Of course, the opening of the railways made possible a rapidity in the settlement of the remaining territories which outrivaled that of the older regions. The first Pacific railroad had been completed in 1869; the Southern Pacific connecting New Orleans with the coast was opened in 1881; and two years later the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe was finished, and the last stroke was put on the Northern Pacific, connecting Chicago and Portland, Oregon. Thus four lines of communication were established with the coast, traversing the best agricultural regions of the territories and opening up the mineral-bearing regions of the mountains as well. Lawless promoters fell upon the land and mineral resources with that rapacity which Burke attributed to Hastings. * * * * * Utah presented, in the eighties, the elements of an ordered and well-advanced civilization and could with some show of reason ask for admission as a state. The territory had been developed by the Mormons who settled there, after suffering "persecution" for their religious opinions and their plural marriages, in Illinois and Missouri. Notwithstanding an act of Congress passed in 1862 prohibiting polygamy, it continued to flourish. The territorial officers were nearly all Mormons and the remoteness of the Federal authority prevented an enforcement of the law. Consequently, it remained a dead letter until 1882, when Congress enacted the Edmunds law prescribing heavy penalties, including the loss of citizenship, for polygamous practices. Hundreds of prosecutions and convictions followed, but plural marriages were openly celebrated in defiance of the law. At length, in 1887, Congress passed the Edmunds-Tucker act authorizing the Federal Government to seize the property of the Mormon church. Meanwhile the gentile population increased in the territory; and at length the Mormons, seeing that the country was determined to suppress polygamy and that, while the institution was maintained, statehood could not be secured, decided upon at least an outward acquiescence in the law. After much discussion in Congress, and notwithstanding the repeated contention that the Mormons were not sincere in their promises, Utah was admitted as a state in 1895 under a constitution which, in accordance with the provisions of the enabling act of Congress, forbade polygamous and plural marriages forever. Thus the inhabitants of the new state were bound by a solemn contract with the Union never to restore the marriage practices which had caused them so much trouble and "persecution," as they called it. * * * * *