THE CONQUEST OF ARID AMERICA 



such measure as they have been settled at all, by the 

 overflow of those original currents of population. But 

 in Utah the motive was home-building, and the pursuit 

 was agriculture for its own sake. 



Furthermore, we find in Utah, and nowhere else, an 

 entire and distinct people, who have grown up under one 

 strong and simple industrial system, and have brought 

 that system to its logical results. This experience covers 

 half a century, and cannot be objected to on the ground 

 that it is an experiment, the results of which remain to 

 be demonstrated. 



Finally, partly because of these several reasons and 

 partly because the Mormon fugitives possessed no capital 

 except their leader's brains and their own hard hands, 

 the economic institutions of Utah are the natural out- 

 growth of the conditions of an arid land. Utah is the 

 product of its environment. As we study it we shall 

 see the economic tendencies underlying and shaping the 

 industrial life of all communities which find their life- 

 current in the irrigation canal and are surrounded by 

 the rich and varied, but wholly undeveloped, resources 

 of our far-western country. It is for these reasons that 

 the Mormon Commonwealth suggests itself irresistibly 

 as the starting-point of any proper study of our subject. 



What did the pioneers have to start with ? What have 

 they accomplished in fifty years ? How did they do it ? 

 In the answers to these questions we may find a flood of 

 light for the future of the West, but only upon condition 

 that the answers be sought in a spirit of perfect candor 

 and without prejudice either in favor of or against the 

 interesting people of the Utah mountains. 



On July 24, 1847, the Mormon caravan emerged from 



52 



