The Cartwrights are doing a horse trading deal with Heber Clauson who is played by
Eric Fleming who became pretty famous as Gil Favor in the TV Series
Rawhide (1959) which ended the prior year. It is a sad that
Eric Fleming died an early, accidental death four days before this episode aired.
Heber is Mormon (LDS Church) and has two wives Susannah (
Dina Merrill) who has been with him a long time and Elizabeth Ann (
Lois Nettleton) who is new and not experienced with persecution. They are the only Mormon family in this area, the rest had returned to Utah at Brigham Young's request (Mormon Prophet at that time). So, the Clausons attend a local church that is not Mormon. They had been welcomed, but the old pastor passed away and there is a new pastor who pretends to be welcoming at the door, but then uses his sermon to preach against the Mormon faith.
Without giving away a lot of detail the townspeople become riled up, there is a local rancher who plans to take one of Heber's wives for himself. They go to attack Heber at his ranch lead by the preacher.
This is a two part show and the first show ends with the preacher spouting religious bigoted nonsense.
This makes me think of the many people in today's society who think everyone must believe as they do, otherwise they have full right to attack them, to do whatever they want against people who believe differently. A society where Harvard Law students say they don't care what the law says about free speech!
Even old shows can remind us of good values, of loving caring people who are tolerant of others beliefs and even supportive of other people being able to live their beliefs in peace. It is a great thing that many of these old shows embraced tolerance and love in their stories even while much of America was still struggling with bigotry and hatred of anyone who was different, something that too many still struggle with today (2018).
