--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Tanner, J. M. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 6 number: 3 published: 1903-01 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'J. M. Tanner, "Some Leading Events in the Current Story of the World," *Improvement Era* 6, no. 3 (January 1903): 221–225.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0603unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera0603unse start_page: 221 end_page: 225 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1903-01) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0603unse publication_year: 1903 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1903, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Some Leading Events in the Current Story of the World SOME LEADING EVENTS IN THE CURRENT STORY OF THE WORLD. BY DR. J. M. TANNER, SUPERINTENDENT OF CHURCH SCHOOLS. Progress of the "Mormon" Colonies in Canada. For the last two years, no colony, under process of settlement by the Latter-day Saints, has awakened so much interest as that of Canada. The country is interesting from the standpoints both of speculation and agriculture. Numbers of men have amassed, in a short time, a very comfortable income from speculative ventures, while others enjoy most excellent prospects for future growth of a substantial and lasting character. Yet, many have become dis- couraged and left, while others have no use for the country at all. A man said to me in LeGrande, Oregon, last summer: "Can- ada is no place for a poor man who has nothing with which to buy cattle. Year after year, my grain was so frosted that 1 could not market it." And yet, this year the four leading towns produced good marketable grain to the amount of six hundred and twenty- five thousand bushels. Wheat sells for about fifty cents a bushel. In the western part of the country, where the Saints are located, frost seems to be the most dangerous enemy to the crops. In the eastern parts, the lack of water and the dangers of drouth, seem greater than in the west. No exact statistical report of the population and products of the country can be had. I, therefore, asked a business man, who is in a position to know well the conditions of all the colonies, to give me a conservative estimate. The following are his figures for this year: 222 IMPROVEMENT ERA. COLONIES. POPULATION. BUSHELS OF GRAIN RAISED. Cardston & District... 3,000 250,000 McGrath 800 150,000 Raymond 800 150,000 Sterling 500 75.000 Total 5,100 Total 625,000 The country is full of coal, and the only question of great im- portance connected with its use is one of transportation. But railway building is going on. The Old Gait road, from Great Falls to the Canadian line, has been bought by the Great Northern, and the narrow gauge will be replaced by a standard gauge, by the first of the year. A standard gauge will run to Lethbridge, from the boundary line, and the track will be standard to the sugar factory, in Raymond. Surveying parties are passing through the country, and the people are full of speculations about future railroad building. Hay is limitless, and is cut from the prairies. In quality it is, of course, not like red-top or timothy, though I am told that timothy will grow well here. The grass, though abundant, is not so strong as that grown in Utah. The cattle are all fat during the fall season of the year, and are seen in great herds in every direction. I am told that our people own at least twenty-five thousand head. They also own eighty thousand head of sheep. There are, on the contrary, those who contend that Canada is not really a sheep country, owing to the deep snows which sheep will not dig through for grass, like cattle do. Hogs are raised in considerable numbers. They have a good range in the summer, and can easily withstand the cold winters. There are no trees, and yet lumber is not dearer at this time, than in Utah. I am told that along the railroad, lumber is worth, in the rough, about twenty-three dollars a thousand, while finishing lumber brings about thirty-five dollars per thousand. The houses are mostly frame, though a good quality of brick can be had. There is a tendency now in Cardston to build more of brick, while new towns use lumber almost entirely. CURRENT STORY OF THE WORLD. 223 Business everywhere seems to be booming. I am told that Cardston alone did four hundred thousand dollars' worth of business last year. The railroad is fifteen miles east of the town, and will reach the place before long. Then its volume of business will, un- doubtedly, increase. One of the Cardston stores has a fine stock of goods, employs eleven or twelve clerks, and carries a stock of forty thousand dollars. There is a mill in the place with a capac- ity of ninety barrels a day, and which cost seventeen thousand dollars. In Raymond, the new roller-mill will have a capacity of one hundred and fifty barrels a day, and will cost not less than thirty thousand dollars. Its elevator now contains forty thousand bushels of wheat. The proposed sugar factory is to be built at Raymond, and is to be in operation by September, 1903. Raymond has the advantage of having such men as Brothers Jesse Knight, of Provo, and E. P. Ellison, of Layton. The sugar factory, it is said, will cost about half a million. It is certainly a venture, there being some problems connected with it whose solution must be worked out by experience. One question is labor. It is scarce. Another is transportation to the markets large enough to consume its prod- ucts. And yet another is moisture. Few men would have ventured so great an undertaking. Brother Knight is hopeful, and what is most creditable to him is the feeling he has that he is going to help greatly in building up the country. He has large tracts of land which he is selling to settlers, on terms that seem quite reasonable and fair. The people universally have the fullest confidence in his public spirit and fair- ness. Certainly, he is in a position to monopolize the vast resources at his command. Nobody, so far as I could learn, feels the least concern about any disposition on his part to take the least advan- tage of the settlers. Their confidence in his policy and public spirit is all that could be desired. He is certainly a great factor in Canada, in the development of its great resources. Raymond is really an enterprising town, for a place having only one year's age behind it. "Well, what do you think of our country?" comes to you from every one. "It is a great country," I responded. "But people are not agreed about its advantages." 224 IMPROVEMENT ERA. One woman, with whom I rode on the train, said: "You will find more homesick women than you ever saw anywhere else." ''Are you homesick?" I asked. "Indeed I am," was the reply. "What is the reason for this unhappy condition?" I further queried. "Oh it is so far away from everywhere," she continued. "Just think I haven't seen my mother, and the folks in Utah, since I came here three years ago." Others did not seem to be so afflicted with homesickness. The weather has been delightful ever since I came, and when I compliment the people on their beautiful climate, some of them express the hope that I may get a little experience in one of their Canadian blizzards. If you n eet one, with a touch of homesick- ness, the picture of a blizzard leaves nothing to complete a descrip- tion of an arctic scene. One woman said she didn't like the rain. "Why," said she, "last summer it beat right through my door, right through the wood, and soaked my carpet nearly to the stove." "You had a severe rain storm here, then, last summer," I re- marked. "Rain storm! it rained all summer, and how it did rain! it came down in torrents." "An unusually wet summer?" I suggested. "My, I hope so," she said. "It killed our horses and cattle and sheep. It came down in torrents in Cardston, washed some of the houses in the river bottom away, and did lots of damage." From what I can learn, the damage from the floods the past summer was not less than fifty thousand dollars. The people have certainly made great improvements, since I was here five years ago. The population has doubled within the last two years. Cardston was settled about the time of the loca- tion of Juarez, in Mexico. There is really not much difference in the general appearance of the homes, though Cardston shows much greater business activity. Its stores and workshops give the place greater life than that seen in Juarez. Juarez, however, has better schools, and her young people are more advanced educationally. The schools in the grades, in Canada, are really good, but nothing is done beyond the eighth grade. The average and general attend- CURRENT STORY OF THE WORLD. 225 ance in Cardston is lower than in Juarez. A boy is too valuable an asset in the north to send from the field to the school room, early in the school season. But the people of Cardston are ambi- tious educationally, and are determined to do more for education. They are taking steps to establish a high school. The new settle- ments strongly favor education, and are laying plans for superior schools. They are too young to be compared with other sections, Education is a resource which no country can afford to over- look. I picked up a school report, the other day, in which the value of education as a wealth producer was strikingly set forth. In Massachusetts, each child receives an average of seven years' schooling, while each child in the United States, as a whole, receives but four and three-tenths years. The ratio is seventy to forty- three. The wealth-producing power in Massachusetts, of each man, woman, and child was seventy-three cents a day, while in the country as a whole, it was only thirty-three cents a day. The average annual excess in. Massachusetts was eighty-eight dollars and seventy-four cents. It meant that the total product of Massa- chusetts was two hundred million dollars a year greater than it would have been,had the state earned no greater per capita amount than the rest of the country. The people of Massachusetts have long been great believers in education as a wealth-producer. But education has a value not to be computed in dollars and cents. To the Latter-day Saints, it is intended to be the instru- mentality of the moral and spiritual welfare of the people. The people who came to Canada were poor. Their sturdy efforts have been richly rewarded; and, after all, the hope of the people centers more strongly in their children than in anything else. It may, perhaps, be just to say that more young people have gone from Canada to Utah for higher education than have gone from Juarez. However, the school at home is the potent factor which must be reckoned with, in the general intellectual advancement of the people. In Canada, the people of the dominant church may teach re- ligion a half hour each day in school; provided, the children of the minority churches be not compelled to attend the religious in- structions.