2004-11-3
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VOICE ONE:
THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a program in Special English.
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As we reported in our last program, slavery supporters failed to
push through Congress a bill to make Kansas a slave state. Congress,
instead, let the people of Kansas vote on the statehood constitution
written by pro-slavery men. The people rejected the constitution.
And slavery supporters gave up the fight for Kansas.
But the problem of slavery still divided north and south.
Northerners warned that slavery could spread no farther. Southerners
threatened to leave the Union unless southern rights were protected.
In the far west, one could forget this bitter dispute. There were
no slaves in the west. The land and the weather were not right for
the kind of farming that used slaves.
VOICE TWO:
The west was growing quickly. Gold had brought thousands of
settlers to California ten years earlier. New discoveries of gold
and silver now were leading men to Colorado, Arizona and Nevada.
"Don't go," warned the New York Tribune, "if you have a job or a
farm. But if you have neither," it said, "and can get fifty dollars,
then go to Colorado."
There were many men without jobs or farms in the summer of
eighteen-fifty-eight. The country had suffered a serious economic
depression the year before, and jobs were difficult to find.
Thousands left cities in the east.
The first ones to reach Colorado reported that gold was easy to
find. They said any man who worked hard could find five to ten
dollars worth of gold a day, and sometimes even more.
VOICE ONE:
The thousands who rushed to Colorado soon found that there was
not as much gold as expected. The valuable metal became harder to
find. No longer could it be washed from the bottoms of mountain
streams. Men had to dig into the mountains of rock to get it. Huge
digging machines were needed and crushers to get the gold from the
rock. These machines were expensive. Few men had enough money to buy
them.
Some of the miners organized companies. They borrowed money from
eastern banks or sold shares of their companies. In a few years,
almost all of the gold from Colorado came from the mining companies.
VOICE TWO:
Many of those who went west to search for gold stayed to become
farmers or storekeepers. Others moved farther west to find gold in
Nevada or California. Some cleared the ground of trees and cut them
into wood for houses. Such timber from the forests of Oregon and
Washington was sold in California and Mexico, even in China and
Hawaii.
A few men recognized the need for transportation across the
nation. Engineers planned four railroads. But northern and southern
leaders could not agree on which one to build first. Until a
railroad could be built, supplies were carried west in wagons pulled
by horses or oxen.
Three men -- Russell, Majors, and Waddell -- formed a
transportation company in eighteen-fifty-five to carry government
supplies to soldiers in the west. They started with five-hundred
wagons. Three years later, the company had three-thousand
five-hundred wagons and forty-thousand oxen.
VOICE ONE:
Getting letters to and from the west was not easy in the
eighteen-fifties. Ships brought mail to San Francisco two times a
month. And once each month, mail would arrive in California after a
slow trip by wagon from St. Louis, Missouri.
The federal government decided to send mail overland two times a
week to California. It gave the job of carrying the letters to a new
company -- the Overland Mail Company.
The mail was carried by train or boat to St. Louis. Then it was
put on overland company stage coaches -- light wagons pulled by four
or six horses. The company was told to take the mail along a
four-thousand-kilometer southern route through Arkansas, Texas, New
Mexico and Arizona. The mail arrived in Los Angeles twenty-four days
after it left St. Louis.
VOICE TWO:
There was a shorter way across the
country. But the postal chief was a southerner, A. V. Brown. He
believed stage coach travel might lead the way for a railroad. And
he wanted a southern railroad to California. Brown said the southern
route was the only one that could be kept open in all seasons. He
said the other routes would be closed by snow in winter.
The overland stage coaches were large enough to carry four
passengers. But not many people went to California in the coaches.
The coaches never stopped for very long -- only to change horses or
drivers. And there were not many places to eat. Also, the trip was
dangerous, because of hostile Indians.
VOICE ONE:
The shortest distance between Missouri and California was across
the central part of the country. The Russell, Majors and Waddell
Company decided to show that this central route could be used all
year. It began a speedy mail service called the Pony Express.
Letters were carried by riders on fast horses. Stations with
fresh horses were built about twenty-four kilometers apart, all
along the way. A rider would change horses at each station until he
had traveled one-hundred-twenty kilometers. Then he would give his
letters to another rider. In this way, the letters would be carried
between California and Missouri. The first letters sent by Pony
Express from California took ten days to reach Missouri.
The Pony Express lasted only eighteen months. It was no longer
needed after a telegraph line was completed to San Francisco.
VOICE TWO:
As communications and transportation improved, the government was
able to increase its control over the west. But closer ties were not
welcomed between the government and a religious group known as the
Mormons.
The Mormon religion was started by a young New England man named
Joseph Smith. In eighteen-twenty-three, at the age of eighteen,
Smith claimed that an Angel told him of a golden book. He said the
book contained God's words to the ancient people of America. Smith
said he was able to read the strange writing in this book and put it
into English. He called this work the book of Mormon.
VOICE ONE:
He organized a church and made himself its leader. Many people
became Mormons. They believed themselves to be a special people
chosen by God. Mormons worked hard. They helped each other and
shared with those in need.
People who did not agree with the beliefs of the mormons did not
like them. Trouble developed between mormons and other people.
Joseph Smith was forced to move his people from New York to Ohio and
then to Missouri.
The Mormons seemed finally to have found a home in Illinois. They
built their own town and called it Nauvoo. They governed themselves
and had their own defense force. The Mormons did so well that Nauvoo
became the fastest-growing city in Illinois.
VOICE TWO:
Then some members of the group split apart, because of a new
message Smith claimed to have received from God. Smith said God gave
permission for Mormons to have more than one wife. This was
polygamy. And it was opposed by almost all people.
Some of the Mormons who left the church published a newspaper
criticizing Smith and the other Mormon leaders. Smith destroyed the
newspaper's publishing equipment. This caused non-Mormons to
demonstrate and demand that Smith be punished. Smith was arrested
and put in jail in Carthage, Illinois. His brother also was
arrested. An angry mob attacked the jail and shot both Smith and his
brother to death.
VOICE ONE:
The governor of Illinois ordered the Mormons to leave his state.
He said only this would prevent further violence. There was no
choice. They had to leave.
The Mormons had a new leader: Brigham Young. Young decided to
take his people west and find a new home for them. He wanted a place
where they would be safe...where no one could interfere with their
religion.
Brigham Young told his people that he had seen their new home in
a dream. He said they would search for it in the west, for a wide
beautiful valley. He said he would recognize it when he saw it.
That will be our story in the next program of THE MAKING OF A
NATION.
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VOICE TWO:
You have been listening to the Special English program, THE
MAKING OF A NATION. Your narrators were Lew Roland and Mel Johonson.
Our program was written by Frank Beardsley. THE MAKING OF A NATION
can be heard Thursdays.