Desert Magazine of the Southwest

mer, he has found that liquor may be bought only
at a state liquor store, and there only with a permit
which costs him a dollar. When the attendant at the
first gas station he drives into attempts to sell him
new tires or battery, commenting sagely upon the
weakness of his present equipment and his great distance
from home, the visitor is aware that he is among
a people to whom business is a serious affair, that the
importance and ubiquitious visibility of religion has
not banished the pursuit of worldy gain.
OUR VISITOR IS NOW in Zion! A little over a century
earlier, other men from the East stood on the
bench of the Wasatch and looking out at the barren
and empty valley before them, heard Brigham Young
declare that this was the right place for Mormon
settlement. In the years and decades that followed,
immigrants came by the thousands, by wagon, on
foot pushing handcarts before them, and later by
train, to build a Mormon community based upon
Mormon religious values in this valley and in others
like it throughout Utah. Today Utah's 900,000 population
is 72 percent Mormon. The Mormons have held
their own in Utah's population growth and still constitute
an impressive majority.
YET GREAT CHANGES are taking place within
the state, two of them especially important. The majority
of the population no longer make their living
from agriculture. The development of industry,
greatly stimulated by missile manufacture, is urbanizing
the state. Somewhere around half of the employers
in the state who employ 500 or more workers
are engaged in defense work. Nearly a quarter of
those in non-farm employment work for some governmental
agency. Secondly, industry is bringing in
outsiders, many of them non-Mormon, a most significant
development, although in 1960 Salt Lake County
was still 60 percent Mormon and Weber County 67
percent, despite Salt Lake City and Ogden with large
non-Mormon groups.
YET THE QUESTION REMAINS: How Mormon
is Utah? Is Utah still Zion? Mormonism is central to
the history and contemporary make-up of Utah, and
members of the LDS Church still hold the majority
of influential positions in government, business and
education. Yet, having noted this striking fact, one
must immediately add that Latter-Day Saints are far
from a homogeneous group in several important respects
and that the Mormon Church, despite the
strength of its traditions and its organizational cohesiveness,
is anything but a political or social—or
even religious—monolith.
THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day
Saints is still and will for a long time remain an institution
of central importance in Utah society. It is
TOUR SOUTHEAST
U AH
by powerful (specially modified
for passenger comfort) go-anywhere
Datsun Patrol. Geologist-guided
tours (see page 10, April DESERT).
Write for free information
Tours of the Big Country
RECAPTURE COURT MOTEL
Gene and Mary Foushec
Historic Bluff, Utah
P. S. Free Slide Show nightly
24 / Desert Maan-r.ina I
UNDISCOVERED WEALTH!
certainly a creator and conservor of values, a maker
of opinion and a strong influence in political and
social life. Generally, it tends to be conservative in
political and economic matters. Its leadership on all
levels is predominantly Republican if for no other
reason than because it is recruited largely from business
and professional classes. Yet, Utah voted Democratic
in the thirties and Republican in the fifties,
tending to go along with the rest of the nation. The
Church does not dominate politics on a state level,
nor the state contribution to national affairs. Moreover,
the general authorities of the Church, its supreme
decision-making body, contain not only an
important former Republican cabinet member, but
also at least two important Democrats, one of whom
is a man of considerable economic importance in the
area.
NOR IS THE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP undifferentiated
in significant respects. Among the descendants
of those who came to Utah to build God's kingdom
in the wilderness are wealthy socialites, some of
whom now serve and drink cocktails, and for whom
the swimming pool adjacent to the modern home
(not the row of tall poplar trees edging the north
pasture) has become the symbol of good Utah living.
Modern Western living in the best California style
has come to Utah and has come to stay.
YET STAUNCH RURAL MORMONISM, both in
the country and imported into city life, with its literal
belief and strict observance, remains important
and characteristic of many. Moreover, there are some
20,000 (some informed observers suggest 30,000)
men, women and children involved in the practice of
plural marriage in the state. These dissidents are of
course largely excommunicated from the Church and
sometimes prosecuted by the state.
UTAH HAS THREE UNIVERSITIES, two state
and one Church. At the state institutions academic
freedom is a reality and the Church university has felt
the influence of dissenting opinion. On all levels of
life, from the expression of religious beliefs, through
politics, education, and in the general taste of its
people, Mormonism's old homogeneity is fast giving
way to the heterogeneity which city life and the importation
of city ways into the countryside is bringing
about. Moreover, entertainment and advertising, television
and the motion pictures, support the basic
trend. The old and the new, and odd combinations of
the two, exist side by side in a changing Utah.
HOWEVER, IT MUST BE RECALLED that the
Mormon Church is bigger than Utah. It is larger in
numbers and it extends far beyond the confines of
the mountain West. Its present membership is over
1,700,000, with a large percentage in California and
Buried loot, coins, silver, gold,
jewelry, battle relics! Transistor
M-SCOPE defects them all. Used
world-wide by experienced explorers
since 1932. Exciting! Rewarding!
Lightweight and super sensitive,
the powerful M-SCOPE offers
greater depth penetration, over
200 treasure - hunting days of
battery life. Easy terms. Guaranteed.
Write for the FREE illustrated
booklet of fascinating c^jtomer
experiences.
FISHER RESEARCH LAB., INC.
Dept. 2C, Polo Alto, Calif.
NORTHERN ARIZONA
Vacation in the beautiful scenic wonders,
in the cool pines, of Oak Creek Canyon.
Year 'round trout fishing at your door.
Photographers' ^MR^
Paradise \jfc^^y
Don Hoel's Cabins
"In the heart of Oak Crtek Canyon"
24 completely furnished housekeeping cabins.
Write DON HOEL, Owner
Oak Creek Route, Flagstaff, Arizona
Phone AT 2-3560
20 miles south of Flagstaff, on 89A.