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William Rawlings Webb enjoyed taking a grandchild with
him to general conference and in his pocket he had what was called conference
drops. What are conference drops?
a.
Mint candies for
the grandchild
b.
Cough drops
c.
Notes that he
took of the talks
d.
Scriptures on
cards that he would memorize between conference sessions
Yesterday’s
answer:
D Limited to the original band of 148 who arrived on July 24, 1847
The Utah Pioneer Jubilee of 1897: Almost as soon as the formation of the
Semi-Centennial Commission was announced to the public, a controversy arose in
regard to which individuals should be recognized as pioneers. Until that time,
the term “pioneers” had, by general usage, been limited to the original band of
148 who arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. The commission
planned to make the surviving pioneers from this company the “grand central
idea of the Jubilee; such of them as could be found were to be brought to Salt
Lake free of expense to themselves, and in all the festivities arranged for the
occasion, the glory of the pioneers and their achievements was to be the
controlling idea.” It was believed that
there would be about 30 of them. A gold badge would be presented to each pioneer
and also to the families of those who had died.
The commission had barely held its first official
meeting when a flood of letters began to pour in, requesting that every person
who arrived in 1847 be included among the honorees. The local newspapers were
inundated by similar requests, and they published many of them on their
editorial, pages. What was the Semi-Centennial Commission to do? Nearly 2,000
pioneers had arrived in Utah in 1847, and it was estimated that about 700 of
them were living. The cost of transporting them, housing them, and presenting
each with a gold badge seemed to be overwhelming. And the logistics of honoring
them during the variety of planned events was daunting.
Commissioner Horace B. Whitney wrote, “A part of the
commission favored making the survivors of this body [Brigham Young’s company]
the only guests of honor. . . . The
other part of the commission favored including in the term “pioneer” all those
who arrived in Utah during the year of 1847, sending invitations to all
survivors and extending a badge to each. This meant railroad transportation for
some 700 pioneers who were scattered throughout the United States and the
expenditure of something like $7,000 for the badges.
“The matter continued to be a subject of frequent and
oftentimes heated discussion until the generous action of the railroads in
giving free transportation to the pioneers, regardless of their number, cleared
the way for the adoption to the plan to include all survivors of 1847 in the
invitation, which had been from the first warmly urged by Chairman Clawson.
“The action of the railroad companies cannot be too
highly praised; it was, more than anything else, the one event that enabled the
commission to pay the pioneers the homage they deserved, and the one event that
assured the financial success of the Jubilee. The gift of the railroads,
expressed in money, amounted to something like $5,000, and but for their
generosity, the commission might at this time be mourning over a deficit
instead of deliberating what to do with a surplus.”
On May 11, 1897, the commission placed the following
public notice in the Deseret News.
“All persons who came into the Valley of the Great Salt Lake in the year 1847
are entitled to be recognized as pioneers. Those who have not already done so
will please report before June 1st, in writing or in person, giving
full name and address. By order of the Semi-Centennial Commission, Spencer
Clawson, Chairman.” A total of 749 pioneers were certified to be honored at the
Jubilee. They hailed from 27 different states, the Indian Territory of the
United States, and nine foreign countries.
International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Museum Memories (Talon Printing: Salt
Lake City, 2011), 3: 108-110.
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