A State is Born BY R I C H A R D D. P O L L
It was January 4, 1896. In Cuba a revolution against Spain was being suppressed with ruthless brutality. In South Africa the Boers had just smashed the Jameson raid. In the Near East the Turks were massacring Armenians by the tens of thousands. In London, Washington, and Venezuela the air was full of Secretary of State Richard Olney's assertion that "the United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is l a w . . . . " In Victoria, Colorado, nine miners were entombed. In Gillette, Wyoming, an alleged cattle rustler was shot by a sheriff. In Eureka, Utah, a claim jumper was reported, and at the Colorado state line 11 tons of illegally slaughtered Utah venison were impounded. Before the Salt Lake City courts was a lurid adultery case, involving a prominent businessman, an attractive secretary, and a janitor with a private eye. But the headline story in Utah's capital was this: At 9 : 1 3 this morning the usual early m o r n i n g serenity of East T e m p l e street was decidedly disturbed owing to the fact t h a t Superintendent Brown of the Western U n i o n Telegraph company was observed to rush frantically out of the office armed with an old reliable shotgun, the contents of which belched forth in two resounding reports. A small boy in the near vicinity dived for an adjacent doorway, his juvenile brain probably having grasped the idea that a holdup or bank robbery was in progress. After the excitement h a d subsided somewhat it d a w n e d on the rapidly accumulating crowd that the Chief Magistrate in Washington h a d signed the Statehood Proclamation, who showed their appreciation of the fact by giving vent to a cheer. T h e news spread like wild-fire a n d on all sides merchants proceeded to decorate their stores a n d buildings with national emblems, bunting and Old Glory. Messrs. George M . Scott and C u n n i n g h a m Dr. Poll, professor of history and political science, Brigham Young University, delivered the annual Statehood Day address, based on this article, J a n u a r y 6, 1964, at the State Capitol. Primary sources for the day-to-day events described in this article are the files of the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News (Salt Lake City) for late 1895 and early 1896; such news items will not usually be given citations. For the political and economic situation at the time of Utah's admission to the Union, B. H . Roberts, A Comprehensive History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (6 vols., Salt Lake City, 1930), V I , 21-346, and Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (Cambridge, 1958), 351-412, are particularly helpful.
