[Brigham Young Sermon] President Brigham Young said that he did not apprehend any danger from the Indians. Neither did he feel, as some of the brethren do, he does not want to live among them and take them in his arms until the curse is removed from off them. The spirit of God moved upon the Elders and made them feel good and brought things that were afar off nigh to them. This present race of Indians will never be converted. It mattereth not whether they kill one another off or somebody else do it and as for our sending missionaries among them to convert them, it is of no use. But we will take their children and school them and teach them to be cleanly and to love morality and then raise up seed among them and in this way they will be brought back into the presence and knowledge of God and as for appointing men to trade among the Indians who will deal honestly among them and represent us in our true character, this cannot be done. If we wish to change the course of a stream we must first cut channels for it to run in and gradually lead it where we want it to go. But the moment we undertake to dam up the stream, we have a pond of water which will rise as fast as we can dam against it and will ultimately brake over the dam before we can control the stream. Just so we must do with this people. Let Tom, Dick and the Devil go and trade with the Indians and by degrees we will control them. He also instructed the Bishop to regulate the water in their respective wards for irrigating the growing crops, that the people be united in digging the sects. -- Salt Lake City [DJLJ 1:108-109]
[source: The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009), http://bit.ly/BY-discourses]
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