1 Ne. 2:20; 2 Ne. 1:5; Ether 1:42-43; 2:7
“But in 1830, they were still calling the United States ‘that great and foolish American experiment.’ Europe didn’t even give us the status of a nation… . Chicago was known as little Ft. Dearborn, way out on the western frontier, with sixty-five inhabitants, most of them military men who slept with their rifles within reach for fear the savage Indians would scalp them in their sleep. We had only three miles of steam railway. We were so poor as a nation that the president and his cabinet had to borrow on their personal finances to pay the cost of government in the year of 1830… . [It was not until] 1917 before we stepped into first place as [the wealthiest] nation of the earth. The statement that this was ‘a land and choice above all other lands’ sounded fantastic in 1830. Today we know it is absolutely true.” (Jack West, as quoted in Book of Mormon Prophecies, Warner, pp.87-88)