The Church on the Changing Frontier Part 10

Roman Catholic

The Roman Catholic work is the strongest non-Protestant religious activity in all the four counties and naturally has a large number of foreign-born and Spanish-American communicants in its parishes. There is a total of twenty-four organized Catholic churches. Beaverhead County has two, Hughes three, Sheridan five and Union fourteen. The city of Sheridan, and each of the towns supports a Catholic church; eight are located in villages, two of which are in Sheridan mining camps, and twelve in small hamlets. Nine priests, seven of whom live in these counties, serve the twenty-four churches. Four churches, two in villages and two in small hamlets, are served by priests living outside the county.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN OASIS IN THE DESERT

The grounds in which this Catholic Church and parsonage stand make this the only spot of verdure in a barren waste extending for miles on every side.]

Each of the twenty-four churches has a building. There are six priests'

houses, valued at $21,000, and two parochial school buildings. The value of church buildings is estimated at a total value of $98,800. The total value of church property, including land, is $211,025. None of the churches have any social equipment. The total receipts of all the churches last year amounted to $23,157.56 and this amount was spent largely on salaries and church upkeep. The only churches receiving aid are two in Union, each of which received $500. The average salary is $892.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCHES AND PARISHES, UNION COUNTY, NEW MEXICO]

The total membership is about 5,152, which is within 668 of the total Protestant figure for seventy churches. The average total membership is 215 per church. Only three of the twenty-four churches have as few as fifty members or less.

Thirteen churches have Catechism and Confirmation cla.s.ses, with a total enrollment of 416. Attendance is high; it equals 77 per cent. of the enrollment. There are seventeen other organizations, three for men, ten for women, one for boys, one for girls and two for young people. The total enrollment is 771. The church in Sheridan has a parochial school.

Catholic church membership increased more rapidly than the Protestant in Beaverhead and Hughes and less rapidly in Sheridan from 1890 to 1916, according to the United States religious census. In Union, from 1906 to 1916, the Protestant membership increased more rapidly than the Catholic.

Catholic membership is greater than Protestant membership in every county but Hughes. There are a total of nineteen Catholic mission centers in Union and Beaverhead.

Penitentes

There are about five groups of Penitentes in Union County, with an average of twenty-five members each. No women belong. The Penitentes are all Spanish-Americans and are largely sheep and cattle herders. Their small adobe and stone buildings are called "morada." Meetings are held in Lent, on the last three days of Holy Week. During the ceremonies, members inflict personal punishment, often carrying it to an extreme. This sect, which was at one time distributed over the whole territory of New Mexico, since 1850 has retreated towards the north. As to their origin, Twitch.e.l.l in his "History of New Mexico" says: "It is possible that the Penitentes, particularly by their scourging themselves with whips made of cactus, come from the order of Flagellants which was a body of religious persons who believed by whipping and scourging themselves for religious discipline they could appease the divine wrath against their sins and the sins of the age." The Penitentes are not recognized by the Catholic Church.

Latter Day Saints

Dillon, in Beaverhead, and the city of Sheridan, each have a Mormon church. There is a church building in Dillon, and the one in Sheridan is now being erected. There is also an inactive church at Lima, organized in 1900. The Mormon membership is eighty-five in Dillon and thirty-six in Sheridan. Both churches have Sunday schools, with a total enrollment of seventy and relief societies with a total membership of thirty-five.

Christian Science

There are two Christian Science churches, located in Dillon and in the city of Sheridan, both organized in 1919. The Dillon church meets in an office, but the Sheridan church has a building valued at $2,500. The church membership is about 170. Both churches have Sunday schools, with an enrollment of about thirty in Dillon and about fifty in Sheridan.

Theosophical

The city of Sheridan has a Theosophical Society which meets in a real estate office. The membership is seventeen. Six new members were taken in last year. Meetings are held every Friday night. Two meetings a month are for members only, and two are public lectures.

CHAPTER IX

Seeing It Whole

The Range, our last real frontier, has grown up. Round-ups are miniature and staged. All the land is fenced. The cowboy is pa.s.sing, if not gone.

Even "chaps" and a sombrero are rare, unless worn by a "Dude" from the East. The last 100 years have seen a remarkable growth and change in this country. The cattleman and the cowboy have largely given way to the homesteader, and he in turn has become a regular farmer or, as he prefers it, "rancher."

The Land of the Homesteader

The cowman used to insist that no one could make a living on the semi-arid Range. For many years "there was no sign of permanent settlement on the Plains and no one thought of this region as frontier." Then the Homesteader came. "And always, just back of the frontier," says Emerson Hough in "The Pa.s.sing of the Frontier," "advancing, receding, crossing it this way and that, succeeding and failing, hoping and despairing, but steadily advancing in the net result--has come that portion of the population which builds homes and lives in them, and which is not content with a blanket for a bed and the sky for a roof above."

Homesteaders are good stock upon which to build a civilization. Many of them are st.u.r.dy folk who have come to the West to establish homes and with determination are doing so. Of course, there are the habitual drifters who have always been failures because they never stayed long enough anywhere to succeed. But they prove up on their claims and then go elsewhere, drifting still. Others leave, holding their land as an investment, because they have not found the land or the circ.u.mstances up to their expectations. The free land has gradually been taken up, so that there is very little of it left in any one of these counties. The population is becoming less transient on this account. More people are staying because there is no more free land, and no other newer frontier.

What, then, has the survey shown of the Range? How has it fared in its 100 years of growth? What are its a.s.sets as well as its needs? In a word, what has it made of itself? The very presence of real farm-houses on dry farming land and mesas speaks in itself of a small world conquered. Of course, there are farm-houses in the valleys. But sheer grit is all that achieves a house and a barn and a wind-shield of trees out on the mesa.

Lumber is expensive and must be hauled from the nearest market. Trees, so wary of growing there, must be watched, watered and carefully tended every day for the first five years. A home on the plains means more sweat and toil and effort than a home anywhere else in our country.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WATERING HER GARDEN

This homesteader of ten years' standing has succeeded in cultivating an attractive garden patch even in the thirsty soil of New Mexico.]

Self-Help the Rule

The development of the Range has been haphazard. Any Land Company has been able to work up a "boom" at will. Not even misrepresentations and uncounted, unlimited hardships have stirred the Government to form and follow any better colonization policy for its unoccupied lands than its "Homestead laws." The western farmer has never been cherished by his Government as has been the Canadian farmer. Until the comparatively recent development of county agent services and the Farm Bureau, he has had to work for everything he got with very little help from any one.

An intense economic struggle is behind the homesteaders. They begin from the bottom up. Some are just now beginning, but for the majority the difficulty of getting a start is over. But the last few years have been hard for every farmer and rancher on the Range, old settler and new alike.

No part of the country can afford to have the men on the land as hard pressed as these men have been. Too large a proportion of the farms have been mortgaged for the economic well-being of a nation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A COMMUNITY RENDEZVOUS

Often the general store is the only gathering place for neighbors miles apart.]

Made up largely of people from the Middle West, this country has taken on some of the characteristics of that region--in the development of small and large centers, and in the improved roads and schools. But on account of the nature of the soil, it will be many years before the Range becomes a second Middle West, if ever. The land will not support as many people per square mile. Much of the area will remain, for years to come, a land of large distances and comparatively few people. The future of the Range is not to be summed up by saying, "Go to, this country will soon become a second Middle West. Just give it time."

"If you want to see neighbor Adams, you'll find him in town on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, most like round Perkins' store." Such will be the advice given in regard to meeting almost any farmer living in almost any part of these counties. As roads have improved, and autos have come to be generally used by the farmers as a means of transportation, the trade centers along the railroads, especially the county seats, have increased greatly in size and importance. This growth of the centers is characteristic of the whole United States. Until after 1820 less than 5 per cent. of the American people lived in cities of 8,000 population and over. In 1790 there were but five cities in the United States having a population of 8,000. Now a majority live in the cities; but the West does not yet have the urban development of the East.

Importance of the County Seat

As the county seats are coming gradually to have more of a direct relationship to the country around them, they should a.s.sume more responsibility toward their counties. Through their organizations and Civic Leagues of business men, these centers are just waking up to the fact that the towns are dependent upon them. As one farmer in Union County said, "There is no permanent prosperity except that based on the farmer.

If our town is big and top-heavy and the farmers are taxed heavily to keep the town up, it is killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. The 1,000 farmers tributary to Clayton must pay the bills of everything brought in because, ultimately, the products of the farm have to pay for everything.

When conditions are bad, the farmer has to pay the bill and keep going besides." If the development of the future is to be sound each side will do its best to understand the other.

A Centralized School System

School systems are becoming better. People realize the advantages of education. More and more young people are being sent to college. But as distances are gradually being overcome, schools should be administered wholly from the county seat. The County Unit plan does away with the local school district boards. This system equalizes burdens and advantages, minimizes dissension, and conduces to economy and efficiency. The average school board has no standards by which to judge an applicant for teaching.

One disadvantage of the district system is that so often daughters are put in as teachers. The county unit plan means centralized control. The county superintendent, who is selected solely because of education, training and successful experience, takes over most of the duties which the various districts now have. This means a comprehensive and efficient plan of education for the whole county.

Social Needs

Other great needs are a better organized social life and more recreational activities. Outside the larger center, there is a great lack of social life. Social organizations are fairly abundant, but they are almost all city or town affairs. Living on the land is a more solitary affair for women than for men. The men drive to town, but the women stay home week in and week out with few diversions. A postmistress in Montana told about two women living on large cattle ranches about six miles apart, a small distance in that country. She said to one of them: "There is Mrs. Denis at the door just going out. Did you see her?" The other lady answered: "Yes, but I hardly know Mrs. Denis." They had lived there for more than ten years, near neighbors for the Range country, and yet barely acquainted!

[Ill.u.s.tration: "MARY, CALL THE CATTLE HOME!"