The Pilgrim of the West

THE PILGRIM OF THE WEST By Judge Wallace McCamant [The National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution held their annual congress in Salt Lake City, in July, 1924. Many patriotic speeches were delivered during the meetings, and Past President-General Judge Wallace McCamant, spoke at the annual banquet on July 22, 1924, at the Hotel Utah. Through the courtesy of Hon. George Albert Smith, vice-president- general, and the kind consent of Judge McCamant the Era is privileged to print the speech. Judge McCamant was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, September 22, 1867; was educated at the Harrisburg public schools, and graduated from Lafayette College in 1888; was admitted to the bar of the second judicial district in Pennsylvania in 1890; thence removed to Oregon where he has ever since practiced his profession. He has acted as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Oregon; was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1896, 1900, and 1920; and placed in nomination President Calvin Coolidge for the Vice-presidency; has been a member of the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, since 1891; was president-general in 1921; is deeply interested in the work of the Masonic Fraternity; and was president of the Oregon Bar Association from 1919-20. "The Pilgrim of the West" will interest our readers because of its patriotic contents and its just meed of praise to the Western pioneers, in- cluding the settlers of Utah and Idaho and surrounding states. — EDITORS.] The Nineteenth Century was a marvelous age. One of its most important achievements was the conquest of the American continent. At the beginning of the century Anglo-Saxon civilization had barely crossed the Appalachians. At the end of the century the continent was studded with finished modern cities stretching from Pittsburg to San Francisco. A population of five millions had expanded into a popula- tion of seventy-five millions. The standard of living at the end of the century was higher than any the world had theretofore known and higher than obtained anywhere else. The story of the conquest of the continent has a fascination which the writers of fiction and the moving picture magnates well understand. Those men and women who turned their faces westward were empire builders. Their courage and self-reliance arrest our attention. They were largely those who chafed under the bonds of convention. The pioneer could live his own life. Measured by our standards it was a comfortless life, but it had a charm for thousands. They accepted the hardships for the sake of the atmosphere surcharged with the ozone of freedom. The frontier developed strong men; the weakling suc- cumbed to its tests. The homely virtues of industry and frugality were essential to existence in a new country. In a sparsely settled country all men are well-known. Such a community is no place for the impostor. The winners of the West were and had to be a genuine people. AH students of the conditions under which our forefathers lived

198 IMPROVEMENT ERA must be impressed with their isolation. The means of communication were unspeakably bad and the people lived their lives with little touch with the world except in their immediate communities. These conditions bred provincialism. There were many whose patriotism was circumscribed by state lines. The people of the original states differed in historic background and in religious affiliation. Society was organized on different lines in north and south. We would have had no federal constitution and no national solidarity but for the magnificent leadership bestowed upon us by Divine Providence in our formative period. With the adoption of the Federal Constitution the battle was only half won. Centrifugal forces were still powerful. If the country was to be permanently united, there was required a national spirit, a loyalty to the flag as the symbol of a union beneficent and perpetual. This spirit was built up on the frontier. There New Englander met Virginian, Pennsylvanian lived with Carolinian. Each learned the worth of the other. Such men as Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln were the fruition of frontier life. In their devotion through good report and ill to our federal union, they represented the constituencies in which their characters were formed. They dif- fered from each other on many public questions, but in each testing they proved that their supreme loyalty was paid to an indestructible union built upon the Constitution and symbolized by the flag. The spirit of the frontier reacted powerfully on the populations farther east. It is one of the glories of New England that the national spirit which had been growing up in the hearts of the people found expression in the ringing periods of Daniel Webster in his reply to Hayne; but the spirit of this great oration was largely the result of frontier contacts and the orator was not fitted for his great work until he had sat in Congress for nearly two decades with men from the West who were permeated with the spirit of national solidarity. But for the influence of the frontier there would have been a very different response to Webster's oration and to Jackson's defiance of the nullifiers. The Americanism of the frontier found abundant expression in the life of the new communities. The school house was the first landmark of community life. The log college followed in due course. Everywhere there was recognition of the necessity for education as a qualification for citizenship. The sacrifices made to found and maintain these schools and colleges are eloquent of the high ideals of the founders of these western commonwealths. A free and easy life obtained in the new settlements. There was little disposition to tell the individual how he should live his life and this was one of the charms of a new country. But there were among the pioneers in every section men who feared God. The church followed shortly after the school in the development of community life. The circuit rider was a real hero. It was his task to comfort the

THE PILGRIM OF THE WEST 199 bereaved and afflicted, to proclaim the immuntable principles of righteousness and to strengthen faith in the things which endure. The points on which the great bulk of Americans are in accord in their religious belief are more numerous and more important than those on which they differ. In the settlement of the West, one denomination did pioneering here, another there. In every considerable settlement there was a church where reverence to God and duty to man were taught. A court followed in due course. Every new community has recognized the importance of justice judicially administered as the foundation on which our civilization is built up. It is one of the glories of the great West that there have been found in its pioneer population judges just, able, fearless and loyal to the principles of the Constitution and that the pioneers have had the wisdom and the virtue to select these men to discharge judicial duties. Throughout our history the dominant influence of the new West has been the native American element. Until recently the melt- ing pot has worked satisfactorily in moulding into a homogeneous population the sons of the immigrant and the sons of the American Revolution. The spirit of the West has always been a spirit of hospitality. There has been a welcome for any man who came to make this country his home, to do his share of the work and to carry his share of the burden in transforming cfesert and wilderness into comfortable and finished communities. When the time came for statehood, in all the West there was no disagreement as to fundamentals. Every constitution contained its bill of rights; it provided for a system of checks and balances, for a dis- tribution of the powers into three departments, for a government permeated with American principles. There was hearty agreement everywhere that all power should spring from the people. The rapid development of the West is a demonstration of the excellence of our political system. Under our guarantees of free speech, a free press and the right of petition, the collective wisdom can be brought to| bear on all our programs. We were able to work out the wisest system of agrarian legislation the world has ever known. Its cornerstones are the homestead and mineral entry statutes. They have not only accelerated the settlement of the great West, they haive made its people a race of land-owners and home-builders. The unprecedented speed with which the great West has been settled cannot be accounted for by the richness of our natural resources. A century ago these resources were undeveloped. No one knew of the copper which underlays the soil at Butte and Anaconda, or of the gold to be found in Colorado and California. No one knew of the Comstock lode or the Silver King. Nebraska and the Dakotas were marked on the maps as the great American desert. The political

200 IMPROVEMENT ERA genius of the American people is the great secret of the winning of the West. The protection of property rights, the assurance that the obli- gation of contract cannot be impaired, have been the incentive to transform desert into farm and mountain into mine. The land laws have facilitated the conquest, but back of all the work of the pioneer has been the Constitution, throwing the protection of its guarantees around each man and each woman who participated in the mighty work whose fruition is the joy of this generation. The development of the West has done much to relieve con- gestion of population in the older states and to keep America the land of opportunity. Necessity is the mother of invention. The necessities which this era of development have made manifest have been a great incen- tive to the invention of the harvester and reaper and the other machines which for the first time in history have abolished famine and assured plenty. The development of the West required railroads and telegraphs. When the means of communication were supplied there grew up communities cosmopolitan, broad-gauge and sympathetic with all parts of the Union. In this latter respect the West is more truly American than any other part of the country. We who live in these western cities mingle from day to day with natives of every section of the United States. We find something to tie to in all of them and our disposition is to regard Americans everywhere as a great brotherhood., All honor to the pioneers wheresoever they pitched their tents, but a special tribute is due to the settlers of Utah, California and Oregon. The other western states were settled by a gradual extension of the cultivated area. These three commonwealths were peopled by men and women who journeyed far through wastes and wilds. The settlers of this goodly state were actuated by the same motive which took the Pilgrims to Plymouth. Read in the seventh volume of McMaster the story of the persecutions which drove them out of Illinois and Missouri and if you have the spirit of a true American your blood will boil. Look about you and see the garden country which they have carved out of the desert, see this finished modern city with its schools and its churches, its homes and its red-blooded citizens and you cannot withhold a tribute. When Oregon was settled, eight decades ago, there was no stop- ping place between the Missouri River and the Williamette Valley. The long trail was marked by the bones of those who fell by the way. No weakling ever made that journey. The settlers of Oregon were brave men and true women. The same may be said of the argonauts who laid the foundations of the great imperial commonwealth of the Pacific. The influence of these founders still lives in the states where

THE PILGRIM OF THE WEST 201 they lived and wrought. It speaks in the intense devotion of the people to the principles of the American Revolution. Let there be light in the western wilds, The spirit of progress said, And thousands followed the devious paths Where the sturdy woodsmen led. They crossed the mountain's beetling crags And the deserts brown and bare. And on the shores of the western main They planted the old flag there. As the blue of the sky and the blue of the wave Mingle and blend in the sea, It mingled its colors with those of the wave To herald the march of the free. And the echoing thud of the woodsman's ax And the roar of his trusty gun Told in a voice that woke up the woods How this western land was won. No Boy Is Bad By Joseph S. Peery Every boy is royal born — ai child of God. Like begets like, and it is natural for children to grow like their parents. The boy is naturally good, and, with favorable environments, he would remain good. As Oscar Kirkham says, "It is not lost a boy, but lost, a leader for that boy." Had young Leopold and Loeb been reared on the farm to work, with a job in the church helping others become better, they would be fine young men today. Andrew Carnegie said, "The worst thing that can happen to a young man is to be left with plenty of money and nothing to do." Such a combination is a terrible barrier for a young man to surmount. Such a handicap weakens his initiative and attacks his moral fiber from all directions. The "Mormon" boy generally is reared to work, and from early youth is giving service. He becomes a "doer of the word" and, in helping others become better, he develops into a fine young man. Most crimes are committed by young men from eighteen to twenty-two. At this vital period in life, the "Mormon" boy goes on his mission, the Lord's school, and thereby becomes a super man. In traveling, his viewpoint is broadened. In studying scripture and preaching the word of God, his spiritual nature is nourished; In humility he learns to pray to his best friend. He is happy in living his very best self. No wonder tourists remark, "We have met your missionaries, and they are the finest type of young people in the world." Jn the Church activities, there is safety, growth, salvation eternal.