Here is the message which came over the wires when amid the turmoil of the first years of the Civil War, the Overland telegraph line was completed: "Utah has not seceded, but is firm for the Constitution and laws of our once happy country, and is warmly interested in such useful enterprises as the one so far completed." A similar demonstration of patriotism and love of progress took place when the first iron horse, over the Union Pacific, came puffing into the Territory: "Utah bids you welcome. Hail to the great National highway." And this from their Articles of Faith: "We believe in being subjects to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates; in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law." These do not sound like the utterances of a people, jealously guarding from the intrusion of civilization, a region in which they might entrench themselves, and defy the advancement of law, order and Christianity. As our luxurious Pullman bears us swiftly and comfortably over the rolling prairie, do we ever give a thought to the patient, downtrodden ones {199} who marked out the path for us? Those who, in the words of one of their own poets: "As armed with mighty faith, no foe could vaunt, No powers appall, no pending danger daunt." And what of the Mountain Meadow Massacre and the Danite band? The daring perpetrator of the former outrage was willingly given over to the just retribution which awaited him, arid the existence of the "Avenging Angels" as an organization under the direction and receiving the sanction of Mormon leaders, was long ago exploded as the fabrication of an over-excited and too active imagination. We can find no more substantial foundation remaining to it than that which underlies any other myth or tradition. "Let the dead past bury its dead." Let us take the Mormon people as we find them today and try to discover in them a little good rather than wholesale evil. Let us commend them for the benefit, however small, that they have bestowed upon their day and generation, and cover with the mantle of charity, if enough of that priceless commodity be left in the world, the unintentional evil they may have done, and the mistakes they may have made. The wrong doing of individuals should not be visited upon the heads of the entire community, and narrow, personal prejudices should not be allowed to warp our good judgment.