate events of the murder-lynching. The tragic train of events began about ten-thirty the night of April 19 when an angry George Segal went to see his landlord, accountant William S. Lewis. Irate that Mrs. Gudgell persisted in denying back wages, Segal asked Lewis to help institute a lawsuit to recover the money. Lewis, later claiming that he detected "a wild and unnatural look" in Segal's eyes, tried to calm the man and suggested they discuss the matter further on Monday. Segal apparently would have none of it, for he stormed out of the house shouting: "God damn her! I will let her know7 w7hether she does not owe me."

Segal was armed wdth a .38-caliber pistol. He had been carrying the weapon for several weeks, supposedly because he feared a violent altercation with Irish. "The old man carries one for me, and I one for him," Segal declared. "There is likely to be a shooting match, some day, and I want to be ready for him." Segal apparently blamed Irish for his problems, for he told Lewis: "The old man will go off in a few days, and then I will be all right. I will have some of my money and go to work again." Segal had threatened Irish several times in the past, and possibly it was Irish whom he intended to encounter at the Gem. But Irish, whom Segal had seen entering the restaurant around ten-thirty, had stayed only a few minutes before going to the barbershop for a shave.

In any event, after leaving Lewis, Segal proceeded directly to the Gem Restaurant and the fateful confrontation wdth Mrs. Gudgell.

According to the two principal witnesses, May Gudgell and her friend, Fred Jackson, Segal spent some time searching in vain behind counters and in the kitchen for some aprons and a carving knife he claimed to have left behind. When the proprietress began to berate him for spreading word about town that she owed him money, Segal became "excited, and began to talk very loud." Thereupon, Mrs. Gudgell ordered him to

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leave and, when he refused to go, grabbed his arm as if to usher him out. At that point Segal drew his pistol but, when admonished by May Gudgell and Jackson, put the weapon back in his pocket.

It appeared that the crisis had passed. However, when Mrs. Gudgell, by then "somewhat excited" herself, announced her intention of calling the police, Segal became "desperate" and, according to the press, "no doubt insane."13 As Mrs. Gudgell opened the front door to summon the police, Segal fired a shot. At that she ran screaming into Fourth Street pursued by Segal with pistol blazing. A second and then a third shot rang out. Mrs. Gudgell slumped to the ground. Segal, now clearly bereft of his senses, fired two more shots from close range into the body of his prostrate victim.

In all, the assassin fired five shots. Four of the leaden missiles found their mark. One lodged in the fleshy part of Mrs. Gudgell's right thigh, another shattered her left thigh bone, and another grazed her breast.

The eventually fatal bullet entered her back just below the left shoulder and passed into the lung.

George Segal stood momentarily over his victim, smoking pistol in hand, and then fled into an alley next to the Corey Brothers' store.

Fred Jackson gave brief pursuit but wound up ignominiously sprawled on the ground after tripping over a box in the dark alley. Police officers Thomas H. Ballantyne and James M. Brown heard the firing while making their rounds on Fifth Street. As they hurried toward the sound of the shots they met the fleeing Segal heading toward the Broom Hotel on the corner of Main and Fifth streets. The assailant immediately obeyed their order to halt and, with gun still in hand, confessed to the approaching policemen that he "had killed a woman" and was "willing to be hanged." The captive was promptly taken to the new city jail located on Main Street between Fifth and Sixth and locked up under the custody of assistant jailer Moroni F. Brown who, appreciating the potential for further violence, hid the keys to the cell block.

The shooting immediately produced talk of a lynching. Officer Ballantyne heard such rumblings when he arrived at the Gem Restaurant to begin his investigation. To avert mob justice he quickly returned to the jail, secured the keys to the cells from assistant jailer Brown, and delivered them to Mayor David H. Peery at his home on Fourth Street between Main and Spring. Ogden's chief magistrate took it upon himself to size up the public temper. But thinking that the men milling about 13

Ogden Daily Herald, April 21, 1884.

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Section of Sanborn map marked to show scene of crime and lynching. Map courtesy of Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah.

the streets were simply coming from a dance and finding only one citizen at the jail, he returned home convinced that there would be no violence unless Mrs. Gudgell died. Nonetheless, he gave orders to transfer Segal to Salt Lake City on Sunday morning and posted two additional guards around the jail "lest some of the more daring spirits of the town should attempt to wreak the vengeance that was talked of."

It appeared at first that the fears of a lynching were indeed unfounded. As the initial excitement passed, the milling crowd began to break up and the citizens returned to their homes. But about 3 A.M. a group of twenty-five to thirty men (one estimate of the mob was thirty to forty) gathered to execute their plan of retribution. It was no spon-

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taneous gathering. That the vigilantes were well organized and directed is evident from the course of events. With coats turned inside out and masks on their faces to prevent identification, the men, armed with weapons and carrying chisels and sledgehammers, stealthily made their way to the jail.

At approximately 4 A.M. officers Ballantyne and Warren W. Elmer, on guard in front of the jail, spotted a group of men attempting to scale the fence around the city hall. Warning that lynching "was not the right thing to do," the officers pleaded with the masked mobsters to "let the law take its course." But four men brandishing shotguns ordered the policemen "to stand back." With the guards at bay, the other vigilantes scaled the fence, broke down the rear door of the city hall, and

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headed for the row of eight cells located on the first floor. En route they were met by jailer Brown who, finding himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun, felt "compelled to retire" to his office on the second floor. None of the mob bothered to ask for the keys. The cells were made of heavy boiler iron, but the sledgehammer-wielding avengers quickly smashed open the door of Segal's 4 / 6 // -by-8 / 7 // cell, dragged the "trembling wretch" from his bunk, hurried him down the corridor and out into the courtyard to the bell tower. Although Segal "made no resistance or noise," the look on his face revealed that he was "horribly excited by. . . the avenging crowd who looked like fiends . . . by the appearance of the candles they carried." A hangman's noose was looped around his neck and a gag placed in his mouth. Moments later George Segal was suspended "between earth and sky." According to jailer Brown, who witnessed the hanging from a second-story window in the jail, Segal was given a couple of quick jerks and then hoisted up eight or ten times.

Convinced that their victim was dead and that justice had been done, the lynchers disappeared as quickly as they had appeared. The tragic affair had taken less than ten minutes.14 George Segal, "dead as a stone," remained hanging on the beam for about an hour. When notified of the lynching Mayor Peery rushed to the jail; shortly after 5 A.M.,, he summoned the coroner, Mark Hall, Sr, who pronounced Segal dead. The corpse was taken to the office of sexton Frank A. Gale where a coroner's jury comprised of P. G. Taylor, Samuel Hammond, and Mark Hall, Jr., rendered the final verdict: "The deceased had come to his death on Sunday morning, April 20, 1884, being hung with a rope from the bell tower near the city hall, Ogden City, by a masked mob of unknown men."15 Shortly after the inquest Segal's remains were placed in a coffin and interred in the town cemetery.

While Segal was paying the ultimate price for his perfidy, his victim was waging a losing battle for her life. After the shooting Mrs. Gudgell was rushed to her room in Elizabeth Watkins's rooming house on Fifth Street between Main and Young. Doctor O. B. Adams was summoned from the Broom Hotel to her side, but the patient's condition was such that he could do nothing "to materially help" until morning. The next 14 A report in the Salt Lake Chronicle stated that the police, afraid of a lynching, tried to hide Segal in the old city jail near the new Central School on the corner of Fifth a n d Young streets, b u t a passerby saw light in the building a n d alerted the mob which then hanged its victim from the belfry. As the Ogden Daily Herald said of the r e p o r t : "it isn't t r u e . " Information concerning the size, construction, and location of the cells is in Hunter, Beneath Ben Lomond's Peak, p . 480.

15 Ogden Daily Herald, April 21, 1884.

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day, Sunday, Adams called in Dr. John D. Carnahan, a surgeon, who removed the bullet from the victim's thigh; attempts to extract the bullet from her lung were unsuccessful. Monday morning, April 21, found her resting "comparatively comfortably," but her condition suddenly took "a more critical turn." Lizzie Gudgell died about 11:30 A.M. — almost exactly thirty-six hours after the shooting.

Her demise was not unexpected. The consensus all along had been that the wound, like most perforations of the lung, would be fatal. On April 22 her body was removed to the home of her daughter in Salt Lake City. The Reverend N. F. Putnam of Saint Mark's Cathedral officiated at the funeral held the following day. The double tragedy was finally over.16 Like every manifestation of lynch law, the hanging of George Segal is a story unique to itself. Yet, in its salient features it exhibits characteristics common to other lynchings in Utah and elsewhere in the United States. It is precisely as a case study of a peculiarly American brand of justice that the Segal lynching assumes a significance that transcends the particulars of its occurrence.

A lynching was almost without exception a momentary sensation in a community, a tragic event without lasting impact. The day George Segal was strung up, the bell tower, the jail, and the sexton's office were visited by "hundreds of people" drawn to the scenes of the tragedy by "a morbid curiosity." Extra copies of the Ogden Daily Herald hit the streets on April 21 as the murder-lynching became "the all absorbing topic in all circles" in the Junction City. But by April 24 the Salt Lake Herald could in truth report that "the lynching excitement has about died out." There was no further public discussion of the matter as Ogdenites quickly returned to business as usual. The sooner such ugly incidents were forgotten, the better. What could and should have been the basis for a community discussion of topics ranging from law and order to human dignity was soon put out of mind.

The identities of lynchers, although often widely known in a given community, were infrequently disclosed. In only two of Utah's twelve known lynchings — those of Robert Marshall and Joseph Fisher — were the names of those primarly responsible for the travesties of justice made part of the public record. Those who witnessed the Segal lynching ostensibly could not identify any of the vigilantes because of the masks and because, as the Ogden Daily Herald lamely noted, it was "a dark night."

18

Salt Lake Tribune, April 23, 1884.

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Other possible explanations for the anonymity of the avengers suggest themselves to those of a more cynical persuasion. The Salt Lake Chronicle was blunt: no steps would be taken to apprehend the lynchers because "public opinion is too strong in their favor."17 Without identification, it follows that lynchers were rarely held accountable for their acts. Of Judge Lynch's henchmen in Utah, only the thirteen men who hanged Joseph Fisher in Eureka without benefit of due process were indicted and brought to trial; six were convicted and sent to prison. In only two other instances, the lynchings of Robert Marshall and George Segal, w7as a grand jury impaneled; in both cases the investigation produced the same result â&#x20AC;&#x201D; nothing.

In the Segal case Judge P. H. Emerson instructed a fifteen-member grand jury at the opening of the First District Court in Ogden on May 5, 1884, to pay "special attention" to the "late mock trial." His honor urged them to be "specially diligent" in inquiring into what he flatly termed a "murder" in order that the "perpetrators of the foul deed" might be indicted for the crime and "brought to punishment." He noted that if "such atrocious outrages and violations of law" were permitted to pass unpunished, "no one can tell how soon and how7 often they will be repeated or who will be the next victims."18 "Of course every lover of law and order," commented the Deseret News, "will endorse the sentiments of Judge Emerson, and will heartily congratulate the Grand Jury if they are successful in finding the offenders and bringing them to justice." Either the Deseret News w7as wrong in its prediction or there were no lovers of law and order in Ogden, for the grand jury obtained no information about the lynching, and the law enforcement establishment thereupon considered the case closed. The Ogden City Council took no formal notice of the incident.

The failure to indict, let alone convict lynchers, suggests a community that for the most part either condoned the lynching or protected its perpetrators. The initial reaction of Ogdenites to the lynching of Segal was negative, a general feeling that the popular execution was a travesty of justice. But, as the Ogden Daily Herald noted, with the death of Mrs. Gudgell "public opinion has somewhat relented from the stern condemnation" initially directed towards the lynching. In the final analysis, as the Salt Lake Tribune observed, there was "divided opinion as to the justice or propriety" of the lynching among members 17 18

Quoted in the Ogden Daily Herald, April 22, 1884.

Deseret Evening News, May 6, 1884.

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of the community. Although some citizens regretted the incident, others considered it "a moral lesson that will have a beneficial effect upon those who are disposed to be criminal or lawless." The latter view may not be without merit, but it ultimately falls in the category of rationalization at best and wishful thinking at worst.

Students of violence in American history lay considerable blame for Judge Lynch's success at the doorstep of the press. There does seem to be a close correlation historically between the pointed and persistent denunciation of lawlessness by newspaper editors and the frequency of its occurrence. Although Utah's four largest newspapers spoke out against the Segal lynching â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and the others â&#x20AC;&#x201D; their stance was something less than crusading. The Salt Lake Daily Herald simply termed the "startling tragedy" the "Ogden Horror" and let it go at that. Also labeling the "genuine lynching affair" a "Horrible Tragedy," the Deseret Evening News merely commented that "such lawlessness must be suppressed."

The Ogden Daily Herald understandably was more fulsome in its commentary. Declaring that "the troubles of Saturday night and Sunday morning are the most tragic in the records of the Junction City," the paper went on "earnestly" to decry "the taking of retribution for crimes into the hands of others than the lawfully constituted authorities" and to express the hope that "this will be the last, as it was the first successful execution of Judge Lynch's law in this erstwhile peaceful and law-abiding community, in whose fair record such deeds are deplorable dark stains."

Although the major oracles of Utah's Fourth Estate agreed the Segal hanging was "horrible" and "tragic" and denounced the affair in the course of reporting its occurrence, only the Salt Lake Daily Tribune formally and forcefully editorialized against lynch law. Noting that the Segal lynching was the third in Utah during the past year, the Tribune deplored in no uncertain terms "the treading under foot of law7 and order": I t is a fearful thing for an angry mob to undertake the administration of justice. I n the first place it is a total subversion of the very idea of social a n d legal authority for a lot of irresponsible men to assume the functions relegated properly to a definite a n d authoritatively constituted public trib u n a l ; a n d then, a m o b is ungovernable, and m a y easily be turned into a n engine of injustice and destruction so appalling that the very possibility might well m a k e the stoutest heart quail from its consideration. 1 9

April 22, 1884.

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But the effect of the Tribune editorial was diminished, if not negated, by its refusal to place the blame for the lynching where it properly belonged. Consistently â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in U t a h and elsewhere â&#x20AC;&#x201D; opponents of lynching blamed not the lynchers but the legal system. T h e major portion of the Tribune editorial consisted of a condemnation of the state of criminal prosecution in America. Railing against the slowness of the courts, the appeal process, the legal loopholes exploited by defense lawyers, and the leniency of judges and parole officers, the Tribune concluded that "the machinery for the punishment of murders fails to do its proper work." As a result, the paper opined, "the mob spirit is formed and gains strength until few can be found to rigorously condemn an orderly lynching, which goes no further than slaying the murderer, after being sure of his identity." T o remedy the situation the Tribune proposed a reversal of the cardinal tenet of jurisprudence: "after an indictment has been found against a person he should be required to prove his innocence." Whatever the defects in the legal system, such public condemnation of judicial due process, so common following lynchings, served merely to excuse the actions of the mob and, perhaps, by providing a convenient rationale, to encourage similar behavior in the future.

T h e perpetrator of a particularly heinous crime, especially the murder of a police officer or a prominent community figure, was a good bet to wear Judge Lynch's necktie. National statistics demonstrate that commission of a homicide w7as by far the single most frequent cause of lynchings, especially when allowances are made for the "racial transgressions" peculiar to the South. T h e next largest category of crimes is comprised of offenses against women. 20 Utah's experience with extralegal executions conforms to the national pattern. All ten of the Utah lynchings where the nature of the alleged offense is known involved m u r d e r ; three of the victims were police officers, the others popular or respected members of the community. George Segal's senseless, brutal riddling of Lizzie Gudgell's body made him a prime target for retribution. As the Ogden Daily Herald noted, the lynch mob organized as "excitement over his cowardly, villainous assault of a defenseless woman spread through the streets." His crime w7as just the sort calculated to arouse the basest passions in the community.

W h e n one considers Segal's national origin along with the magnitude of his crime, his fate was sealed. T h e record of lynching in the United States is emphatic: a member of a racial minority allegedly 20

"Lynching Records at Tuskegee."

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guilty of a capital crime was much more likely to be lynched than a Caucasian who purportedly committed the same offense. Of the 4,743 persons known to have been lynched from 1882 to 1968, 3,445 were black. In 1884, the year of Segal's lynching, 51 of the 211 persons lynched were black.21 Again, the national pattern holds for Utah. Of the nine instances where the race of the victim is known, five â&#x20AC;&#x201D; more than 50 percent â&#x20AC;&#x201D; of those taken by Judge Lynch were nonwhite: three blacks, one Chinese, and one Japanese.

There can be no doubt that racial prejudice was involved in the Segal lynching. Newspaper accounts of the incident repeatedly referred to "the Japanese," "Japan George," or, most frequently, "the Jap." The Salt Lake Herald proclaimed that the hanging of "the Jealous Jap" had brought "a quietus" to his "infatuation for a white lady." The Herald explained the crime, noting that "as with the Asiatic in general, when the passions were excited by love, rivalry, jealousy, disappointment, and the like things, the murderous propensity prevailed, and he committed the diabolical deed." Although Caucasians were lynched in Utah and other states, the pronounced racial imbalance suggests that it was much easier for the predominate white majority to justify the lynching of a nonwhite person than a Caucasian.

Another factor contributing to Segal's lynching was his itinerant status. Of the twelve men lynched in Utah, only Charlie Benson was connected with a prominent family and enjoyed social status. Had he not been a prodigal son, the black sheep of the family, it is difficult to imagine his getting short shift at the end of a long rope. The rest, like Segal, were drifters â&#x20AC;&#x201D; usually laborers in the mines or on the railroad, who had neither place nor privilege, kith nor kin in the community.

There were, in other words, no social influences within the community that could serve to protect them from the inflamed passions of the mob.

Finally, with few exceptions, lynchings in the United States occurred because the law enforcement officers either aided and abetted Judge Lynch or were derelict in their duty. Significantly, the only instance in Utah where lynchers were indicted and convicted was when Constable Bert Either of Tintic turned state's evidence against those who lynched Joe Fisher.

The Segal lynching is a case in point. Ultimate blame for the tragedy must rest upon the shoulders of Mayor David Peery, who both misread public opinion and failed to take ample precautions to avert 21

ibid.

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the lynching. Jailer Brown immediately recognized the potential for disaster and hid the keys; Officer Ballantyne acted similarly in removing the keys from the jail and reporting immediately to Peery. And although the mayor was concerned enough to order the transfer of Segal to Salt Lake the next morning, only two policemen plus a solitary night watchman were on guard duty at the jail. Moreover, neither William W. Fyfe, the Ogden city marshal, nor Thomas Stevens, the Weber County sheriff, rendered any assistance in safeguarding the public's prisoner. It simply was not true, as the Tribune claimed, that "every precaution that was deemed necessary was taken to prevent any uprising." More to the mark was the observance of the Ogden Daily Herald'. "the keys might just as well have been left in the lock." The fact of the matter is that neither George Segal nor anyone else taken into custody for a capital crime would have fallen victim to mob violence had local peace officers taken adequate steps to safeguard their prisoners. Indeed, the year before the Segal lynching, the Ogden constabulary had thwarted the rumored popular execution of Robert A. Lee, who had aroused community ire by "ravishing a woman," because they were "vigilant and determined to go through legal processes."22 In short, the reign of Judge Lynch in Utah and elsewhere depended as much upon deficient law enforcement as upon defective community conduct.

The lynching of George Segal â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and the execution of other Utahns by vigilantes â&#x20AC;&#x201D; was truly a tragedy in that it constituted a dastardly deed perpetrated by people who not only could but should have behaved better. That such an event took place serves as a not-so-gentle reminder that it can happen here, that we as a people have often committed injustice in the name of justice, and that we have frequently engaged in lawless disorder in the pursuit of law and order. We are less of a people because of our uniquely American heritage of vigilantism and lynching; if there is solace and satisfaction to be derived from an examination of this violent dimension of our past, it is that we have, hopefully, learned from history. After all, we profit from recalling historical tragedies only by pledging that they shall not happen again.

Ogden Junction,

M a r c h 12, 1873.

Salt Lake T r i b u n e photograph, February 22,1918, identifies the men. left to right, as Jim Straight, Alex Steele, Lou Murphy, Marshal Aquila Nebeker, Tweedy Baker, Jack Tomoke, and Annie's Tommy, thus leaving one unnamed, possibly man at left rear who appears to be a uniformed soldier.

Gosiute-Shoshone Draft Resistance, 1917-18

BY DAVID L. WOOD

1 H E DESERT OF WEST-CENTRAL U T A H is a long way from the Meuse River and the Argonne Forest, yet, improbable as it may seem, it briefly became a theater of action during World W a r I. In this instance, however, there were no trenches or gas attacks, and American doughboys did not face the steel-helmeted troops of Kaiser Wilhelm. Instead, in a unique wartime operation, khaki-clad soldiers marched against a Dr. Wood is coordinator of American Indian Studies at California State University, Northridge.

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small band of Gosiute Indian draft resisters whose recalcitrance was intimately linked with events among the Shoshone. This is not to say that these were the only Indians who opposed conscription. Utes, Navajos, and Mission Indians (to name a few) expressed similar sentiments.

But though several agents threatened to call in troops, soldiers were actually employed only against the Gosiute â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a people Mark Tw7ain once called "the wretchedest type of mankind I have ever seen."1 The Selective Service Act of May 18, 1917, applied to Indians and non-Indians alike in that it required the registration of all male residents of the United States between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one.

(Later legislation extended the age limits to include men from eighteen to forty-five.) The provost marshal general assigned the states responsibility for enrolling most eligibles, including Indians living on the public domain; but he gave the commissioner of Indian Affairs the task of registering reservation Indians. That official established a draft board at each agency. He instructed the superintendents to handle the enrollment "diplomatically but firmly"; they should explain the law to all men within the age limits, emphasizing that enrollment did not necessarily mean they would be conscripted since noncitizen Indians were exempt.2 Washington declared that Indians were citizens: (1) if they had received a trust patent under the Dawes Act prior to May 8, 1906; (2) if they had received a patent in fee for an allotment acquired subsequent to May 8, 1906; (3) if they "lived separate and apart from any tribe" and had "adopted the habits of civilized life"; (4) if they were minors at the time their parents became citizens or were born to citizen parents; or, (5) by special act of Congress (as in the case of the Five Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma). 3 When the Shoshones at Fort Hall, Idaho, learned that their sons must register, "a thousand or more" gathered in council. Garfield Poca1 M a r k Twain, The Works of Mark Twain, with Foreword and Explanatory Notes by Franklin R. Rogers, vol. 2: Roughing It (Berkeley: University of California, 1972), p. 144; Richard N. Ellis, " ' I n d i a n s at Ibapah in Revolt': Goshutes, the Draft, and the Indian Bureau, 1917-1919," Nevada Historical Society Quarterly 19 (1976) : 163-70; Jacob Browning to Commissioner, June 5, 1917, National Archives, National Resources Branch, Civil Archives Division, Record Group 75, Ft. Hall, file 737521-125 (hereafter NA, R G 75) ; E. E. M c K e a n to Commissioner, August 22, 1918, NA, R G 75, Southern Ute, 7 1 2 8 0 - 1 2 5 ; J. E. Jenkins to Commissioner, December 30, 1917, NA, R G 75, Malki, 1208-926.

2 U.S., D e p a r t m e n t of the Interior, Office of I n d i a n Affairs, Circular no. 1305, May 15, 1917 (hereafter O I A ) ; O I A , Circular no. 1305-N, August 15, 1918; Provost Marshal General to Commissioner, M a y 2, 1918, U.S., D e p a r t m e n t of the Interior Library, North American Indians in World W a r I, vol. 1; Commissioner to W. Runke, June 8, 1917, NA R G 75, Western Navajo, 55149-125.

3 OIA, Circular no. 1305-D, May 15, 1917; O I A , Circular no. 1305-H April 27, 1918OIA, Circular no. 1305-M, July 19, 1918.

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tello and others advised the young men not to enroll. Later, the tribesmen reportedly bought "between thirty and forty rifles" and "a goodly quantity of ammunition." Then, some fifty of them fled to the hills.

This potentially explosive situation was settled amicably. In another council, A. W. Fisher, "an old timer and great friend of the Indians," explained that registration w7as "more on the order of a census than anything" and informed the tribesmen of their noncitizen exemption.

Reassured, the chiefs pledged their cooperation, requested a time extension, and reassembled their youth. One hundred and six eligibles registered June 5; by the end of the month, twenty more had enrolled.

Only fourteen remained unaccounted for.4 Meanwhile, two Fort Hall Indians had visited Box Elder County, Utah. About a dozen tribesmen living there refused to register. The local sheriff arrested them and all were enrolled.5 Events on the Gosiute reservation at Deep Creek were more complicated. Correspondence, described by Superintendent Amos R. Frank as "treasonable," passed between Annies Tommy, "reputed head of the Goshute Tribe"; Willie Ottogary, an "unusually intelligent and scheming Indian" from Box Elder County; Jacob Browning, interpreter at Fort Hall; and Moody, a resident of Skull Valley. Their letters, said the superintendent, condemned President Woodrow Wilson for leading the nation into war and opposed Indian participation. Furthermore, Ottogary and Tommy traveled all over the region "spreading discontent wherever they went." Frank recommended that they be arrested. When nothing happened, he gathered the Gosiutes together and with the help of Jim Clover, his interpreter, explained the draft law to them. All the eligible men then left the reservation for Nevada "under the pretense to shear sheep," while Annies Tommy went in search of Willie Ottogary.

No Gosiutes registered.6 G. J. Knapp, deputy special officer for the suppression of the liquor traffic, saw Tommy and Ottogary en route to Deep Creek the day after registration day.7 Knowing that Superintendent Frank anticipated trouble if Ottogary came to the reservation, Knapp followed the Indians.

4

Pocatello Tribune, June 1, 1917, June 5, 1917, June 30, 1917.

Salt Lake Tribune, J u n e 7, 1917.

8 A. R. Frank to Commissioner, May 28, 1917, NA, Judicial and Fiscal Branch, Civil Archives Division, File 186233-281 (hereafter NA, JFB) ; Frank to L. A. Dorrington, J u n e 12, 1917, ibid.; Annual Report, Goshute Indian School, 1917, National Archives Microfilm Publication, M 1 0 1 1 - 5 7 .

7 Unless otherwise noted, discussion of the 1917 draft resistance is based upon the following: G. J. K n a p p to Barrington [sic], June 11, 1917, NA, J F B ; Frank to Dorrington, June 12, 1917, ibid.; Dorrington to Commissioner, June 20, 1917, ibid.

5

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Should trouble arise he would be on hand to assist the superintendent.

Along the way Knapp boasted openly that he was going to arrest some bad Gosiutes. Not surprisingly, Ottogary and Tommy, who had learned of his coming, stopped him at the reservation gate. The Indians were "very insulting," but "I laid the law down to them," the deputy reported. Before this exchange got out of control, Superintendent Frank invited Knapp into the agency office. Ottogary and Tommy protested.

Frank said they were insolent and arrogant, insisting that the Gosiutes "would not register and could not be made to register."

Forty Gosiute men held a lengthy council. Superintendent and Mrs. Frank were summoned, and the Indians reiterated their determination not to register. The tribesmen then sent for Knapp, allegedly threatening to "soon fix him." 8 According to the deputy, "Mrs. Frank came running cut of the council place" and said that the Indians had resolved to force him off the reservation. (The Indians later denied this.) Knapp, in turn, "decided that if there was to be violence, it might as well be had right then." He entered the room "with a rush," Frank recalled, "and immediately proceeded to place Ottogary and Tomy [sic] under arrest. . . . Certain of the Indians then seized, overpowered and disarmed him." Frank ordered the tribesmen to release Knapp. They did, but w7hen he tried to leave in the agency wagon, Al Steel, an Indian judge, unhitched the horses and reportedly used "threatening language" in his efforts to prevent him from going. Knapp claimed that there was talk of holding him indefinitely, eventually trying him in the Indian court. After an hour of fruitless wrangling, however, he was released.

Before Knapp left Deep Creek he and Frank decided to wire Washington, requesting soldiers to enforce the draft law, but the nearest telephone was at Gold Hill, thirty-two miles away. Fearing that the Indians might intercept a written message, Frank signed a blank telegram and gave it to Knapp who left in the agency wagon with Pon Dugan, a "trustworthy" Indian. Mrs. Frank rode as far as Ibapah to do some "trading." When Dugan returned to the reservation, he was alone, and he bore startling news. Knapp refused to let Mrs. Frank come home and a posse was forming.

Knapp had told residents of Gold Hill that the Gosiutes had "hogtied" the Franks and "were . . . liable to kill them and burn the buildings." His telegram to Washington contained a similar statement. When two Indians tried to wire their version of events, the deputy arrested s

Frank to Commissioner, June 9, 1917, ibid.

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them. At Deep Creek, meanwhile, great excitement prevailed. The Gosiutes armed themselves, stationed lookouts, and awaited battle. They also urged Superintendent Frank to turn the posse awray.

An advance party arrived first: Mrs. Frank, Mr. and Mrs. George D. Felt of Ibapah, Joe Sims, who had "lived among the Indians most of his life," F. W. Ferris, "a very diplomatic and able man," and an unidentified person. They had preceded the posse, said Frank, to ascertain "the real situation and to get myself and family out before the posse entered." They said that seventy-five armed citizens were just five miles away and would attack if the vanguard "failed to return by midnight." When Frank learned that Sims spoke Gosiute "fluently," he assembled the Indian leaders. Sims, however, w7as unable to calm them, and the tribesmen warned that if the imprisoned messengers w7ere not released by the following evening, the Indian women would make "much trouble." Sims agreed to return the captives, being determined to secure their release "by force if necessary." When he and his companions departed, Frank and his family refused to go with them.

Sims reported the results of his mission to Knapp, urging that the posse not proceed further until the Indian prisoners had been released and the Franks' safety assured. Knapp freed the captives. Sims returned them to Deep Creek and "received a most hearty appreciation" from the Gosiutes who reputedly "agreed to register for the Selective Draft and go as soldiers if called." They also agreed to surrender Willie Ottogary but refused to give up Annies Tommy. Since Knapp seemed determined to arrest both Indians, Sims again tried unsuccessfully to persuade Frank to leave his post. His refusal averted a confrontation that almost certainly would have resulted in bloodshed. Knapp disbanded the posse "in the interest of peace," and left the region. Frank, presumably as a conciliatory gesture, gave certain "old and needy" Gosiutes $25.00, but he refused to pay other tribesmen for road work, even when Ottogary allegedly threatened him.

Meanwhile, the commissioner of Indian Affairs sent special agent L. A. Dorrington to investigate the Gosiute disturbance. Dorrington discovered Ottogary posting notices announcing that the tribesmen w7ere not "on the warpath." Nevertheless, he found the Indian to be "insolent and grosely [sic] insulting . . . , disrespectful . . ., dictatorial and haughty," threatening "trouble and plenty of it."

The same day, Superintendent Frank sent a telegram to Washington warning that conditions among the Gosiutes had "assumed a serious

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aspect." Fifty Indians had come from Nevada and more were expected momentarily. With white citizens and tribesmen eyeing one another suspiciously, he questioned his ability to "prolong the situation very much longer." Ottogary, Tommy, and eighteen others must be arrested, he said, before another attempt w7as m a d e to register the Gosiutes. 9 Dorrington counciled w7ith the Gosiutes. O n the question of registration they remained adamant. T h e investigator w7arned them that their recalcitrance would lead to arrest, imprisonment, and a stint in the army.

H e informed them that the commissioner had extended their enrollment period ten days, and, he told them, as tribal Indians they would not be conscripted. Early in the afternoon of the second day of meetings, J i m Clover, the interpreter, offered to register in what Dorrington described as "a splendid and manly manner." T h e investigator excused himself and went to get Superintendent Frank.

When Dorrington returned, he found pandemonium: "everybody seemed to be talking." As Frank entered the room, Ottogary reportedly "pointed his finger at him, and . . . stated in a loud and most contemptible m a n n e r : 'There he is. We don't want Amos Frank here any longer.

We want another superintendent.' " Dorrington claimed that he quickly stepped between Frank and Ottogary, thrust his face into that of the Indian, and exclaimed: "Willie Ottogary, you have carried this too far.

You cannot make threats of that nature and get away with it. Your bluff is called and from now on you will be treated accordingly." Ottogary, the investigator remembered, "immediately wilted and his attitude changed at once." J i m Clover w7as registered and, urged by Tommy and Ottogary, four other youths complied. 10 Having met defeat, Ottogary left for home, but not before asking Dorrington for a writ of safe passage. T h e investigator refused, ordering him never to return to Deep Creek. Dorrington opined that Tommy, Ottogary, and Al Steel were guilty of "treasonable conduct" and should be "prosecuted to the fullest extent."

Most of the Gosiute eligibles h a d registered by the end of June.

In mid-July, how7ever, newspapers declared that two Indian draft dodgers h a d stolen some horses and wrere menacing w7hite ranchers near Baker, Nevada. After the sheriff of Millard County, Utah, visited the reservation the excitement again died down. 11 9

ibid.

Dorrington to Commissioner, June 11, 1917, ibid.

11 White Pine (Nevada) News, July 15, 1917; Millard 10

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( U t a h ) Progress

July 20,

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Although the W a r Department had announced that noncitizen Indians would not be drafted, it had cautioned that tribesmen must prove their status, and "unless an Indian specifically claimed exemption on the ground of non-citizenship . . . , he waived his right to such exemption." Although some Gosiute registrants explicitly relinquished immunity, others (apparently unwittingly), failed to declare their noncitizenship. After a few of them received orders to appear for physical examination, Annies Tommy rushed to Idaho where an "Indian Grievance Committee" wired a protest to the Indian Rights Association. When Dr. Joseph H. Peck visited the reservation to examine the draftees, eighty-year-old Antelope Jake told him the boys wrere out herding sheep, "an activity," the doctor reflected, "that was foreign to a Gosiute's nature and not a very likely story." The old Indian told Peck that the Gosiutes did not understand the war, for they had never seen a German. Germans were a type of white man, the doctor explained, suggesting that Superintendent Frank was probably of that extraction. "Jake brightened u p , " Peck recalled, volunteering to kill Frank and any other Germans who appeared at Deep Creek. Otherwise white men should fight their own war. 12 I n January 1918 the Western Shoshone superintendent at Owyhee, Nevada, reported "a feeling of perturbation and excitement" among his charges. Inquiry, he said, had revealed that Garfield Pocatello and another m a n from Fort Hall, Idaho, were holding meetings on the reservation, endeavoring to turn the Indians against the government and the draft. Confronted with these accusations, Pocatello swore that he was merely visiting relatives. He admitted telling them of the Fort Hall "draft riot" but denied trying to incite a local rebellion. He did say, however, that Charles Damon, Jr., a Western Shoshone, had visited Fort Hall announcing that Jack Wilson (Wovoka), the Paiute prophet, wanted to see a Shoshone delegation and that $150.00 had been raised at Fort Hall to pay for the journey (shades of the Ghost Dance and Wounded K n e e ! ) . Again, Pocatello denied that he and his companion were on such a mission. A meeting of the Western Shoshone reassured their superintendent; both older Indians and a number of "returned students" pledged to support the government. 13 12 Daily Oklahoman, August 24, 1917; Commissioner to T. Sterling, June 7, 1918, NA, R G 75, Standing Rock, 101703-125; E. B. Meritt to Frank, August 21, 1918, NA, RG 75, Gosiute, 7 1 4 7 6 - 1 2 5 ; Joseph H. Peck, What Next, Doctor Peck? (Englewood Cliffs, N . J . : Prentice-Hall, 1959), pp. 190-91.

M H . D . Lawshe to Commissioner, February 18, 1918, Federal Archives and Records Center, San Bruno, R G 75, Dorrington, Western Shoshone (hereafter FARC, SB) ; Testimony of Garfield Pocatello, February 13, 1918, ibid.

1917.

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Although the Western Shoshone agent called Damon "a young, irresponsible Indian, without influence or following" and scoffed at his story about Wovoka, the agent's reports to Washington probably affected subsequent events among the Gosiute. Coincident with Garfield Pocatello's visit to Nevada, Annies Tommy allegedly urged Indians there not to enlist or answer draft calls, and the Gosiute tribal council sent a letter to Washington, demanding that Superintendent Frank be replaced before the end of February.14 Frank declared that he would leave only if the commissioner so ordered, and, "if necessary, he would arm himself" and face the Indians alone rather than "desert his post."

Again, special agent Dorrington investigated, reporting that the Indians were dead serious and would expel the superintendent with force if necessary. He said that the Gosiutes were "absolutely against their men going to w a r . . . and would rather die on the spot . . . than enlist or submit to draft." Even tribesmen who had heretofore been cooperative, he wrote, were "disrespectful and defiant." The investigator tried to shame the Indians into registering by telling them they were almost alone in their resistance, but Al Steel and John Syme (members of the tribal council) angrily walked out of the meeting, and the entire gathering soon dispersed. Dorrington described the situation as "bad and will probably not be any better until having been very much worse."

He recommended that Annies Tommy and other members of the tribal council be arrested and held without bail until the draft question was settled. He further suggested that Superintendent Frank and his family be removed from danger.15 The situation soon became more urgent. On February 9 Frank reported that Indians from Nevada were gathering on the reservation.

"To preserve order and enforce the selective draft" and "to avoid bloodshed," he believed he would need to call in the sheriff and posse.16 Frank, Dorrington, United States Attorney William W. Ray, and Marshal Aquila Nebeker met in Salt Lake City and concluded that the situation was "critical." Dorrington filed a complaint, and the marshal obtained a warrant for the arrest of Willie Ottogary, Annies Tommy, and three other Gosiutes.

Fearing that the Indians might resist arrest, the officials recommended against sending a civilian posse for them. A posse lacked proper "Frank to Commissioner, January 15, 1918, ibid., Gosiute; Jim Straight, et al to Commissioner, January 21, 1918, NA, JFB. 15 Dorrington to Commissioner, February 6, 1918, NA, RG 75, Gosiute, 30951-125.

18 Frank to Commissioner, February 9, 1918, ibid.

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Laying track in 1917 for the first railroad to Gold Hill where, less than a year later, posse detrained on its way to Deep Creek reservation. USHS collections.

discipline; violence might occur unnecessarily. Instead, they requested fifteen soldiers from Fort Douglas. The army's presence, they reasoned, would prevent bloodshed, would leave no doubt that the United States was acting, and would have a "good effect" on all Indians "inclined to oppose authority."17 Superintendent Frank returned to Deep Creek and found that "at least twenty" more Indians had arrived from Nevada. "I do not think they intend to wait until the last of February," he telegraphed, urging that fifteen soldiers would not be enough.18 Thus, fifty-four made up the expedition.

The army left Salt Lake City February 19 via special train; at Gold Hill it transferred to private vehicles. With headlamps ablaze, this strangely assorted convoy crossed Clifton Flats and snaked its w7ay into the Deep Creek Mountains, the largest, most powerful car breaking a trail through more than a foot of new-fallen snow. The thermometer registered minus twenty degrees Fahrenheit. About 2:30 A.M., February 20, the expedition arrived at Sheridan's store near Ibapah. The surprised proprietor, when awakened, invited the men inside and built a fire so they could warm up. His wife and daughter prepared food for their unexepected guests. Then the troops awaited dawn. # " D o r r i n g t o n to Commissioner, February 13, 1918, M a r c h 26, 1918, ibid.; Secretary of Interior to Attorney General, February 15, 1918, ibid.

38 Dorrington to Commissioner, February 15, 1918, ibid.

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Superintendent Frank rendezvoused with the expedition before daybreak, and at 6:00 A.M. the force descended upon the Indians. Annies Tommy and two other Gosiutes reputedly "showed fight and intended flight," but within thirty minutes the soldiers had rounded up, disarmed, and questioned about one hundred "restive bucks." Not a shot had been fired.19 Marshal Nebeker lectured the assembled captives about conscription.

Comparing it to a game of chance, he illustrated the risk involved by flipping a coin and explaining, "heads, my boy go . . . ; tails your boy go."

"If it had been explained to us this w7ay at first," one of the Gosiutes remarked, "this trouble would not have come." The marshal detained three young draft evaders (two others had escaped) in addition to Annies Tommy, Al Steel, Jim Straight, and John Syme w7ho w7ere charged with conspiracy. The rest of the Indians w7ere set free.20 That evening with the expedition safely back in Gold Hill and the prisoners "under heavy guard," citizens and soldiers celebrated. As the evening wore on even the sentries and the Indians joined the festivities.

Soon, everyone was "well oiled" with bootleg liquor. Dr. Peck remembered seeing the guards "leaving the hall, their arms around each other's necks, singing 'K-K-K-Katy' at the top of their lungs while their prisoners trailed behind carrying the guns and ammunition belts belonging to their captors." Next day, army and Indians went to Salt Lake City.

Simultaneous with events at Deep Creek, Deputy Marshal David Thomas had arrested Willie Ottogary at Tremonton.21 After the soldiers left Deep Creek, angry Gosiute women reportedly "made a raid" on the agent's house, "upset everything," threatened to burn the structure and kill Jim Clover (whom Frank had left in charge), and carried off some foodstuffs; the superintendent was cautioned not to return. News of these threats brought Dr. Peck to the agency with messages from the captives and a peace offering â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a sack of dried apples for each of their wives. Another deterrent soon followed. The three youngest prisoners promised to register and Marshal Nebeker sent them home with a warning that further violence would bring the soldiers back.22 Superintendent Frank returned the "slackers" to the reservation and registered them. He reported that the Gosiutes had had "the scare 19 Deseret Evening News, February 21, 1918. Dorrington to Commissioner, March 26.

1918, NA, R G 75, Gosiute, 3 0 9 5 1 - 1 2 5 ; Peek, What Next?, pp. 193-97.

20 Salt Lake Tribune, February 23, 1918.

21 Deseret Evening News, February 2 1 , 1918; Peck, What Next?, p. 198.

22 Dorrington to Commissioner, February 24, 1918, NA, RG 75, Gosiute, 3 0 9 5 1 - 1 2 5 ; Salt Lake Tribune, February 22, 24, 1918.

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of their lives," and all was now quiet because many of the men had "left for parts unknown." (According to Dr. Peck some of the youths, impressed at seeing a Shoshone top sergeant "of the expeditionary force . . . bossing all those white soldiers around . . . , had sneaked over into Nevada and enlisted in the army.") However, Frank learned that prior to his return a council had been held, funds collected, and George Burt had headed for Ruby Valley, Elko, Nevada, and Death Valley, California, allegedly to foment rebellion there and bring sympathizers back to Deep Creek. An all-points bulletin was issued for his arrest.23 The captives remaining in Salt Lake City were arraigned February 23 and entered a not guilty plea. Bond was set at $500.00 each. When white neighbors of the Gosiutes visited them and tried to get their bond reduced, Frank and Dorrington opposed the move, arguing that this would defeat their cause by placing the Indians "under obligation to their bondsmen." The agents wanted to retain complete control of the situation, to have the Gosiutes feel indebted to the government, not civilians. They recommended that the tribesmen be released upon their own recognizance, provided the court identified the agents as their benefactors and provided, further, that the Indians agreed to obey the law and devote their energy to the proper improvement of their lands and the building up of homes on the reservation.

At the end of three weeks' "telling confinement," Annies Tommy and his companions seemed repentant and assured authorities that the draft trouble was over. Jim Straight said that there were fifty Gosiutes who could plant "an average of at least twenty acres of wheat." If the government would build them a small flour mill they could not only feed themselves but could produce up to "sixty tons of flour . . . for use in the army." The captives w7ere released after promising to behave properly and to respect the superintendent's authority. (Federal officials had already decided that if the Indians "reasonably fulfilled their pledges" the charges against them would be dismissed.)24 Tommy and Straight did not remain on the reservation; perhaps they went to Nevada. Late in March a rancher reported that Indian Tom, who lived near the Cleveland ranch, said he had been visited by 23 Frank to Dorrington, March 7, 1918, FARC, SB, Dorrington, Gosiute; Frank to Dorrington, February 26, 1918, NA, RG 75, Gosiute, 3 0 9 5 1 - 1 2 5 ; Peck, What Next?, p. 2 0 3 ; Frank to W. W. Ray, February 28, 1918, FARC, SB, Dorrington, Gosiute; Frank to Governors of Nevada and California, March 23, 1918, ibid.

24 Salt Lake Tribune, February 24, 1918; Deseret Evening News, March 14, 1918; Dorrington to Commissioner, February 24, 1918, March 16, 1918, March 26, 1918, NA, R G , 75, Gosiute, 30951-125.

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two tribesmen from Deep Creek. The sojourners were supposedly recruiting "1000 Indians" for a general uprising to occur when authorities tried to take the Gosiute "conspirators" back to Salt Lake City for trial.

(There were no more than 500 tribesmen in the entire region.) A white man had allegedly furnished twelve Kanosh Indians with "poison powders" that could "kill anything" and was supplying guns and ammunition for the rebellion. The plan was to kill Superintendent Frank, massacre all the whites at Deep Creek, sweep through the valleys of western Utah and eastern Nevada and join Pioche Indians who would raid northward. Only Mormons would be spared. Indian Tom sold his equipment and moved to Deep Creek.

The sheriff of White Pine County, Nevada, scoured the country for eighty-five miles around Cleveland ranch, locating only two Indians where there were normally fifteen or twenty. State and local law enforcement agencies were notified. Fort Douglas was alerted, settlers and ranchers warned, and special agent Dorrington rushed to the scene. A visit to Deep Creek and a conversation with Indian Tom, who denied the stories and thought them a joke, led Dorrington to conclude that there was no need for apprehension.25 Unfortunately, Dorrington and Frank had already decided that they had been wrong in recommending leniency for the Gosiute resistance leaders. A federal grand jury indicted the Indians for "unlawfully, wilfully, knowingly and feloniously" conspiring against the "peace and dignity of the United States of America" by advising "diverse other persons . . . that they should refuse to register, and if necessary use force to prevent themselves being made a part of the military forces." Trial was deferred.26 The September 1918 registration briefly rekindled Gosiute agitation and white fears. Annies Tommy, now in northern Utah, urged his fellow tribesmen to resist. None of them enrolled. Rumors circulated that the Indians had gone to "get ammunition cached in the mountains" (in reality, they left the reservation merely to gather pine nuts). Frank thought "the situation looked ugly" for a time, but with the aid of "the more conservative old Indians" and neighboring white ranchers he succeeded in completing registration by the end of October (total Gosi25 [Rogers] to McLeen, March 27, 1918, F A R C , SB, Dorrington, Gosiute; undated newspaper clippings, ibid.; Allen to Dorrington, April 8, 1918, ibid.; Dorrington to Woodburn April 15, 1918, ibid.

28 Frank to Dorrington, April 4, 1918, ibid.; Dorrington to Ray, April 8, 1918, ibid.; United States of America v. Al Steel, et al, Federal Archives and Records Center Denver File 76703 (hereafter FARC, D e n v e r ) .

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utes registered: 163). The indictment against Willie Ottogary, Annies Tommy, Al Steel, John Syme, and Jim Straight was dismissed for "lack of evidence."27 Why did the Indians oppose conscription? The Gosiutes blamed Superintendent Frank for their September 1918 failure to register, saying he gave the signal to assemble at the wrong hour; though they considered sending to him for instructions they decided against it. Frank, on the other hand, neither sought out nor sent for the tribesmen because he felt this would "show weakness." While investigator Dorrington found the Indians' excuse "absurd and wholly insufficient to warrant their actions," he also criticized Frank's unbending attitude, concluding that the Gosiutes and their superintendent were "completely out of touch with each other."

Jim Straight maintained that the Indians misunderstood the draft law. This explanation hardly seems adequate, given the fact that agents repeatedly told them what was required. Nor does cowardice explain their actions, for they readily prepared to fight deputy Knapp's posse.

The European war, however, was to them but a distant abstraction.

Indian Tom said the Gosiutes were angry because an Indian woman had been arrested as a spy. Al Steel refused to register because he claimed to be overage, even though agency records showed him to be liable to draft under the extended age limits. Subsequent investigation revealed that Steel was too old. However, Dorrington said Steel's resistance had misled others. Additionally, both Gosiutes and Shoshones had signed treaties promising to lay down their arms and follow peaceful pursuits.2S Newspapers blamed "outside influences" for Indian resistance. The commissioner of Indian Affairs flatly denied these stories, but Indian testimony indicates otherwise. Garfield Pocatello said that during the first registration a white man called a meeting of prominent Shoshones.

Jacob Browning, Pocatello, and others who attended went to "a very good house" in Pocatello, Idaho, entering through a back door. There a man seated in a darkened room told the tribesmen that the government wanted to take their boys and men overseas to be killed; none 27 Frank to Sells, September 13, 1918, NA, RG, 75, Gosiute, 71476-125; Frank to Dorrington, September 13, 1918, ibid.; Dorrington to Commissioner, September 21, 1918, ibid.; unsigned telegram, October 15, 1918, NA, RG 75, 8 3 5 4 8 - 1 8 ; Frank to Commissioner, October 29, 1918, ibid.; Frank to Dorrington, October 29, 1918, F A R C , SB, Dorrington, Gosiute; U.S.A. v.

Al Steel; et al, F A R C , Denver. ^ D o r r i n g t o n to Sells, September 21, 1918, NA, R G 75, Gosiute, 71476-125. Salt Lake Tribune, February 24, 1918; [Rogers] to McLeen, March 27, 1918, F A R C , SB, Dorrington, Gosiute; Browning to Commissioner, June 5, 1917, NA, RG 75, Ft. Hall, 737521-125; Dorrington tq Commissioner, February 6, 1918, NA, R G 75, Gosiute, 30951-125.

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would return. (The recent leasing to sugar growers of 20,000 acres of reservation land to boost the wartime food campaign, in the Indian mind, lent credence to this idea.) The man exhorted the Shoshones to warn other Indians, arm themselves, and resist. Jim Straight also complained of agitators, saying they were "worse than Germans, and delight in getting the Indians into trouble." 29 Superintendent Frank w7ondered if Deputy Knapp was a spy. Had he been "up to more than the work assigned him" and "purposely arranged" the Gosiute "uprising"? Knapp's belligerence undoubtedly intensified Indian anxieties. Frank also speculated that "the Mormons" had "teased" the Indians, stirring them up in the hope that they "would lose their reserve." But, he cautioned, "I do not want it to go on record for the reason that it cannot be definite."30 Charles Damon, Jr., and Willie Ottogary were troublemakers of sorts. Who the other agitators were remains unclear.

Frank and the Gosiutes disagreed over the Indians' citizenship status.

The Gosiutes believed they w7ere noncitizens because they were not allowed to vote, but Superintendent Frank held otherwise, at least until the middle of 1918. Then uncertainty crept in: "At first," he wrote, "all [took] out Indian Homesteads [but] when the Goshute reservation was set aside, all. . . relinquished their homesteads and said lands were included in said reserve . . . would such Indians be considered citizens?"

The Indians who flocked to Deep Creek in 1917-18 came to avoid being counted as citizens and thus subject to the draft. They argued that they had been living on the public domain through no fault of their own, since the government had never established a reservation for them at Ruby Valley as promised in their 1863 treaty. Of these tribesmen Frank wrote: "Indians coming from Nevada and living on the Gosiute Indian reservation, Utah, have no rights here. As said Indians have no reservation and had been living either on the public domain or with white ranchers, they have had all the rights of citizenship."31 Such differential treatment was bound to create problems.

29 Commissioner to J. J. Cotter, M a r c h 6, 1918, NA, R G 75, Gosiute, 3 0 9 5 1 - 1 2 5 ; Testimony of Garfield Pocatello, February 13, 1918, F A R C , SB, Western Shoshone; H . D. Lawshe to Commissioner, February 18, 1918, ibid.; Salt Lake Tribune, May 31, 1917, February 24, 1918.

30 Frank to Dorrington, August 13, 1917, F A R C , SB, Dorrington, Gosiute; Frank to Commissioner, October 29, 1918, NA, R G 75, Gosiute, 71476-125.

31 Frank to Commissioner, June 9, 1917, NA, J F B ; Frank to Commissioner, July 30, 1918, NA, R G 75, Gosiute, 7 1 4 7 6 - 1 2 5 ; J i m Straight, et al, to Commissioner, January 2 1 , 1918, NA, J F B ; Frank to Dorrington, M a y 3, 1918, F A R C , SB, Dorrington, Gosiute; Frank to Commissioner, August 29, 1918, NA, R G 75, Gosiute 71476-125.

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Long-standing grievances underlay the immediate conflict. The Gosiutes believed that the government was cheating them. L. A. Dorrington reported that "Willie Ottogary had considerable to say about certain money due the Indians for road w7ork." However, after the investigator explained that the government did not pay Indians for maintaining reservation roads, Ottogary conceded: "I guess it is different on the reservation than up where I live." Annies Tommy complained about not being paid for his service as an Indian judge. The government said his position had never been officially sanctioned. The Indians demanded retribution for five Gosiute deaths, including that of Tommy's brother.

They said white men were stealing their fish, water, timber, and minerals; Frank had closed their school and had tried to sell them the harnesses and wagons the treaty promised, and they had not received the proffered land and annuities.32 An examination of the Ruby Valley treaty reveals that it was misinterpreted by the Indians. The document explicitly authorized white developers to exploit both minerals and timber (Article 4). Annuities were to compensate the tribesmen for these concessions (Article 7).

The treaty did not promise the establishment of a reservation in Ruby Valley but authorized the president of the United States to "make such reservations for their [the Indians'] use as he may deem necessary."

Furthermore, the tribesmen agreed to "remove their camps to such reservations as he [the president] may indicate, and to reside and remain therein" (Article 6). Over five years had elapsed since the establishment of the Deep Creek reservation (1912), and the government assumed that Indians living on the public domain w7ere doing so by choice, thereby becoming citizens. Despite the Indians' righteous indignation over the government's failure to investigate the deaths of their tribesmen, they erred when they asserted that this, too, was a treaty violation. Although the treaty provided that "if depredations are at any time committed by bad men of their [the Indians'] nation, the offenders shall be immediately taken and delivered up to the proper officers of the United States, to be punished as their offences shall deserve," it made no provision for reciprocity (Article 2) ,33 The justice of the entire agree32 Dorrington to Commissioner, June 20, 1917, NA, J F B ; Tommy to Commissioner, November 1, 1917, FARC, SB, Dorrington, Gosiute; Frank to Commissioner, November 26, 1917, ibid.; Jim Straight, et al, to Commissioner, January 21, 1918, NA, J F B ; Frank to Commissioner,, May 28, 1917, ibid.

33 Charles J. Kappler, Laws and Treaties, vol. 2 (Washington, D . C : Government Printing Office, 1904), pp. 8 5 1 - 5 3 .

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ment is questionable, but the fact remains that the Gosiutes misconstrued their rights.

Great enmity existed between Annies Tommy and Superintendent Frank. Tommy accused the agent of unlawfully opening private mail and using Indian money to purchase hay and grain, then withholding it from the tribesmen. The superintendent admitted opening one letter "by mistake" but maintained that neither he nor any of the agency employees had read it. Instead of explaining his alleged misuse of Indian monies, however, he attacked his accuser saying that Tommy did not belong on the reservation because he was "not one of the original Goshute band and is on the reservation only by reason of his mother (Annie) having married . . . Antelope Jake, a recognized head man." Frank called Tommy "the very worst Indian residing on the reservation," predicting, "There will be nothing but trouble as long as he remains."

Dorrington exonerated Frank, and the superintendent succeeded in removing Annies Tommy from the reservation, reporting in May 1918: "Annies Tommy and family have left the reservation" because the other Indians have "had enough of him."34 Frank was not happy at Deep Creek and seems to have feared the Indians. He reminded special agent Dorrington that it was "just such doings" that had led to the death of a colleague in California. To avoid a repetition of that incident, he urged that the Gosiute "outlaws" be dealt with "in an energetic way . . . by those . . . in a position to do so."

Furthermore, neither Frank nor his wife enjoyed complete health. Since the agency was located at nine thousand feet above sea level and quite isolated, he requested a transfer to a lower, more salubrious climate.35 Together, all these factors demonstrate that the Gosiutes w7ere living in a volatile ambience long before 1917-18. The draft, with its attendant confusion over the citizenship of individual tribesmen, both magnified their discontent and unleashed the resentment of many years.

Shoshone resistance seems to have been motivated by more immediate concerns. The white reaction is perhaps best explained by Frank's paranoia and by wartime hysteria fanned by journalistic sensationalism.

34 Dorrington to Commissioner, J u n e 20, 1917, NA, J F B ; K n a p p to Barrington [sic], J u n e 12, 1917, ibid.; Frank to Dorrington, M a y 17, 1918, F A R C , SB, Dorrington, Gosiute.

35 Frank to Dorrington, J u n e 17, 1917, F A R C , SB, Dorrington, Gosiute; Frank to Commissioner, October 23, 1918, NA, R G 75, Gosiute, 71476-125.

The Unwanted Indians: The Southern Utes in Southeastern Utah

BY GREGORY C. T H O M P S O N

1879 THE U T E S OF COLORADO were disgruntled with the w7ay their government agent was treating them. Trouble seemed imminent and, indeed, it occurred. The events, although far from southeastern Utah, played a major part in the attempts to make San Juan County into a Ute Indian reservation.

IN

Mr. Thompson is program coordinator at the American West Center, University of Utah, and a doctoral candidate in history. A version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the U t a h State Historical Society at Blanding, September 1979. The accompanying maps were prepared by Catherine Farr.

Pine River store and post office on the Southern Ute Reservation in Colorado, ca. 1890. Courtesy of Center of Southwest Studies, Fort Lewis College, Durango.

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The Colorado Utes had been under tremendous pressure from intruders since gold was discovered in the Pikes Peak region in 1858. That event caused an instant population boom along the eastern slope of the present-day state of Colorado and helped establish Denver as a thriving town. From the eastern slope, miners and their support audience of trail and road builders, storekeepers, and saloon operators moved west into the heart of the mountain country of Colorado in search of the precious yellow metal. This push brought the Utes face-to-face on their own territory with these intruders. By 1879 the Indians had been pushed onto lands along the western slope of Colorado, and the miners and others of Colorado w7ere calling for the removal of these people from their most traditional lands. The cry of the Coloradans in their local newspapers and to the nation at large was to remove the Utes from within the boundaries of their state.

Colorado had been named a territory in 1861, eleven years after both Utah and New Mexico; but, because of the existence of gold in large quantities, it had been granted statehood in 1876 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the centennial year â&#x20AC;&#x201D; long before either Utah or New Mexico gained similar status.

The political power that accompanied statehood became very important to Colorado, especially when it was surrounded by territories with only limited power in the national legislature. The citizens of Colorado did not waste this advantage as they gathered their forces in the attempt to remove the Utes from their state.

Combined with forces created by the arrival of miners, ranchers, and land developers were those of the national government and its changing Indian policy. From the latter 1860s through the 1880s the government had struggled with outraged Indian tribes w7ho resented the intrusion of people onto their traditional or reservation lands. Numerous tribes located on the plains had fought for control of their lands, causing major problems for the army and the Indian Department. As a reaction to these outbreaks, the government, w7ith the help of reformers, struggled to create a new approach to the Indian problems by establishing the Grant Peace Policy. Under the philosophy of creating peace and protecting Indian lands, reservations were either created or recognized that the U.S. Army felt it could protect; and sympathetic agents, representing the major religious denominations of the nineteenth century, were named to administer federal Indian policy at the local level.

Nathan C. Meeker, although not a religious representative per se, was sent to the White River Agency, located in northwestern Colorado,

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as agent. Meeker, a former correspondent for Horace Greeley's New York Tribune and an admirer of Greeley himself, brought his enthusiasm for Utopian colonies and modern farming practices to his new appointment. 1 He was determined to teach the Utes to become farmers, but they resisted. Finally, when Meeker sent some of his agency employees to plow one of the White River's favorite horse pastures and race course, the Utes rebelled.2 Under the leadership of Johnson, Jack, and Douglas, all White River Utes, the agency was attacked after a force of 155 soldiers and 25 civilians entered the reservation against the washes of the Utes and against the promises of Maj. Thomas T. Thornburg, commander of the unit. Meeker, Thornburg, and 28 other whites were killed in the ensuing battle.3 Only 20 Utes took part in the battle and killings, but the event provided a fine excuse for the citizens of Colorado to demand the removal of all of the Utes from their state.

As the event unfolded and news of the killings spread east, the cry of the Coloradans became a national roar. Pressure forced Congress and the Indian Department to react with great haste. The result of the demands of the people of the United States was a new agreement with the Ute bands located in Colorado, signed on March 6, 1880.4 Under the terms of the new Ute agreement, the White River band of Utes was to be moved onto the Uintah reservation in eastern Utah, and by 1882 the move had taken place.5 After several delays, a change in the agreed-upon reservation, and numerous renegotiations, the Uncompahgre band of Utes was moved out of the mountains of Colorado and onto a very dry and desolate strip of land in central eastern Utah along the Colorado border.6 Only the three Southern Ute bands, the Weeminuche, the Capote, and the Muache, remained in the state.

1 Marshall Sprague, " T h e Bloody End of Meeker's Utopia," American Heritage, October 1957, p p . 3 6 - 3 9 , 9 0 - 9 4 ; see also Robert Emmitt, The Last War Trail: The Utes and the Settlement of Colorado ( N o r m a n : University of Oklahoma Press, 1954 [1972]), pp. 4 4 - 4 9 . Meeker, who was a' Congregationalist, had actively supported the abolitionist's movement before the Civil W a r a n d brought to his agency position the same reform zeal that the church-named agents did.

2 Sprague, " T h e Bloody End," pp. 9 0 - 9 1 .

3 Ibid., p p . 36, 9 3 - 9 4 .

4 U.S., Congress, Senate, Message from the President of the United States, Transmitting a Report From the Secretary of the Interior Containing an Agreement Signed by Chiefs and Headmen of the Ute Indians, Ex. Doc. No. 114, p a r t 2, 46th Cong., 2d sess., Ser. No. 1885, J a n u a r y 27, 1880, p. 2. See also Charles Kappler, Jr., comp. and ed., Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, vol. 1 (Washington, D . C : Government Printing Office, 1904), p. 182.

3 Floyd A. O'Neil and Kathryn L. MacKay, A History of the Uintah-Ouray Ute Lands, Occasional Paper No. 10 (Salt Lake City: American West Center, University of U t a h , 1978), p p . 13-14. See also Floyd A. O'Neil, "A History of the U t e Indians of U t a h until 1900" (Ph.D. diss., University of U t a h , 1973), p p . 142-47.

8 O'Neil, "A History of the Ute Indians," p p . 150-55.

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The Ute agreement of 1880 also called for the removal of the Southern Utes and for the disestablishment of their reservation. For some unknown reason, perhaps because the Southern Ute bands had in no way contributed to the trouble on the White River and, like the other Colorado Ute bands, had been traditionally very peaceful people, the Ute agreement did not call for their removal from the state of Colorado. Rather, the one clause of the agreement that related to the Southern Utes called for the giving up of their lands and for taking allotments in severalty, which were equivalent to homesteads, along the La Plata. 7 George Manypenny, one of the three members of a commission who negotiated with the Southern Utes, agreed to help reestablish the tribe on their new lands. Manypenny had been involved in Indian affairs for a number of years; in fact, he had been commissioner of Indian Affairs in the Franklin Pierce administration in the 1850s. Since that time, Manypenny had served in a number of positions, including special investigator and head of the peace commission to the Sioux in 1868, which resulted in the Sioux treaty of 1868. Just prior to joining the Ute commission, Manypenny wrote and published a major indictment of the use of the army in Indian affairs and the need for change in the system.8 His book, entitled Our Indian Wards, became an important document to a growing number of Indian reformers, most of whom resided in the East. Among his solutions for what was termed the nation's "Indian Problem" was the wide adoption of the homestead principle and the concept of Jeffersonian agrarianism. In more simple terms, Manypenny called for the reduction of Indian reservations through the use of giving allotments of land to individual Indians and teaching them the rudiments of the yeoman farmer. Allotments in severalty and farming would help the Indians enter the mainstream of American society. At the same time, this would remove them from the wardship rolls of the United States government.

On two occasions Commissioner Manypenny surveyed the proposed Southern Ute lands, and on both occasions he found the land along the La Plata River wanting as potential agricultural land. In his report 7 Kappler, Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, vol. 1, p. 182. See also Gregory Coyne Thompson, Southern Ute Lands, 1848-1899: The Creation of a Reservation, Occasional Paper No. 1, Robert W. Delaney, ed. (Durango, Colo.: Center of Southwest Studies, Fort Lewis College, 1972), pp. 2 2 - 2 6 .

8 Francis Paul Prucha, American Indian Policy in Crisis: Christian Reformers and the Indian, 1865-1900 ( N o r m a n : University of O k l a h o m a Press, 1976), p p . 95, 105, 171-72, 241-42. See also H e n r y Fritz, "George W. Manypenny and Our Indian Wards," Kansas Quarterly 3 ( 1 9 7 1 ) : 100-104.

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he noted the lack of land presently under cultivation on either side of the river, whether in Colorado or New Mexico.9 Certainly, the land would not support the agricultural needs of 1,200 Southern Utes.

Naturally, Manypenny's views were not w7ell received in the areas surrounding the reservation nor in the state of Colorado. However, when the senior senator from Colorado, Henry Teller, a man of substantial power in the U.S. Senate, told his colleagues that he concurred with the Manypenny report, the people of Colorado realized that settling the Southern Utes along the La Plata River was not going to be the solution to their "Indian Problem."10 For several years after 1880 efforts were made by the Colorado delegation to gain sufficient support in Congress to pass a bill that would either force the removal of the Utes to the La Plata River area or provide that suitable agricultural lands be found for them elsewhere.

From 1880 through 1884 numerous alternative solutions to the Southern Ute problem were offered in Congress. All failed, leaving the Utes in a most difficult position.

0

Thompson, Southern Ute Lands, p. 26.

Ibid., p. 28. For Teller's comments, see U.S., Congress, Senate, Congressional vol. 11, part 1, 46th Cong., 3d sess., January 20, 1881, p. 782.

10

Record,

Abajo Mtns.

• •

•MONTICELLO

A~*A

I

SILVERTON

BLANDING

DOLORES

PAGOSA SPRINGS

UTE

£2* J-

ARIZONA

FARMINGTON

Southern Ute Reservation, 1879-94. Map by Catherine Farr.

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The mining boom in the San Juan Mountains continued to bring more and more people to the area just north of the Southern Ute reservation. The arrival of the railroad at Durango in 1881 and its extension to Silverton in the mining region and to Dolores in the west, allowed ranchers, farmers, and homesteaders more accessibility to those lands surrounding the reservation. Together, these pressures made the Utes captives on their own reservation and, in some cases, especially with the cowboys from the ranches and the large cattle herds located to the west and south of the reservation, meant people trespassing onto the reservation. With these trespasses came incidents of conflict resulting in increased tension among the Utes. Furthermore, the Utes were left in a most tenuous position with the uncertainty of the status of their reservation. Realizing that they were probably to be removed from the area and wanting to be settled in a permanent home, they nevertheless could not fully prepare for eventual removal when they did not know where they would be moved. Their situation dragged on year after year with no change in their status.

Finally, late in 1885, Senator Teller introduced Senate Bill No. 769 which provided for the Utes to be removed from Colorado.11 He did not say where they were to be moved, but his action forced Congress to think in terms of removing the Utes from the state.

In February 1886 three Southern Ute leaders, Buckskin Charley, Ignacio, and Tapoche, were sent to Washington at the request of Sen. T. M. Bowen of Colorado to negotiate with the government for a solution to their problem. In testimony before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs it was quite apparent that the leaders of the three bands would not agree to be removed to the Uintah and Uncompahgre reservations located in eastern Utah. Nor would they consider moving to a separate reservation in the region. Ignacio, headman for the Weeminuche, asked Congress to move them to the west of their present reservation onto land located in San Juan County, Utah. 12 Commissioner of Indian Affairs J. D. C. Atkins, a former congressman from Tennessee and a member of President Grover Cleveland's first administration, told the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs that the wdshes of the Utes should be granted. He felt that Senate Bill No. " U.S., Congress, Senate, Congressional Record, "Bills Introduced," vol. 17, part 1 49th Cong., 1st sess., December 21, 1885, p. 347.

12 U.S., Congress, House, of Representatives, A Report by the Committee on Indian Affairs on Bill H.R. 1265, Report No. 8 6 1 , 50th Cong., 1st sess., Ser. No. 2600, M a r c h 7, 1888, pp. 1-6. See also U.S., Congress, Senate, A Report by the Committee on Indian Affairs on Bill S. No. 1916, Report No. 836, 49th Cong., 1st sess., Ser. No. 2360, April 30, 1886, p. 1.

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Left: Buckskin Charley, leader of Capote band of Southern Utes, ca. 1890. A b o v e : Weeminuche leader Ignacio, ca. 1890, a Smithsonian Institution photograph. Both prints courtesy of Center of Southwest Studies, Fort Lewis College, Durango.

Both men and another Southern Ute leader, Tapoche, testified before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in 1886.

1916, introduced by Bowen, which called for the Utes' removal to San Juan County, Utah, should receive the support of Congress and would receive the backing of the Indian Department and the administration.13 However, Senate Bill No. 1916 died in committee after being referred there while waiting for the Utes to inspect their proposed lands.

Not all was lost, though, as the testimony of the Utes, the Colorado delegation, and the Interior Department was important and had an influence on further negotiations with the Utes. Indeed, the views stated in support of the bill became the cornerstone of the administration's policy to try to remove the Utes.14 33 Ibid., p p . 3-4. T h e Senate bill articulated the borders of the proposed U t e reservation as following the Colorado-Utah state line from the San J u a n River in the south a n d running one hundred miles north, where it stretched west to the middle of the channel of the Colorado River. From that point, the boundary followed the Colorado River southwest through its confluence with the San Juan River, which formed the southern boundary of the U t e reservation. O n the south, the U t e reservation would form a common border with the recently established U t a h Navajo reservation. See also Thompson, Southern Ute Lands, p p . 34-35.

14 U.S., Congress, Senate, A Report by the Committee on Indian Affairs on Bill S. No. 1916, Report No. 836, p p . 1-4. See also Denver Tribune-Republican, February 20, 1886.

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On location at the Ute reservation, the three bands of Southern Utes were becoming very dissatisfied with the inaction of the government and impatient to be located on land they could call theirs. The Utes' desire was aided by two rather strongly worded memorials from the Colorado State Legislature and by strong press support.15 An editorial in the Aspen Weekly Times stated: "There should be no backdown. The Indians should either leave the state or be cleaned out."16 The action of the Utes, the legislature, and the press brought results.

Two bills were again introduced in Congress, one in the Senate and one in the House, which called for removal of the Utes to Utah. Although the two bills died without action, compromise legislation drafted from these two pieces was appended to a bill proposing legislation relating to a group of Montana Indians. The bill passed Congress, and with it the secretary of the interior received the right to name a three-man commission to negotiate with the Southern Utes for the relinquishment of their right to any land in Colorado in exchange for new lands outside the state.17 After organizing in Kansas City, Missouri, on July 24, 1887, the committee of three traveled to the Southern Ute reservation and by August 4 were ready for business. But the negotiating process did not go well, for by that time the leaders of the bands were against removal.

They were unwilling to leave comfortable homes and familiar surroundings for the harsher region to the west.18 In hopes of prompting the leaders, a tour of the proposed San Juan County reservation was arranged. The party got as far as the Big Bend on the Dolores River, not far from the present-day townsite of Dolores, Colorado, when conflict developed. The Utes claimed that the eastern border of the proposed reservation should run through the Big Bend, whereas the commission stated that the line wrould be the Utah-Colorado state line. While meeting in council the three Ute band representatives could not decide if they should proceed on, and a fight broke out that re13 U.S., Congress, Senate, " M r . Teller Presents House Joint Memorial, No. 1," Congressional Record, vol. 17, p a r t 2, 49th Cong., 1st sess., March 1, 1886, p. 1893.

18 Aspen Weekly Times, August 27, 1887.

11 U.S., Department of the Interior, The Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1889 (Washington, D . C : Government Printing Office, 1890), p p . 76-77.

18 Prior to this time the government had provided the leaders with homes a n d herds of cattle a n d sheep. T h e leaders now seemed not to want to leave these homes and go to an area they considered to be desert. Also, the members of the tribe seemed not to support the original decision of the leaders. When consent was finally obtained most felt it was achieved through u n d u e pressure on tribal members to support the move. C C Painter, Protest of the Indian Rights Association against the Proposed Removal of the Southern Ute Indians (Philadelphia: Indian Rights Association, 1890), pp., 5 - 7 .

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First proposed Southern Ute Reservation, 1887.

Map by Catherine Farr.

suited in the killing of one Capote Ute. The remaining Capotes refused to go on and returned home. The rest of the party did manage to get as far as the Carlisle ranch, located just north of the present site of Monticello on the northeast slope of the Abajo Mountains, before they refused to travel farther into Utah. They feared the commission was escorting them to the Uintah reservation and would not allow them to return.

The Indians agreed that they had seen enough to know that they wanted to reestablish their reservation in this area.19 After returning to the agency in Colorado the Utes signed a new agreement with the commission calling for their removal to Utah and the establishment of a new reservation.20 The new reservation boundaries paralleled those proposed in Senate Bill No. 1916, with the exception of the north line. Instead of the reservation running for one hundred miles north along the Utah-Colorado line, that distance was reduced to * U.S., Congress, Senate, Letter from the Secretary of the Interior Transmitting a Report of the Commission to Negotiate with the Band of Ute Indians in Southern Colorado for such Modifications of Their Treaty and Other Rights, and Such Exchange of Their Reservation, as May Deem Desirable by Said Indians and the Secretary of the Interior, Sen. Ex. Doc. 67, 50th Cong., 2d sess., Ser. No. 2611, January 14, 1889, p. 11.

20 Ibid., p p . 12-13.

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seventy-five miles. This moved the north boundary south of La Sal, a small community that existed by 1889, and out of the La Sal Mountain range.21 To obtain the consent of the tribe the commission had to have the signatures of 242, or three-quarters, of the adult male members of the three Southern Ute bands. On November 14, 1888, the commission presented a document with 274 signatures, well over the number needed.22 The new agreement stated that besides the land, which amounted to 2,912,000 acres or nearly two million acres more than the Colorado reservation they were giving up, they would also receive $50,000 in ten annual payments, $20,000 worth of sheep, a new agency, and permission to hunt on and around the unoccupied lands of the La Sal Mountains. 23 With the presentation of a signed agreement by the Ute negotiating committee to Congress on January 11, 1889, the signal was clear to the people of San Juan County, Utah, that if they wanted to keep their land and not have their county become a reservation, they had better muster all of the political power they could. The fight was going to be a tough one, for pitted against the Mormon settlers and some very unlikely allies were the citizens of Colorado. The Utahns and their allies lost the first round when on February 1, 1889, Senator Brown of Colorado introduced a new Ute removal bill into the Senate, labelled Senate Bill No. 3894, which passed.24 Within the House, the forces opposing removal to Utah were able to rally support and stop the same bill in committee without the matter ever reaching the floor for general debate.

Those fighting the removal attempt made the most unusual and unlikely bedfellows. The most obvious group opposing the move were the settlers of San Juan County. Many of them were from the Mormon party that had come into the area through the Hole-in-the-Rock route and had established small farms and several settlements. They had been sent to the area by the church and felt an obligation to remain. Although some saw the possibility of selling their land claims at a profit to the government and w7ere willing to leave, the number of petitions from the citizens of the area to Congress indicated that most settlers were against moving.2j 21 22

ibid.

Ibid.

23 Ibid., p p . 5 - 6 . See also the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1889, p p . 76-77.

24 U.S., Congress, Senate, "Bills I n t r o d u c e d , " Congressional Record, vol. 20.

23 T . J. M o r g a n to the Secretary of the Interior, M a r c h 1, 1890, National Archives, I n d i a n Division, Record G r o u p 75, Southern U t e Agency Records, Washington, D . C , p p . 24-26.

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Southern Utes

La S a l M t n s .

4A

I

>an

Second proposed Southern Ute Reservation.

Map by Catherine Farr.

S

^ir<.

1888-89.

The commissioners who had negotiated the agreement felt that the surveyed lands of the county would be excluded from the reservation; however, there were a number of Mormon settlers who w7ere, according to the commissioners, squatting on unsurveyed land and w7ould have to be moved.26 It would be only natural for the remaining settlers to feel threatened by the change, and certainly the loss of land for homesteading purposes would hinder the area's ability to expand as a farming region. For the Mormon contingent this was a very important consideration.

Closely linked to the Mormons geographically was a small group of very powerful cattle ranchers and cattle company owners who used much of the proposed reservation land as grazing areas for vast herds of cattle. By 1888 such companies as the Carlisle, or the Kansas and New Mexico Land and Cattle Company as it was officially known for a time, located north of Monticello near Peter's Hill, alone ran herds of well over ten thousand head.27 Others who were either directly or in28

The Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1889, p. 77.

Don D . Walker, " T h e Carlisles: Cattle Barons of the U p p e r Basin," Utah Quarterly 32 (1964) : 269-72.

27

Historical

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directly affected by the proposed reservation included the Rays, the Maxwells, the Taylors, the O'Donnels, John Shafer, Spud Hudson, and Peters. A second large cattle company located in the area and owned in absentia was the Pittsburgh Cattle Company. Ow7ned by Charles H. Ogden and associates, whose operation was located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Ogden and the Pittsburgh Cattle Company led the way in the cattle companies' fight to keep the Utes out of the area.28 The reasons for the cattle groups joining the settlers of the area were obvious. Less obvious, but more important to the outcome of the battle, was the close cooperation of the owner of the Pittsburgh Cattle Company with a group of eastern middle-class, strongly Protestant reformers.

Organized into the Indian Rights Association and functioning since December 1882, the organization had the ear of the Indian Department and, more important, Congress through its very effective Washington lobbyist, C. C. Painter. 29 The organization used its lobbying ability with maximum effectiveness. The Indian Rights Association had been a major force in gaining the passage of the 1887 General Allotment Act. This act called for the end of Indian reservations, the placing of individual Indians on plots of land similar to homesteads taken from the old reservations, and the entering of these people into the mainstream of American economic and social life. Because the Indian Rights Association supported the concept of ending the reservation system, the idea of creating a new and substantially larger reservation for the Utes flew in the face of their national Indian policy desires. With great haste the association organized a campaign to defeat the removal legislation.

Because the headquarters of the Indian Rights Association was Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and therefore near the headquarters of the Pittsburgh Cattle Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the two groups formed a lobby that was able to exert considerable pressure on key members of Congress, particularly members of the congressional committees of Indian Affairs.

The argument against removal was best stated by C. C. Painter and the representatives of the Indian Rights Association. Because the hunting lands of the Utes were to be located in and adjacent to the La Sal Mountains, the Utes would again be in constant contact with ranchers and farmers. The same types of problems facing the Utes in Colorado would again develop on their new7 reservation. Conflict and 28 28

Thompson, Southern Ute Lands, pp. 44-45.

Ibid.

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hostilities would ensue and before long there would be killings on one side or the other. Furthermore, the association questioned whether the Indians could keep their sheep on the reservation or the cattle companies off the reservation with any more success than had been experienced in Colorado.30 Finally, Painter and the other reformers were unwilling to admit that the Utes had failed their farming test on the Colorado reservation. In following their general policy of the time they were determined that all Indians, or anyway most, were to become the epitome of Jeffersonian agrarians, or successful, small, individual farmers.

To encourage this pursuit the Utes needed land that could be irrigated.

An inspection of both the present and proposed reservations indicated that the new reservation lacked sufficient water to support a major agricultural effort. Because water existed on the present reservation with a system for delivering the water to individual farms, the association argued it would be too expensive to abandon that location and develop a whole new system.31 Also, the inspection of the proposed San Juan County reservation indicated that although there were a number of small streams leading off the Abajo Mountains, they ran dry in summer/ 2 Other problems the association brought to the attention of Congress also helped to defeat the first attempt to pass the Ute removal bill. Three communities, largely Mormon in population, as w^ell as numerous ranches were located within the proposed reservation boundaries. The commissioners had not seen that as a problem, but the reformers argued that the cost of compensating the settlers for improvements to the land and for removal would be much too expensive. Francis Fisher Kane and Frank M. Riter, two of the Indian Rights Association inspectors, estimated the cost of settlers' claims w7ould be $150,000. They also noted that there were a number of mining claims located on the north bank of the San Juan River, a product of a gold rush to the area a few7 years earlier. No one was sure of the number of claims or the cost of quieting either claim or title to the lands. In the final analysis, the association felt the removal effort was impractical, much too expensive, and violated both the intent and practice of national Indian policy. The creation of a reservation and the removal of the Southern Utes to San Juan County

30

C C Painter, Removal of the Southern Utes (Philadelphia, 1890), pp. 1-8.

Ibid., pp. 4 - 7 .

32 Francis Fisher Kane and Frank M. Riter, A Further Report to the Indian Rights Association on the Proposed Southern Ute Removal (Philadelphia: Indian Rights Association, J a n u a r y 20, 1892), pp. 7-9.

31

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would not bring the desired results: the civilization of the Southern Ute bands.

Along with the reformers the cattle companies expressed their displeasure with the attempted move. As stated before, the loss of grazing land would prove very costly and, perhaps, even bring an end to an expanding cattle industry in San Juan County. (Ironically, the decade of the 1890s saw the decline of this industry anyway. Overgrazing, harsh winters, and the depression of 1893 w7ere the villains.) The owners of the cattle companies also realized that the close proximity of their cowboys to.the Indians and their reservation could only spell trouble.

Added to the voices of the local residents and the others were a series of resolutions from the territorial government of Utah. The territorial assembly felt that Utah already had too many Indians within its boundaries and should not have to be subjected to the increased burden of more.

Finally, after reviewing the entire matter very carefully, the commissioner of Indian Affairs in the Harrison administration, T. J. Morgan, felt that the Indians would be better off on allotments on their present reservation. He noted that the irrigation system for farming had been developed and that a few of the Utes were already trying their hand at crop raising. He also noted that a review of the minutes of the negotiations indicated that the proposed move did not fairly represent the desires of the Utes.33 The composite voice of these various groups to Congress all helped to defeat the proposed removal bill. The people of Colorado did not give up without a fight, however, as a removal bill was introduced into either or both houses of Congress during each session for the next five years.

The solution to the Southern Ute question came in the form of a bill introduced into Congress by Andrew J. Hunter of Illinois, who was also a member of the House Committee on Indian Affairs. On April 23, 1894, he asked for the allotment of lands to the Southern Utes on their present reservation, the opening of the unallotted lands to white settlers, and the voiding of the 1880 Ute agreement, which called for the moving of the Utes to the La Plata River.34 The bill passed, and by 1899 the Utes had been allotted their land and the reservation was opened for 33

T. J. Morgan to the Secretary of the Interior, March 1, 1890, pp. 24-26.

U.S., Congress, House, "Public Bills, Memorials a n d Resolutions," Record, vol. 26, part 4, 53d Cong., 2d sess., April 23, 1894, p. 4015.

34

Congressional

Southern Utes

203

settlement. However, all did not go as planned. Ignacio and the Weeminuche band of Utes refused to have anything to do with the allotment process, forcing the western end of the reservation to be reserved for them as land held in common.

Today, this area is called the Ute Mountain Ute reservation, with tribal headquarters located at Towaoc, Colorado. One member of that tribal council represents the only evidence of a Ute reservation in southeastern Utah, the White Mesa Utes, located just south of Blanding.

These people had earlier held land in Allen Canyon and were moved to their present location by the government during the 1940s and 1950s.

In conclusion, a review of the events leading to the attempted removal of the Southern Utes from Colorado represented a striking shift in national Indian policy for the 1880s. That an attempt was made to exchange a reservation of roughly one million acres for one of nearly three million acres severely violated the intent and meaning of the General Allotment Act of 1887. In the end, a land-hungry nation was not about to let this type of transaction take place, despite the political pow7er of the people of the state of Colorado. During the 1890s national sentiment moved more towards leaving the Southern Utes in Colorado and providing them with the means of becoming Jeffersonian agrarians.

One point seems certain. Had this area been legislated a Southern Ute reservation in 1889 or 1890, the history of San Juan County, Utah, would have been much different during the twentieth century.

In Memoriam: Fawn McKay Brodie 1915-81

But Jesus said u n t o them, A prophet is not without h o n o r save in his own country, and in his own house. ( M a t t . 13 :59)

1 RUER WORDS HAVE NOT BEEN S P O K E N than these as they apply to Fawn M c K a y Brodie and her work as one of America's foremost biographers.

It is regrettable t h a t so many of her local critics have h a d their negative opinions formed for them by others, without themselves having read the writings of Mrs. Brodie. Instead, many criticize her with a knee-jerk reaction because it is the expected thing to do toward someone who may question or challenge long-held beliefs. T h e sincerity and motives of Mrs. Brodie have been scorned and ridiculed, while her scholarship and courage in exploring new approaches to the study of her subjects have not been recognized or appreciated, at least by those whose views she may have challenged.

Nationally and internationally, Fawn Brodie has built a reputation as a respected scholar. H e r several books have brought her extensive acclaim as a good historian and one of the pioneers in psychobiography.

T h e numerous reviews of her books found in the papers she donated to Special Collections of Marriott Library, University of U t a h , attest to her skill as a writer and her scholarship as a historian-biographer. She is, perhaps, Utah's best known and most respected author, judged by scholars throughout the United States and abroad. However, in her native state, except for a limited, devoted following, she is a "prophet without honor."

Fawn M c K a y Brodie was born in Huntsville, Utah, September 15, 1915, to Thomas E. and Fawn Brimhall M c K a y . One of four sisters a n d one brother, Fawn received her schooling in the Weber County School District and Weber College before her enrollment at the Univer-

Fawn McKay Brodie

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sity of Utah in English literature. It was at the university, she said, "I first began to learn important things." Her studies provided "a very quiet kind of liberation . . . it was a quiet kind of moving out into . . . the larger society, and learning that the center of the universe was not Salt Lake City as I had been taught as a child." (The quotations in this piece are taken from an interview with Fawn Brodie conducted by the Oral History Program, California State University, Fullerton, 1975.)

Her continued liberation and searching led her to the University of Chicago from which she graduated in 1936 writh a master's degree in English literature. Her graduation day was also her wedding day to Bernard Brodie, a man who inspired her, encouraged her, and assisted her with the publication of four books and numerous articles and reviews for newspapers and scholarly journals.

Dr. Bernard Brodie was a scholar of considerable attainment, having taught at Dartmouth, Yale, and the University of California, Los Angeles; and he was a member of a prestigious research group, the Rand Corporation. His specialty was military history and national defense.

Fawn joined him in authoring a book in 1962 entitled From Crossbow to H-Bomb, a survey of the impact of science on warfare. Bernard and Fawn Brodie became the parents of three children, two boys and one girl, a family in whom Fawn found "such great pleasure and fulfillment."

Her children survive her, but her husband preceded her in death in 1979.

Fawn Brodie's professional career began in 1934-35 as an instructor in English at Weber College. At the University of Chicago, she was employed in the library (1936-40), and in 1940-41 she was named a research assistant for the Committee for International Studies at Princeton University. In 1967 she was appointed a senior lecturer in the Department of History, University of California, Los Angeles. Here she taught a popular, new course on writing biography. Her approach, applying different techniques to gain an understanding of the inner man, made her one of the leaders in the field of psychobiography. This is the approach she used in writing her popular study of Thomas Jefferson and her recently completed and soon-to-be published biography of Richard Nixon. She resigned from her UCLA position in 1974 to devote full time to her writing.

Mrs. Brodie's vita lists dozens of articles and reviews in the nation's leading journals. Besides the book she coauthored with her husband, Mrs. Brodie has written four books that have won the attention and acclaim of many of America's leading historians.

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Her first book, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet (Alfred Knopf, 1945) went through eight printings in the first edition and a British edition in 1963 before Knopf brought out a second and expanded edition in 1975.

In 1959 Mrs. Brodie wrote the biography of Thaddeus Stevens, Scourge of the South which was published by W. W. Norton Company.

Norton also published The Devil Drives: The Life of Sir Richard Burton in 1967 and Thomas Jefferson, an Intimate History in 1974. Her Nixon biography to appear in summer 1981 will also be published by Norton.

In addition to her authored works, Mrs. Brodie edited for Alfred A. Knopf in 1963 the Richard Burton travel account, The City of the Saints and across the Rocky Mountains to California', and for Harvard University Press in 1962, she edited Frederick Piercy's Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley.

A search through the numerous reviews of Mrs. Brodie's books leads one to conclude that her scholarship was held in high esteem by her peers — the exception being critics whose heroes' images were tarnished or humanized by Mrs. Brodie's research and waiting. This was especially true in the case of the biographies of Joseph Smith and Thomas Jefferson.

Sir Richard Burton and Thaddeus Stevens, having no committed or organized followers, produced none of the negative response that has arisen from the other two books.

Mrs. Brodie has approached her Nixon biography with the same courage and determination that she brought to her other studies. For this work there will be those who will be just as vicious in their attacks on her book and her person as in the past. But her reputation and stature as an author and scholar can withstand these, and her work will be judged on its merits as the writing of an accomplished and courageous scholar.

Faw7n Brodie's work has been recognized through the followingawards: 1943 — 1959 — 1967 — 1975 — 1976 —

Alfred A. Knopf Fellowship in Biography Literature Award of the Commonwealth Club of California Fellow Award, Utah State Historical Society Woman of the Year Award, Los Angeles Times Merit of Honor Award, Emeritus Club, University of Utah Alumni Association

Perhaps a greater testimony to the esteem of her local admirers is the size and response of the audiences each time Mrs. Brodie appeared as a speaker before the public. On at least five occasions when she was

Fawn McKay

Brodie

207

invited to address an audience in her native state, she filled the hall to overflowing. One memorable occasion that stands out in my memory is September 23, 1967, the Annual Meeting of the U t a h State Historical Society. It was the occasion of the awarding of the Society's highest honor for scholarship to Fawn McKay Brodie, just after the publication of her Richard Burton biography. T h e Society broke with tradition when Mrs. Brodie was invited to respond to the bestowing of her award. T h a t response was never published, but I now feel that it should be since it conveys so much of the sentiment she felt toward her home state and the first organization within Utah to pay proper tribute to her work as one of Utah's foremost authors. (I attach it as part of this tribute.)

I was pleased then to play a part in honoring Faw7n McKay Brodie, and I am honored now to have been invited to w7rite this tribute to her.

Needless to say, I will miss her as a friend, as a contributor to the growth of research collections at the library of the University of Utah, and as a very courageous person who was willing to follow her instincts, conscience, and research to their conclusions whatever the consequences might be for her. For this she must be respected and admired. Those of us who have experienced to some degree her commitment and dedication to scholarship and the price that must be paid to achieve success as she did, have benefited from her pioneering efforts in writing critical biography.

T h e whole scholarly community has suffered with the death January 10, 1981, of Fawn M c K a y Brodie whose final breaths were expended tow7ard the completion of another challenging study, the biography of Richard M. Nixon.

EVERETT L. COOLEY

University of

Utah

ACCEPTANCE SPEECH OF FAWN MCKAY BRODIE UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY ANNUAL MEETING SEPTEMBER 23, 1967, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

Several precedents are being broken here tonight. One is that I was told considerably in advance about being given the Fellow Award of the Utah State Historical Society. So I have had time to meditate about how best to express my gratitude to the Society on this occasion. I did not trust myself to speak spontaneously tonightâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;since this is for me a deeply moving experienceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and I have made some notes. I promise, however, not to talk more than two and one-half minutes.

208

Utah Historical

Quarterly

I never return to Utah without being forcibly reminded of the overwhelming significance of the past in this area. I have just finished reading Bertrand Russell's Autobiography and was struck with his description of the importance of the past in his own life. You know that he comes from a distinguished aristocratic family in Britain, the origins of which have been traced by zealous genealogists back to the time of William the Conqueror. He wrote: The past is an awful God, though he gives life almost the whole of its haunting beauty. I believe that those whose childhood has been spent in America can scarcely conceive the hold which the past has on us in the Old World: the continuity of life; the weight of tradition, the great eternal process of youth and age and death, seem to be lost in the bustling approach of the future which dominates American life.

I think this statement applies to many parts of America, certainly to southern California, but it does not apply to this special intermountain community. Here the past is everywhere with us. I do not, however, agree with Russell that "the past is an awful God." I prefer a description which William Faulkner put in his novel Requiem for a Nun: "The past is not dead; it is not even past."

Certainly it is true that the way a person brought up in this area chooses to reckon with the past — either to wrestle with it, to abominate it, to submit to it, or to adore it and try to convert others to its overwhelming significance — has major consequences for his life. It determines the quality of his intellectual life; it very largely determines the nature of his friends; and it has important consequences whether for good or ill upon his peace of mind.

We all know that there is no caste system in America imposed by the past, as there has been in Europe, though we do have a caste system imposed by color.

Nevertheless, I am struck by the fact — as are many of my friends who have visited this area as strangers — that people insist on categorizing their friends, neighbors, and acquaintances according to their relations with the past. Here everyone is given a label — good Mormon, Jack Mormon, anti-Mormon, Gentile — or if you prefer more subtle nuances — he is labeled a son of Ephraim, a son of Manasseh, a son of Judah, or a son of H a m . The wonderful thing about the Utah Historical Society is that it embraces us all. It opens its doors to everyone — to the devout proselyte, the detached scholar (the scholar trying his best to be detached), the crackpot, and the paranoid. It has inflexible integrity in regard to its documents, and it has always (at least in my lifetime) made them available to everyone searching for historical truth. It has had faith that the good sense and compassion of the reader would in the end sort out the malicious writing from the unmalicious, the bigoted from the unbigoted. It has been a steady light.

I am delighted for personal reasons to be honored by the Society, and to join in a line of distinguished scholars who have been so honored in the past. I like to think, too, that this honor has a special quality, that it is in a sense a tribute to the right to dissent about the past. I thank you — the members of the Board of Trustees — for your courage, for I know that you have in my case risked some censure. But I thank you most of all for your friendship and your fellowship.

r wmmmm

wmmm North

to Montana!

Jehus, Bullwhackers,

and Mule Skinners

on the Montana

Trail.

By B E T T Y M . M A D S E N a n d BRIGHAM D . M A D S E N . (Salt Lake City: University of

U t a h Press, 1980. X x + 298 p p . $20.00.)

This book is a documented history of overland freighting a n d stagecoaching on the M o n t a n a Trail, which r a n 400 to 500 miles from Salt Lake City and other places in northern U t a h to Virginia City, Helena, a n d other gold mining towns in western M o n t a n a . M o n t a n a as a destination for freight, mail, and passengers developed rapidly after the beginning of the gold rush in 1862. Like many other mining areas, western Montana was almost entirely dependent on the importation of food, clothing, provisions a n d e q u i p m e n t ; but unlike some mining areas, it was distant a n d isolated from all major shipping centers. Principally, it depended on shipments by Missouri River steamboats a n d to a lesser degree on the freighters from U t a h and Missouri River towns in Nebraska and Kansas a n d on pack trains from the Columbia River.

Freighting a n d stagecoaching on the M o n t a n a Trail passed through three distinct periods. Salt Lake City dominated the trade until the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869.

During the second phase, 1869-77, Corinne, a Gentile town on the Union Pacific, was the main shipping point.

T h e n it. in turn, was succeeded by various termini of the narrow gauge U t a h Northern Railroad, a Union Pacific branch. W h e n completed in 1884 to its juncture with the Northern Pacific Railroad at Garrison, M o n t a n a , the U t a h Northern ended overland transportation on the M o n t a n a Trail.

Essentially, the Madsens fulfill their purpose of telling the story of the M o n tana Trail. Relying heavily on research in U t a h a n d M o n t a n a newspapers, they provide a detailed picture of the U t a h originated freighting a n d stagecoaching businesses. For each of the three periods they present conclusions about the nature, extent, a n d economic impact of the trade.

Although basically an economic history, the book includes many colorful stories about life a t the stage stations, highwaymen, a n d vigilante justice. T h e chapter on " T h e High Cost of Tolls" is a major contribution to the historical literature of western overland transportation because it describes how the M o n t a n a Trail, unlike trails across the Great Plains, was affected by toll roads that added greatly to the expense a n d vexation of freighters and stagecoach companies.

T h e major shortcoming of the book lies with the Madsens' attempts to place the M o n t a n a Trail in the larger setting of all routes leading to western M o n tana. T h e i r treatment of Salt Lake City as a shipping point generally ignores its heavy dependence on imports from Missouri River towns a n d California.

O t h e r than U t a h farm products, most of Salt Lake City's M o n t a n a shipments were actually transshipments. U n d e r the subheading "Freighters from O t h e r Areas," the Madsens, in describing events of the early 1860s, mention only trains from Denver a n d fail to consider

210 the impact of overland transportation from Atchison, Kansas, and Nebraska City and O m a h a , Nebraska. I n a later section, however, they mention the Niob r a r a Trail from Sioux City, Iowa, a trail used only once commercially and then abandoned.

Most of a chapter is devoted to Missouri River steamboating, but the value of the coverage is diminished considerably by errors, some of which seem to have resulted from making undocumented assumptions. For example, they write that Bismarck, N o r t h Dakota, because of the extension of the Northern Pacific Railroad, was the immediate successor of Saint Louis as the main port of u p p e r Missouri steamboating, thus overlooking the earlier importance of Sioux City, which became the base of the Northwest Transportation Company in 1868 because of its railroad link with Chicago.

Also, tlrey conclude that M o n t a n a freight carried by Missouri River steamboats in 1877 went via the Yellowstone to destinations in western M o n t a n a , w h e n in actuality the steamboats went

Utah Historical Quarterly no further than military posts on the lower Yellowstone. Their explanation of the resurgence of the Fort Benton trade in 1878 does not point out the development of areas north of the Missouri River, which, in reality, was the principal reason for expanded steamboating. O t h e r minor errors, such as placing Bismarck only 400 miles above Saint Louis, m a r the coverage in this chapter considerably. Reliable information about Missouri River steamboating and overland transportation on routes across the Great Plains is available in standard secondary sources, but the authors apparently did not use them.

Despite these shortcomings the M a d sens have made a significant contribution to the historical literature of freighting and stagecoaching. T h e i r story, which is interesting and often entertaining, will lead to a better understanding of the frontier development of U t a h and M o n t a n a .

W I L L I A M E.

Mankato

State

LASS

University Minnesota

Diary of Brigham Young, 1857. Edited and introduction by EVERETT L. COOLEY. U t a h , the Mormons, and the West Series, no. 10. (Salt Lake City: T a n n e r Trust F u n d , University of U t a h Library, 1980. Xxvi + 105 p p . $17.50.)

This is a well edited and attractive presentation of a document that generates more questions than answers.

Written by two of Brigham Young's scribes, the diary spans the four months from M a y 21 to September 22, 1857â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the months in which the U t a h Expedition was organizing and moving out across the plains. T h e editorial introduction notes that "while there is very little new material, nor is the diary a masterpiece, nevertheless, this publication marks the first printing of a complete diary of the Mormon leader" (p. xiii).

Most of the daily entries are single paragraphs and none takes more than a page in this small volume. Among

the reported events are a toothache, the "first Ice cream of this Season" (p.

4 0 ) . visits to Young's terminally ill wife (Clarissa Ross), reviews of the Nauvoo Legion, marital counseling and the granting of divorces, the reinstatement of T h o m a s B. Marsh, the selection of " J M Bernhisel for our delegate to congruss" (p. 4 4 ) , and Sunday night prayer circles with participation and agendas so extensive that some historians have thought they were meetings of the Council of Fifty. Vicissitudes of the Brigham Young Express C o m p a n y and responses to Capt. Stewart V a n Vliet are recorded. O n e of the latter is delightfully phrased: " I informed him t h a t he could be furnished with Sup-

211

Book Reviews and Notices plies if he did not need them or if the troops did not come, but if they did they could not have a thing" (p. 7 8 ) .

O n e set of questions concerns the diary itself. H o w did it find its way into a collection of books and m a n u scripts that came to the Wayne State University L a b o r Archives, from whence it came as a gift to the University of U t a h ? W h o a d d e d the baseball notes that m a r the endpapers of the sixty-onepage notebook?

Since diaries now known to exist cover only about a third of Brigham Young's U t a h years, are other o r p h a n manuscripts somewhere waiting for discovery?

O t h e r questions concern how the diary was written. Why did T h o m a s D .

Brown, clerk for the first part, use the third person with reference to Young, while Joseph A. Young, w h o began recording entries for his father on J u n e 13, used the first person? Since most of the entries d o not read like verbatim dictations, w h a t was the process by which items were selected for inclusion?

W a s the diary maintained on a daily basis or brought u p to date every few days? T o w h a t extent did Young review the content?

M o r e i m p o r t a n t are questions about content. Why is there n o mention of James Haslam's visit to Young on September 10, reporting the perilous situation at M o u n t a i n M e a d o w ? Why does the account of the July 24 outing in Big Cottonwood Canyon describe A. O .

Smoot, Judson Stoddard, and Porter

Rockwell as delivering surprising news about the coming U.S. Army when there is compelling evidence that the three arrived in Salt Lake on July 22 and that the M o r m o n leadership knew quite a bit about the federal government plans some time earlier. Editor Cooley suggests that "the events at Silver Lake on July 24 were staged for dramatic effect" (p. 50, n. 5 2 ) . T h e hypothesis is plausible, but it does not account for the way the subject is handled in Young's own diary.

T h e extensive editorial notes focus on background, circumstances, consequences, a n d questions. T h e y do not identify all persons or clarify all details, b u t they are very helpful on the topics with which they deal. T h e well-selected illustrations include facsimiles of two almost identical printed versions of the "Proclamation by the Governor," one dated August 5 a n d the other September 15, 1857; Cooley notes that h e has not found a single reference to the earlier version ( p p . 82-83 and 8 1 , fn.

8 0 ) . T h e dust jacket shows the diary binding and pages written by the two scribes. Bibliography and index are excellent.

T h e T a n n e r Trust F u n d has m a d e another worthwhile contribution to the body of published documents that are becoming available to devotees of U t a h and M o r m o n history.

RICHARD D.

Western

Illinois

POLL

University Macomb

Utah Folk Art: A Catalog of Material Culture. Edited by H A L C A N N O N . (Provo, U t . : Brigham Young University Press, 1980. Xxiii + 150 p p . $10.95.)

O n c e again, western states arts agencies will have to look at U t a h ' s exemplary folk arts program with envy. Utah Folk Art: A Catalog of Material Culture accomplishes that elusive goal these state arts agencies have all set for themselves as a major purpose: the documentation and promotion of public understanding

of the artistic heritage of the people.

This single volume is both a valid docum e n t of scholarship and an attractive, publicly accessible introduction to the folk art of U t a h .

T h e extensive photography (156 color and black-and-white photographs) speaks to both these ends. Figures 58

212 to 84 in the essay entitled "Craft" provide a good example. Each photo is accompanied by a description providing basic information about the item: its size, materials, where it was made, who made it, who it belongs to now, and so forth. This standard documentation, along with the accompanying essay, provides leads for further research and the raw data for new syntheses. At the same time, the rich and colorful photography of items, people, and scenes provides an enjoyable and aesthetic experience in its own right. In other words, folk art is brought back to the people as art. For many Utahns, Utah Folk Art will provide a chance for reminiscence and reflection; for some it will answer questions about chairs or pottery in their own homes. For others it may be the beginning of questions about history, art, and culture in Utah.

Hal Cannon has chosen to assemble authors from various disciplines to bring different perspectives to bear on folk arts. Ann Elizabeth Nelson, a curator and museologist, writes on Indian art; Tom Carter, folklorist, writes on folk architecture; Nancy Richards, historian and museologist, writes on craft; Susan O m a n (historical theologist and journalist) and Richard Oman (art historian) write about Mormon symbols; Austin and Alta Fife, folklorists emeriti, write on gravestone imagery. Other chapters, entitled "Frontier," "Ranch," "Women," "Carving," and "Painting," do not have essays but consist of photographs with extensive captions.

If there is a weakness in the book it lies in the wide range of material that is considered as folk art without being justified as such. Take painting, for instance. Old or nonprofessional, "primitive" or ethnic, these qualities in themselves are not enough to make something folk. It would have been useful to know in what sense or in what aspects these paintings are folk. The catalog covers a great deal, but there is a lack

Utah Historical

Quarterly

of integration between the parts. What is the logic of the divisions and their order? Is there an overarching conception?

There are several strong theoretical statements in the introduction and Tom Carter's essay. I admire Hal Cannon's inclusion of a cluster of plastic grapes as an item of folk art: . . . they are "folk" because they belong to a long line of Mormon women's craftwork and as such were used to decorate coffee tables throughout Mormondom.

And they are "art" because they are decorations that were made to be beautiful.

It is just this unexpected kind of item, not the chairs and quilts, that teaches us something deeply true about folk art and forces us to look at ourselves in relation to art and the past. Sometimes our idealized forebears did not follow the aesthetic rules we today think they should have. The plastic flowers Russian Old Believers in Woodburn, Oregon, use to decorate their walls are similarly disparaged by outsiders as unworthy of the hand-embroidered panels that hang nearby. The folklorist's job, however, is to demonstrate the folk aesthetics, not his own.

The essay "Folk Design in Utah Architecture: 1849-90" by Tom Carter will be of particular interest to the readers of this journal for Carter sees the historian and folklorist as sharing the goal of attempting "to breath life back into the material landscape." Fie does so by working backwards out of the contemporary built environment to the mentality that created it. The world view and building concepts of Utah's pioneer builders are corroborated by reference to the historical record and scholarship.

Tom Carter goes a long ways in returning dignity to the folk architect and revealing the complexity behind his decisions. Although unspoken "rules" of Utah folk architecture are uncovered, the diversity that came out of these rules

213

Book Reviews and Notices turns out to be m u c h greater than scholarship h a d heretofore recognized.

Carter also says: By trying to see the artistic basis for the design of pioneer buildings, we have shifted our gaze toward aspects of construction t h a t transcend the practical, we have found t h a t the solid a n d durable can also be decorative, and we have dis-

covered that these old buildings are far from simple in design.

T h e same can be said for all the folk arts of U t a h . This catalog makes it clear that folk arts are as fine as fine arts.

STEVE SIPORIN

Oregon Arts

Commission Salem

The Future of Agriculture in the Rocky Mountains.

Edited by E. RICHARD H A R T .

(Salt Lake City and Chicago: Westwater Press, 1980. 150 p p . $8.00.)

This book is an anthology of papers presented by scholars, government officials, a n d other speakers at a conference organized by the Institute of the American West, Sun Valley, I d a h o , and focused on the future of agriculture in the Rocky Mountains. T h e theme is broadly defined, embracing related economic, cultural, a n d environmental issues. T h e papers, although designed to propose policies for the future, rely mainly on historical argument.

Editor E. R i c h a r d H a r t provides an introduction t h a t is broad but disjointed. T h e best way to begin this book is to read t h e essay by K. Ross Toole, " T h e Energy Crisis a n d the Northern Great Plains." Toole confronts the central questions of t h e anthology: who will control the n a t u r a l resources of the West and w h o will direct their developm e n t ? H e accepts the proposition that the resources of the Rockies belong to the nation, not to a locality, but he deplores the absence of a rational, responsible policy for their development.

"And we in the West," h e concludes, "should give u p nothing until something makes sense" (p. 3 8 ) .

Toole's remark is appropriate not only for the times in general but also for this book in particular, because several of the other papers in it are examples of the fuzzy thinking about agriculture and natural resources prevalent today.

For instance, m u c h confusion stems from the failure to distinguish between the public interest and the farmer's in-

terest in agriculture. Various authors emphasize the future's need for a productive, expanding agriculture but either fail to realize or refuse to admit t h a t they do so for the public interest, not the farmer's interest. T o farmers, agricultural productivity and expansion (with a t t e n d a n t overproduction a n d surpluses) are problems, not solutions.

Yet, scholars a n d public officials still assert t h a t developmental agricultural policies such as subsidized research in agricultural technology are for the farmer, not the consumer. Only R a y Jergesen, in a selection modestly entitled "Economic Realities," discusses agriculture from the farmer's point of view, and the feasibility of the sort of collective bargaining he proposes is doubtful.

T h e book is divided into four sections headed "Physical Resources," " H u m a n Resources," "Food a n d Politics," a n d " T h e Sagebrush Rebellion," the last of which offers some of the most stimulating reading. I t contains statements by David H . LeRoy, attorney general of I d a h o ; Cecil D . Andrus, secretary of t h e interior; and Gary Wicks, director of the Bureau of L a n d Management. LeRoy clearly and dispassionately explains the methods by which western states have sought control of the public lands within their borders. Andrus predictably denounces their efforts.

Wicks produces the most sensitive a n d telling a r g u m e n t on either side w h e n h e points out t h a t it has been the presence of federal public lands and their

214

Utah Historical Quarterly

conservation by federal officials that have m a d e the West a pleasant place in which to live.

T h e future of agriculture in the Rocky M o u n t a i n s as indicated in this book is dim. Farmers in the region m a y be crushed between the contending interests of developers, corporations, politicians, a n d consumers. This sense of doom

Southwestern

Colonial

to California.

Ironwork:

does succeed, however, in rendering more poignant the slices of range-country verse by D r u m Hadley inserted between the book's sections.

T H O M A S D.

Emporia

The Spanish

Blacksmithing

State

Tradition

ISERN

University Kansas

from

Texas

By M A R K S I M M O N S a n d F R A N K T U R L E Y . ( S a n t a F e ; M u s e u m of

N e w Mexico Press, 1980. Xvi + 199 p p . Cloth $25.95; p a p e r $14.95.)

Iberian decorative ironwork has been admired a n d desired throughout Europe from the time of the Moorish domination of Spain to the present century.

Even m u n d a n e iron items, when fashioned by Hispanic craftsmen, were coveted for their unique a n d elegant styling.

M a r c Simmons a n d Frank Turley, in their book Southwestern Colonial Ironwork, a t t e m p t to characterize a n d analyze ironwork produced in t h e borderlands of the Spanish N e w World empire.

T h e authors have endeavored t o show t h a t ironwork of the colonial Spanish blacksmith was more sophisticated t h a n most scholars h a d commonly believed.

T h e book is a n effort to establish that the borderlands metalsmith did not prod u c e r u d e a n d inferior products in comparison with other N o r t h American smiths practicing their trade in t h e E n glish tradition b u t t h a t they simply p r o d u c e d different a n d unique products u n d e r dissimilar conditions. T h e authors d o n o t dispute that the p r o d u c t of the Hispanic borderlands metalworker was simpler than those m a d e by artisans in closer contact with the rich Iberian craft tradition, b u t they d o argue t h a t the work of frontier Spanish smiths possessed a u n i q u e a n d innovative character. Attempting to meet specialized needs of t h e borderland missionary, soldier, farmer, a n d rancher, the smiths d r e w upon Iberian styles a n d methods

to produce a creative, innovative, a n d quality product.

Part of the reason that borderland products varied so m u c h from the creations of smiths of Spain or N e w Spain c a n be attributed to economic a n d environmental conditions u n d e r which the smiths functioned. T h e frontier ironsmith was a rare a n d imaginative craftsm a n whose work demonstrated that he was influenced by a scarcity of fellow craftsmen. T h e blacksmith on the colonial fringe was almost beyond value because of his rare skills; a n d the presidio, mission, or settlement t h a t possessed such a craftsman was a rich a n d fortunate establishment. T h e colonial ironworker was at once free a n d captive; although h e was free of the innovationretarding influences of the craft guild, so strong in Spain a n d i m p o r t a n t in N e w Spain, he was a captive of the wide range of d e m a n d s placed u p o n his skills a n d time. T h e smith of a settlement, whether religious, military, or secular, was not able to specialize as did his fellow tradesmen in Iberia or N e w Spain. T h e craftsman in the more settled parts of the H a b s b u r g domains enjoyed colleagues w h o possessed specialties, a n d this allowed individual craftsmen to become masters of one aspect of their complex art. T h e borderland smith was required to perform every metalworking function from shoe-

215

Book Reviews and Notices ing horses a n d repairing farm implements to m a k i n g a r m o r a n d mending weapons. Also the isolated frontier craftsman was the constant victim of shortages of r a w material a n d exorbitant prices w h e n iron was available.

Southwestern Colonial Ironwork is illustrated with over a hundred diagrams a n d black a n d white photographs. In addition to t h e authors' principal purpose, describing the hardware found in the American Southwest, the work proposes to perform two additional tasks but falls short in both endeavors. First, the authors a t t e m p t to present an evolutionary perspective of the fruits from the borderland forge. However, they seem to be paralyzed by the incomplete n a t u r e of t h e physical evidence in existence a n d thus fail to make their study either authoritative or definitive. Second, the m o n o g r a p h defines as one of its objectives a n informed speculation

and inference regarding the manufacture of iron items. Such judgments are all too often omitted.

T h e book, while relying heavily upon secondary a n d published sources, does include some primary material. Southwestern Colonial Ironwork is a useful introduction to a n important genre of historical information that is too frequently omitted from social histories of the borderlands. Readers interested in the latest scholarship concerning borderland archaeology a n d Spanish material culture in the colonies will find this book informative. However, since the work fails to trace in detail the evolution of ironworking a n d the products of the anvil, it is of limited value to the specialist looking for aid in dating a n d identifying southwestern Hispanic artifacts.

Cold Dust.

ingot of a book detailing the gold-veined dreams of the men w h o "deserted the ordered precincts of h o m e " a n d whose "reward was ten dollars a day and all the rumors they could swallow."

Some m e n , however, found wealth where others did n o t : the merchants who charged exorbitant rates for a shovel or a sack of flour, the Chinese miners w h o earned the enmity of Californians by profitably working claims others h a d abandoned, or the immensely entertaining Joseph Hamelin. Unlike M a r k Twain, w h o found Salt Lake City

By D O N A L D D A L E J A C K S O N .

(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980.

361 p p . $13.95.)

T h e expressions "hit paydirt." "found the motherlode," a n d "mining a rich vein" have been p a r t of our language so long they have become cliches. But surely few events in American history have struck the imagination as much as the California gold rush. Donald Dale Jackson has trudged along the trails of the forty-niners a n d mined letters a n d diaries to produce a fine

M . EDWARD H O L L A N D

Johns Hopkins

University

216

Utah Historical Quarterly

w o m e n about as attractive as a clump of river m u d , Hamelin wrote that they gave h i m " a feeling of alloverishness" a n d composed a prayer thanking the Lord for the good time he h a d in Salt Lake City.

Seeking the Elephant, 1849: John Alason Hutchings' Journal of His Overland Trek to California.

Edited by S H I R L E Y SARGENT. (Glendale, Calif.:

Arthur H. $30.00.)

Clark,

1980. 209 p p .

J o h n Mason Hutchings, an English carpenter, headed westward with thousands of other hopefuls seeking gold.

Hutchings later became a Yosemite pioneer a n d propagandist a n d an innkeeper. His clear, simple prose is more palatable to m o d e r n readers than m u c h of the prose of J o h n Muir, Hutchings's one-time sawyer w h o m he fired. O n the trail west, Hutchings seems to have enjoyed his four-day stay in Salt Lake City, b u t does not elaborate m u c h beyond, " T o m o r r o w we leave civilization, pretty girls, a n d pleasant memories."

(Samuel Clemens gainsaid once again!)

Shirley Sargent has done a n admirable job of editing; however, h a d Brigh a m Young said, "This is the Place" on J u n e 23, 1847, as one footnote maintains, the City of Zion would n o w stand along the Sweetwater River in central Wyoming.

Spanish

and Mexican

American

Southwest.

treasure of early record sources, which includes provincial, legislative, ecclesiastical, a n d judicial papers as well as manuscript collections that comprised the business of the early southwestern adventure. Researchers will discover the trail was well marked by soldiers, missionaries, a n d administrators of N e w Mexico, Texas, California, a n d Arizona settlements from the early seventeenth to mid-nineteenth centuries. Beers's narrative explains how to find it.

Records

of the

By H E N R Y P U T -

N E Y B E E R S . ( T u c s o n : University of Arizona Press, 1979. X i v 4- 493 p p .

Cloth, $18.50; paper, $8.95.)

A n underestimated legacy of the era of N e w Spain a n d early Mexico lies in its voluminous documentation. A seasoned editor a n d archivist compiled this

Health, Wealth, and Pleasure in Colorado and New Mexico.

By F. C. N I M S . (Santa F e : M u s e u m of New Mexico Press, 1980. Vi + 129 p p .

Paper, $4.95.)

I n 1881 F. C. Nims, general passenger agent for the Denver & R i o G r a n d e Railway, issued what was to be the first of dozens of pamphlets touting the scenic a n d other wonders along the railroad's route. This initial volume, now a rare item, has been reprinted in a facsimile edition from a copy in the M u s e u m of New Mexico's collections.

True

Tales of the Old-Time

DAVID

DARY.

(New

Plains. By

York:

Crown

Publishers, 1979. Ix + 278 p p . $12.95.)

A collection of forty-one tales about characters as well known as Buffalo Bill a n d K i t Carson a n d those as little known as Prairie D o g Dave M o r r o w , a m a n who trapped the ubiquitous prairie dogs of Hays City, Kansas, to sell at $5.00 the pair to unsuspecting newcomers as pets. T h e book is inviting to read, an ideal fireside companion t h a t is sure to spark some lively yarning sessions. A professor of journalism at the University of Kansas, D a r y has compiled these accounts the hard way from bits and pieces of information in a variety of sources.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY D e p a r t m e n t of C o m m u n i t y a n d E c o n o m i c D e v e l o p m e n t Division of S t a t e H i s t o r y BOARD O F STATE

HISTORY

M I L T O N C . A B R A M S , Smithfield, 1981

President M E L V I N T . S M I T H , Salt Lake City Secretary T H O M A S G. A L E X A N D E R , Provo, 1983 M R S . E L I Z A B E T H G R I F F I T H , O g d e n , 1981

W A Y N E K . H I N T O N , C e d a r City, 1981 T H E R O N L U K E , Provo, 1983

DAVID S. M O N S O N , L i e u t e n a n t G o v e r n o r /

Secretary of State, Ex officio M R S . ELIZABETH M O N T A G U E , Salt Lake City, 1983 WILLIAM D . O W E N S , Salt Lake City, 1983 M R S . H E L E N Z . PAPANIKOLAS, Salt Lake City, 1981 T E D J . W A R N E R , Provo, 1981

ADMINISTRATION MELVIN T. SMITH,

Director

STANFORD J . L A Y T O N , Managing Editor J A Y M . H A Y M O N D , Librarian DAVID B. M A D S E N , State Archaeologist

A. K E N T P O W E L L , Historic Preservation Research W I L S O N G. M A R T I N , Historic Preservation Development J O H N M . B O U R N E , Museum

Services

T h e U t a h State Historical Society was organized i n 1897 by public-spirited Utahns to collect, preserve, a n d publish U t a h a n d related history. Today, u n d e r state sponsorship, t h e Society fulfills its obligations by publishing the Utah Historical Quarterly a n d other historical materials; collecting historic U t a h artifacts; locating, documenting, a n d preserving historic a n d prehistoric buildings a n d sites; a n d maintaining a specialized research library. Donations and gifts to the Society's programs, museum, or its library are encouraged, for only through such means can it live u p to its responsibility of preserving the record of U t a h ' s past.

MEMBERSHIP Membership in the U t a h State Historical Society is open to all individuals a n d institutions interested i n U t a h history.

Membership applications a n d change of address notices should be sent to the membership secretary.

Annual dues a r e : individual, $10.00; institutions, $15.00; student a n d senior citizen (age sixty-five or o v e r ) , $7.50; contributing, $15.00; sustaining, $25.00; patron,' $50.00; life member, $150.00. Your interest a n d support are most welcome.