of reproach, for among the American people there have been no better or nobler citizens of the Republic than the people of the states enumerated. I merely make the statement in order to present a fact, and because other facts grow out of it. To say that Missouri was settled by emigrants from the states of the South carries with it the explanation why Missouri was one of the slave states, and her people attached to the social and industrial methods of life attendant upon that circumstance. That is to say, they looked with contempt upon manual labor; regarding it as menial and proper only for slaves to perform. With that idea is closely related another; namely, that white people who from circumstances were compelled to perform manual labor, or who followed it from principle, in the eyes of the people of the South were of an inferior class; contemptuously characterized by some as "white trash," and by others, inclined to be more polite, as "poor whites."

Freedom from manual labor gave to those of active dispositions in such communities an opportunity to follow the more desirable vocations of professional life; the law, medicine, the Christian ministry, merchandising and general business; or leisure for political or military activities; or the pursuit of pleasure, fishing, hunting, horse racing, and social life generally. These conditions naturally resulted in pride, often in arrogance, and a desperate sort of courage, which held honor high and weakness and cowardice in contempt; also something of intolerance for those disposed to set themselves against such an order of things.

The reader will recognize, of course, that I have so far in mind only the better element of the population, the least of the evils and some of the advantages resulting from such industrial and social conditions. There were, however, quite different and more serious results than any yet noted arising from this system of society. While those disposed to activity and inclined to honorable pursuits might enjoy certain advantages from the system, on the other hand, it fostered man's natural inclination to idleness and love of ease that comes of idleness; and fostered jealousy and bitterness against those more industrious and successful. In such a class the system led to ignorance, irreligion, and criminal tendencies; constituting them a dangerous element in the community. It was doubtless this class the Prophet Joseph had in mind when he said soon after his first arrival in western Missouri: "Our reflections were great, coming as we had from a highly cultivated state of society in the East, and standing now upon the confines or western limits of the United States, and looking into the vast wilderness of those that sat in darkness. How natural it was to observe the degradation, leanness of intellect, ferocity and jealousy of a people that were nearly a century behind the times, and to feel for those who roamed about without the benefit of civilization, refinement, or religion!"

Many of the positions in the higher walks of life, in western Missouri, were sought by the unworthy, the corruptible and the vicious—men who sought all the advantages of the southern ideals of life without possessing the refining virtues which for generations in the older states of the south made some of the evils of the social system that obtained there at least tolerable. Such were the Brazeales, the Wilsons, the Hunters, the Kavanaughs, the Likens, the Loveladys, the McCartys, the McCoys, the Pixleys, the Simsons, the Silvers, the Westons, the Gilliams, the Birches, the Blacks, the Bogarts, the Clarks, the Liveseys, and the Penistons.

Another circumstance which influenced somewhat the character of western Missouri's population in the early decades of the nineteenth century, was the fact that these sections of the state constituted part of the frontiers of the United States, and here had gravitated a more or less lawless class which sought the security of proximity to the boundary lines of the United States, from whose confines they could make their escape in the event of being hard pressed for violations of law in the older states whence they had come, or in their new habitat. Such were the Lovels, the Hawkins, the Heatherleys and many others.

The Latter-day Saints who settled in Missouri from 1831 to 1839 had come for the most part from the New England States and New York. There were, therefore, marked differences in character between them and the old settlers of Missouri; differences of ideas as to industrial and social life; of moral and religious life. The Saints were descendants chiefly of the Puritans, and both by inheritance and training had fallen heirs to the Puritan's strict views of industry, religion and morality. The Puritans taught that all labor was honorable, and industry a duty. Religion occupied a large share of their attention—entered in fact into all the affairs of life—though its duties meant largely a regular attendance upon church service; a strict observance of the proprieties while there; a rigid observance throughout of the Sabbath day. Neither work nor amusements were tolerated on that day. In the olden time among some of their forefathers it had been unlawful to sit in Boston Common on the Sabbath or to walk in the streets of Boston, except to church. Once a man was publicly whipped for shooting a fowl on Sunday. A woman was threatened with banishment for smiling in church. A person absent from church for more than one Sunday was in danger of being fined, whipped, or set in the stocks. Swearing was prohibited in nearly all the New England colonies, and a split stick was sometimes placed on the swearer's tongue.^[2]

Both food and dress were plain, and the latter, in some instances, was regulated by law. Amusements were few. Dancing and card-playing were forbidden, and there was little music. The state sought to take entire charge of the individual, and supposed that tendency toward immorality could be stemmed by legislation. In early Connecticut no one under twenty was allowed to use tobacco, and none to use it more than once a day. The laws were severe and the penalties cruel. The stocks and whipping-post and pillory were in frequent requisition to correct moral delinquents. An offender might be made to stand on a stool in church with the name of his misdemeanor displayed on his breast. Among the common punishments were cropping or boring the ears and branding with a hot iron.^[3]

Of course in later years there was a general relaxation from these severities, and many of these customs and laws, by the time our generation of Saints came on the scene, were obsolete. Still, the moral and spiritual atmosphere in which the Saints and their fathers had been reared was austere in its moral character, and stood in marked contrast to the moral atmosphere of the South, where, in respect of such things as church attendance, religious observances, personal liberty in eating, drinking and amusements, there was wider freedom.

In the sparsely settled country of western Missouri, the descendants of the old cavaliers and their following, who settled the South, and the descendants of the Puritans, who settled the North, were to meet: and very naturally one may see in these antagonistic elements—aside from the cause of antagonism which will be found in the newly revealed religion of the Latter-day Saints—natural causes of irritation between them founded in the differences of character, and their respective conceptions of industrial, moral, and religious duties. That the old settlers