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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Under the Prophet in Utah
+by Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
+
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+Title: Under the Prophet in Utah
+
+Author: Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
+
+Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7066]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on March 5, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Schwan and Monique Cameron
+
+
+
+
+
+Under the Prophet in Utah
+
+
+
+The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft
+
+
+
+By
+Frank J. Cannon
+Formerly United States Senator from Utah
+
+and
+
+Harvey J. O'Higgins
+Author
+"The Smoke-Eaters," "Don-a-Dreams," etc.
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+
+Chapter
+
+      Note
+	  Introduction
+	  Foreword
+    I In the Days of the Raid
+   II On a Mission to Washington
+  III Without a Country
+   IV The Manifesto
+    V On the Road to Freedom
+   VI The Goal--and After
+  VII The First Betrayals
+ VIII The Church and the Interests
+   IX At the Crossways
+    X On the Downward Path
+   XI The Will of the Lord
+  XII The Conspiracy Completed.
+ XIII The Smoot Exposure
+  XIV Treason Triumphant
+   XV The Struggle for Liberty
+  XVI The Price of Protest
+ XVII The New Polygamy
+XVIII The Prophet of Mammon
+  XIX The Subjects of the Kingdom
+   XX Conclusion
+
+
+Note
+
+
+When Harvey J. O'Higgins was in Denver, in the spring of 1910, working
+with Judge Ben B. Lindsey on the manuscript of "The Beast and the
+Jungle," for Everybody's Magazine, he met the Hon. Frank J. Cannon,
+formerly United States Senator from Utah, and heard from him the story
+of the betrayal of Utah by the present leaders of the Mormon Church.
+This story the editor of Everybody's Magazine commissioned Messrs.
+Cannon and O'Higgins to write. They worked on it for a year, verifying
+every detail of it from government reports, controversial pamphlets,
+Mormon books of propaganda, and the newspaper files of current record.
+It ran through nine numbers of the magazine, and not so much as a
+successful contradiction was ever made of one of the innumerable
+incidents or accusations that it contains. It is here published in book
+form at somewhat greater length than the magazine could print it. It is
+a joint work, but the autobiographic "I" has been used throughout,
+because it is Mr. Cannon's personal narrative of his personal
+experience.
+
+
+
+Introduction
+
+
+This is the story of what has been called "the great American
+despotism."
+
+It is the story of the establishment of an absolute throne and dynasty
+by one American citizen over a half-million others.
+
+And it is the story of the amazing reign of this one man, Joseph F.
+Smith, the Mormon Prophet, a religious fanatic of bitter mind, who
+claims that he has been divinely ordained to exercise the awful
+authority of God on earth over all the affairs of all mankind, and who
+plays the anointed despot in Utah and the surrounding states as cruelly
+as a Sultan and more securely than any Czar.
+
+To him the Mormon people pay a yearly tribute of more than two million
+dollars in tithes; and he uses that income, to his own ends, without an
+accounting. He is president of the Utah branch of the sugar trust, and
+of the local incorporation's of the salt trust; and he supports the
+exaction's of monopoly by his financial absolutism, while he defends
+them from competition by his religious power of interdict and
+excommunication. He is president of a system of "company stores," from
+which the faithful buy their merchandise; of a wagon and machine company
+from which the Mormon farmers purchase their vehicles and implements; of
+life-insurance and fire-insurance companies, of banking institutions, of
+a railroad, of a knitting company, of newspapers, which the Mormon
+people are required by their Church to patronize, and through which they
+are exploited, commercially and financially, for the sole profit of the
+sovereign of Utah and his religious court.
+
+He is the political Boss of the state, delivering the votes of his
+people by revelation of the Will of God, practically appointing the
+United States Senators from Utah--as he practically appoints the
+marshals, district attorneys, judges, legislators, officers and
+administrators of law throughout his "Kingdom of God on Earth"--and
+ruling the non-Mormons of Utah, as he rules his own people, by virtue of
+his political and financial partnership with the great "business
+interests" that govern and exploit this nation, and his Kingdom, for
+their own gain, and his.
+
+He lives, like the Grand Turk, openly with five wives, against the
+temporal law of the state, against the spiritual law of his Kingdom, and
+in violation of his own solemn covenant to the country--which he gave
+in 1890, in order to obtain amnesty for himself from criminal
+prosecution and to help Utah obtain the powers of statehood which he has
+since usurped. He secretly preaches a proscribed doctrine of polygamy as
+necessary to salvation; he publicly denies his own teaching, so that he
+may escape responsibility for the sufferings of the "plural wives" and
+their unfortunate children, who have been betrayed by the authority of
+his dogma. And these women, by the hundreds, seduced into clandestine
+marriage relations with polygamous elders of the Church, unable to claim
+their husbands--even in some cases disowning their children and
+teaching these children to deny their parents--are suffering a pitiful
+self-immolation as martyrs to the religious barbarism of his rule.
+
+Demanding unquestioning obedience in all things, as the "mouthpiece of
+the Lord," and "sole vice-regent of God on Earth," he enforces his
+demands by his religious, political and financial control of the faith,
+the votes and the property of his fellow-citizens. He is at once--as
+the details of this story show--"the modern 'money king,' the absolute
+political Czar, the social despot and the infallible Pope of his
+Kingdom."
+
+Ex-Senator Cannon not only exposes but accounts for and explains the
+conditions that have made the Church-controlled government of Utah less
+free, less of a democracy, a greater tyranny and more of a disgrace to
+the nation than ever the corporation rule of Colorado was in the darkest
+period of the Cripple Creek labor war. He shows the enemies of the
+republic encouraging and profiting by the shame of Utah as they
+supported and made gain of Colorado's past disgrace. He shows the
+piratical "Interests," at Washington, sustaining, and sustained by, the
+misgovernment of Utah, in their campaign of national pillage. He shows
+that the condition of Utah today is not merely a local problem; that it
+affects and concerns the people of the whole country; that it can only
+be cured with their aid.
+
+The outside world has waited many years to hear the truth about the
+Mormons; here it is--told with sympathy, with affection, by a man who
+steadfastly defended and fought for the Mormon people when their present
+leaders were keeping themselves carefully inconspicuous. The Mormon
+system of religious communism has long been known as one of the most
+interesting social experiments of modern civilization; here is an
+intimate study of it, not only in its success but in the failure that
+has come upon it from the selfish ambitions of its leaders. The power of
+the Mormon hierarchy has been the theme of much imaginative fiction; but
+here is a story of church tyranny and misgovernment in the name of God,
+that outrages the credibilities of art. That such a story could come out
+of modern America--that such conditions could be possible in the
+democracy today--is an amazement that staggers belief.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+
+Hon. Frank J. Cannon is the son of George Q. Cannon of Utah, who was
+First Councillor of the Mormon Church from 1880 to 1901. After the death
+of Brigham Young, George Q. Cannon's diplomacy saved the Mormon
+communism from destruction by the United States government. It was his
+influence that lifted the curse of polygamy from the Mormon faith. Under
+his leadership Utah obtained the right of statehood; and his financial
+policies were establishing the Mormon people in industrial prosperity
+when he died.
+
+In all these achievements the son shared with his father, and in some of
+them--notably in the obtaining of Utah's statehood--he had even a
+larger part than George Q. Cannon himself. When the Mormon communities,
+in 1888, were being crushed by proscription and confiscation and the
+righteous bigotries of Federal officials, Frank J. Cannon went to
+Washington, alone--almost from the doors of a Federal prison--and, by
+the eloquence of his plea for his people, obtained from President
+Cleveland a mercy for the Mormons that all the diplomacies of the
+Church's politicians had been unable to procure. Again, in 1890, when
+the Mormons were threatened with a general disfranchisement by means of
+a test oath, he returned to Washington and saved them, with the aid of
+James G. Blame, on the promise that the doctrine and practice of
+polygamy were to be abandoned by the Mormon Church; and he assisted in
+the promulgation and acceptance of the famous "manifesto" of 1890, by
+which the Mormon Prophet, as the result of a "divine revelation,"
+withdrew the doctrine of polygamy from the practice of the faith.
+
+He organized the Republican party in Utah, and led it in the first
+campaigns that divided the people of the territory on the lines of
+national issues and freed them from the factions of a religious dispute.
+He delivered to Washington the pledges of the Mormon leaders, by which
+the emancipation of their people from hierarchical domination was
+promised and the right of statehood finally obtained. He was elected the
+first United States Senator from Utah, against the unwilling candidacy
+of his own father, when the intrigues of the Mormon priests pitted the
+father against the son and violated the Church's promise of
+non-interference in politics almost as soon as it had been given.
+
+It was his voice, in the Senate, that helped to reawaken the national
+conscience to the crimes of Spanish rule in Cuba, when the "financial
+interests" of this country were holding the government back from any
+interference in Cuban affairs. He was one of the leaders in Washington
+of the first ill-fated "Insurgent Republican" movement against the
+control of the Republican party by these same piratical "interests;" and
+he was the only Republican Senator who stood to oppose them by voting
+against the iniquitous Dingley tariff bill of 1897. He delivered the
+speech of defiance at the Republican national convention of 1896, when
+four "Silver Republican" Senators led their delegations out of that
+convention in revolt. And by all these acts of independence he put
+himself in opposition to the politicians of the Mormon Church, who were
+allying themselves with Hanna and Aldrich, the sugar trust, the railroad
+lobby, and the whole financial and commercial Plunderbund in politics
+that has since come to be called "The System."
+
+He returned to Utah to prevent the sale of a United States Senatorship
+by the Mormon Church; and, though he was himself defeated for
+re-election, he helped to hold the Utah legislature in a deadlock that
+prevented the selection of a successor to his seat. He fought to compel
+the leaders of the Church to fulfill the pledges which they had
+authorized him to give in Washington when statehood was being obtained.
+After his father's death, when these pledges began to be openly
+violated, he directed his attack particularly against Joseph F. Smith,
+the new President of the Church, who was principally responsible for the
+Church's breach of public faith. Through the columns of the Salt Lake
+Tribune he exposed the treasonable return to the practice of polygamy
+which Joseph F. Smith had secretly authorized and encouraged. He opposed
+the election of Apostle Reed Smoot to the United States Senate, as a
+violation of the statehood pledges. He criticized the financial
+absolutism of the Mormon Prophet, which Smith was establishing in
+partnership with "the Plunderbund." He was finally excommunicated and
+ostracized, by his father's successors in power, for championing the
+political and social liberties of the Mormon people whom he had helped
+to save from destruction and whose statehood sovereignty he had so
+largely obtained.
+
+When the partnership of the Church and "the Interests" prevented the
+expulsion of Apostle Smoot from the Senate, Senator Cannon withdrew from
+Utah, convinced that nothing could be done for the Mormons so long as
+the national administration sustained the sovereignty of the Mormon
+kingdom as a co-ordinate power in this Republic. For the last few years
+he has been a newspaper editor in Denver, Colorado--on the Denver Times
+and the Rocky Mountain News--helping the reform movement in Colorado
+against the corporation control of that state, and waiting for the
+opportunity to renew his long fight for the Mormon people.
+
+In the following narrative he returns to that fight. In fulfillment of a
+promise made before he left Utah--and seeing now, in the new
+"insurgency," the hope of freeing Utah from slavery to "the System"--he
+here addresses himself to the task of exposing the treasons and
+tyrannies of the Mormon Prophet and the consequent miseries among his
+people.
+
+In the course of his exposition, he gives a most remarkable picture of
+the Mormon people, patient, meek, and virtuous, "as gentle as the
+Quakers, as staunch as the Jews." He introduces the world for the first
+time to the conclaves of the Mormon ecclesiasts, explains the simplicity
+of some of them, the bitterness of others, the sincerity of almost all--
+illuminating the dark places of Church control with the understanding of
+a sympathetic experience, and bringing out the virtues of the Mormon
+system as impartially as he exposes its faults. He traces the
+degradation of its communism, step by step and incident by incident,
+from its success as a sort of religious socialism administered for the
+common good to its present failure as a hierarchical capitalism governed
+for the benefit of its modern "Prophet of Mammon" at the expense of the
+liberty, the happiness, and even the prosperity, of its victims.
+
+For the first time in the history of the Mormon Church, there has
+arrived a man who has the knowledge and the inclination to explain it.
+
+He does this fearlessly, as a duty, and without any apologies, as a
+public right. "He is not, and never has been an official member of the
+Church, in any sense or form," Joseph F. Smith, as President of the
+Church, testified concerning him, at Washington in 1904; and though this
+statement is one of the inspired Prophet's characteristic perversions of
+the truth, it covers the fact that Senator Cannon has always opposed the
+official tyrannies of the hierarchs. The present Mormon leaders accepted
+his aid in freeing Utah, well aware of his independence. They profited
+by his success with a more or less doubtful gratitude. They betrayed him
+promptly--as they betrayed the nation and their own followers--as soon
+as they found themselves in a position safely to betray. In this book he
+merely continues an independence which he has always maintained, and
+replies to secret and personal treason with a public criticism, to which
+he has never hesitated to resort.
+
+He begins his story with the year 1888, and devotes the first chapters
+to a depiction of the miseries of the Mormon people in the unhappy days
+of persecution. He continues with the private details of the
+confidential negotiations in Washington and the secret conferences in
+Salt Lake City by which the Mormons were saved. He gives the truth about
+the political intrigues that accompanied the grant of Utah's statehood,
+and he relates, pledge by pledge, the covenants then given by the Mormon
+leaders to the nation and since treasonably violated and repudiated by
+them. He explains the progress of this repudiation with an intimate
+"inside" knowledge of facts which the Mormon leaders now deny. And he
+exposes the horror of conditions in Utah today as no other man in
+America could expose them--for his life has been spent in combating the
+influences of which these conditions are the result; and he understands
+the present situation as a doctor understands the last stages of a
+disease which he has been for years vainly endeavoring to check.
+
+But aside from all this--aside from his exposure of the Mormon
+despotism, his study of the degradation of a modern community, or his
+secret history of the Church's dark policies in "sacred places"--he
+relates a story that is full of the most astonishing curiosities of
+human character and of dramatic situations that are almost mediaeval in
+their religious aspects. He goes from interviews with Cleveland or Blame
+to discuss American politics with men who believe themselves in direct
+communication with God--who talk and act like the patriarchs of the Old
+Testament--who accept their own thoughts as the inspiration of the Holy
+Ghost, and deliver their personal decisions, reverently, as the Will of
+the Lord. He shows men and women ready to suffer any martyrdom in
+defense of a doctrine of polygamy that is a continual unhappiness and
+cross upon them. He depicts the social life of the most peculiar sect
+that has ever lived in a Western civilization. He writes--
+unconsciously, and for the first time that it has ever been written--
+the naive, colossal drama of modern Mormonism.
+
+H. J. O'H.
+
+
+
+Forward
+
+
+
+On the fourth day of January, 1896, the territory of Utah was admitted
+to statehood, and the proscribed among its people were freed to the
+liberties of American citizenship, upon the solemn covenant of the
+leaders of the Mormon Church that they and their followers would live,
+thereafter, according to the laws and institutions of the nation of
+which they were allowed to become a part. And that gracious settlement
+of upwards of forty years of conflict was negotiated through responsible
+mediators, was endorsed by the good faith of the non-Mormons of Utah,
+and was sealed by a treaty convention in which the high contracting
+parties were the American Republic and the "Kingdom of God on Earth."
+
+I propose, in this narrative, to show that the leaders of the Mormon
+Church have broken their covenant to the nation; that they have abused
+the confidence of the Gentiles of Utah and betrayed the trust of the
+people under their power, by using that power to prevent the state of
+Utah from becoming what it had engaged to become. I propose to show that
+the people of Utah, upraised to freedom by the magnanimity of the
+nation, are being made to appear traitorous to the generosity that saved
+them; that the Mormons of Utah are being falsely misled into the
+peculiar dangers from which they thought they had forever escaped; that
+the unity, the solidarity, the loyalty of these fervent people is being
+turned as a weapon of offense against the whole country, for the greater
+profit of the leaders and the aggrandizement of their power. I
+undertake, in fact, in this narrative, to expose and to demonstrate what
+I do believe to be one of the most direful conspiracies of treachery in
+the history of the United States.
+
+Not that I have anything in my heart against the Mormon people! Heaven
+forbid! I know them to be great in their virtues, wholesome in their
+relations, capable of an heroic fortitude, living by the tenderest
+sentiments of fraternity, as gentle as the Quakers, as staunch as the
+Jews. I think of them as a man among strangers thinks of the dearness of
+his home. I am bound to them in affection by all the ties of life. The
+smiles of neighborliness, the greetings of friends, all the familiar
+devotion of brothers and sisters, the love of the parents who held me in
+their arms by these I know them as my own people, and by these I love
+them as a good people, as a strong people, as a people worthy to be
+strong and fit to be loved.
+
+But it is even through their virtue and by their very strength that they
+are being betrayed. A human devotion--the like of which has rarely
+lived among the citizens of any modern state--is being directed as an
+instrument of subjugation against others and held as a means of
+oppression upon the Mormons themselves. Noble when they were weak, they
+are being led to ignoble purpose now that they have become strong.
+Praying for justice when they had no power, now that they have gained
+power it is being abused to ends of injustice. Their leaders, reaching
+for the fleshpots for which these simple-hearted devotees have never
+sighed, have allied themselves with all the predaceous "interests" of
+the country and now use the superhuman power of a religious tyranny to
+increase the dividends of a national plunder.
+
+In the long years of misery when the Mormons of Utah were proscribed and
+hunted, because they refused to abandon what was to them, at that, time,
+a divine revelation and a confirmed article of faith, I sat many times
+in the gallery of the Senate in Washington, and heard discussed new
+measures of destruction against these victims of their own fidelity, and
+felt the dome above me impending like a brazen weight of national
+resentment upon all our heads. When, a few years later, I stood before
+the President's desk in the Senate chamber, to take my oath of office as
+the representative of the freed people of Utah in the councils of the
+nation, I raised my eyes to my old seat of terror in the gallery, and
+pledged myself, in that remembrance, never to vote nor speak for
+anything but the largest measure of justice that my soul was big enough
+to comprehend. By such engagement I write now, bound in a double debt of
+obligation to the nation whose magnanimity then saved us and to the
+people whom I humbly helped to save.
+
+Frank J. Cannon.
+
+
+
+Under the Prophet in Utah
+
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+
+
+In the Days of the Raid
+
+
+
+About ten o'clock one night in the spring of 1888, I set out secretly,
+from Salt Lake City, on a nine-mile drive to Bountiful, to meet my
+father, who was concealed "on the underground," among friends; and that
+night drive, with its haste and its apprehension, was so of a piece with
+the times, that I can hardly separate it from them in my memory. We were
+all being carried along in an uncontrollable sweep of tragic events. In
+a sort of blindness, like the night, unable to see the nearest fork of
+the road ahead of us, we were being driven to a future that held we knew
+not what.
+
+I was with my brother Abraham (soon to become an apostle of the Mormon
+Church), who had himself been in prison and was still in danger of
+arrest. And there is something typical of those days in the recollection
+I have of him in the carriage: silent, self-contained, and--when he
+talked--discussing trivialities in the most calm way in the world. The
+whole district was picketed with deputy marshals; we did not know that
+we were not being followed; we had always the sense of evading patrols
+in an enemy's country. But this feeling was so old with us that it had
+become a thing of no regard.
+
+There was something even more typical in the personality of our driver--
+a giant of a man named Charles Wilcken--a veteran of the German army
+who had been decorated with the Iron Cross for bravery on the field of
+battle. He had come to Utah with General Johnston's forces in 1858, and
+had left the military service to attach himself to Brigham Young. After
+Young's death, my father had succeeded to the first place in his
+affections. He was an elder of the Church; he had been an aristocrat in
+his own country; but he forgot his every personal interest in his
+loyalty to his leaders, and he stood at all times ready to defend them
+with his life--as a hundred thousand others did!--for, though the
+Mormons did not resist the processes of law for themselves, except by
+evasion, they were prepared to protect their leaders, if necessary, by
+force of arms.
+
+With Wilcken holding the reins on a pair of fast horses at full speed,
+we whirled past the old adobe wall (which the Mormons had built to
+defend their city from the Indians) and came out into the purple night
+of Utah, with its frosty starlight and its black hills--a desert night,
+a mountain night, a night so vast in its height of space and breadth of
+distance that it seemed natural it should inspire the people that
+breathed it with freedom's ideals of freedom and all the sublimities of
+an eternal faith. And those people--!
+
+A more despairing situation than theirs, at that hour, has never been
+faced by an American community. Practically every Mormon man of any
+distinction was in prison, or had just served his term, or had escaped
+into exile. Hundreds of Mormon women had left their homes and their
+children to flee from the officers of law; many had been behind prison
+bars for refusing to answer the questions put to them in court; more
+were concealed, like outlaws, in the houses of friends. Husbands and
+wives, separated by the necessities of flight, had died apart,
+miserably. Old men were coming out of prison, broken in health. A young
+plural wife whom I knew--a mere girl, of good breeding, of gentle life--
+seeking refuge in the mountains to save her husband from a charge of
+"unlawful cohabitation," had had her infant die in her arms on the road;
+and she had been compelled to bury the child, wrapped in her shawl,
+under a rock, in a grave that she scratched in the soil with a stick. In
+our day! In a civilized state!
+
+By Act of Congress, all the church property in excess of $50,000 had
+been seized by the United States marshal, and the community faced the
+total loss of its common fund. Because of some evasions that had been
+attempted by the Church authorities--and the suspicion of more such--
+the marshal had taken everything that he could in any way assume to
+belong to the Church. Among the Mormons, there was an unconquerable
+spirit of sanctified lawlessness, and, among the non-Mormons, an equally
+indomitable determination to vindicate the law. Both were, for the most
+part, sincere. Both were resolute. And both were standing in fear of a
+fatal conflict, which any act of violence might begin.
+
+Moreover, the Mormons were being slowly but surely deprived of all civil
+rights. All polygamists had been disfranchised by the bill of 1882, and
+all the women of Utah by the bill of 1887. The Governor of the territory
+was appointed by Federal authority, so was the marshal, so were the
+judges, so were the United States Commissioners who had co-ordinate
+jurisdiction with magistrates and justices of the peace, so were the
+Election Commissioners. But the Mormons still controlled the
+legislature, and though the Governor could veto all legislation he could
+initiate none. For this reason it had been frequently proposed that the
+President should appoint a Legislative Council to take the place of the
+elected legislature; and bills were being talked of in Congress to
+effect a complete disfranchisement of the whole body of the Mormon
+people by means of a test oath.
+
+I did not then believe, and I do not now, that the practice of polygamy
+was a thing which the American nation could condone. But I knew that our
+people believed in it as a practice ordained, by a revelation from God,
+for the salvation of the world. It was to them an article of faith as
+sacred as any for which the martyrs of any religion ever died; and it
+seemed that the nation, in its resolve to vindicate the supremacy of
+civil government, was determined to put them to the point of martyrdom.
+
+It was with this prospect before us that we drove, that night, up the
+Salt Lake valley, across a corner of the desert, to the little town of
+Bountiful; and as soon as we arrived among the houses of the settlement,
+a man stepped out into the road, from the shadows, and stopped us.
+Wilcken spoke to him. He recognized us, and let us pass. As we turned
+into the farm where my father was concealed, I saw men lurking here and
+there, on guard, about the grounds. The house was an old-fashioned adobe
+farm-house; the windows were all dark; we entered through the kitchen.
+And I entered, let me say, with the sense that I was about to come
+before one of the most able among men.
+
+To those who knew George Q. Cannon I do not need to justify that
+feeling. He was the man in the hands of whose sagacity the fate of the
+Mormons at that moment lay. He was the First Councillor of the Church,
+and had been so for years. For ten years in Congress, he had fought and
+defeated the proscriptive legislation that had been attempted against
+his people; and Senator Hoar had said of him, "No man in Congress ever
+served a territory more ably." He had been the intimate friend of
+Randall and Blame. As a missionary in England he had impressed Dickens,
+who wrote of him in "An Uncommercial Traveller." The Hon. James Bryce
+had said of him: "He was one of the ablest Americans I ever met."
+
+An Englishman, well-educated, a linguist, an impressive orator, a
+persuasive writer, he had lived a life that was one long incredible
+adventure of romance and almost miraculous achievement. As a youth he
+had been sent by the Mormon leaders to California to wash out gold for
+the struggling community; and he had sent back to Utah all the proceeds
+of his labor, living himself upon the crudest necessaries of life. As a
+young man he had gone as a Mormon missionary to the Hawaiian Islands,
+and finding himself unable to convert the whites he had gone among the
+natives--starving, a ragged wanderer--and by simple force of
+personality he had made himself a power among them; so that in later
+years Napella, the famous native leader, journeyed to Utah to consult
+with him upon the affairs of that distressed state, and Queen
+Liluokalani, deposed and in exile, appealed to him for advice. He had
+edited and published a Mormon newspaper in San Francisco; and he had
+long successfully directed the affairs of the publishing house in Salt
+Lake City which he owned. He was a railroad builder, a banker, a
+developer of mines, a financier of a score of interests. He combined the
+activities of a statesman, a missionary, and a man of business, and
+seemed equally successful in all.
+
+But none of these things--nor all of them--contained the total of the
+man himself. He was greater than his work. He achieved by the force of a
+personality that was more impressive than its achievements. If he had
+been royalty, he could not have been surrounded with a greater deference
+than he commanded among our people. A feeling of responsibility for
+those dependent on him, such as a king might feel, added to a sense of
+divine guidance that gave him the dignity of inspiration, had made him
+majestical in his simple presence; and even among those who laughed at
+divine inspiration and scorned Mormonism as the *Uitlander scorned the
+faith of the Boer, his sagacity and his diplomacy and his power to read
+and handle men made him as fearfully admired as any Oom Paul in the
+Transvaal.
+
+When I entered the low-ceilinged, lamplit room in which he sat, he rose
+to meet me, and all rose with him, like a court. He embraced me without
+effusion, looking at me silently with his wise blue eyes that always
+seemed to read in my face--and to check up in his valuation of me--
+whatever I had become in my absence from his regard.
+
+He had a countenance that at no time bore any of the marks of the
+passions of men; and it showed, now, no shadow of the tribulations of
+that troubled day. His forehead was unworried. His eyes betrayed none of
+the anxieties with which his mind must have been busied. His expression
+was one of resolute stern contentment with all things--carrying the
+composure of spirit which he wished his people to have. If I had been
+agitated by the urgency of his summons to me, and he had wished to allay
+my anxiety at once, the sight of his face, as he looked at me, would
+have been reassurance enough.
+
+At a characteristic motion of the hand from him, the others left us. We
+sat down in the "horsehair" chairs of a well-to-do farmer's parlor--
+furnished in black walnut, with the usual organ against one wall, and
+the usual marble-topped bureau against the other. I remember the "store"
+carpet, the mortuary hair-wreaths on the walls, the walnut-framed
+lithographs of the Church authorities and of the angel Moroni with "the
+gold plates;" and none of these seem ludicrous to me to remember. They
+express, to me, in the recollection, some of the homely and devout
+simplicity of the people whose community life this man was to save.
+
+He talked a few minutes, affectionately, about family matters, and then -
+straightening his shoulders to the burden of more gravity--he said:
+"I have sent for you, my son, to see if you cannot find some way to help
+us in our difficulties. I have made it a matter of prayer, and I have
+been led to urge you to activity. You have never performed a Mission for
+the Church, and I have sometimes wondered if you cared anything about
+your religion. You have never obeyed the celestial covenant, and you
+have kept yourself aloof from the duties of the priesthood, but it may
+have been a providential overruling. I have talked with some of the
+brethren, and we feel that if relief does not soon appear, our community
+will be scattered and the great work crushed. The Lord can rescue us,
+but we must put forth our own efforts. Can you see any light?"
+
+I replied that I had already been in Washington twice, on my own
+initiative, conferring with some of his Congressional friends. "I am
+still," I said, "of the opinion I expressed to you and President Taylor
+four years ago. Plural marriage must be abandoned or our friends in
+Washington will not defend us."
+
+Four years before, when I had offered that opinion, President Taylor had
+cried out: "No! Plural marriage is the will of God! It's apostasy to
+question it!" And I paused now with the expectation that my father would
+say something of this sort. But, as I was afterwards to observe, it was
+part of his diplomacy, in conference, to pass the obvious opportunity of
+replying, and to remain silent when he was expected to speak, so that he
+might not be in the position of following the lead of his opponent's
+argument, but rather, by waiting his own time, be able to direct the
+conversation to his own purposes. He listened to me, silently, his eyes
+fixed on my face.
+
+"Senator Vest of Missouri," I went on, "has always been a strong
+opponent of what he considered unconstitutional legislation against us,
+but he tells me he'll no longer oppose proscription if we continue in an
+attitude of defiance. He says you're putting yourselves beyond
+assistance, by organized rebellion against the administration of the
+statutes." And I continued with instances of others among his friends
+who had spoken to the same purpose.
+
+When I had done, he took what I had said with a gesture that at once
+accepted and for the moment dismissed it; and he proceeded to a larger
+consideration of the situation, in words which I cannot pretend to
+recall, but to an effect which I wish to outline--because it not only
+accounts for the preservation of the Mormon people from all their
+dangers, but contains a reason why the world might have wished to see
+them preserved.
+
+The Mormons at this time had never written a line on social reform--
+except as the so-called "revelations" established a new social order--
+but they had practiced whole volumes. Their community was founded on the
+three principles of co-operation, contribution, and arbitration. By
+co-operation of effort they had realized that dream of the Socialists,
+"equality of opportunity"--not equality of individual capacity, which
+the accidents of nature prevent, but an equal opportunity for each
+individual to develop himself to the last reach of his power. By
+contribution by requiring each man to give one-tenth of his income to a
+common fund--they had attained the desired end of modern civilization,
+the abolition of poverty, and had adjusted the straps of the community
+burden to the strength of the individual to bear it. By arbitration,
+they had effected the settlement of every dispute of every kind without
+litigation; for their High Councils decided all sorts of personal or
+neighborhood disputes without expense of money to the disputants. The
+"storehouse of the Lord" had been kept open to fill every need of the
+poor among "God's people," and opportunities for self help had been
+created out of the common fund, so that neither unwilling idleness nor
+privation might mar the growth of the community or the progress of the
+individual.
+
+But Joseph Smith had gone further. Daring to believe himself the earthly
+representative of Omnipotence, whose duty it was to see that all had the
+rights to which he thought them entitled, and assuming that a woman's
+chief right was that of wifehood and maternity, he had instituted the
+practice of plural marriage, as a "Prophet of God," on the authority of
+a direct revelation from the Almighty. It was upon this rock that the
+whole enterprise, the whole experiment in religious communism, now
+threatened to split. Not that polygamy was so large an incident in the
+life of the community--for only a small proportion of the Mormons were
+living in plural marriage. And not that this practice was the cardinal
+sin of Mormonism--for among intelligent men, then as now, the great
+objection to the Church was its assumption of a divine authority to hold
+the "temporal power," to dictate in politics, to command action and to
+acquit of responsibility. But polygamy was the offense against
+civilization which the opponents of Mormonism could always cite in order
+to direct against the Church the concentrated antagonism of the
+governments of the Western world. And my father, in authorizing me to
+proceed to Washington as a sort of ambassador of the Church, evidently
+wished to impress upon me the larger importance of the value of the
+social experiment which the Mormons had, to this time, so successfully
+advanced.
+
+"It would be a cruel waste of human effort," he said, "if, after having
+attained comfort in these valleys--established our schools of art and
+science--developed our country and founded our industries--we should
+now be destroyed as a community, and the value of our experience lost to
+the world. We have a right to survive. We have a duty to survive. It
+would be to the profit of the nation that we should survive."
+
+But in order to survive, it was necessary to obtain some immediate
+mitigation of the enforcement of the laws against us. The manner in
+which they were being enforced was making compromise impossible, and the
+men who administered them stood in the way of getting a favorable
+hearing from the powers of government that alone could authorize a
+compromise. It was necessary to break this circle; and my father went
+over the names of the men in Washington who might help us. I could
+marvel at his understanding of these men and their motives, but we came
+to no plan of action until I spoke of what had been with me a sort of
+forlorn hope that I might appeal to President Cleveland himself.
+
+My father said thoughtfully: "What influence could you, a Republican,
+have with him? It's true that your youth may make an appeal--and the
+fact that you're pleading for your relatives, while not yourself a
+polygamist. But he would immediately ask us to abandon plural marriage,
+and that is established by a revelation from God which we cannot
+disregard. Even if the Prophet directed us, as a revelation from God, to
+abandon polygamy, still the nation would have further cause for quarrel
+because of the Church's temporal rule. No. I can make no promise. I can
+authorize no pledge. It must be for the Prophet of God to say what is
+the will of the Lord. You must see President Woodruff, and after he has
+asked for the will of the Lord I shall be content with his instruction."
+
+Now, I do not wish to say--though I did then believe it--that the
+First Councillor of the Mormon Church was prepared to have the doctrine
+of plural marriage abandoned in order to have the people saved. It is
+impossible to predicate the thoughts of a man so diplomatic, so astute,
+and at the same time so deeply religious and so credulous of all the
+miracles of faith. He did believe in Divine guidance. He was sincere in
+his submission to the "revelations" of the Prophet. But, in the
+complexity of the mind of man, even such a faith may be complicated with
+the strategies of foresight, and the priest who bows devoutly to the
+oracle may yet, even unconsciously, direct the oracle to the utterance
+of his desire. And if my father was--as I suspected--considering a
+recession from plural marriage, he had as justification the basic
+"revelation," given through "Joseph the Prophet," commanding that the
+people should hold themselves in subjection to the government under
+which they lived, "until He shall come Whose right it is to rule."
+
+We talked till midnight, in the quiet glow of the farmer's lamp-light,
+discussing possibilities, considering policies, weighing men; and then
+we parted--he to betake himself to whatever secure place of hiding he
+had found, and I to return to Ogden where I was then editing a
+newspaper. I was only twenty-nine years old, and the responsibility of
+the undertaking that had been entrusted to me weighed on my mind. I
+waited for a summons to confer with President Woodruff, but none came.
+Instead, my brother brought me word from the President that I must be
+"guided by the spirit of the Lord;" and, finally, my father sent me
+orders to consult the Second Councillor, Joseph F. Smith.
+
+Joseph F. Smith! Since the death of the founder of the Mormon Church,
+there have been three men pre-eminent in its history: Brigham Young, who
+led the people across the desert into the Salt Lake Valley and
+established them in prosperity there; George Q. Cannon, who directed
+their policies and secured their national rights; and Joseph F. Smith,
+who today rules over that prosperity and markets that political right,
+like a Sultan. Of all these, Smith is, to the nation now, of most
+importance--and sinisterly so.
+
+No Mormon in those years, I think, had more hate than Smith for the
+United States government; and surely none had better reasons to give
+himself for hate. He had the bitter recollection of the assassination of
+his father and his uncle in the jail of Carthage, Illinois; he could
+remember the journey that he had made with his widowed mother across the
+Mississippi, across Iowa, across the Missouri, and across the unknown
+and desert West, in ox teams, half starved, unarmed, persecuted by
+civilization and at the mercy of savages; he could remember all the
+toils and hardships of pioneer days "in the Valley;" he had seen the
+army of '58 arrive to complete, as he believed, the final destruction of
+our people; he had suffered from all the proscriptive legislation of
+"the raid," been outlawed, been in exile, been in hiding, hunted like a
+thief. He had been taught, and he firmly believed, that the Smiths had
+been divinely appointed to rule, in the name of God, over all mankind.
+He believed that he--ordained a ruler over this world before ever the
+world was--had been persecuted by the hate and wickedness of men. He
+believed it literally; he preached it literally; he still believes and
+still preaches it. I did not then sympathize with this point of view,
+any more than I do now; but I did sympathize with him in the hardships
+that he had already endured and in the trials that he was still enduring--
+in common with the rest of us. The bond of community persecution
+intensified my loyalty. I felt for him almost as I felt for my own
+father. I went to him with the young man's trust in age made wise by
+suffering.
+
+I had been directed to call on him in the President's offices, in Salt
+Lake City, where he was concealed, for the moment, under the name of
+"Mack"--the name that he used "on the underground"--and I went with my
+brother, late at night, to see him there. The President's offices were
+at that time in a little one-story plastered house that had been built
+by Brigham Young between two of his famous residences, the "Beehive
+House" and the "Lion House" (in which some twelve or fourteen of his
+wives had lived). The three houses were within the enclosure of a high
+cobblestone wall built by Brigham Young; and at night the great gate of
+the wall was shut and locked. We hammered discreetly on its panels of
+mountain pine, until a guard answered our knocking, recognized our
+voices and admitted us.
+
+"He's in there," he said, pointing to the darkened windows of the
+offices--toward which he led us.
+
+He unlocked the front door--having evidently locked it when he went to
+the gate--and he explained to a waiting attendant: "These brethren have
+an appointment. They wish to see Brother Mack."
+
+The attendant led us down a dimly-lighted hall, through the public
+offices of the President into a rear room, a sort of retiring room,
+carpeted, furnished with bookcases, chairs, a table. The window blinds
+had all been carefully drawn.
+
+Joseph F. Smith was waiting for us--a tall, lean, long-bearded man of a
+commanding figure standing as if our arrival had stopped him in some
+anxious pacing of the carpet. His overcoat and his hat had been thrown
+on a chair. He greeted us with the air of one who is hurried, and sat
+down tentatively; and as soon as we came to the question of my trip to
+Washington, he broke out:
+
+"These scoundrels here must be removed--if there's any way to do it.
+They're trying to repeat the persecutions of Missouri and Illinois. They
+want to despoil us of our heritage--of our families. I'm sick of being
+hunted like a wild beast. I've done no harm to them or theirs. Why can't
+they leave us alone to live our religion and obey the commandments of
+God and build up Zion?" He had begun to stride up and down the floor
+again, in a sort of driven and angry helplessness. "I thought Cleveland
+would stop this damnable raid and make them leave us in peace--but he's
+as bad as the rest. Can't they see that these carpet baggers are only
+trying to rob us? Make them see that. The hounds! Sometimes it seems to
+me that the Lord is letting these iniquities go on so that the nation
+may perish in its sins all the sooner!"
+
+He sneered at John W. Young who had gone to Washington for the Church.
+(I had met Smith himself there, earlier in the year.) "I thought he'd
+accomplish something," he said, "with his fashionable home and his--
+[**missing text?**]
+He's using money enough! He's down there, taking things easy, while the
+rest of us are driven from pillar to post." He attacked the Federal
+authorities, Governor West, the "whole gang." He cried: "I love my wives
+and my children--whom the Lord gave me. I love them more than my life--
+more than anything in the world--except my religion! And here I am,
+fleeing from place to place, from the wrath of the wicked--and they're
+left in sorrow and suffering."
+
+His face was pallid with emotion, and his voice came now hard with
+exasperation against his enemies and now husky with a passionate
+affection for his family--a man of fifty, graybearded, quivering in a
+nervous transport of excitement that jerked him up and down the room,
+gesticulating.
+
+When he had worn out his first anger of revolt, I brought the
+conversation round to the question of polygamy, by asking him about a
+provisional constitution for statehood which the non-polygamous Mormons
+had recently adopted. It contained a clause making polygamy a
+misdemeanor. "I would have seen them all damned," he said, "before I
+would have yielded it, but I'm willing to try the experiment, if any
+good can come."
+
+He had, I gathered, no aversion to "deceiving the wicked," but he was
+opposed to leading his people away from their loyalty to the doctrine of
+plural marriage, by conceding anything that might weaken their faith in
+it. And yet this impression may misrepresent him. He was too agitated,
+too exasperated, for any serious reflection on the situation.
+
+My brother had gone--to keep some other engagement--and I stayed late,
+talking as long as Smith seemed to wish to talk. He rose at last and
+"blessed" me, his hands on my head, in a return to some larger trust in
+his religious authority; and I left him--with very doubtful and mixed
+emotions. His natural violence and his lack of discipline had been
+matters of common gossip among our people, and I had heard of them from
+childhood; but I had supposed that tribulations would, by this time,
+have matured him. There was something compelling in his unsoftened
+turbulence, but nothing encouraging for me as a messenger of
+conciliation. I felt that there would be no help come from him in my
+task, and I dropped him from my reckoning.
+
+I had made up my mind to a plan that was almost as desperate as the
+conditions it sought to cure--a plan that was in some ways so absurd
+that I felt like keeping it concealed for fear of ridicule--and I went
+about my preparations for departure in a sort of hopeless hope. As the
+train drew out from Ogden, I looked back at the mountains from my car
+window, and saw again, in the spectacle of their power, the pathos of
+our people--as if it were the nation of my worship that bulked there so
+huge above the people of my love--and I, puny in my little efforts,
+going out to plot an intercession, to appeal for a truce! It was almost
+as if I were the son of a Confederate leader journeying to Washington,
+on the eve of the Civil War, to attempt to stand between North and South
+and hold back their opposing armies, single-handed.
+
+These are the things a man does when he is young.
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+
+
+On A Mission to Washington
+
+
+
+I went discredited, as an envoy, by an incident of personal conflict
+with the Federal authorities; and I wish to relate that incident before
+I proceed any farther. I must relate it soon, because it came up for
+explanation in one of my first interviews with President Cleveland; and
+I wish to relate it now, because it was so typical of the day and the
+condition from which we had to save ourselves.
+
+In the winter of 1885-6, the United States Marshals had been pursuing my
+father from place to place with such determined persistence that it was
+evident his capture was only a matter of time. We believed that if he
+were arrested and tried before Chief Justice Zane--with District
+Attorney Dickson and Assistant District Attorney Varian prosecuting--he
+would be convicted on so many counts that he would be held in prison
+indefinitely--that he might, in fact, end his days there. There was the
+rumor of a boast, to this effect, made by Federal officers; and we
+misunderstood them and their motives, in those days, sufficiently to
+accept the unjust report as well-founded.
+
+My father, as First Councillor of the Church, had proposed to President
+Taylor that every man who was living in plural marriage should surrender
+himself voluntarily to the court and plead: "I entered into this
+covenant of celestial marriage with a personal conviction that it was an
+order revealed by our Father in Heaven for the salvation of mankind. I
+have kept my covenant in purity. I believed that no constitutional law
+of the country could forbid this practice of a religious faith. As the
+laws of Congress conflict with my sense of submission to the will of the
+Lord, I now offer myself, here, for whatever judgment the courts of my
+country may impose." He believed that such a course would vindicate the
+sincerity of the men who had engaged in polygamy and defied the law in
+an assumption of religious immunity; and he believed that the world
+would pause to reconsider its judgment upon us, if it saw thousands of
+men--the bankers, the farmers, the merchants, and all the religious
+leaders of a civilized community--marching in a mass to perform such an
+act of faith.
+
+But President Taylor was not prepared for a movement that would have
+recommended itself better to the daring genius of Brigham Young. Taylor
+had given himself into the custody of the officers of the law once--in
+Carthage, Illinois--with Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum Smith; and
+Taylor had been wounded by the mob that broke into the jail and shot the
+Smiths to death. This, perhaps, had cured him of any faith in the
+protecting power of innocency. He decided against voluntary surrender;
+and now that my father's liberty was so seriously threatened, he ordered
+him to go either to Mexico or to the Sandwich Islands--his old mission
+field--where he would be beyond the reach of the United States
+authorities.
+
+My father believed that if he left Utah, his recession might tend to
+placate the government and soften the severity of the prosecutions of
+the Mormons; and accordingly, on the night of February 12, 1886, he
+boarded a west-bound Central Pacific train at Willard. The Federal
+officers in some way learned of it; he was arrested, on the train, at
+Humboldt Wells, Nevada, and brought back to Utah. Near Promontory he
+fell from the steps of the moving car, at night, in the midst of an
+alkali desert, and hurt himself seriously. He was recaptured and brought
+to Salt Lake City on a stretcher, in a special car, guarded by a squad
+of soldiers from Fort Douglas, with loaded muskets, and a captain with a
+conspicuous sword. He was taken to Judge Zane's chambers and placed
+under bonds of $25,000. Immediately two bench warrants were issued by a
+United States Commissioner, and these were served upon him while he lay
+on a mattress on the floor of Zane's office. Two more bonds of $10,000
+each were given. He was then taken to his home.
+
+Later--(President Taylor still insisting that he must not stand trial)--
+he disappeared again, "on the underground," and his bonds were
+declared forfeited. But in the meantime, while the grand jury was
+hearing testimony against him, one of the beloved women of his family
+was called for examination, and District Attorney Dickson asked her some
+questions that deeply wounded her. She returned home weeping. My
+brothers and I felt that the questions had been needlessly offensive,
+and after an indignant discussion of the matter, I undertook to
+remonstrate personally with Mr. Dickson.
+
+If I had been as wise, then, as I sometimes think I am now, I should
+have realized that a meeting between us was dangerous; that the feeling,
+on our side at least, was too warm for calm remonstrances. And I should
+not have taken with me a younger brother, about sixteen years old, with
+all the hot-headedness of youth. Fortunately we did not go armed.
+
+We sought Dickson in the evening, at the Continental Hotel--the old,
+adobe Continental with its wide porches and its lawn trees--and we
+found him in the lobby. I asked him to step out on the porch, where I
+might speak with him in private. He came without a moment's hesitation.
+He was a big, handsome, black-bearded man in the prime of his strength.
+
+We had scarcely exchanged more than a few sentences formally, when my
+brother drew back and struck him a smashing blow in the face. Dickson
+grappled with me, a little blinded, and I called to the boy to run--
+which he very wisely did. Dickson and I were at once surrounded, and I
+was arrested.
+
+Ordinarily the incident would have been trivial enough, but in the
+alarmed state of the public mind it was magnified into an attempt on the
+part of George Q. Cannon's sons to take the life of the United States
+District Attorney. Indictments were found against my brother and myself,
+and against a cousin who happened to be in another part of the hotel at
+the time of the attack. Some weeks later, when the excitement had rather
+died down, I went to the District Attorney's office and arranged with
+his assistant, Mr. Varian, that the indictments against my brother (who
+had escaped from Utah) and my cousin (who was wholly innocent) should be
+quashed, and that I should plead guilty to a charge of assault and
+battery. On this understanding, I appeared in court before Chief Justice
+Zane.
+
+But Mr. Varian, having consulted with Mr. Dickson, had learned that I
+had not struck the blow--though, as the elder brother, I was morally
+responsible for it--and he suggested to the court that sentence be
+suspended. This, Justice Zane seemed prepared to do, but I objected. I
+was a newspaper writer (as I explained), and I felt that if I criticized
+the court thereafter for what I believed to be a harshness that amounted
+to persecution, I could be silenced by the imposition of the suspended
+sentence; and if I failed to criticize, I should be false to what I
+considered my duty. I did not wish to be put in any such position; and I
+said so.
+
+Justice Zane had a respect for the constitution and the statutes that
+amounted to a creed of infallibility. He was the most superbly rigid
+pontiff of legal justice that I ever knew. A man of unspotted character,
+a Puritan, of a sincerity that was afterwards accepted and admired from
+end to end of Utah, he was determined to vindicate the essential
+supremacy of the civil law over the ecclesiastical domination in the
+territory; and every act of insubordination against that law was
+resented and punished by him, unforgivingly. He promptly sentenced me to
+three months in the County jail and a fine of $150.
+
+My imprisonment was, of course, a farce. I was merely confined, most of
+the time, in a room in the County Court House, where I lived and worked
+as if I were in my home. But the sentence remained on my record as a
+sufficient mark of my recalcitrance; and I knew that it would not aid me
+in my appeal to Washington, where I intended to argue--as the first
+wise concession needed of the Federal authorities--that Chief Justice
+Zane should no longer be retained on the bench in Utah, but should be
+succeeded by a man more gentle. He was the great figure among our
+prosecutors; the others were District Attorney Dickson and the two
+assistants, Mr. Varian and Mr. Riles. The square had only seemed to be
+broken by the recent retirement of Mr. Dickson; the strength of his
+purpose remained still in power, in the person of Judge Zane.
+
+And let me say that whatever my opinion was of these men, at that time,
+I recognize now that they were justified as officers of the law in
+enforcing the law. If it had not been for them, the Mormon Church would
+never have been brought to the point of abating one jot of its
+pretensions. All four men, as their records have since proved, were much
+superior to their positions as territorial officers. Utah's admiration
+for Judge Zane was shown, upon the composition of our differences with
+the nation, by the Mormon vote that placed him on the Supreme Court
+bench. Indeed, it is one of the strange psychologies of this
+reconciliation, that, as soon as peace was made, the strongest men of
+both parties came into the warmest friendship; our fear and hatred of
+our prosecutors changed to respect; and their opposition to our
+indissoluble solidarity changed to regard when they saw us devoting our
+strength to purposes of which they could approve. But now, in the midst
+of our contentions, the aspect of splendor in their legal authority had
+something baleful in it, for us; and we saw our own defiance set with a
+halo of martyrdom and illumined by the radiance of a Church oppressed!
+
+There was more than a glimmer of that radiance in my thoughts as I made
+the railroad journey from Utah to the East. The Union Pacific Railway,
+on which I rode, followed the route that the Mormons had taken in their
+long trek from the Missouri; and I could look from my car window and
+imagine them toiling across those endless plains--in their creaking
+wagons, drawn by their oxen and lean farm cows--choked with dust,
+burned by the sun of the prairies, their faces to the unknown dangers of
+an unknown wilderness, and behind them the cool-roomed houses, the moist
+fields, the tree-shaded streets, all the quiet and comfort of the
+settled life of homekeeping happiness that they had left. My own mother
+had come that road, a little girl of eight; and my mind was full of
+pictures of her, at school in a wagon-box, singing hymns with her elders
+around the camp fires at night, or kneeling with the mourners beside the
+grave of an infant relative buried by the roadside. Our train crossed
+the Loup Fork of the Platte almost within sight of the place where my
+father, a lad of twenty, had led across the river at nightfall, had been
+lost to his party, and had nearly perished, naked to the cold, before he
+struggled back to the camp. I could see their little circle of wagons
+drawn up at sunset against the menace of the Indians who snaked through
+the long grass to kill. I could feel some of their despair, and my heart
+lifted to their heroism. Never had such a migration been made by any
+people with fewer of the concomitants of their civilization. Their arms
+had been taken from them at Nauvoo; they had bartered their goods for
+wagons and cattle to carry them; even the grain that they brought, for
+food, had to be saved for seed. They felt themselves devoted to
+destruction by the people with whose laws and institutions they had come
+in conflict, and they went forth bravely, trusting in the power of the
+God whom they were determined to worship according to their despised
+belief.
+
+Now they had built themselves new homes and meeting-houses in the
+fertile "Valley;" and the civilization that they had left, having
+covered the distance of their exile, was punishing them again for their
+law-breaking fidelity to their faith. Surely they had suffered enough!
+Surely it was evident that suffering only made them strong to resist!
+Surely there must be somebody in power in Washington who could be
+persuaded to see that, where force had always failed, there might be
+some profit in employing gentleness!
+
+This, at least, was the appeal which I had planned to make. And I had
+decided to make it through Mr. Abraham S. Hewitt, then mayor of New York
+City, who had been a friend of my father in Congress. He was not in
+favor with the administration at Washington. He was personally
+unfriendly to President Cleveland. I was a stranger to him. But I had
+seen enough of him to know that he had the heart to hear a plea on
+behalf of the Mormons, and the brain to help me carry that plea
+diplomatically to President Cleveland.
+
+When I arrived in New York I set about finding him without the aid of
+any common friend. I did not try to reach him at his home, being aware
+that he might resent an intrusion of public matters upon his private
+leisure, and fearing to impair my own confidence by beginning with a
+rebuff. I decided to see him in his office hours.
+
+I cannot recall why I did not find him in the municipal buildings, but I
+well remember going to and fro in the streets in search of him, feeling
+at every step the huge city's absorption in its own press and hurry of
+affairs, and seeing the troubles of Utah as distant as a foreign war. It
+was with a very keen sense of discouragement that I took my place, at
+last, in the long line of applicants waiting for a word with the man who
+directed the municipal activities of this tremendous hive of eager
+energy.
+
+He was in the old Stewart building, on Broadway, near Park Place; and he
+had his desk in what was, I think, a temporary office--an empty shop
+used as an office--on the ground floor. There must have been fifty men
+ahead of me, and they were the unemployed, as I remember it, besieging
+him for work. They came to his desk, spoke, and passed with a rapidity
+that was ominous. As I drew nearer, I watched him anxiously, and saw the
+incessant, nervous, querulous activity of eyes, lips, hands, as he
+dismissed each with a word or a scratch of the pen, and looked up
+sharply at the next one.
+
+"Well, young man," he greeted me, "what do you want?"
+
+I replied: "I want a half hour of your time."
+
+"Good God," he said, in a sort of reproachful indignation, "I couldn't
+give it to the President of the United States."
+
+I felt the crowd of applicants pressing behind me. I knew the man's
+prodigious humanity. I knew that if I could only hold them back long
+enough--"Mr. Hewitt," I said, "it's more important even than that.
+It's to save a whole people from suffering--from destruction."
+
+He may have thought me a maniac; or it may be that the desperation of
+the moment sounded in my voice. He frowned intently up at me. "Who are
+you?"
+
+"I'm the son of your old friend in Congress, George Q. Cannon of Utah,"
+I said. "My father's in exile. He and his people are threatened with
+endless proscriptions. I want time to tell you."
+
+His impatience had vanished. His eyes were steadily kind and interested.
+"Can you come to the Board of Health, in an hour? As soon as I open the
+meeting, I'll retire and listen to you."
+
+I asked him for a card, to admit me to the meeting, having been stopped
+that morning at many doors. He gave it, nodded, and flashed his
+attention on the man behind me. I went out with the heady assurance that
+my first move had succeeded; but I went, too, with the restrained pulse
+of realizing that I had yet to join issue with the decisive event and do
+it warily.
+
+I do not remember where I found the Board of Health in session. I recall
+only the dark, official board-room, the members at the table, and--as
+the one small spot of light and interest to me--Mr. Hewitt's
+white-bearded face, as an attendant opened the door to me, and the
+Mayor, looking up alertly, nodded across the room, and waved his hand to
+a chair.
+
+As soon as he had opened the meeting, we withdrew together to a settee
+in some remote corner, and I began to tell him, as quickly as I could,
+the desperateness of the Mormon situation. "Yes," he said, "but why
+can't your people obey the law?"
+
+I explained what I have been trying to explain in this narrative--that
+these people, following a Church which they believed to be guided by
+God, and regarding themselves as objects of a religious persecution,
+could not be brought by means of force to obey a law against conscience.
+I explained that I was not pleading to save their pride but to spare
+them useless suffering; their history showed that no proscription, short
+of extermination outright, could overcome their resistance; but what
+force could not accomplish, a little sensible diplomacy might hope to
+effect. No first step could be made, by them, towards a composition of
+their differences with the law so long as the law was administered with
+a hostility that provoked hostility. But if we could obtain some
+mitigation of the law's severity, the leaders of the Church were willing
+to surrender themselves to the court--such of them as had not already
+died of their privations or served their terms of imprisonment--and a
+sense of gratitude for leniency would prepare the way for a recession
+from their present attitude of unconquerable antagonism.
+
+He listened gravely, knowing the situation from his own experience in
+Congress, and checking off the items of my argument with a nod of
+acceptance that came, often, before I had completed what I had to say.
+He asked: "Do you know President Cleveland?"
+
+I told him that I had seen the President several times but was not known
+to him.
+
+"Well," he said, "I may be able to help you indirectly. I don't care for
+Cleveland, and I wouldn't ask him for a favor if I were sinking. But
+tell me what plan you have in your mind, and I'll see if I can't aid you--
+through friends."
+
+I replied that I hoped to have some man appointed as Chief Justice in
+Utah who should adopt a less rigorous way of adjudicating upon the cases
+of polygamists; but that before he was selected--or at least before he
+knew of his appointment--I wished to talk with him and convert him to
+the idea that he could begin the solution of "the Mormon question" by
+having the leaders of the community come into his court and accept
+sentences that should not be inconsistent with the sovereignty of the
+law but not unmerciful to the subjects of that sovereignty.
+
+"The man you want," Mr. Hewitt said, "is here in New York--Elliot F.
+Sandford. He's a referee of the Supreme Court of this state--a fine
+man, great legal ability, courageous, of undoubted integrity. Come to
+me, tomorrow. I'll introduce you to him."
+
+It was the first time that I had even heard the name of Elliot F.
+Sandford; and I had not the faintest notion of how best to approach him.
+
+I did not find him in Mr. Hewitt's office, on the morrow; but the Mayor
+had communicated with him, and now gave me a letter of introduction to
+him; and I went alone to present it.
+
+He received me in his outer office, with a manner full of kindliness but
+non-committal. He glanced through my letter of introduction, and I tried
+to read him while he did it. He was not on the surface. He was a tall,
+dignified man, his hair turning gray--thoughtful, judicial--evidently a
+man who was not quick to decide. He led me into his private room, and
+sat down with the air of a lawyer who has been asked to take a case and
+who wishes first to hear all the details of the action.
+
+I began by describing the Mormon situation as I saw it in those days:
+that the Mormons were growing more desperately determined in their
+opposition, because they believed their prosecutors were persecuting
+them; that the District Attorney and his assistants were harsh to the
+point of heartlessness, and that Judge Zane (to us, then) acted like a
+religious fanatic in his judicial office; that nearly every Federal
+official in Utah had taken a tone of bigoted opposition to the people;
+and that the law was detested and the government despised because of the
+actions of Federal "carpet-baggers."
+
+I was prejudiced, no doubt, and partisan in my account of the state of
+affairs, but I did not exaggerate the facts as I saw them; I believed
+what I said.
+
+I did not really reach his sympathy until I spoke of the court system in
+Utah--the open venire, the employment of "professional jurors"--the
+legal doctrine of "segregation," under which a man might be separately
+indicted for every day of his living in plural marriage--and the result
+of all this: that the pursuit of defendants and the confiscation of
+property had become less an enforcement of law than a profitable legal
+industry.
+
+After two hours of argument and examination, I ended with an appeal to
+him to accept the opportunity to undertake a merciful assuagement of our
+misery. After so many years of failure on the part of the Federal
+authorities, he might have the distinction of calling into his court the
+Mormon leaders who had been most long and vainly sought by the law; and
+by sentencing them to a supportable punishment, he could begin the
+composition of a conflict that had gone on for half a century.
+
+He replied with reasons that expressed a kindly unwillingness to
+undertake the work. It would mean the sacrifice of his professional
+career in New York. He would be putting himself entirely outside the
+progression of advancement. His friends, here, would never understand
+why he had done it. The affairs of Utah had little interest for them.
+
+I saw that he was not convinced. His wife had been waiting some minutes
+in the outer office; he proposed that he should bring her in; and I
+gathered from his manner, that he expected her to pronounce against his
+accepting my solicitation, and so terminate our interview pleasantly,
+with the aid of the feminine social grace.
+
+Mrs. Sandford, when she entered, certainly looked the very lady to do
+the thing with gentle skill. She was handsome, with an animated
+expression, dark-eyed, dark-haired, charming in her costume, a woman of
+the smiling world, but maturely sincere and unaffected. I took a
+somewhat distracted impression of her greeting, and heard him begin to
+explain my proposal to her, as one hears a "silent partner" formally
+consulted by a man who has already made up his mind. But when I glanced
+at her, seated, her manner had changed. She was listening as if she were
+used to being consulted and knew the responsibilities of decision. She
+had the abstracted eye of impersonal consideration--silent--with now
+and then a slow, meditative glance at me.
+
+Her first question seemed merely femininely curious as to the domestic
+aspects of polygamy. How did the women endure it?
+
+I repeated a conversation I had once had with Frances Willard, who had
+said: "The woman's heart must ache in polygamy." To which I had made the
+obvious reply: "Don't women's hearts ache all over the world? Is there
+any condition of society in which women do not bear more than an equal
+share of the suffering?"
+
+Mrs. Sandford asked me pointedly whether I was living in polygamy?
+
+No, I was not.
+
+Did I believe in it?
+
+I believed that those did who practiced it.
+
+Why didn't I practice it?
+
+Those who practiced it believed that it had been authorized by a divine
+revelation. I had not received such a revelation. I did not expect to.
+
+Our talk warmed into a very intimate discussion of the lives of the
+Mormon people, but I supposed that she was moved only by a curiosity to
+which I was accustomed--a curiosity that was not necessarily
+sympathetic--the curiosity one might have about the domestic life of a
+Mohammedan. I took advantage of her curiosity to lead up to an
+explanation of how the proscription of polygamy was driving young
+Mormons into the practice, instead of frightening them from it. And so I
+arrived at another recountal of the miserable condition of persecution
+and suffering which I had come to ask her husband help us relieve; and I
+made my appeal again, to them both, with something of despair, because
+of my failure with him, and perhaps with greater effect because of my
+despair. She listened thoughtfully, her hands clasped.
+
+It did not seem that I had reached her--until she turned to him, and
+said unexpectedly "It seems to me that this is an opportunity--a larger
+opportunity than any I see here--to do a great deal of good."
+
+He did not appear as surprised as I was. He made some joking reference
+to his income and asked her if she would be willing to live on a salary
+of--How much was the salary of the Chief Justice of Utah?
+
+I thought it was about $3,000 a year.
+
+"Two hundred and fifty dollars a month," he said. "How many bonnets will
+that buy?"
+
+"No," she retorted, "you can't put the blame on my millinery bill. If
+that's been the cause of your hesitation, I'll agree to dress as becomes
+the wife of a poor but upright judge."
+
+In such a happy spirit of good-natured raillery, my petition was
+provisionally entertained, till I could see the President; and it is one
+of the curiosities of experience, as I look back upon it now, that a
+decision so momentous in the history of Utah owed its induction to the
+wisdom of a woman and was confirmed with a domestic pleasantry.
+
+I left them after we had arrived at the tacit understanding that if
+President Cleveland should make the appointment, Mr. Sandford would
+accept it with the end in view that I had proposed. I went to report my
+progress, in a cipher telegram, to Salt Lake City, and I recall the
+peculiarly mixed satisfaction with which I regarded my work, as I walked
+the streets of New York after this interview. In all that city of
+millions, I knew, there were few if any men who were the equal of my
+father in the essentials of manhood; and yet, before he could enjoy the
+liberties of which they were so lightly unconscious, he must endure the
+shame of a prison. I was rejoicing because I was succeeding in getting
+for him a sentence that should not be ruinous! I was pleased because a
+prospective judge had been persuaded to be not too harsh to him!
+
+It did not make me bitter. I realized that the peculiar faith which we
+had accepted was responsible for our peculiar suffering. I saw that we
+were working out our human destiny; and if that destiny was not of God,
+but merely the issue of human impulsion, still our only prospect of
+success would come of our bearing with experience patiently to make us
+strong.
+
+When I went back to Mr. Hewitt, to tell him of my success, I consulted
+with him upon the best way of approaching Mr. Cleveland. And he was not
+encouraging. In his opinion of the President, he had, as I could see,
+the impatient resentment which a quick-minded, nervous, small-bodied man
+has for the big, slow one whose mental operations are stubbornly
+deliberate and leisurely. And he was obviously irritated by the
+President's continual assumption that he was better than his party.
+"He's honest," he said, "by right of original discovery of what honesty
+is. No one can question his honesty. But as soon as he discovers a
+better thing than he knew previously, he announces it as if it were the
+discovery of a new planet. It may have been a commonplace for a
+generation. That doesn't signify. He announces it with such ponderosity
+that the world believes it's as prodigious as his sentences!"
+
+As for my own mission: I would have to be persistent, patient,
+and--lucky. "You'll have to be lucky, if you intend to persuade him to
+acquire any information. He's been so successful in instructing mankind
+that it's hard to get him to see he doesn't know all he ought to know
+about a public question. But he's honest and he's courageous. If you can
+convince him that your view is right, he'll carry but the conviction in
+spite of everything. In fact he'll be all the better pleased if it
+requires fearlessness and defiance of general sentimentality to carry it
+out."
+
+He gave me a letter to Mr. William C. Whitney, then Secretary of the
+Navy, explaining my purpose in coming to Washington, and asking him to
+obtain for me an interview with President Cleveland without using Mr.
+Hewitt's name. Then he shook hands with me, and wished me success. "I
+have the faith," he said, "that is without hope."
+
+That expressed my own feeling. The faith that was without hope!
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+
+
+Without A Country
+
+
+
+So I came to Washington. So I entered the capital of the government that
+commanded my allegiance and inspired my fear. I wonder whether another
+American ever saw that city with such eyes of envy, of aspiration, of
+wistful pride, of daunted admiration. Here were all the consecrations of
+a nation's memories, and they thrilled me, even while they pierced me
+with the sense that I was not, and might well despair of ever being, a
+citizen of their glory. Here were the monuments of patriotism in
+Statuary Hall, erected to the men whose histories had been the
+inspiration of my boyhood; and I remember how I stood before them,
+conscious that I was now almost an outlaw from their communion of
+splendor. I remember how I saw, with an indescribable conflict of
+feelings, the ranked graves of the soldiers in the cemetery at
+Arlington, and recollected that this very ground had been taken from
+General Lee, that heroic opponent of Federal authority--and read the
+tablet, "How sleep the brave who sink to rest by all their country's
+wishes bless'd,"--and bowed in spirit to the nation's benediction upon
+the men who had upheld its power. I was awed by a prodigious sense of
+the majesty of that power. I saw with fear its immovability to the
+struggles of our handful of people. And at night, walking under the
+trees of Lafayette Park, with all the odors of the southern Spring among
+the leaves, I looked at the lighted front of the White House and
+realized that behind the curtains of those quiet windows sat the ruler
+who held the almost absolute right of life and death over our community--
+as if it were the palace of a Czar that I must soon enter, with a
+petition for clemency, which he might refuse to entertain!
+
+When I had been in Washington, four years before, as secretary to
+Delegate John T. Caine of Utah, I had felt a younger assurance that our
+resistance would slowly wear out the Federal authority and carry us
+through to statehood. Four years of disaster had starved out that hope.
+The proposition had been established that Congress had supreme control
+over the territories; and there was no virtue either in our religious
+assumption of warrant to speak for God, or in our plea of inherent
+constitutional right to manage our own affairs. Thirty years earlier, my
+father had been elected Senator from the proposed state of Utah, and he
+had been rejected. In thirty years so little progress had been made! The
+way that was yet to travel seemed very long and very dark.
+
+Out of this mood of despondence I had to lift myself by an act of will.
+There, Washington itself helped me against itself. I made a pilgrimage
+of courage to its commemorations of courage, and drew an inspiration of
+hope from its monuments to the achievements of its past. And
+particularly I went to the house in which my father had lived when he
+had had his part in the statesman life of the capital, and animated my
+resolution with the thought that I must succeed in order that he might
+be restored in public honor.
+
+I narrate all this personal incident of emotion in the hope that it may
+help to explain a success that might otherwise seem inexplicable. The
+Mormon Church had, for years, employed every art of intrigue and
+diplomacy to protect itself in Washington. I wish to make plain that it
+was not by any superior cunning of negotiation that my mission
+succeeded. I undertook the task almost without instruction; I performed
+it without falsehood; I had nothing in my mind but an honest loyalty for
+my own people, a desire to be a citizen of my native country, and a
+filial devotion to the one man in the world, whom I most admired.
+
+When I delivered my letter of introduction from Mr. Hewitt to Mr.
+William C. Whitney, Secretary of the Navy, I found him very busy with
+his work in his department--carrying out the plans that established the
+modern American navy and entitled him to be called the "father" of it.
+He withdrew from the men who were discussing designs and figures at a
+table in his room, and sat with me before a window that looked out upon
+the White House and its grounds; and he listened to me, interestedly,
+genially, but with a thought still (as I could see) for the affairs that
+my arrival had interrupted. He struck me as a man who was used to having
+many weighty matters together on his mind, without finding his attention
+crowded by them all, and without being impatient in his consideration of
+any.
+
+I developed with him an idea which I had been considering: that the
+President might not only help the Mormons by taking up their case, but
+might gain political prestige for the coming campaign for re-election,
+by adjusting the dissentions in Utah. He heard me with a twinkle. He
+thought an interview might be arranged. He made an appointment to see me
+in the afternoon and to have with him Colonel Daniel S. Lamont, the
+President's secretary, who was then Mr. Cleveland's political "trainer."
+
+My meeting with Colonel Lamont, in the afternoon, began jocularly.
+"This," Mr. Whitney introduced me, "is the young man who has a plan to
+use that mooted--and booted--Mormon question to re-elect the
+President."
+
+"Hardly that, Mr. Secretary," I said. "I have a plan to help my father
+and his colleagues to regain their citizenship. If President Cleveland's
+re-election is essential to it, I suppose I must submit. You know I'm a
+Republican."
+
+They laughed. We sat down. And I found at once that Colonel Lamont
+understood the situation in Utah, thoroughly. He had often discussed it,
+he said, with the Church's agents in Washington. I went over the
+situation with him, as I had gone over it with Mr. Sandford, in careful
+detail. He seemed surprised at my assurance that my father and the other
+proscribed leaders of the Church would submit themselves to the courts
+if they could do so on the conditions that I proposed; I convinced him
+of the possibility by referring him to Mr. Richards, the Church's
+attorney in Washington, for a confirmation of it. I pointed out that if
+these leaders surrendered, President Cleveland could be made the direct
+beneficiary, politically, of their composition with the law.
+
+Colonel Lamont was a small, alert man with a conciseness of speech and
+manner that is associated in my memory with the bristle of his red
+mustache cut short and hard across a decisive mouth. He radiated nervous
+vitality; and I understood, as I studied him, how President Cleveland,
+with his infinite patience for [** missing text?**] survived so well in
+the multitudinous duties of his office--having as his secretary a man
+born with the ability to cut away the non-essentials, and to pass on to
+Mr. Cleveland only the affairs worthy of his careful deliberation.
+
+I was doubtful whether I should tell Colonel Lamont and Mr. Whitney of
+my conversation with Mr. Sandford. I decided that their considerateness
+entitled them to my full confidence, and I told them all--begging them,
+if I was indiscreet or undiplomatic, to charge the offense to my lack of
+experience rather than to debit it against my cause.
+
+They passed it off with banter. It was understood that the President
+should not be told--and that I should not tell him--of my talk with
+Mr. Sandford. Colonel Lamont undertook to arrange an audience with Mr.
+Cleveland for me. "You had better wait," he said, "until I can approach
+him with the suggestion that there's a young man here, from Utah, whom
+he ought to see."
+
+I knew, then, that I was at least well started on the open road to
+success. I knew that if Colonel Lamont said he would help me, there
+would be no difficulties in my way except those that were large in the
+person of the President himself.
+
+Two days later I received the expected word from Colonel Lamont, and I
+went to the White House as a man might go to face his own trial. I met
+the secretary in one of the eastern upstairs rooms of the official
+apartments; and after the usual crowd had passed out, he led me into the
+President's office--which then overlooked the Washington monument, the
+Potomac and the Virginia shore. Mr. Cleveland was working at his desk.
+Colonel Lamont introduced me by name, and added, "the young man from
+Utah, of whom I spoke."
+
+The President did not look up. He was signing some papers, bending
+heavily over his work. It took him a moment or two to finish; then he
+dropped his pen, pushed aside the papers, turned awkwardly in his swivel
+chair and held out his hand to me. It was a cool, firm hand, and its
+grasp surprised me, as much as the expression of his eyes--the steady
+eyes of complete self-control, composure, intentness.
+
+I had come with a prejudice against him; I was a partisan of Mr. Blame,
+whom he had defeated for the Presidency; I believed Mr. Blame to be the
+abler man. But there was something in Mr. Cleveland's hand and eyes to
+warn me that however slow-moving and even dull he might appear, the
+energy of a firm will compelled and controlled him. It stiffened me into
+instant attention.
+
+He made some remark to Colonel Lamont to indicate that our conversation
+was to occupy about half an hour. He asked me to be seated in a chair at
+the right-hand side of his desk. He said almost challengingly: "You're
+the young man they want I should talk to about the Utah question."
+
+The tone was not exactly unkind, but it was not inviting. I said, "Yes,
+sir."
+
+He looked at me, as a judge might eye the suspect of circumstantial
+evidence. "You're the son of one of the Mormon leaders."
+
+I admitted it.
+
+And then he began.
+
+He began with an account of what he had done to compose the differences
+in Utah. He explained and justified the appointments he had made there--
+appointments that had been recommended by Southern senators and
+representatives who, because they were Southerners, were opposed to the
+undue extension and arbitrary use of Federal power. He had made Caleb W.
+West of Kentucky governor of Utah on the recommendation of Senator
+Blackburn of Kentucky, my father's friend. He had made Frank H. Dyer,
+originally of Mississippi, United States Marshal. He had appointed a
+District Attorney in whom he had every confidence. He had a right to
+believe that these men, recommended by the statesmen of the South, would
+execute and adjudicate the laws in Utah according to the most lenient
+Southern construction of Federal rights. He dwelt upon Governor West's
+charitable intentions towards the Mormon leaders, went over West's
+efforts at pacification in accurate detail, and told of West's chagrin
+at his failure--with an irritation that showed how disappointed he
+himself was with the continued recurrence of the Mormon troubles.
+
+I had to tell him that the situation had not improved, and his face
+flushed with an anger that he made no attempt to conceal. He declared
+that the fault must lie in our obstinate determination to hold ourselves
+superior to the law. He could not sympathize with our sufferings, he
+said, since they were self-inflicted. He admitted that he had once been
+opposed to the Edmunds-Tucker bill, but felt now that it was justified
+by the immovability of the Mormons. All palliatives had failed. The
+patience of Congress had been exhausted. There was no recourse, except
+to make statutes cutting enough to destroy the illegal practices and
+unlawful leadership in the Mormon community.
+
+"Mr. President," I pleaded, "I've lived in Utah all my life. I know
+these people from both points of view. You know of the situation only
+from Federal office holders who consider it solely with regard to their
+official responsibility to you and to the country. Why not learn what
+the Mormons think?"
+
+He replied that it was not within the province of the President--his
+power or his duty--to consider the mental attitude of men who were
+opposing the enforcement of the law.
+
+It was an inexcusable offense against the general welfare that one
+community should be rising continually against the Federal authority and
+occupying the time and attention of Congress with a determined
+recalcitrance.
+
+For an hour, he continued, with vigor and dignity, to describe the
+situation as he saw it; and he chilled me to the heart with his
+determination to concede nothing more to a community that had refused to
+be placated by what he had already conceded. I listened without trying,
+without even wishing, to interrupt him; for I had been warned by Mr.
+Whitney and Colonel Lamont that it would be wise to let him deliver
+himself of his opinion before attempting to influence him to a milder
+one; and I could not contradict anything that he said, for he made no
+misstatements of fact.
+
+Colonel Lamont had entered once, and had withdrawn again when he saw
+that Mr. Cleveland was still talking. At the end of about an hour, the
+President rose. "Mr. Cannon," he said, "I don't see what more I can do
+than has already been done. Tell your people to obey the law, as all
+other citizens are required to obey it, and they'll find that their
+fellow-citizens of this country will do full justice to their heroism
+and their other good qualities. If the law seems harsh, tell them that
+there's an easy way to avoid its cruelty by simply getting out from
+under its condemnation."
+
+His manner indicated that the conference was at an end. He reached out
+his hand as if to drop the subject then and forever, as far as I was
+concerned. "Mr. President," I asked, with the composure of desperation,
+"do you really want to settle the Mormon question?"
+
+He looked at me with the first gleam of humor that had shown in his eyes--
+and it was a humor of peculiar richness and unction. "Young man," he
+asked, "what have I been saying to you all this time? What have I been
+working for, ever since I first took up the consideration of this
+subject at the beginning of my term?"
+
+"Mr. President," I replied, "if you were traveling in the West, and came
+to an unbridged stream with your wagon train, and saw tracks leading
+down into the water where you thought there was a ford, you would
+naturally expect to cross there, assuming that others had done so before
+you. But suppose that some man on the bank should say to you: 'I've
+watched wagon trains go in here for more than twenty years, and I've
+never yet seen one come out on the other side. Look over at that
+opposite bank. You see there are no wagon tracks there. Now, down the
+river a piece, is a place where I think there's a ford. I've never got
+anybody to try it yet, but certainly it's as good a chance as this one!'
+Mr. President, what would you do? Would you attempt a crossing where
+there had been twenty years of failure, or would you try the other place--
+on the chance that it might take you over?"
+
+He had been regarding me with slowly fading amusement that gave way to
+an expression of grave attention.
+
+"I've been watching this situation for several years," I went on, "and
+it seems to me that there's the possibility of a just, a humane, and a
+final settlement of it, by getting the Mormon leaders to come
+voluntarily into court--and it can be done!--with the assurance that
+the object of the administration is to correct the community evil--not
+to exterminate the Mormon Church or to persecute its 'prophets,' but to
+secure obedience to the law and respect for the law, and to lead Utah
+into a worthy statehood."
+
+I paused. He thought a moment. Then he said: "I can't talk any longer,
+now. Make another appointment with Lamont. I want to hear what you have
+to say." And he dismissed me.
+
+Colonel Lamont told me to come back on the following afternoon; and I
+went away with the dubious relief of feeling that if I had not yet won
+my case I had, at least, succeeded in having judgment reserved. I went
+to work to arrange my arguments for the morrow, to make them as concise
+as possible and to divide them into brief chapters in case I should have
+as little opportunity for extended explanations as the President had
+been giving me. I saw that the whole matter was gloomy and oppressive to
+him--that his responsibility was as dark on his mind as our sufferings--
+and I took the hint of his amused interest, in order to work out ways
+of brightening the subject with anecdote and illustration.
+
+I saw Colonel Lamont on the morrow, and he beamed a congratulation on
+me. "You've aroused his curiosity," he said. "You've interested him."
+
+He had made an appointment some days ahead; and when I entered the
+President's office to keep that appointment, I found Mr. Cleveland at
+his desk, as if he had not moved in the interval, laboriously reading
+and signing papers as before. It gave me an impression of immovability,
+of patient and methodical relentlessness that was disheartening.
+
+But as soon as he turned to me, I found him another man. He was
+interested, receptive, almost genial. He gave me an opportunity to cover
+the whole ground of my case, and I went over it step by step. He showed
+no emotion when I recited some of the incidents of pathetic suffering
+among our people; and at first he seemed doubtful whether he should be
+amused by the humorous episodes that I narrated. But I did not wish
+merely to amuse him; I was trying to convey to his mind (without saying
+so) that so long as a people could suffer and laugh too, they could
+never be overcome by the mere reduplication of their sufferings. He
+looked squarely at me, with a most determined front, when I told him
+that the Mormons would be ground to powder before they would yield.
+"They can't yield," I warned him. "They're like the passengers on a
+train going with a mad speed down a dangerous grade. For any of them to
+attempt to jump is simple destruction. They can only pray to Providence
+to help them. But if that train were to be brought to a stop at some
+station where they could alight with anything like self-respect, there
+would be many of them glad to get off--even though the train had not
+arrived at its 'revealed' destination."
+
+I do not remember--and if I did, it would be tedious to relate--the
+exact sequence and progression of argument in this interview and the
+dozen others that succeeded it. Mr. Cleveland became more and more
+interested in the Mormon people, their family life, their religion, and
+their politics. He was as painstaking in acquiring information about
+them as he was in performing all the other duties of his office. I might
+have been discouraged by the number and apparent ineffectiveness of my
+interviews with him, had not Colonel Lamont kept me informed of the
+growth of the President's good feeling and of his genuinely paternal
+interest in the people of Utah. It became more than a personal desire
+with Mr. Cleveland to benefit politically by a settlement of the Mormon
+troubles, if indeed he had ever had such a desire. His humanity was
+enlisted, his conscience appealed to.
+
+He asked me, once, if I knew anything of Mr. Sandford, and I replied
+that I knew him and believed in him. He told me, at last, that he was
+going to appoint Mr. Sandford Chief Justice of Utah, and added
+significantly, "I suppose he will get in touch with the situation." I
+accepted this remark as a permission to confer with Mr. Sandford, and I
+journeyed to New York to see him and to renew the understanding I had
+with him.
+
+He was appointed Chief justice on the 9th day of July, 1888, and--as
+the Mormon people expressed it--"the backbone of the raid was broken."
+On August 26, 1888, he arrived in Salt Lake City. On September 17, my
+father came before him in court and pleaded guilty to two indictments
+charging him with "unlawful cohabitation." He was fined $450 and
+sentenced to the penitentiary for one hundred and seventy-five days. His
+example was followed by a number of prominent Mormons, including Francis
+Marion Lyman, who is today the President of the Quorum of the twelve
+Apostles and next in rank for the Presidency. It is true that not many
+cases, relatively speaking, came to Justice Sandford; but the leader
+whom the authorities were most eager to subjugate under Federal power
+was judged and sentenced; and the effect, both on the country and on the
+Mormon people, was all that we had expected.
+
+There are memories in a man's life that have a peculiar value. One such,
+to me, is the picture I have in mind of my father undergoing his
+penitentiary sentence, wearing his prison clothes with an
+unconsciousness that makes me still feel a pride in the power of the
+human soul to rise superior to the deformities of circumstance. Charles
+Wilcken (whom I have described driving us to Bountiful) was visiting him
+one day in the prison office, when a guard entered with his hat on.
+Wilcken snatched it from his head. "Never enter his presence," he said,
+"without taking it off." And the guard never did again . . . . I salute
+the memory. I come to it with my head bare and my back stiffened. I see
+in that calm face the possibilities of the human spirit. He was a man!
+
+He spent his time, there, as he would have spent it elsewhere, writing,
+conferring with the agents of his authority, planning for his people. I
+saw he was aware that he would emerge from his imprisonment a free man,
+personally, but still enslaved by the conditions of the community; and I
+knew that he would use his freedom to free the others. I knew that he
+had accepted his sentence with this end in view. In plain words, I knew
+now--though he never said so--that he was looking toward the necessary
+recession from the doctrine of polygamy, and that he may have counted on
+the spectacle of his imprisonment to help prepare his people for a
+general submission to the law.
+
+With the entry of these leaders into prison, the Mormons felt for them a
+warmer admiration, a deeper reverence; but it was mingled with a
+gratitude to the nation for the leniency of the court and an awed sense,
+too, of the power of the civil law. President Woodruff secretly and
+tentatively withdrew his necessary permission, as head of the Church, to
+the solemnization of any more plural marriages; and he ordered the
+demolition of the Endowment House in which such marriages had been
+chiefly celebrated. Many of the non-Mormons, who had despaired of any
+solution of the troubles in Utah, now began to hope. The country had
+been impoverished; the Mormons had been deprived of much of their
+substance and financial vigor; and reasons of business prudence among
+the Gentiles weighed against a continuance of proscription. Some of them
+distrusted the motives of their own leaders more than they did the
+Mormon people. Some were weary of the quarrel. For humane reasons, for
+business reasons, for the sake of young Utah, it was argued that the
+persecution should end.
+
+But in the years 1888 and 1889, thousands of newcomers arrived in Utah
+with a strong antagonism to the religion and the political authority of
+the Mormon Church; and, with the growth of Gentile population, there
+came a natural determination on their part to obtain control of the
+local governments of cities and counties. In opposing this movement, the
+power of the Church was again solidified. By 1889, the Gentiles had
+taken the city governments of Ogden and Salt Lake City, had elected
+members of the legislature in Salt Lake County, and had carried the
+passage of a Public School Bill, against the timid and secret opposition
+of the Church. President Cleveland had been defeated and succeeded by
+President Harrison; and Chief Justice Sandford had been removed and
+Chief Justice Zane reinstated. (He did not adjudicate with his previous
+rigor, however, because of the success of Justice Sandford's policy of
+leniency.) The Church made no move publicly to repudiate polygamy, and
+its silent attitude of defiance, in this regard, gave a battle cry to
+all its enemies.
+
+The crisis was precipitated by a movement that had begun in the
+territory of Idaho, where the Mormons had been disfranchised by means of
+a test oath--(a provision still remaining in the Idaho state
+constitution, but now nullified by the political power of the Mormon
+leaders in Salt Lake City.) A bill, known as the Cullom-Struble bill,
+was introduced at Washington, to do in Utah what had been done in Idaho.
+
+The Church was then directed by President Woodruff and his two
+Councillor's, George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith. But President
+Woodruff was as helpless in the political world as a nun. He was a
+gentle, earnest old man, patiently ingenuous and simple-minded, with a
+faith in the guidance of Heaven that was only greater than my father's
+because it was unmixed with any earthly sagacity. He had the mind, and
+the appearance, of a country preacher, and even when he was "on the
+underground" he used to do his daily "stint" of farm labor, secretly,
+either at night or in the very early morning. He was a successful farmer
+(born in Connecticut), of a Yankee shrewdness and industry. He
+recognized that in order to get a crop of wheat, it was necessary to do
+something more than trust in the Lord. But in administering the affairs
+of the Church, he seemed to have no such sophistication.
+
+I can see him yet, at the meetings of the Presidency, opening his mild
+blue eyes in surprised horror at a report of some new danger threatening
+us. "My conscience! My conscience!" he would cry. "Is that so, brother!"
+When he was assured that it was so, he would say, resignedly: "The Lord
+will look after us!" And then, after a silence, turning to his First
+Councillor, he would ask: "What do you think we ought to do, Brother
+George Q.?"
+
+The Second Councillor, Joseph F. Smith, sat at these meetings, in a
+saturnine reserve and silence, either nursing his concealed thought or
+having none. When a decision had been suggested, he was appealed to and
+added his assent. It always seemed to me that he was sulkily sleepy; but
+this impression may have come from the contrast of the First Councillor's
+mental alertness and the bright cheerfulness of the President--who
+never, to my knowledge, showed the slightest bitterness against anybody.
+President Woodruff believed that all the persecutions of the Mormons
+were due to the Devil's envy of the Lord's power as it showed itself in
+the establishment of the Mormon Church: and he assumed that the Gentiles
+did the work they were tempted to do against us, because the Holy Spirit
+had not yet ousted the evil from their souls. He had no fear of the
+ultimate triumph of the Church, because he had no fear of the ultimate
+triumph of God. Whenever he could escape for a day from the worldly
+duties of his office, he went fishing!
+
+When the progress of the Cullom-Struble bill began to make its
+threatening advance, my father went secretly to Washington; and a short
+time afterwards, word came to me in Ogden, through the Presidency, that
+he wished me to arrange my business affairs for a long absence from
+Utah, and follow him to the capital.
+
+I found him there, in the office of Delegate John T. Caine of Utah--the
+cluttered office of a busy man--and he explained, composedly, why he
+had sent for me. The Cullom-Struble bill had been favorably considered
+by the Senate Committee on Territories, and the disfranchisement of all
+the Mormons of Utah seemed imminent. Every argument, political or legal,
+had been used against the measure, in vain. Since I, a non-polygamous
+Mormon, would be disfranchised if the bill became law, he thought I
+might be a good advocate against it. He said: "I have not appeared in
+the matter. None of our friends know that I am here. If it were known,
+it might only increase our difficulties. Say nothing of it. We have been
+at a disadvantage with a Republican administration because most of our
+prominent men are Democrats. You were so effective with the Democrats,
+let us see what you can do now with your own party friends."
+
+After taking his advice, I went to see Senator Henry M. Teller, of
+Colorado, who was a friend of my father and of the Mormon people. He
+admitted that the situation was desperate. He proposed that I should
+speak before the committees of both houses; they might listen to me as a
+Republican who had no official rank in the Church and no political
+authority. He offered to introduce me to any of the Senators and members
+of Congress, but advised that I should rather go unintroduced, without
+influence, and make my appeal as a private citizen.
+
+This sounded to me depressingly like the call to lead a "forlorn hope."
+I reported to my father again, and was not altogether reassured by a
+tranquility which he seemed to be able to maintain in the face of any
+desperation. Other agencies of the Church had reached the end of their
+resources. There was no help in sight. And I went, at last, to throw our
+case upon the mercy of the Secretary of State, Mr. James G. Blaine, my
+father's friend, the friend of our people, the statesman whom I--in
+common with millions of other Americans--regarded with a reverence that
+approached idolatry.
+
+He received me in the long room of the Secretary's apartments, standing,
+a striking figure in black, against the rich and heavy background of the
+official furnishing. He was very pale--unhealthily so--perhaps with
+the progress of the disease of which he was to die in so short a time.
+In contrast with his usual brilliancy of mind, he seemed to me, at
+first, depressed and quiet--with a kindly serenity of manner, at once
+gracious, and intimate, but masterful.
+
+He was instantly and deeply interested in what I had to say; he seated
+himself--on a sofa, near the embrasure of a window--motioned me to
+bring a chair to his side, and heard me in an erect attitude of
+thoughtful attention, re-assuring me now and then by reaching out to lay
+a hand on my knee when he saw from my hesitancy that I feared I might be
+too candid in my confidences; and the look of his eye and the touch of
+his hand were as if he said: "I'm your friend. Anything you may say is
+perfectly safe with me."
+
+I told him of my father's imprisonment.
+
+"It is dreadful," he said. "You shock me to the soul." He spoke of their
+friendship, of his admiration for my father's work in Congress, of his
+personal regard for the man himself. "Of course," he said, "I have no
+sympathy with your peculiar marriage system, and I'll never be able to
+understand how a man like your father could enter it." I reminded him
+that my father believed it a system revealed and ordained by God. "I
+know," he replied. "That is what they say. And I suppose they have
+scriptural warrant for polygamy. But it is a thing that would be 'more
+honored in the breach than the observance.' Tell me, is the rule of the
+Church absolute over you younger men?"
+
+I told him that it was, in respect of political control; that the
+situation in Utah had placed us where there was no possibility of
+compromise; that we must be of, with, and for our own people, or against
+them.
+
+He asked me whether I intended to address myself to the President. I
+replied, "Not yet"--since the bills were still pending in Congress and
+were not being urged from the White House. He seemed pleased. As I
+afterwards learned, there was a strong rivalry between the President and
+the Secretary of State; and though I knew that Mr. Blaine's interest in
+Utah was almost wholly one of responsible statesmanship, warmed by a
+personal kindliness for our people, still it remains a fact that he
+expected the support of the Utah Republican delegation in the convention
+of 1892, and that it had been promised him by national Republicans who
+were now laboring at Washington in our behalf.
+
+He encouraged me with an almost intimate emotion of pity and
+friendliness; and I felt the largeness of the man as much in the warmth
+of his humanity as in the breadth of his view. He approved, of my
+appearing before the committees. "Go and tell them your own story,
+yourself," he said. "Make your plea independently of all the formal and
+official arguments that have been used. These have been exhausted. They
+have been ineffective. We must use the personal and"--he added it
+significantly--"the political appeal. If you find difficulty, let me
+know. I shall not be idle in your behalf. If you meet any insuperable
+obstacle, I'll see if I can't help you run over it."
+
+He rose to terminate the interview. He looked at me with a smile. "'The
+Lord giveth,'" he said, "'and the Lord taketh away.' Wouldn't it be
+possible for your people to find some way--without disobedience to the
+commands of God--to bring yourselves into harmony with the law and
+institutions of this country? Believe me, it's not possible for any
+people as weak in numbers as yours, to set themselves up as superior to
+the majesty of a nation like this. We may succeed, this time, in
+preventing your disfranchisement; but nothing permanent can be done
+until you 'get into line.'"
+
+He accompanied me toward the door, giving me friendly messages of regard
+to deliver to my father. He put his arm around my shoulders, at last,
+and said: "You may tell your father for me--as I tell you, young man--
+you shall not be harmed, this time."
+
+I parted from him with an almost speechless relief and gratitude, and
+hurried to my father with the news of hope. I had not told Mr. Blaine
+that he was in Washington; for, without feeling that he saw himself
+marked by his imprisonment, I was aware that his friends might pity him
+for it, if they did not condemn him; and neither sentiment (I knew) was
+he of the personal temper to encounter.
+
+I told him every detail of my talk with the Secretary of State; he heard
+me, silently, meditatively. When I concluded with Mr. Blaine's assurance
+that we should not be harmed "this time," but must "get into line," he
+looked up at me with a significant steadiness of eye. "President
+Woodruff," he said, "has been praying . . . . He thinks he sees some
+light . . . . You are authorized to say that something will be done."
+
+I asked no question. His gaze conveyed assurance, but forbade inquiry. I
+had to understand, without being told, that the Church was preparing to
+concede a recession from the doctrine of polygamy.
+
+With this assurance to aid me, I began the work of reaching the
+committees--warm work in a Washington summer, but hopeful in the new
+prospect of a lasting success. The bill for disfranchisement had been
+reported out by the committees and was on the calendar for passage. It
+was necessary to have the question reopened before the committees for
+argument. In soliciting the opportunity of a re-hearing, from the
+Chairman of the Senate Committee, Senator Orville H. Platt, of
+Connecticut, I made my argument in a private conversation with him in
+his rooms in the Arlington Hotel. When I had done, he chewed his cigar a
+moment, looked at me quizzically, and asked: "Do you know Abbot R.
+Heywood, of Ogden?"--and, as he asked it, he drew a letter from his
+pocket.
+
+I replied that I knew Mr. Heywood well.
+
+"I have a letter here from him, on this same subject," he said. "Tell
+me. What kind of man is he? And to what extent do you think I ought to
+depend on his views?"
+
+I was never more tempted in my life to tell a lie. I knew Mr. Heywood to
+be a man of truth and high ideals; but he had been Chairman of the
+Anti-Church party in Weber County, and he had been one of the Gentile
+leaders for several years. I knew the intensity of his feelings against
+the rule of the Church in politics and the Mormon attitude of defiance
+to the law. I was sure that he would be strong in his demand for the
+passage of the disfranchisement act.
+
+I hesitated a moment. Senator Platt was watching me. Then, with a
+resolve that our cause must stand or fall by the truth, I said: "Mr.
+Heywood is a man of integrity. I think he would write exactly what he
+believed to be true. But you know, Senator, intense feeling in politics
+sometimes sways a man's judgment. In view of Mr. Heywood's long
+controversy, I hope that if he has taken a view adverse to mine, his
+antagonism may be mitigated in your mind by your own knowledge of human
+feelings."
+
+Senator Platt held out the letter to me. "You've won your motion for a
+re-hearing," he said. "I think we may be able to get the truth out of
+you. We have not always had it in this Utah question. Read that."
+
+I read it. It was Mr. Heywood's solemn protest, as an American citizen--
+on behalf of himself and the other members of the perfunctory Republican
+Committee of his County--against the wholesale disfranchisement of the
+Mormons, on the ground that it would only delay a progressive American
+settlement of the territory!
+
+Then I went to the other members of the Senate committee privately, and
+told them that the Mormon Church was about to make a concession
+concerning its doctrine of polygamy. I told them so in confidence,
+pointing out the necessity of secrecy, since to make public the news of
+such a recession, in advance, would be to prevent the Church from
+authorizing it. Not one of the Senators betrayed the trust. I was less
+confidential with the members of the House Committee, because I realized
+that nothing could be done against us unless the bill passed the Senate.
+But I gave the news of the Church's reconsideration of its attitude to
+Colonel G. W. R. Dorsey, the member from Nebraska, and he used his
+influence to get me a rehearing from the House Committee. Finally I
+appeared once before each committee, and argued our case at length. The
+bills did not become law. Aided by Mr. Blaine's powerful friendship, we
+were saved "for the time."
+
+It remained to make our safety permanent, and I took train for Utah, on
+my father's counsel, to see President Woodruff. I had given my word that
+"something was to be done." I went to plead that it should be done--and
+done speedily.
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+
+
+The Manifesto
+
+
+
+I found him in the office of the Presidency--in the little one-story
+house that I have described in my early interview with Joseph F Smith--
+and he received me with the gracious affectionateness of a fatherly old
+man. He asked me, almost at once: "What are they going to do to us in
+Washington?"
+
+"President Woodruff," I replied, "we've been spared--temporarily. The axe
+will not fall for a few moments. It depends on ourselves, now, whether
+it shall fall or not."
+
+"Come into the other room," he said, under his voice, in an eager
+confidentiality, like a child with a secret. And pattering along ahead
+of me, quick on his feet, he signed to me to follow him--with little
+nods and beckonings--into the retiring room where I had talked with
+Smith.
+
+There he sat down, on the edge of his chair, his elbows supported on the
+broad arms, leaning forward, partly bowed with his age, and partly with
+an intentness of curiosity that glittered innocently in his guileless
+eyes. A dear old character! Sweet in his sentiments, sweet in his
+language, sweet in the expression of his face.
+
+I told him, in detail, of the events in Washington, and of the men who
+had helped us in them--particularly of Mr. Blaine, who was apparently a
+new character in his experience, and of Senator Orville H. Platt, in
+whom he discovered an almost neighborly interest when I told him that
+the Senator came from Connecticut, his native state. I warned him that
+the passage of the measure of disfranchisement had been no more than
+retarded. I pointed out the fatal consequences for the community if the
+bill should ever become law--the fatal consequences for the leaders of
+the Church if the non-polygamous Mormons, deprived of their votes, were
+ever left unable to control the administration of local government. I
+repeated the promise that my father had authorized me to carry to the
+Senators and Congressmen who still had the Cullom-Struble bill in hand;
+and I emphasized the fact that because of this promise the bill had been
+held back--with the certainty that it would never become law if we met
+the nation half way.
+
+I was watching him to see if he sensed the point I wished him to get.
+When I touched the matter of my father's promise, his face became softly
+reverent; and when I had done--looking at me without a trace of cunning
+in his benignity, with an expression, rather, of exalted innocence and
+faith,--he said: "Brother Frank, I have been making it a matter of
+prayer. I have wrestled mightily with the Lord. And I think I see some
+light."
+
+In order that there might be no misunderstanding, I put into plainer
+words what I meant and what the prominent men in Washington had been led
+to look for: since, by a "revelation" of the Church we were ordered to
+give obedience to the government of the nation, and since we had
+exhausted all our legal defenses, it was hoped that the Prophet, Seer,
+and Revelator of the Church would find a way, under the guidance of God,
+to bring our people into conformity with the law.
+
+As he accepted this calmly, I added: "To be very plain with you,
+President Woodruff, our friends expect, and the country will insist, that
+the Church shall yield the practice of plural marriage."
+
+His eyelids quivered a little, but he showed no other sign of flinching.
+I saw that the counsels of his advisers and the comfort that he had
+derived from his prayers had prepared him for an immolation that was
+more serious to him than any personal sacrifice that he could make. He
+said sadly: "I had hoped we wouldn't have to meet this trouble this way.
+You know what it means to our people. I had hoped that the Lord might
+open the minds of the people of this nation to the truth, so that they
+might be converted to the everlasting covenant. Our prophets have
+suffered like those of old, and I thought that the persecutions of Zion
+were enough--that they would bring some other reward than this." If I
+had been the bearer of a new edict of proscription, I think he could not
+have been more profoundly oppressed by the sense of his responsibility.
+"Did your father tell you," he asked, "that I had been seeking the mind
+of the Lord?"
+
+I replied that he had.
+
+He reflected silently. "I shall talk with you again about it," he said,
+at last. "I hope the Lord will make the way plain for his people."
+
+I do not wish to idealize the polygamous relation--but in monogamy a
+man is not persecuted for his marriage, and sometimes he does not
+appreciate the tie. In polygamy, the men and women alike had been
+compelled to suffer on its account by the grim trials of the life itself
+and by the hatred of all civilization arrayed against it. They had grown
+to value their marriage system by what it had cost them. They had been
+driven by the contempt of the world to argue for its sanctity, to live
+up to their declarations, and to raise it in their esteem to what it
+professed to be, the celestial order that prevailed in the Heavens! I
+knew, as well as President Woodruff did, the wrench it would give their
+hearts to have to abandon, at last, what they had so long suffered for.
+
+In the days of anxious waiting that followed, I saw Joseph F. Smith and
+sounded him for any hint of progress. He said: "I'm sure I don't know
+what can be done. Your father talked with President Woodruff and me
+before he went to Washington, but I'm sure I can't see how we can do
+anything." When my father returned home, I went to him many times--
+without however learning anything definite. I knew that the men in
+Washington would demand some tangible evidence of our good faith before
+Congress should reconvene; and I repeatedly urged the necessity of
+action.
+
+At length he sent me word, in Ogden, that President Woodruff wished to
+confer with me, and he suggested that it would be permissible for me to
+speak my opinions freely. I hastened to Salt Lake City, to the offices
+of the Presidency. President Woodruff took me into a private room and
+read me his "manifesto."
+
+It was the same that was issued on September 24, 1890, and ratified by a
+General Conference of the Mormon Church on October 6, following. It was
+the proclamation that freed the oppressed of Utah; for, by the
+subsequent "covenant"--and its acceptance by the Federal government--
+the nation did but confirm their freedom and accord them their
+constitutional rights. Here, shaking in the hand of age, was a sheet of
+paper by which the future of a half million people was to be directed;
+and that simple old man was to speak through it, to them, with the awful
+authority of the voice of God.
+
+He told me he had written it himself, and it certainly appeared to me to
+be in his handwriting. Its authorship has since been variously
+attributed. Some of the present-day polygamists say that it was I who
+wrote it. Chas. W. Penrose and George Reynolds have claimed that they
+edited it. I presume that as Mormons, "in good standing," believing in
+the inspiration of the Prophet, they appreciate the blasphemy of their
+claim!
+
+I found it disappointingly mild. It denied that the Church had been
+solemnizing any plural marriages of late, and advised the faithful "to
+refrain from contracting any marriages forbidden by the law of the
+land." In spite of this mildness, President Woodruff asked me whether I
+thought the Mormons would support the revelation--whether they would
+accept it.
+
+I replied that there could be no proper anxiety on that point. The
+majority of the Mormon people were ready for such a message. It might be
+very much stronger without arousing resistance. With the exception of
+the comparatively few men and women who were living in polygamy, the
+community would accept it gratefully. Rather, I made bold to say, my
+anxiety was as to whether the nation would believe that such an
+equivocally-worded document meant an absolute recession from the
+practice of plural marriage.
+
+It was plain that his advisers had not pointed out this danger to him.
+He asked me how I thought the nation would take it.
+
+I asked him, point blank, whether it meant an absolute recession from
+polygamy.
+
+He answered that it did.
+
+Then (I said) with such an interpretation of it, and a formal and public
+acceptance of it by the Church authorities, I did not doubt that we
+could convince the nation of its sufficiency. I reminded him--as I am
+now glad to remember--that the word of the Mormon people had passed
+current in the political and commercial circles of the country; that I
+had several times been the bearer of messages from them to prominent
+men; that we had been taken on faith and the faith had been always
+vindicated. Finally, in order that I might carry away no
+misapprehension, nor convey any, I asked him if it was the intention of
+the manifesto to inhibit any further plural marriage living.
+
+He answered, quaintly: "Why, of course, Frank--because that's what
+they've been persecuting us for." There was not even a shrewdness in his
+voice when he added: "You know they didn't get our brethren in prison
+for polygamy, but for living with their plural wives."
+
+Perhaps no other man in Utah could have said such a thing without
+sarcasm. The fact was that the United States authorities had been
+practically unable to prove a case of polygamy (which was a felony)
+because the marriage records were concealed by the Church; but they
+could prove plural marriage living (a mere misdemeanor) by repute and
+circumstance. It was part of President Woodruff's unworldliness that he
+did not see the satire of his words; and I was the more convinced of his
+good faith.
+
+I was convinced also, by several of his remarks, that he had consulted
+with the Church's attorney, Mr. Franklin S. Richards; and while I
+trusted the President's unworldly faith, I trusted more the sagacity of
+his more worldly advisers. I began to see, with a sure hope, the
+beginning of the end of all our miseries.
+
+Some days later I was summoned to attend a meeting of the Church
+authorities in the President's offices; and I knew that the test had
+come. The Church was governed by the Presidency, composed of President
+Woodruff and his two Councillor's, with the Quorum of the Twelve
+Apostles, the Presidents of Seventies, and the presiding Bishopric,
+composed of three members. These quorums aggregate twenty-five men; and
+to their number may be added the Chief Patriarch of the Church, making a
+body of twenty-six general authorities--the Hierarchy. It was from
+these latter men, polygamists and (I feared) parochial in their
+ignorance of the nation and their trust in the protection of their
+followers--it was from them (and the other practicers of polygamy) that
+any opposition would come to the acceptance and publication of the
+manifesto.
+
+They met--something less than a score of them, with two or three of
+their most trusted advisers--in one of the general offices of the
+Presidency, sitting in leather chairs along its walls, with a sort of
+central skylight illuminating subduedly the anxiety of their silent
+faces. President Woodruff and his two Councillor's entered to them; and
+this insignificant-looking apartment--of such tremendous community
+significance, because of the memories of its past--seemed to take on
+the gravity of another momentous crisis in the destiny of its people.
+The portraits in oils of the dead presidents, martyrs, and prophets of
+the Church, looked down on us from the facade of a little gallery, and
+caught my eyes almost hypnotically with the imperturbability of their
+gaze. No word from them! In the midst of the broken utterance of emotion--
+when the tears were wet on faces to whose manliness tears were the
+very sweat of martyrdom--I saw those immovable countenances as placid
+as the features of the dead.
+
+President Woodruff stood under them, so old and other-worldly, that he
+seemed already of their circle rather than ours; and he spoke in a voice
+of feeling for us, but with a simple and courageous finality that
+sounded the very note of fate. He had called the brethren together (he
+said) to submit a decision to their consideration, and he desired from
+them an expression of their willingness to accept and abide by it. He
+knew what a trial it would be to the "whole household of Israel." "We
+have sought," he said, "to live our religion--to harm no one--to
+perform our mission in this world for the salvation of the living and
+the dead. We have obeyed the principle of celestial marriage because it
+came to us from God. We have suffered under the rage of the wicked; we
+were driven from our homes into the desert; our prophets have been
+slain, our holy ones persecuted--and it did seem to me that we were
+entitled to the constitutional protection of the courts in the practice
+of our religion."
+
+But the courts had decided "against us." The great men of the nation
+were determined to show us no mercy. Legislation was impending that
+would put us "in the power of the wicked." Brother George Q. Cannon,
+Brother John T. Caine, and the other brethren who had been in
+Washington, had found that the situation of the Church was critical.
+Brother Franklin S. Richards had advised him that our last legal defense
+had fallen. "In broken and contrite spirit" he had sought the will of
+the Lord, and the Holy Spirit had revealed to him that it was necessary
+for the Church to relinquish the practice of that principle for which
+the brethren had been willing to lay down their lives.
+
+A sort of ghastly stillness accepted what he said as a confirmation of
+the worst fears of the men who had evidently come there with some
+knowledge of what they were to hear. I glanced at the faces of those
+opposite me. A set and staring pallor held them motionless. I was
+conscious of a chill of heart that seemed communicated to me from them.
+My brother Abraham was sitting beside me; I knew his deep affection for
+his family; I knew with what a clutch of misery this edict of separation
+was crushing his hope; I felt myself growing as pale and tense as he.
+
+The silence was broken by President Woodruff asking one of the brethren
+to read the manifesto. When it was concluded, he said: "The matter is
+now before you. I want you to speak as the Spirit moves you."
+
+There was no reply, except a sort of general gasp of low-voiced
+interjections and a little buzz of whisperings that sounded like emotion
+taking its breath. He called on my father to speak. The First Councillor
+rose to make a statesmanlike review of the crisis; and I understood that
+with his usual diplomacy he was putting aside from him the authority of
+leadership until he could see whether an opposition was to develop that
+should make it necessary for him to front it.
+
+That opposition made a rustle of stirring in the pause that followed. I
+saw it in the changed expressions of some of the faces. Several of the
+men--including my brother Abraham, and Joseph F. Smith--asked whether
+the manifesto meant a cessation of plural marriages: whether no more
+such marriages were to be allowed.
+
+President Woodruff answered that it did; that the Lord had taken back
+the principle from the children of men and that we would have no power
+to restore it.
+
+Then they asked whether it meant a cessation of plural marriage living--
+whether they would be required to separate from the wives whom they had
+taken in the holy covenant.
+
+He answered, firmly, that it did; that the brethren in Washington found
+it imperative; that it was the will of the Lord; that we must submit.
+
+I saw their faces flush and then slowly pale again--and the storm
+broke. One after another they rose and protested, hoarsely, in the voice
+of tears, that they were willing to suffer "persecution unto death"
+rather than to violate the covenants which they had made "in holy
+places" with the women who had trusted them. One after another they
+offered themselves for any sacrifice but this betrayal of the women and
+children to whom they owed an everlasting faith. And a manlier lot of
+men never spoke in a manlier way. Not a petty word was uttered. Their
+thought was not for themselves. Their grief was not selfish. Their
+protests had a dignity in pathos that shook me in spite of myself.
+
+When they had done, my father rose again with a face that seemed to bear
+the marks of their grief while it repressed his own. He dwelt anew on
+the long efforts of our attorney and our friends in Congress to resist
+what we believed to be unconstitutional measures to repress our practice
+of a religious faith. But we were citizens of a nation. We were required
+to obey its laws. And when we found, by the highest judicial
+interpretation of statute and constitution, that we were without grounds
+for our plea of religious immunity, we had but the alternative either of
+defying the power of the whole nation or of submitting ourselves to its
+authority. For his part he was willing to do the will of the Lord. And
+since the Prophet of God, after a long season of prayer, had submitted
+this revelation as the will of the Lord, he was ready for the sacrifice.
+The leaders of the Church had no right to think of themselves. They must
+remember how loyally the people had sacrificed their substance and
+risked their safety to guard their brethren who were living in plural
+marriage. Those brethren must not be ungrateful now. They must not now
+refuse to make their sacrifice, in answer to the sacrifices that had
+been made for them so often. The people had long protected them. Now
+they must protect the people.
+
+Under the commanding persuasion of his voice I saw the determination of
+their resistance begin to falter and relax. President Woodruff called on
+me to speak, and I felt that it was my duty to represent the needs, the
+hopes, and the opportunities of the hundreds of thousands of the
+undistinguished mass who would make no decision for themselves, but
+whose fate was trembling on the event. I rose to speak for them, with my
+hand on my brother's shoulder, knowing that my every word would be a
+stab at his heart, and hoping that my grasp might be a touch of sympathy
+to him--knowing that I must urge these elders to sacrifice themselves
+and their families for a redemption of which I was to share the benefits--
+but sustained by the remembrance of the solemn pledge which I had been
+authorized to give in Washington to honorable men who had trusted in our
+honor--and strengthened by the thought of all those dear, to me, whose
+sufferings would be multiplied, with no hope of relief, if the few would
+not now yield to save the many.
+
+I described the situation as I had seen it in Washington and as I knew
+it in Utah from a more intimate personal experience than these leaders
+could have of the sufferings of the people. I told them how cheerfully
+and bravely the non-polygamists had borne the brunt of protecting them
+in the practice of their faith, and yet how patient a hope had been
+always with us that the final demand might not be made upon us for the
+sacrifice of a citizenship which we valued more because it shielded them
+than because it armed us.
+
+Encouraged by the face of President Woodruff, I reminded them that the
+sorrow and the parting, at which they rebelled, could only be for a
+little breath of time, according to their faith; that by the celestial
+covenant, into which they had entered, they were assured that they
+should have their wives and children with them throughout the endless
+ages of eternity. The people had given much to them. Surely they could
+yield the domestic happinesses of the little remaining day of life in
+this world, in order to save and prosper those who were not to enjoy
+their supreme exaltation of beatitude in the world to come.
+
+I had felt my brother strong under my hand. He rose, when I concluded.
+And with a manful brevity he replied that he submitted because it was
+the will of the Lord, and because he had no right to interpose his
+selfish love and yearnings between the people of God and their worldly
+opportunity. The others followed. Not one referred to the equivocal
+language of the manifesto or questioned it. They accepted it--as it was
+then and afterwards interpreted--as a revelation from God made through
+the Prophet of the Church; and they subscribed to it as a solemn
+covenant, before God, with the people of the nation.
+
+Joseph F. Smith was one of the last to speak. With a face like wax, his
+hands outstretched, in an intensity of passion that seemed as if it must
+sweep the assembly, he declared that he had covenanted, at the altar of
+God's house, in the presence of his Father, to cherish the wives and
+children whom the Lord had given him. They were more to him than life.
+They were dearer to him than happiness. He would rather choose to stand,
+with them, alone--persecuted--proscribed--outlawed--to wait until
+God in His anger should break the nation with His avenging stroke. But--
+
+He dropped his arms. He seemed to shrink in his commanding stature like
+a man stricken with a paralysis of despair. The tears came to the pained
+constriction of his eyelids.
+
+"I have never disobeyed a revelation from God," he said. "I cannot--I
+dare not--now."
+
+He announced--with his head up, though his body swayed--that he would
+accept and abide by the revelation. When he sank in his chair and
+covered his face with his hands, there was a gasp of sympathy and
+relief, as if we had been hearing the pain of a man in agony. And my
+heart gave a great leap; for, in these supreme moments of feeling,
+things come to us that are larger than our knowledge, more splendid than
+our hopes; and I saw, as if in the blinding glisten of the tears in my
+eyes, a radiant vision of our future, an unselfish people freed from a
+burden of persecution, a nation's forgiveness born, a grateful state
+created. I saw it--and I looked at Smith and loved him for it. I knew
+then, as I know now, that he and those others were at this moment
+sincere. I knew that they had relinquished what was more dear to them
+than the breath of life. I knew the appalling significance, to them, of
+the promise which they were making to the nation. And in all the
+degraded after-years, when so many of them were guilty of breach of
+covenant and base violation of trust, I tried never to forget that in
+the hour of their greatest trial, they had sacrificed themselves for
+their people; they had suffered for the happiness of others; they had
+said, sincerely: "Not my will, O Lord, but Thine, be done!"
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+
+
+On the Road to Freedom
+
+
+
+In any discussion of the public affairs that make the subject matter of
+this narrative, a line of discrimination must be drawn at the year 1890.
+In that year the Church began a progressive course of submission to the
+civil law, and the nation received each act of surrender with
+forgiveness. The previous defiance's of the Mormon people ceased to give
+grounds for a complaint against them. The old harshnesses of the Federal
+government were canceled by the new generosity of a placated nation. And
+neither party to the present strife in Utah should go back, beyond the
+period of this composition, to dig up, from the past, its buried wrongs.
+
+In relating, here, some of the events of 1888 and 1889, I have tried
+neither to justify the Mormons nor to defend their prosecutors. I have
+wished merely to make clear the situation in Utah, and to introduce to
+you, in advance, some of the leaders of the distracted community, so
+that you might understand the conditions from which the Mormons escaped
+by giving their covenant to the nation and be able to judge of the
+obligations and responsibilities of the men who gave it.
+
+I, have described the promulgation and acceptance of "the manifesto"
+with such circumstance and detail, because of what has since occurred in
+Utah. Let me add that some two weeks later the General Conference of the
+Church endorsed the President's pronouncement as "authoritative and
+binding." And let me point out that it was the first and only law of the
+Mormon Church ever so sustained by triple sanctities--"revealed" as a
+command from God, accepted by the prophets in solemn fraternity
+assembled, and ratified by the vote of the entire "congregation of
+Israel" before it was declared to be binding upon men.
+
+At first, because of the somewhat indefinite promise of the message
+itself, many of the non-Mormons of Utah remained suspicious and in doubt
+of it. But it was recognized by Judge Zane, in court--on the day
+following the close of the Conference--as an official declaration,
+"honest and sincere." The newspapers throughout the whole country so
+received it. The Church authorities sent assurances to Washington that
+convinced the statesmen, there, of the completeness and finality of the
+submission. And the good faith of the covenant was at last admitted by
+the non-Mormons of Utah and endorsed by their trust. I do not know of
+any change in human affairs dependent on human will--more speedy,
+effective and comprehensive than this recession. Within the space of a
+few days a revolution was completed that had been sought by the power of
+our nation and of the civilized world, for a generation, with stripes
+and imprisonment, death, confiscation and the ostracism of the country's
+public contempt. It had been obtained, I knew, chiefly by the sagacity
+of the First Councillor using the pressure of circumstances to enforce
+the persuasions of diplomacy. I felt that a miracle of change had been
+brought to pass. He had placed us on the road to freedom; and I trusted
+his guidance to lead us to our goal.
+
+That goal, to me personally, was the honor of American citizenship--an
+ambition that had been an obsession with me from my earliest youth. I
+had never heard a man on a railroad train talk of how he was going to
+vote in a national election, without feeling a pang of shamed envy; for
+my lack of citizenship seemed a mark of inferiority. The patriotic
+reading of my boyhood had made the American republic, to me, the noblest
+administration of freemen in the history of government and the exercise
+of its franchise literally the highest dignity of human privilege. I
+would have been as proud--I was as proud when the day came--to vote
+for the President of the United States as he could have been to take his
+oath of office. I do not believe that any poor serf, escaped from the
+tyranny of Russia, ever saw the American shore with a more grateful eye
+than I looked to the prospect of being admitted, with the citizens of
+Utah, into the enfranchisement of the Republic.
+
+But it was evident that the Church's recession from polygamy would not
+be enough to free us, so long as its control of politics remained. Its
+other practices had flourished and been sheltered under its political
+power; and now that the Church had ceased to be a lawbreaker, our
+friends in Washington were properly expecting that it would cease to
+interfere with its members in the exercise of their citizenship. For
+this reason, when I was notified that I had been selected as a member of
+the advisory committee of the People's Party (the Church party), I went
+at once to my father and told him that I would not take the place; that
+I intended to work, personally, and through my newspaper, for the
+political division of Utah on the lines of the national parties. He held
+that until Gentile solidarity was dissolved, it would be dangerous to
+divide the allegiance of the Mormons; but he did not stand against my
+protest; he contented himself--diplomatically--with sending me to
+consult with President Woodruff and Joseph F. Smith.
+
+To them, I argued that the political emancipation of the Mormon people
+from ecclesiastical direction was as necessary as the recession from
+polygamy had been. We must be set free to perform our duty to the
+country solely as citizens of the country, before we could expect to be
+given the right to perform it at all. And, for my part, the only action
+I would consent to take as a member of the advisory committee of the
+People's Party would be to vote for the dissolution of the party.
+
+President Woodruff referred me to my father, and advised me to be guided
+by him. Joseph F. Smith urged that a division of the Mormon people on
+national party lines would enable the Liberal (the Gentile) party to
+march in between. I argued in reply that we must divide at some time,
+and the sooner the better, since every year was increasing the Gentile
+population. They would never split as long as we remained solid. And if
+we were ever to be permitted to nationalize ourselves, it would not be
+until we had dissolved the party organizations whose very names were a
+proof of the continued rule of the Church in politics.
+
+When he had no more arguments to advance, he gave a reluctant assent to
+mine. I reported back to my father and he approved of my plans. He asked
+me humorously with whom I expected to affiliate, since he knew of no one
+who was likely to go with me; but I could see that he was pleased with
+my independence and hoped I might succeed in doing something to break
+the deadlock-grapple of Mormon and Gentile that held Utah apart from the
+rest of the country in politics.
+
+His humorous idea of my undertaking gave its color to my beginnings. It
+was rather a spirited adventure, as I look back upon it now. When we
+organized a Republican Club at Ogden, my intimate friend, Ben E. Rich,
+and another friend named Joseph Belnap, were the only Mormons, so far as
+I know, who joined me in becoming members. Outside of us three, I did
+not know of another Mormon Republican in the whole territory.
+
+Indeed, the status of the Mormon people, in their fancied relation to
+the two great parties of the country, was almost identical with that of
+the people of the South after the Civil War. Practically every Mormon
+believed himself to be a Democrat. Among the young men of the Church
+there had been occasional attempts to form Democratic Clubs. Mr. John T.
+Caine, delegate in Congress from the territory, was a Democrat. My
+father had sat on the Democratic side of the House. Almost all the men
+who had braved the sentiments of their own states, to speak for us in
+Congress, had been Democrats. And, of course, the administration of the
+laws that had been so cruel to the feelings of the Mormons had been in
+Republican hands.
+
+Two years earlier, in Ogden, I had spoken in a meeting of Republicans
+that had been called to rejoice over the election of Benjamin Harrison
+to the Presidency; and I was still being taunted by my Mormon friends
+with having clasped hands with "the persecutors of the Prophets." When I
+came out, now, as an advocate of Republicanism, I was met everywhere
+with this charge--that I had joined the enemies of the Church, that I
+was assisting the persecutors of my father. The fact that my father
+approved of what I was doing, relieved the seriousness of the situation
+for me; and the humorous assistance of Ben Rich in our political
+evangelism gave a secret chuckle to many of the incidents of our
+campaign.
+
+We went from town to town, from district to district, up the mountain
+valleys, across the plains, into mining camps and farming communities--
+using the meeting-houses, the school-rooms, the town halls--taking the
+afternoon to coax the tired workers of the fields or of the mines to
+come and hear us in the evening, and watching them fall asleep in the
+light of our borrowed kerosene lamps while we talked. They came eagerly.
+Indeed, my own ambition for citizenship--for a right to participate in
+the affairs of the nation--was probably no keener than theirs; and they
+had an innocent curiosity about the questions of national politics, of
+which they had never before been invited to know anything. They listened
+almost devoutly.
+
+"Brethren and sisters," a bishop exhorted them at a meeting in which one
+of our party was to speak, "we have come to listen to this man, and I
+hope we will be guided in all our reflections by the Spirit of God and
+that we will do nothing to offend that Spirit. Let there be no
+commotion, no whispering, and, above all, no hand clapping."
+
+In a life that had as few diversions as theirs, a political meeting was
+an exciting event. The whole family came, and the mothers brought their
+babies. Surely in no other American community did politics ever have
+such a homely and serious consideration. Certainly no other community
+would have so quickly understood the theories of the two parties or
+accepted them so implicitly.
+
+But it was all theory! I recognize, now, that I preached a Republicanism
+that was an ideal of what it should be, rather than any modern faith of
+the "practical politician." I had gathered it from my reading, from
+hearing the speeches in Congress, from sympathetic conferences with the
+great men who were responsible for the dogmas of the party; and every
+assurance of grace that their ability could give and my credulity
+accept, I proclaimed religiously as a political salvation to our people.
+I built up an ideal, and then judged the party thereafter according to
+the measure of that ideal. When I found that some of the charges against
+the Republican party were true--charges which I had indignantly
+repelled--I was as shocked as any pious worshipper who ever found that
+his idol had feet of clay. Our people, having accepted the faith with as
+simple a hope as it was offered, were as easily turned from it when they
+found that it was false. The political moods of Utah, for its first few
+years of statehood, were a puzzle to the "practical" leaders of the
+parties; but to us who understood the impulses of honesty that moved the
+changes, things were as clear as they were encouraging.
+
+During the previous summer in Washington, I had met General James S.
+Clarkson, then president of the National League of Republican Clubs; and
+now, on his invitation, in the Spring of 1891, Rich and I went to
+Louisville to speak before the national convention of the league.
+Through the kindness of General Clarkson, I was given the official
+recognition of a perfunctory place on the executive committee of the
+league's national committee, and came into touch with many of the party
+leaders. It was about this time, I imagine, that they conceived the idea
+of using the gratitude of the Mormons in order to carry Utah and the
+surrounding states in which the Mormon vote might constitute a balance
+of political power. I know that the idea was old and established when I
+came upon it, in 1894, during the campaign for statehood. As I also
+found, still later, the Republican leaders and the business interests
+with which they were in relation, had their eyes on a distant prospect
+of fabulous financial schemes in which the secret funds of the Church
+were to help in the building of railroads and the promoting of other
+enterprises of associated capital. But at the time of which I am
+writing, I had not had sufficient experience to suspect the motives of
+the men who encouraged our work in Utah; and I accepted in good faith
+their public declarations that the sole aim of the party was to serve
+the needs of the people of the United States--and therefore of the
+people of Utah!
+
+It seemed to me that such a noble principle should win the support of
+Mormon and Gentile alike, and it was on this principle that I appealed
+for the support of both. I was so sure of winning with it that I
+resented and fought against the aid of the Church that came to us as our
+campaign succeeded.
+
+The People's Party (the Church Party) had been dissolved (June, 1891) by
+the formal action of the executive committee, under the direct
+instruction of the leaders of the Church. The tendency was for its
+members to organize themselves immediately as a Democratic party. They
+were led by such brilliant and trusted defenders of the Church as
+Franklin S. Richards, Chas. C. Richards, Wm. H. King, James H. Moyle,
+Brigham H. Roberts and Apostle Moses Thatcher; and a group of abler
+advocates could not have been found in any state in the Union. It was
+against the sentiment of the Mormon people, vivified by such inspiring
+Democracy as these men taught, that our little organization of
+Republicans had to make headway; and an anxiety began to show itself
+among the Church authorities for a less unequal division, and
+consequently a greater appearance of political independence, among the
+faithful.
+
+Apostle John Henry Smith came out as a Republican stump speaker in
+rivalry with Moses Thatcher, the Democratic Prophet. Joseph F. Smith
+announced himself a Republican descendant of Whigs. Apostle Francis
+Marion Lyman, in his religious ministrations, counselled leading brethren
+to withhold themselves from the Democratic party unless they had gone
+too far to retreat. Men of ecclesiastical office in various parts of the
+territory--who were regarded as being safe in their wisdom and fidelity--
+were urged to hold themselves and their influence in reserve for such
+use on either side of politics as the future might demand.
+
+Against this ecclesiastical direction of the people's choice, I objected
+again and again to the Presidency, and my objections seemed to meet with
+acquiescence. It required no prescience on my part to foresee that the
+growing dislike and distrust of Moses Thatcher at Church headquarters
+would lead to a strife in the Church that might be carried into our
+politics; and I knew how small would be the hope of preserving any
+political independence, if once it were involved in the intrigues of
+priests and their rivalries for a supremacy of influence among the
+people. I was resolved that not even a Church, ruling by "divine right,"
+should interpose between my country and my franchise; and an
+encroachment that I would not permit upon my own freedom, I would not
+help to inflict upon others.
+
+The men with whom I had been working proposed me as the candidate for
+Congress of the new Utah Republicans; and I was supported by a strong
+delegation from my own country and from other parts of the territory;
+but I found that I was not "satisfactory" to some of the Mormon leaders,
+and in the convention (1892) Apostle John Henry Smith and my cousin
+George M. Cannon led in an attempt to nominate Judge Chas. Bennett, a
+Gentile lawyer. After a bitter fight of two days and nights, we carried
+the convention against them, and I was nominated.
+
+The Democrats selected, as their candidate, one of the strongest
+characters in the territory, Joseph L. Rawlins. He was the son of a
+Mormon bishop, but he had left the Church immediately upon reaching
+manhood. He was a great lawyer, a staunch Democrat, and wonderfully
+popular. There followed one of the swiftest and most exciting campaigns
+ever seen in Utah. The whole people rose to it with enthusiasm. Our
+party chairman, Chas. Crane, had a genius for organization; our speakers
+drew crowded meetings; and though charges of Church influence were made
+by both sides, the question of religion was no longer the one that
+divided Utah.
+
+We were getting on famously, when an incident occurred that was at once
+disastrous and salutary. While I was away from headquarters, stumping
+the districts, Chairman Crane (who was a Gentile), Ben Rich and Joseph
+F. Smith, issued a pamphlet in Republican behalf called "Nuggets of
+Truth." It gave a picture of Joseph Smith, the original Prophet, on the
+first page and a picture of me on the last one. (They issued also a
+certificate, obtained by Joseph F. Smith and given out by him, that I
+was a Mormon "in good standing.") As soon as I heard of the matter, I
+wired Chairman Crane that unless the pamphlet were immediately
+withdrawn, I should return to Salt Lake City and publicly denounce such
+methods. It was withdrawn, but the damage was done, I was defeated, as I
+deserved to be--though I was the innocent victim of the atrocity--and
+Mr. Rawlins was elected.
+
+The campaign proved, however, that if the Church leaders would only keep
+their hands off, there was ample strength in either party to make a
+presentation of national issues of sufficient appeal to divide the
+people on party lines; and it was evident that the people would choose
+the party that made the best showing of principles and candidates.
+"Nuggets of Truth " left us with a nasty sense that at no hour were we
+assured of safety from ecclesiastical interference--or the nefarious
+attempt to make an appearance of such interference--in our political
+affairs. But the disaster that followed, in this instance, was so prompt
+that we could hope it would prove a lesson.
+
+Most important of all, the campaign had made it evident that there was
+now no political mission in Utah for the Liberal (the Gentile) party--
+assuming that the retirement of the Mormon priests from politics was
+sincere and permanent. Accordingly, the organization formally met some
+months later, and formally dissolved; and, by that act, the last great
+obstacle to united progress was removed from our road to statehood, and
+the men who removed it acted with a generosity that makes one of the
+noblest records of self-sacrifice in the history of the state.
+
+They could foresee that their dissolution as a separate force meant
+statehood for Utah--a sovereignty in itself that would leave the
+Gentiles in the minority and without any appeal to the nation. Under
+territorial conditions, although the non-Mormons were less than
+one-third of the population, they had two-thirds of the political power.
+They held all the Federal offices, including executive and judicial
+positions. They had the Governor, with an absolute veto over the acts of
+the Mormon legislature. They had the President and Congress who could
+annul any statute of the territory; and they had with them almost the
+entire sentiment of the nation. It was in their power to have protracted
+the Mormon controversy, and to have withstood the appeal for statehood,
+to this day.
+
+They yielded everything; they accepted, in return, only the good faith
+of the Mormons. Was it within the capacity of any human mind to foresee
+that in return for such generosity the Church would ever give over its
+tabernacles to teaching its people to hold in detestation the very,
+names of these men who saved us? Was it to be suspected that the
+political power surrendered by them would ever be used as a persecution
+upon them?--that the liberty, given by them to us, would ever afterward
+be denied them by us? It was inconceivable. Neither in the magnanimity
+of their minds nor in the gratitude of ours was there a suspicion of
+such a catastrophe.
+
+During 1891, President Woodruff's manifesto had been ratified in local
+Church conferences in every "stake of Zion;" and a second General
+Conference had endorsed it in October of that year. President Woodruff,
+Councillor Joseph F. Smith and Apostle Lorenzo Snow went before the
+Federal Master in Chancery--in a proceeding to regain possession of
+escheated Church property--and swore that the manifesto had prohibited
+plural marriages, that it required a cessation of all plural marriage
+living, and that it was being obeyed by the Mormon people. These facts
+were recited in a petition for amnesty forwarded to President Harrison
+in December, 1891, accompanied by signed statements from Chief Justice
+Zane, Governor Thomas and other non-Mormons who pledged themselves that
+the petitioners were sincere and that if amnesty were granted good faith
+would be kept. "Our people are scattered," President Woodruff and his
+apostles declared in their petition. "Homes are made desolate. Many are
+still imprisoned; others are banished and in hiding. Our hearts bleed
+for these. In the past they followed our counsels, and while they are
+still afflicted our souls are in sackcloth and ashes.... As
+shepherds of a patient and suffering people we ask amnesty for them and
+pledge our faith and honor for their future."
+
+At Washington, the Church's attorney, Mr. Franklin S. Richards, and
+delegate John T. Caine supported the petition with their avowals of the
+sincerity of the Church leaders, the genuineness of our political
+division, and the sanctity with which we regarded the promise to obey
+the laws. The Utah Commission, a non-Mormon body, favored amnesty in an
+official report of September, 1892. And when I went to Washington, in
+the winter of 1892-3, the changed attitude of the Federal authorities
+toward us was strikingly evident.
+
+President Harrison issued his amnesty proclamation, early in January,
+1893, to all persons liable to the penalties of the Edmunds-Tucker Act,
+but "on the express condition that they shall in the future faithfully
+obey the laws of the United States ... and not otherwise." The
+proclamation concluded: "Those who fail to avail themselves of the
+clemency hereby offered will be vigorously prosecuted." Not a polygamist
+in Utah, to my knowledge, declined to take advantage of the mercy, by
+refusing the expressly implied pledge.
+
+Meanwhile the campaign had been continued for the return of the
+escheated Church property and for the passage of an Enabling Act that
+should permit the territory to organize for statehood.
+
+[FOOTNOTE: Statehood seemed still very faraway. There was a Trans-
+Mississippi Congress held at Ogden in 1892, and though the delegates--
+coming from all the states and territories "west of the river," were the
+guests of the people of Utah, so hopeless was our status in the
+consideration of mankind that the delegates from the territories of New
+Mexico and Arizona would not let our names be joined to theirs in a
+resolution for statehood which we wished the committee on resolutions to
+propose to the Congress. Governor Prince of New Mexico replied, to our
+plea for a share in the resolution, that he did not intend to damn New
+Mexico by having her mixed up with Utah. We appealed to the Congress,
+and we were saved by a speech made by Thos. M. Patterson of Colorado,
+subsequently senator from Colorado, who carried the day for us. At a
+recent Trans-Mississippi Congress held in Denver, I sat with ex-Senator
+Patterson to hear Mr. Prince still proposing resolutions in support of
+statehood for New Mexico. Twenty years later!] Joseph L. Rawlins,
+Democratic delegate from Utah, worked valiantly among the Democrats, and
+he was assisted by the influence of Mr. Franklin S. Richards and John T.
+Caine and others among their old associates in that party. But, in the
+very midst of the fight, we were advised that, unless the Republican
+leaders would let the Enabling Act go through, the Democratic leaders
+would falter in our advocacy.
+
+I had been urged to go to Washington by the Presidency to do what I
+might to allay Republican antagonism, and I found that a number of
+self-appointed lobbyists (who expected political preferment's and other
+rewards from the Church in the event of statehood) had been using the
+most amazing arguments in our behalf. For example, they told some of the
+"financial Senators" that the Church had fourteen million dollars in
+secret funds with which to help build a railroad to the coast as soon as
+statehood should be granted. They cited the number of the Church's
+adherents in all the states and territories of the Pacific Coast and as
+far east as Iowa and Missouri, and predicted that the gratitude of these
+people to the Republicans who were helping to free Utah would enable the
+Republican party to control a balance of political power in the several
+states. They declared positively that plural marriages and plural
+marriage living had utterly ceased among the Mormons for all time. And
+they made such statements with great particularity to Senator Orville H.
+Platt, of Connecticut, who was too wise a man to credit them.
+
+As soon as I returned to Washington, he summoned me to a private
+meeting, in his parlor in the Arlington Hotel, and confronted me with
+one of the Republican lobbyists who had been soliciting his personal
+favor and his almost controlling influence. "Now, Mr. Cannon," he said,
+in his dry way, "have the Mormons stopped living with their plural
+wives? And will there never be another case of plural marriage among
+them?"
+
+I remembered the lesson of my interview with him at the time of the
+campaign against the disfranchisement bill, and I answered: "No. Not all
+the men of the Church have complied fully with the law. So far as I
+know, all the general authorities of the Church--with two or three
+exceptions--are fulfilling the covenant they gave; and so far as I can
+judge there will never be another plural marriage ceremony with the
+consent or connivance of the leaders of the Church. But human nature is
+very much the same in Utah as it is in Connecticut. Here and there, no
+doubt, a man feels that he's under an obligation to keep his covenant
+with his plural wives in preference to the covenant of his accepted
+amnesty; and there and here, possibly, in the future, some man will
+break the law and defy the orders of the Church and take a plural wife.
+But the leaders of the Church do not countenance either proceeding, and
+any man who violates the law, in either respect, offends against the
+revelations of the Church and, I believe, will be dealt with as an
+apostate. I come direct from the Presidency of the Church, and I am
+authorized to pledge their word of honor that they will themselves obey
+the law and do all in their power as men and leaders to bring their
+people into harmony with the institutions of this country as rapidly as
+possible."
+
+Senator Platt had slowly unwrapped himself, rising from his chair to
+his full height of more than six feet, in a lank and alarming
+indignation. "There," he said, striding up and down the room. "That's
+it! That's just it. These people have been telling us that you were
+obeying the law--all of you--in every instance--and would always obey
+it. And now you come here and admit, openly, that some of you, to whom
+we have granted amnesty, are breaking your word--and that 'possibly'
+others, in the future, will do the same thing!"
+
+"Senator," I pleaded, "what confidence could you have in me if I were to
+tell you the Mormons were so superhuman that in a single day they could
+eliminate all their human characteristics? I'm asking you to recognize
+that the tendency imparted to a whole community is more important than
+any one man's breach of the law. Believe me, if you grant us our
+statehood, there will never be any lawbreaking sanctioned or protected
+by the Church leaders, and just as speedily as possible the entire
+system will be brought into harmony with the institutions of the nation.
+I'm telling you the truth."
+
+He turned on me to ask, abruptly, how the polygamists had adjusted their
+family affairs.
+
+I answered that in nearly all cases within my personal knowledge, the
+polygamist had relinquished conjugal relations with his plural wives
+with the full acquiescence of them and their children. He supported
+them, cared for the children, and in all other ways acted as the
+guardian and protector of the household. In a few cases men had gone, to
+an extreme. For instance, my uncle, Angus M. Cannon--president of the
+Salt Lake "stake of Zion," a man of most decided character--had
+declared that he had entered into his marriage relations with his wives
+under a covenant that gave them equality in his regards; and in order
+that he might not wound the sensibilities of any, he had separated
+himself from all.
+
+I reminded Senator Platt that with such examples on the part of the
+leaders, there could be no general law-breaking among the Mormons, and
+that gradually the polygamous element would accommodate itself to the
+demands of law and the commands of God.
+
+He waved us away with a curt announcement that he would have to think
+the matter over. If I had not known the essential justice and common
+sense under his dry and irascible exterior, I might have been alarmed.
+The lobbyist's concern was almost comic. As soon as we were out of
+hearing of the Senator's apartment, shaking both fists frantically at
+me, he cried: "You've ruined everything! We had him. We had him--all
+right--until you came down here and let the cat out of the bag! You knew
+what we'd been telling him. Why didn't you stick to it?"
+
+I replied with equal warmth: "You may lie all you please; but if we have
+to win Utah's statehood with lies I don't want it. Senator Platt has
+been generous to us in our time of need, and I don't intend to deceive
+him--or any other man."
+
+As a matter of fact, this was not only common honesty; it was also the
+best policy. Senator Platt was, from that time to the day of his death,
+a good friend and wise counselor of the people of Utah. And I wish to
+lay particular stress upon this conversation with him, because it was a
+type of many had with such men as he. Fred T. Dubois, delegate in
+Congress from the territory of Idaho and subsequently Senator from that
+state, had been perhaps the strongest single opponent, in Washington, of
+the Mormon Church; he took our promises of honor, as Senator Platt did,
+and he pacified Senator Cullom, Senator Pettigrew and many others among
+our antagonists, who afterwards told me that they had accepted the
+pledges given by Senator Dubois in our behalf.
+
+They recognized that the Church and the community ought not to be held
+responsible for a few possible cases of individual resistance or
+offense, so long as there should be a strict adherence by the Church and
+its leaders to their personal and community covenant. I emphasize the
+nature of this generous appreciation of our difficulties, because the
+present-day polygamists in Utah claim that there was a "tacit
+understanding," between the statesmen in Washington and the agents of
+the Church, to the effect that the polygamists of that time might
+continue to live with their plural wives. This is not true. There never
+was any such understanding, to my knowledge. And there could not have
+been one, in the circumstances, without my knowledge. For though I did
+not know what delegate Rawlins, and former delegate Caine, and our
+attorney, Mr. Richards, were saying in their private interviews with
+senators and congressmen, I know that in all the frequent conversations
+I had with them I never heard an intimation of any "tacit understanding"
+beyond the one which I have defined.
+
+For my part I was more than eager to have all our political disabilities
+removed, the Church property restored, and the right of statehood
+accorded--believing implicitly in the sincerity of the Mormon leaders.
+I knew President Woodruff too well to doubt the pellacid character of
+his mind and purpose. I knew from my father's personal assurance--and
+from his constant practice from that time to the day of his death--that
+he was acting in good faith. I knew that the community was gladly
+following where these men led. I saw no slightest indication that any
+reactionary policy was likely to be entered upon in Utah, or that our
+people would accept it if it were.
+
+The Church's personal property was restored by an Act of Congress
+approved October 25, 1893, but it was stipulated in the Act that the
+money was not to be used for the support of any church buildings in
+which "the rightfulness of the practice of polygamy" should be taught.
+Similarly, when the Enabling Act was approved, in July 16, 1894, it,
+too, provided that "polygamous or plural marriage" was forever
+prohibited. A constitutional convention was held at Salt Lake City under
+the provisions of that act, and a constitution was adopted in which it
+was provided that "polygamous or plural marriages" were forever
+prohibited, that the territorial laws against polygamy were to be
+continued in force, that there should be "no union of church and state,"
+and that no church should "dominate the state or interfere with its
+functions." Upon no other basis would the nation have granted us our
+statehood; and we accepted the grant, knowing the expressed condition
+involved in that acceptance.
+
+But there was one other gift that came to us from the nation--by
+Congressional enactment and later by Utah statute as a consequence of
+statehood; and that gift was the legitimizing of every child born of
+plural marriage before January, 1896. The solemn benignity of the
+concession touched me, as it must have touched many, to the very heart
+of gratitude. By it, ten thousand children were taken from the outer
+darkness of this world's conventional exclusion and placed within the
+honored relations of mankind. It was a tribute to the purity and
+sincerity of the Mormon women who had borne the cross of plural
+marriage, believing that God had commanded their suffering. It
+recognized the holy nature and honorable intent of the marriages of
+these women, by according their children every right of legal
+inheritance from their fathers. If all other covenants could be
+forgotten and their proof obliterated, this should remain as Utah's
+pledge of honor--sacred for the sake of the Mormon mothers, holy in the
+name of the uplifted child.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+
+
+The Goal--And After
+
+
+
+Here we were then (as I saw the situation) assured of our statehood, rid
+of polygamy, relieved of religious control in politics, and free to
+devote our energies to the development of the land and the industries
+and the business of the community. The persecutions that our people had
+borne had schooled them to co-operation. They were ready, helping one
+another, to advance together to a common prosperity. They were under the
+leadership chiefly of the man who had guided them out of a most
+desperate condition of oppression toward the freedom of sovereign
+self-government. In that progress he had saved everything that was
+worthy in the Mormon communism; he had discarded much that was a curse.
+I knew that he had no thought but for the welfare of the people; and
+with such a man, leading such a following, we seemed certain of a future
+that should be an example to the world.
+
+But both the Church and the people had been involved in debt by
+confiscation and proscription; and it was necessary now to free
+ourselves financially. This work my father undertook in behalf of the
+Presidency--for the President of the Mormon Church is not only the
+Prophet, Seer and Revelator of God to the faithful; he is also "the
+trustee in trust" of all the Church's material property. He is the
+controller, almost the owner, of everything it owns. He is as sacred in
+his financial as in his religious absolutism. He is accountable to no
+one, The Church auditors, whom he appoints, concern themselves merely
+with the details of bookkeeping. The millions of dollars that are paid
+to him, by the people in tithes, are used by him as he sees fit to use
+them; and the annual contributors to this "common fund" would no more
+question his administration of it than they would question the ways of
+divinity.
+
+In the early days there had been a strongly animating idea that among
+the divinely-authorized duties of leadership was the obligation to
+develop the natural resources of the country in order to meet the
+people's needs. As the immigrants poured into Utah, these needs
+increased; and the Church leaders used the Church funds to develop coal
+and iron mines, support salt gardens, build a railway, establish a sugar
+factory (for which the people, through the legislature, voted a bounty),
+conduct a beach resort, and aid a hundred other enterprises that
+promised to be for the public good. These undertakings were not financed
+for profit. They were semi-socialistic in their establishment and
+half-benevolent in their administration.
+
+But during "the days of the raid" they were neglected, because the
+Church was involved in debt. And now it became pressingly necessary to
+obtain money to restore the moribund industries and to meet the payments
+that were continually falling due upon loans made to the Presidency.
+President Woodruff called on me to aid in the work. So I came into touch
+with a development of events that did not seem to me, then, of any great
+importance; yet it drew as its consequence a connection between the
+Mormon Church and the great financial "interests" of the East--a
+connection that is one of the strong determining causes of the
+perversion of government and denial of political liberty in Utah today.
+
+I wish, here, simply to foreshadow, this connection. It will reappear in
+the story again and again; and it is necessary to have the significance
+of the recurrence understood in advance. But, at the time of which I
+write, there was no more than an innocent approach on our part to
+Eastern financiers to obtain money for the Church and to concentrate our
+debts in the hands of two or three New York banks.
+
+For example, the Church had loaned to, or endorsed for, the Utah Sugar
+Company to the amount of $325,000; and my father had personally endorsed
+the general obligations for this and other sums, although he owned only
+$5,000 of the company's stock. He supported the factory with his
+personal credit and assumed the risk of loss (without any corresponding
+possibility of gain) in order to benefit the whole people by encouraging
+the beet sugar industry. A vain attempt had been made to sell the bonds
+in New York. Finally, the Church bought all the bonds of the company for
+$325,000 (of a face value of $400,000), and we sold them, for the
+Church, to Mr. Joseph Bannigan, the "rubber king," of Providence, Rhode
+Island, for $360,000, with the guarantee of the First Presidency, the
+trustee of the Church, and myself.
+
+Similarly, the First Presidency led in building an electric power plant
+in Ogden, after Chas. K. Bannister, a great engineer, and myself had
+persuaded the members of the Presidency that the work would benefit the
+community. The bonds of this company, too, were bought by Mr. Bannigan,
+with the guarantee of the trustee of the Church, the Presidency and
+myself. Both the power plant and the sugar factory were financially
+successful. They performed a large public service beneficently. The fact
+that Mr. Bannigan held their bonds was no detriment to their work and
+wrought no injury to the people.
+
+I single out these two enterprises because Joseph F. Smith has since
+sold the power plant to the "Harriman interests," and the control of the
+sugar factory to the sugar trust; and he has explained that in making
+the sales he merely followed my father's example and mine in selling the
+bonds to Mr. Bannigan. The power plant is now a part of the merger
+called the Utah Light and Railway Company, which has a monopoly right in
+all the streets of Salt Lake City and its suburbs, besides owning the
+electric power and light plants of Salt Lake City and Ogden, the gas
+plants of both these cities, and the natural gas wells and pipe lines
+supplying them. The Mormon people whose tithes aided these properties--
+whose good-will maintained them--whose leaders designed them as a
+community work for a community benefit--these people are now being
+mercilessly exploited by the Eastern "interests" to whom the Prophet of
+the Church has sold them bodily. The difference between selling the
+bonds of the sugar company to Bannigan, in order to raise money to
+support the factory, and selling half the stock to the sugar trust, in
+order to make a monopoly profit out of the Mormon consumers of sugar,
+has either not occurred to Smith or has been divinely waived by him.
+
+However, this is by the way and in advance of my story. In 1894 we had
+no more fear of the Eastern money power than we had of the return of the
+Church to politics or to polygamy. Throughout 1893 and 1894 I was
+engaged in the work of re-establishing the Church's business affairs
+with my father and a sort of finance committee of which the other two
+members were Colonel N. W. Clayton, of Salt Lake City, and Mr. James
+Jack, the cashier of the Church. In the summer of 1894 I heard various
+rumors that when Utah should gain its statehood, my father would
+probably be a candidate for the United States Senate. Since this would
+be a palpable breach of the Church's agreement to keep out of politics,
+I took occasion--one day, on a railroad journey--to ask him if he
+intended to be a candidate.
+
+He told me that he was being urged to stand for the Senatorship, but
+that for his part he had no desire to do so; and he asked me what I
+thought about it. I replied that if I had felt it was right for him to
+take the office and he desired it, I would walk barefoot across the
+continent to aid him. But I reminded him of the pledges which he and I
+had made repeatedly--on our own behalf, in the name of his associates
+in leadership, and on the honor of the Mormon people--to subdue
+thereafter the causes of the controversy that had divided Mormon and
+Gentile in Utah. He replied with an emphatic assurance of his purpose to
+keep those pledges, and dismissed the subject with a finality that left
+no doubt in my mind.
+
+I know that he might have desired the Senatorship as a public
+vindication, since, in the old days of quarrel, he had been legislated
+out of his place in the House of Representatives; and, for the first and
+only time in my life, I undertook to philosophize some comfort for him--
+out of the fact that to the position of authority which he held in Utah
+a Senatorship was a descent. He replied dryly: "I understand, my son--
+perfectly." The fact was that he needed no comfort from me or any other
+human being. He seemed all--sufficient to himself, because of the
+abiding sense he had of the constant presence of God and his habit of
+communing with that Spirit, instead of seeking human intercourse or
+earthly counsel. He did not need my affection. He did not need, much
+less seek, the approbation of any man. In the events to which this
+conversation was a prelude, he acted without explaining himself to me or
+to anyone else, and apparently without caring in the slightest what my
+opinion or any other man's might be of his course or of the motives that
+prompted it.
+
+Some months later, in the office of the Presidency (at a business
+meeting with him, Colonel Clayton and Joseph F. Smith), I excused myself
+from attending any further sittings of the committee for that day,
+because I had to go to Provo to receive the Republican nomination for
+Congress.
+
+My father said: "I am sorry to hear it. I thought Judge Zane--or
+someone else would be nominated. I wished you to be free to help with
+these business matters. Why have you not consulted us?"
+
+I reminded him that I had told him, some weeks before, that I expected
+to be nominated for Congress this year--and that I was practically
+certain, if elected, of going to the Senate when we were granted
+statehood. "I talked with you, then, as my father," I said. "But I'm
+sure you'll remember that I have not consulted you as a leader of the
+Church, or any of your colleagues as leaders of the Church, on the
+subject of partisan politics since the People's Party was dissolved."
+
+He accepted this mild declaration of political independence without
+protest, and I went to Provo, happily, a free man. The Republicans
+nominated me by acclamation, and the chairman of the committee that came
+to offer me the nomination was Colonel Wm. Nelson, then managing editor
+of the Salt Lake Tribune, a Gentile, a former leader of the Liberal
+Party, an opponent of Mormonism as practiced, who had fought the Church
+hierarchy for years. Here was a new evidence that we were now beyond the
+old quarrels--a further guarantee that we were prepared to take our
+place among the states of the Union, free of parochialism and its
+sectarian enmities.
+
+The campaign gave every proof of such political emancipation. The people
+divided, on national party lines, as completely as any American
+community in my experience. The Democrats, having nominated Joseph L.
+Rawlins, had the prestige that he had gained in helping to pass the
+Enabling Act; a Democratic administration was in power in Washington;
+Apostle Moses Thatcher, Brigham H. Roberts, and other members of the
+Church inspired the old loyalty of the Mormons for the Democracy. But
+the Republicans had been re-enforced by the dissolution of the Liberal
+Party, whose last preceding candidate (Mr. Clarence E. Allen) went on
+the stump for us. The Smith jealousy of Moses Thatcher divided the
+Church influence; and though charges of ecclesiastical interference were
+made on both sides, such interference was personal rather than official.
+Mr. Rawlins was defeated, and I was elected delegate in Congress from
+the territory--with the United States Senatorship practically assured
+to me.
+
+In the spring of 1895 the constitutional convention at Salt Lake City
+formulated a provisional constitution for the new Utah; and, in the Fall
+of the year, a general election was held to adopt this constitution and
+to elect officers who should enter upon their duties as soon as Utah
+became a state. The election was marked by a most significant and
+important incident.
+
+The Democrats, in their convention, nominated for Congress, Brigham H.
+Roberts, one of the first seven "presidents of the seventy," and for the
+United States Senate, Joseph L. Rawlins and Apostle Moses Thatcher.
+Immediately, at a priesthood meeting of the hierarchy, Joseph F. Smith
+denounced the candidacies of Roberts and Thatcher; and the grounds for
+the denunciation were subsequently stated in the "political manifesto"
+of April, 1896, in which the First Presidency announced, as a rule of
+the Church, that no official of the Church should accept a political
+nomination until he had obtained the permission of the Church
+authorities and had learned from them whether he could "consistently
+with the obligations already entered into with the Church, take upon
+himself the added duties and labors and responsibilities of the new
+position."
+
+This action, I knew, was the result of the old jealousy of Thatcher
+which the Smiths had so long nursed. But it was also in line with the
+Church's pledge, to keep its leaders out of politics. By it, the
+hierarchy bound themselves and set the people free. The leaders,
+thereafter, according to their own "manifesto," could not enter politics
+without the consent of their quorums; and, therefore, by any American
+doctrine, they could not enter politics at all. Thatcher and Roberts
+revolted against the inhibition as an infringement of their rights as
+citizens, and it was so construed by the whole Democratic party; but
+everyone knew that a Mormon apostle had no rights as a citizen that were
+not second to his Church allegiance, and the political manifesto simply
+made public the fact of such subservience, authoritatively. We
+Republicans welcomed it, with our eyes on the future freedom of politics
+in Utah; Thatcher and Roberts refused to accept the dictation of their
+quorums, and what was practically an "edict of apostasy" went out
+against them. They were defeated. The Republican candidates (Heber M.
+Wells, as governor, and Clarence B. Allen, as member of Congress) were
+elected. Thatcher, subsequently refusing to accept the "political
+manifesto," was deposed from his apostolic authority, and deprived of
+all priesthood in the Church. Roberts recanted and was reconciled with
+the hierarchy.
+
+[FOOTNOTE: He was afterwards elected to the House of Representatives
+and was refused his seat as a polygamist.]
+
+The Republicans elected forty-three out of sixty-three members of the
+legislature, and everyone of these had been pledged to support me, for
+the United States Senate, either by his convention, or by letter to me,
+or by a promise conveyed to me by friends; and none of these pledges had
+I solicited.
+
+The rumors of my father's candidacy now became more general--although
+he was a Democrat, although the new "political manifesto" bound him,
+although it was doubtful whether the Senate would allow him to be
+seated. Two influences were urging his election. One was the desire of
+the Smith faction to have the First Councillor break the ice at
+Washington for Apostle John Henry Smith, who was ambitious to be a
+Senator and was disqualified by the fact that he was a Church leader and
+a polygamist. The other was the desire of some Eastern capitalists to
+have my father's vote in the Senate to aid them in the promotion of a
+railroad from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. A preliminary agreement for
+the construction of the road had already been signed by men who
+represented that they had close affiliations with large steel interests
+in the East, as one party, and my father as business representative of a
+group of associates, including the Presidency of the Church. The
+Church's interest in the project was communistic, and so was my
+father's. But his vote and influence in the Senate would be valuable to
+the promotion of the undertaking, and he had received written assurances
+from Republican leaders, senators and politicians, that if he were
+elected he would be allowed his seat.
+
+As a result of our Republican success in the two political campaigns
+that had just ended, I felt that I represented the independent votes of
+both Mormons and Gentiles; and I decided to confront the First
+Presidency (as such a representative) and try to make them declare
+themselves in the matter of my father's candidacy. Not that I thought
+his candidacy would be so vitally important for I did not then believe
+the Church authorities had power to sway the legislature away from its
+pledges. But every day, at home or abroad, I was being asked: "Are you
+sure that the Church's retirement from politics is sincere?" My friends
+were accepting my word, and I wished to add certainty to assurance that
+the Church leaders intended to fulfill the covenant of their personal
+honor and respect the constitution of the state by keeping out of
+politics.
+
+Without letting them know why I wished to see them, I procured an
+appointment for the interview. When we were all seated at the table I
+explained: "I'm going to Washington to attend to my duties as delegate
+in Congress. Before I return, Utah will be admitted to statehood, and
+the legislature will have to elect two United States Senators. As you
+all know, I've been a candidate for one of these places. It has been
+assured to me by the probably unanimous vote of the Republican caucus
+when it shall convene." I laid my clenched hand on the table, knuckles
+down, with a calculated abruptness. "The first senatorship from Utah is
+there," I said.
+
+"If it's to be disturbed by any ecclesiastical direction, I want to know
+it now, so that the men who are supporting me may be aware of what they
+must encounter if they persist in their support. I ask you, as the
+Presidency of the Church: what are you going to do about the
+Senatorship?" And I opened my hand and left it lying open before them,
+for their decision.
+
+It was evident enough, from their expressions, that this was a degree of
+boldness to which they were unaccustomed. It was, evident also that they
+were unprepared to reply to me. My father remained silent, with his
+usual placidity, waiting for the others to fail to take the initiative.
+President Woodruff blinked, somewhat bewildered, looking at my hand as
+if the sight of its emptiness and the assumption of what it held,
+confused him. Joseph F. Smith, frowning, eyed it askance with a darting
+glance, apparently annoyed by the mute insolence of its demand for a
+decision which he was not prepared to make.
+
+My father, at length, looking at me imperturbably, asked: "Are you
+inquiring of our personal view in this matter, Frank?"
+
+The question contained, of course, a tacit allusion to my refusal to
+consult the Church leaders about politics. I answered: "No, sir. I
+already have your personal view. That is the only personal view I have
+ever asked concerning the Senatorship. And I have purposely refrained
+from any allusions to it of late, with you, because I wished to lay it
+before the Presidency, as a body, formally, in order that there might be
+no possible misunderstanding."
+
+"In that case," he said, "the matter rests with President Woodruff."
+
+The President, thus forced to an explanation, made a very characteristic
+one. Several of the Church's friends in the East, he said, had urged
+father's name for the Senatorship, but it was impossible to see how he
+could be spared from the affairs of the priesthood. Zion needed him--
+and so forth.
+
+Apparently, to President Woodruff, the question of the Senatorship was
+resolvable wholly upon Church considerations. His mind was so filled
+with zealous hope for the advancement of "the Kingdom of God on Earth,"
+that he seemed quite unaware of the political aspects of the case, the
+violation of the Church's pledge, and the difficulties in the Senate
+that would surely attend upon my father's election.
+
+In the general discussion that ensued, both Joseph F. Smith and my
+father spoke of the appeal that had been made to them on behalf of the
+business interests of the community, with which the financial interests
+of the East were now eager to co-operate. But both followed the
+President's example in dismissing the possibility of the First
+Councillor's candidacy as infringing upon his duties in the Church. I
+pointed out to them that such a candidacy would be considered a breach
+of faith, that it would raise a storm of protest. They accepted the
+warning without comment, as if, having decided against the candidacy,
+they did not need to consider such aspects of it. I kept my hand open
+before them until my father said, with some trace of amusement: "You'd
+better take up that senatorship, Frank. I think you're entitled to it."
+
+I took it up, satisfied that there would be no more Church interference
+in the matter. The decision seemed to me final and momentous. I felt
+that the new Utah had faced the old and had been assured of
+independence.
+
+About this same time (although I cannot place it accurately in my
+recollection), President Woodruff, speaking from the pulpit, declared
+that it was the right of the priesthood of God to rule in all things on
+earth, and that they had in no wise relinquished any of their authority.
+The sermon raised a dangerous alarm in Salt Lake City, and I was
+immediately summoned from Ogden (by a messenger from Church
+headquarters) to see the proprietor and the editor of the Salt Lake
+Tribune--which paper, it was feared, might oppose Utah's admission to
+statehood, construing President Woodruff's remarks to mean that the
+Church's political covenants were to be broken.
+
+I found Mr. P. H. Lannan, the proprietor of the paper, anxious,
+indignant and ready to denounce the Church and fight against the
+admission to statehood. "When I heard of that sermon," he said, "my
+heart went into my boots. We Gentiles have trusted everything to the
+promises that have been made by the leaders of the Church. If the
+Tribune had not supported the movement for statehood, the Gentiles would
+never have taken the risk. I feel like a man who has sold his brethren
+into slavery."
+
+I assured him (as I was authorized to do) that President Woodruff was
+not speaking for our generation of the Mormon people nor for his
+associates in the leadership of the Church. I pleaded that it was the
+privilege of an old man (and President Woodruff was nearly ninety) to
+dream again the visions of his youth; his early life had been spent in
+the belief that a Kingdom of God was to be set up in the valleys of the
+mountains, governed by the priesthood and destined to rule all the
+nations of the earth; he had planted the first flag of the country over
+the Salt Lake Valley; he was still living in days that had passed for
+all but him, and cherishing hopes that he alone had not abandoned. But
+if the Tribune and the Gentiles would be magnanimous in this matter,
+they would add to the gratitude that already bound the younger
+generations of the Church to the fulfillment of its political promises.
+
+Mr. Lannan responded instantly to the appeal to his generosity, and
+after consultation with the editor-in-chief (Judge C. C. Goodwin) and
+the managing editor (Colonel Wm. Nelson) the Tribune continued to trust
+in Mormon good faith.
+
+I reported the result of my conference to Church headquarters. The news
+was received with relief and gratitude. And, in a long conversation with
+the authorities, I was told that it would be incumbent on us of the
+younger generation to see that all the Church's covenants to the nation
+should be scrupulously observed.
+
+I accepted my part of the charge with a light heart, and late in
+November, 1895, I took train for Washington for convening of Congress.
+Of the incidents of my brief services as delegate I shall write nothing
+here, since those incidents were merely introductory to matters which I
+shall have to consider later. But I was greeted with a great deal of
+cordiality by the Republicans who credited me with having brought a
+state and its national representation into the Republican party, and
+they assured me that my own political future would be as bright as that
+of my native state!
+
+President Cleveland, on January 4, 1896, proclaimed Utah a sovereign
+state of the Union, and its admission to statehood ended, of course, my
+service as a territorial delegate. I stood beside his desk in the White
+House to see him sign the proclamation--the same desk at which he had
+received me, some eight years before, when I came beseeching him to be
+merciful to the proscribed people whose freedom he was now announcing.
+Perhaps the manumission that he was granting, gave a benignity to his
+face. Perhaps the emotion in my own mind transfigured him to me. But I
+saw smiles and pathos in the ruggedness of his expression of
+congratulation as he said a few words of hope that Utah would fulfill
+every promise made, on her behalf, by her own people, and every happy
+expectation that had been entertained for her by her friends. His
+enormous rigid bulk, a little bowed now by years of service, seemed
+softened, as his face was, to the graciousness of clement power. He gave
+me the pen with which he had signed the paper, and dismissed me to some
+of the happiest hours of my life.
+
+I walked out of the White House dispossessed of office, but now, at
+last, a citizen of the Republic. I stood on the steps of the White
+House, to look at the city through whose streets I had so many times
+wandered in a worried despair, and I saw them with an emotion I would
+not dare transcribe. I do not know that the sun was really shining, but
+in my memory the scene has taken on all the accumulated brightnesses of
+all the radiant days I ever knew in Washington. And I remember that I
+saw the Washington Monument and the Capitol with a sense of almost
+affectionate personal possession!
+
+In an excited exultation I went to thank the men who had helped us in
+the House and the Senate--to wire jubilant messages home--to send
+Governor Wells the pen with which the President had signed his
+proclamation, and to procure from friends in the War Department the
+first two flags that had been made with forty-five stars--the star of
+Utah the forty-fifth. Wherever I went, some sinister aspect seemed to
+have gone out of things; and I remember that I enjoyed so much the sense
+of their new inhostility, that I planned to delay my return to Utah
+until I had made a pilgrimage to every spot in Washington where I had
+despaired of our future.
+
+All this may seem almost sentimental to you, who perhaps accept your
+citizenship as an unregarded commonplace of natural right. But, for me,
+the freeing of our people was an emancipation to be compared only to the
+enfranchisement of the Southern slaves and greater even than that, for
+we had come from citizenship in the older states, and we could
+appreciate our deprivation, smart under our ostracism, and resent the
+rejection that set us apart from the rest of the nation as an inferior
+people unfit for equal rights.
+
+I sat down to my dinner, that evening, with the appetite that comes from
+a day of fasting and emotional excitement; and I recall that I was
+planning a visit of self-congratulation to Arlington, for the morrow,
+when one of the hotel bell-boys brought me a telegram. I opened it
+eagerly--to enjoy the expected message of felicitation from home.
+
+It was in cipher, and that fact gave me a pause of doubt, since the days
+of political mysteries and their cipher telegrams were over for us,
+thank God! It was signed with President Woodruff's cipher name.
+
+I went to my room to translate it, and I did not return to my dinner.
+The message read: "It is the will of the Lord that your father shall be
+elected Senator from Utah."
+
+I do not need to explain all the treacherous implications of that
+announcement. As soon as I had recovered my breath, I wired back, for
+such interpretation as they should choose to give: "God bless Utah. I am
+coming home,"--and packed my trunk, for trouble.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+
+
+The First Betrayals
+
+
+
+Before I reached Utah, my friends, Ben Rich and James Devine, met me, on
+the train. The news of President Woodruff's "revelation" had percolated
+through the whole community. The Gentiles were alarmed for themselves.
+My friends were anxious for me. All the old enmities that had so long
+divided Utah were arranging themselves for a new conflict. And Rich and
+Devine had come to urge me to remember my promise that I would hold to
+my candidacy no matter who should appear in the field against me.
+
+Of my father's stand in the crisis Rich could give me only one
+indication: after a conference in the offices of the Presidency, Rich
+had said to President Woodruff: "Then I suppose I may as well close up
+Frank's rooms at the Templeton"--the hotel in which my friends had
+opened political headquarters for me--and my father, accompanying him
+to an anteroom, had hinted significantly: "I think you should not close
+Frank's rooms just yet. He may need them."
+
+Rich brought me word, too, that the Church authorities were expecting to
+see me; and soon as I arrived in Salt Lake City, I hastened to the
+little plastered house in which the Presidency had its offices.
+
+President Woodruff, my father, and Joseph F. Smith were there, in the
+large room of their official apartments. We withdrew, for private
+conference, into the small retiring room in which I had consulted with
+"Brother Joseph Mack" when he was on the underground--in 1888--and had
+consulted with President Woodruff about his "manifesto," in 1890. The
+change in their circumstances, since those unhappy days, was in my mind
+as I sat down.
+
+President Woodruff sat at the head of a bare walnut table in a chair so
+large that it rather dwarfed him; and he sank down in it, to an attitude
+of nervous reluctance to speak, occupied with his hands. Smith took his
+place at the opposite end of the board, with dropped eyes, his chair
+tilted back, silent, but (as I soon saw) unusually alert and attentive.
+My father assumed his inevitable composure--firmly and almost
+unmovingly seated--and looked at me squarely with a not unkind
+premonition of a smile.
+
+President Woodruff continued silent. Ordinarily, anything that came from
+the Lord was quite convincing to him and needed no argument (in his
+mind) to make it convincing to others. I could not suppose that the look
+of determination on my face troubled him. It was more likely that
+something unusual in the mental attitudes of his councillors was the
+cause of his hesitation; and with this suspicion to arouse me I became
+increasingly aware (as the conference proceeded) of two rival
+watchfulnesses upon me.
+
+"Well?" I said. "What was it you wanted of me?"
+
+Smith looked up at the President. And Smith had always, hitherto, seemed
+so unseeing of consequences, and, therefore, unappreciative of means,
+that his betrayal of interest was indicative of purpose. I thought I
+could detect, in the communication which his manner made, the plan of my
+father's ecclesiastical rivals to remove him from the scene of his
+supreme influence over the President, and the plan of ambitious church
+politicians to remove me from their path by the invocation of God's word
+appointing father to the Senate.
+
+"Frank," the President announced, "it is the will of the Lord that your
+father should go to the Senate from Utah."
+
+As he hesitated, I said: "Well, President Woodruff?"
+
+He added, with less decision: "And we want you to tell us how to bring
+it about?"
+
+It was evident that getting the revelation was easy to his spiritualized
+mind, but that fulfilling it was difficult to his unworldliness.
+
+"President Woodruff," I replied, "you have received the revelation on
+the wrong point. You do not need a voice from heaven to convince anyone
+that my father is worthy to go to the Senate, but you will need a
+revelation to tell how he is to get there."
+
+He seemed to raise himself to the inspiration of divine authority. "The
+only difficulty that we have encountered," he said, "is the fact that
+the legislators are pledged to you. Will you not release them from their
+promises and tell them to vote for your father?"
+
+"No," I said. "And my father would not permit me to do it, even if I
+could. He knows that I gave my word of honor to my supporters to stand
+as a candidate, no matter who might enter against me. He knows that he
+and I have given our pledges at Washington that political dictation in
+Utah by the heads of the Mormon Church shall cease. Of all men in Utah
+we cannot be amenable to such dictation. If you can get my supporters
+away from me--very well. I shall have no personal regrets. But you
+cannot get me away from my supporters."
+
+This inclusion of my father in my refusal evidently disconcerted
+President Woodruff; and, as evidently, it had its significance to Joseph
+F. Smith.
+
+I went on: "Before I was elected to the House of Representatives, I
+asked my father if he intended to be a candidate for the Senate. I knew
+that some prominent Gentiles, desiring to curry favor at Church
+headquarters had solicited his candidacy. I had been told that General
+Clarkson and others had assured him by letter that his election would be
+accepted at Washington, and elsewhere. I discussed the matter with him
+fully. He agreed with me that his election would be a violation of the
+understanding had with the country; and he declared that he did not care
+to become again the storm center of strife to his people, nor did he
+feel that he could honorably break our covenant to the country. With
+this clear understanding between us, I made my pledges to men who, in
+supporting me, cast aside equally advantageous relations which they
+might have established with another. I can't withdraw now without
+dishonor."
+
+My father said: "Don't let us have any misunderstandings. As President
+Woodruff stated the matter to me, I understood that it would be pleasing
+to the Lord, if the people desired my election to the Senate and it
+wouldn't antagonize the country."
+
+"Yes, yes," the President put in. "That's what I mean."
+
+Smith said, rather sourly: "The people are always willing to do what the
+Lord desires--if no one gives them bad counsel."
+
+Both he and my father emphasized the fact that the business interests of
+the East were making strong representations to the Presidency in support
+of my father's election; and I suspected (what I afterwards found to be
+the case) that both Joseph F. Smith and Apostle John Henry Smith, were
+by this time, in close communication with Republican politicians. There
+was a calm assumption, everywhere, that the Church had power to decide
+the election, if it could be induced to act; and this assumption was a
+deplorable evidence, to me, of the willingness of some of our former
+allies to drag us swiftly to the shame of a broken covenant, if only
+they could profit in purse or politics by our dishonor. I would not be
+an agent in any such betrayal, but I had to refuse without offending my
+father's trust in the divine inspiration of President Woodruff's
+decision and without aiding the Smiths in their conspiracy.
+
+Either at this conference or one of the later ones, two or three
+apostles came into the room; and among them was Apostle Brigham Young,
+son of the Prophet Brigham who had led the Mormons to the Salt Lake
+Valley. When he understood my refusal to abandon my candidacy, he said
+angrily: "This is a serious filial disrespect. I know my father never
+would have brooked such treatment from me." And I retorted: "I don't
+know who invited you into this conference, but I deny your right to
+instruct me in my filial duty. If my father doesn't understand that the
+senatorship has lost its value for me--that it's a cross now--then my
+whole lifetime of devotion to him has been in vain."
+
+My father rose and put his arm around my shoulders. "This boy," he said,
+"is acting honorably. I want him to know--and you to know--that I
+respect the position he has taken. If he is elected, he shall have my
+blessing."
+
+That was the only understanding I had with him--but it was enough. I
+could know that I was not to lose his trust and affection by holding to
+our obligations of honor; and--an assurance almost as precious--I
+could know that he would not consciously permit legislators to be
+crushed by the vengeance of the Church if they refused to yield to its
+pressure.
+
+A few days after my arrival in Utah, and while this controversy was at
+its height, my father's birthday was celebrated (January 11, 1896), with
+all the patriarchal pomp of a Mormon family gathering, in his big
+country house outside Salt Lake City. All his descendants and collateral
+relatives were there, as well as the members of the Presidency and many
+friends. After dinner, the usual exercises of the occasion were held in
+the large reception hall of the house, with President Woodruff and my
+father and two or three other Church leaders seated in semi-state at one
+end of the hall, and the others of the company deferentially withdrawn
+to face them. Towards the end of the program President Woodruff rose
+from his easy chair, and made a sort of informal address of
+congratulation; and in the course of it, with his hand on my father's
+shoulder, he said benignly: "Abraham was the friend of God. He had only
+one son on whom all his hopes were set. But the voice of the Lord
+commanded him to sacrifice Isaac upon an altar; and Abraham trusted the
+Lord and laid his son upon the altar, in obedience to God's commands.
+Now here is another servant of the Most High and a friend of God. I
+refer to President Cannon, whose birthday we are celebrating. He has
+twenty-one sons; and if it shall be the will of the Lord that he must
+sacrifice one of them he ought to be as willing as Abraham was, for he
+will have twenty left. And the son should be as willing as Isaac. We can
+all safely trust in the Lord. He will require no sacrifice at our hands
+without purpose."
+
+I remarked to a relative beside me that the altar was evidently ready
+for me, but that I feared I should have to "get out and rustle my own
+ram in the thicket." I received no reply. I heard no word of comment
+from anyone upon the President's speech. It was accepted devoutly, with
+no feeling that he had abused the privileges of a guest. Everyone
+understood (as I did) that President Woodruff was the gentlest of men;
+that he had often professed and always shown a kindly affection for me;
+but that the will of the Lord being now known, he thought I should be
+proud to be sacrificed to it!
+
+Among the legislators pledged to me were Mormon Bishops and other
+ecclesiasts who had promised their constituents to vote for me and who
+now stood between a betrayal of their people and a rebellion against the
+power of the hierarchy. I released one of them from his pledge, because
+of his pathetic fear that he would be eternally damned if he did not
+obey "the will of the Lord." The others went to the Presidency to admit
+that if they betrayed their people they would have to confess what
+pressure had been put upon them to force them to the betrayal. I went to
+notify my father (as I had notified the representatives of every other
+candidate) that we were going to call a caucus of the Republican
+majority of the legislature, and later I was advised that President
+Woodruff and his Councillor's had appointed a committee to investigate
+and report to them how many members could be counted upon to support my
+father's candidacy. The committee (composed of my uncle Angus, my
+brother Abraham, and Apostle John Henry Smith) brought back word that
+even among the men who had professed a willingness to vote for my father
+there was great reluctance and apprehension, and that in all probability
+his election could not be carried. With President Woodruff's consent, my
+father then announced that he was not a candidate. I was nominated by
+acclamation.
+
+When I called upon my father at the President's offices after the
+election, he said to me before his colleagues: "I wish to congratulate
+you on having acted honorably and fearlessly. You have my blessing." He
+turned to the President. "You see, President Woodruff," he added, "it
+was not the will of the Lord, after all, since the people did not desire
+my election!"
+
+I have dwelt so largely upon the religious aspects of this affair
+because they are as true of the Prophet in politics today as they were
+then. At the time, the personal complication of the situation most
+distressed me--the fact that I was opposing my father in order to
+fulfill the word of honor that we had given on behalf of the Mormon
+leaders. But there was another view of the matter; and it is the one
+that is most important to the purposes of this narrative. In the course
+of the various discussions and conferences upon the Senatorship, I
+learned that the inspiration of the whole attempted betrayal had come
+from certain Republican politicians and lobbyists (like Colonel Isaac
+Trumbo), who claimed to represent a political combination of business
+interests in Washington. Joseph F. Smith admitted as much to me in more
+than one conversation. (I had offended these interests by opposing a
+monetary and a tariff bill during my service as delegate in Congress--a
+matter which I have still to recount). They had chosen my father and
+Colonel Trumbo as Utah's two Senators. I made it my particular business
+to see that Trumbo's name was not even mentioned in the caucus. The man
+selected as the other senator was Arthur Brown, a prominent Gentile
+lawyer who was known as a "jack-Mormon" (meaning a Gentile adherent to
+Church power), although I then believed, and do now, that Judge Chas. C.
+Goodwin was the Gentile most entitled to the place, because of his
+ability and the love of his people.
+
+I was, however, content with the victory we had won by resisting the
+influence of the business interests that had been willing to sell our
+honor for their profit, and I set out for Washington with a
+determination to continue the resistance. I was in a good position to
+continue it. The election of two Republican Senators from Utah had given
+the Republicans a scant majority of the members of the Upper House, and
+the bills that I had fought in the Lower House were now before the
+Senate.
+
+These bills had been introduced in the House of Representatives,
+immediately upon its convening in December, 1895, by the committee on
+rules, before Speaker Reed had even appointed the general committees.
+One was a bill to authorize the issuance of interest-bearing securities
+of the United States at such times and in such sums as the Executive
+might determine. The other was a general tariff bill that proposed
+increases upon the then existing Wilson-Gorman bill. The first would put
+into the hands of the President a power that was not enjoyed by any
+ruler in Christendom; the second would add to the unfair and
+discriminatory tariff rates then in force, by making ad valorem
+increases in them. Many new members of Congress had been elected on the
+two issues thus created: the arbitrary increase of the bonded
+indebtedness by President Cleveland to maintain a gold reserve; and the
+unjust benefits afforded those industries that were least in need of
+aid, by duties increased in exact proportion to the strength of the
+industrial combination that was to be protected.
+
+The presentation of the two bills by the Committee on Rules--with a
+coacher to each proposing to prevent amendment and limit discussion--
+raised a revolt in the House. A caucus of the insurgent Republican
+members was held at the Ebbitt Hotel, and I was elected temporary
+chairman. We appointed a committee to demand from Speaker Reed a
+division of the questions and time for opposition to be heard. We had
+seventy-five insurgents when our committee waited on. Reed; and most of
+us were new men, elected to oppose such measures as these bills
+advocated. He received us with sarcasm, put us off with a promise to
+consider our demands, and then set his lieutenants at work among us.
+Under the threat of the Speaker's displeasure if we continued to
+"insurge" and the promise of his favor if we "got into line," forty-one
+(I think) of our seventy-five deserted us. We were gloriously beaten in
+the House on both measures.
+
+Some of the older Republican members of the House came to ask me how I
+had been "misled"; and they received with the raised eyebrow and the
+silent shrug my explanation that I had been merely following my
+convictions and living up to the promises I had made my constituents. I
+had supposed that I was upholding an orthodox Republican doctrine in
+helping to defend the country from exploitation by the financial
+interests, in the matter of the bond issue, and from the greed of the
+business interests in the attempt to increase horizontally the tariff
+rates.
+
+I do not need, in this day of tariff reform agitation, to argue the
+injustice of the latter measure. But the bond issue--looking back upon
+it now--seems the more cruelly absurd of the two. Here we were, in
+times of peace, with ample funds in the national treasury, proposing to
+permit the unlimited issuance of interest-bearing government bonds in
+order to procure gold, for that national treasury, out of the hoards of
+the banks, so that these same banks might be able to obtain the gold
+again from the treasury in return for paper money. The extent to which
+this sort of absurdity might be carried would depend solely upon the
+desire of the confederation of finance to have interest-bearing
+government bonds on which they might issue national bank notes, since
+the Executive was apparently willing to yield interminably to their
+greed, in the belief that he was protecting the public credit by
+encouraging the financiers to attack that credit with their raids on the
+government gold reserve. The whole difficulty had arisen, of course, out
+of the agitation upon the money question. The banks were drawing upon
+the government gold reserve; and the government was issuing bonds to
+recover the gold again from the banks.
+
+I had been, for some years, interested in the problem of our monetary
+system and had studied and discussed it among our Eastern bankers and
+abroad. The very fact that I was from a "silver state" had put me on my
+guard, lest a local influence should lead me, into economic error. I had
+grown into the belief that our system was wrong. It seemed to me that
+some remedy was imperative. I saw in bimetallism a part of the remedy,
+and I supported bimetallism not as a partisan of free coinage but as an
+advocate of monetary reform.
+
+The arrival of Utah's two representatives in the Senate (January 27,
+1896) gave the bimetallists a majority, and when the bond-issue bill
+came before us we made it into a bill to permit the free coinage of
+silver. (February 1). A few days later, the Finance Committee turned the
+tariff bill into a free-coinage bill also. On both measures, five
+Republican Senators voted against their party--Henry M. Teller, of
+Colorado; Fred T. Dubois, of Idaho; Thos. H. Carter, of Montana; Lee
+Mantle, of Montana; and myself. We were subsequently joined by Richard
+F. Pettigrew of South Dakota. Within two weeks of my taking the oath in
+the Senate we were read out of the party by Republican leaders and
+Republican organs.
+
+All this happened so swiftly that there was no time for any
+remonstrances to come to me from Salt Lake City, even if the Church
+authorities had wished to remonstrate. The fact was that the people of
+Utah were with us in our insurgency, and when the financial interests
+subsequently appealed to the hierarchy, they found the Church powerless
+to aid them in support of a gold platform. But they obtained that aid,
+at last, in support of a tariff that was as unjust to the people as it
+was favorable to the trusts, and my continued "insurgency" led me again
+into a revolt against Church interference.
+
+The thread of connection that ran through these incidents is clear
+enough to me now: they were all incidents in the progress of a
+partnership between the Church and the predatory business interests that
+have since so successfully exploited the country. But, at the time, I
+saw no such connection clearly. I supposed that the partnership was
+merely a political friendship between the Smith faction in the Church
+and the Republican politicians who wished to use the Church; and I had
+sufficient contempt for the political abilities of the Smiths to regard
+their conspiracy rather lightly.
+
+Believing still in the good faith of the Mormon people and their real
+leaders in authority, I introduced a joint resolution in the Senate
+restoring to the Church its escheated real estate, which was still in
+the hands of a receiver, although its personal property had been already
+restored. In conference with Senators Hoar and Allison,--of the
+committee to which the resolution was referred--I urged an
+unconditional restoration of the property, arguing that to place
+conditions upon the restoration would be to insult the people who had
+given so many proofs of their willingness to obey the law and keep their
+pledges. The property was restored without conditions by a joint
+resolution that passed the Senate on March 18, 1896, passed the House a
+week later, and was approved by the President on March 26. The Church
+was now free of the last measure of proscription. Its people were in the
+enjoyment of every political liberty of American citizenship; and I
+joined in the Presidential campaign of 1896 with no thought of any
+danger threatening us that was not common to the other communities of
+the country.
+
+But before I continue further with these political events, I must relate
+a private incident in the secret betrayal of Utah--an incident that
+must be related, if this narrative is to remain true to the ideals of
+public duty that have thus far assumed to inspire it--an incident of
+which a false account was given before a Senate Committee in Washington
+during the Smoot investigation of 1904, accompanied by a denial of
+responsibility by Joseph F. Smith, the man whose authority alone
+encouraged and accomplished the tragedy--for it was a tragedy, as dark
+in its import to the Mormon community as it was terrible in its
+immediate consequences to all our family.
+
+By his denial of responsibility and by secret whisper within the Church,
+Smith has placed the disgrace of the betrayal upon my father, who was
+guiltless of it, and blackened the memory of my dead brother by a
+misrepresentation of his motives. I feel that it is incumbent upon me,
+therefore, at whatever pain to myself, to relate the whole unhappy truth
+of the affair, as much to defend the memory of the dead as to denounce
+the betrayal of the living, to expose a public treason against the
+community not less than to correct a private wrong done to the good name
+of those whom it is my right to defend.
+
+Late in July, 1896, when I was in New York on business for the
+Presidency, I received a telegram announcing the death of my brother,
+Apostle Abraham H. Cannon. We had been companions all our lives; he had
+been the nearest to me of our family, the dearest of my friends but even
+in the first shock of my grief I realized that my father would have a
+greater stroke of sorrow to bear than I; and in hurrying back to Salt
+Lake City I nerved myself with the hope that I might console him.
+
+I found him and Joseph F. Smith in the office of the Presidency, sitting
+at their desks. My father turned as I entered, and his face was
+unusually pale in spite of its composure; but the moment he recognized
+me, his expression changed to a look of pain that alarmed me. He rose
+and put his hand on my shoulder with a tenderness that it was his habit
+to conceal. "I know how you feel his loss," he said hoarsely, "but when
+I think what he would have had to pass through if he had lived I cannot
+regret his death."
+
+The almost agonized expression of his face, as much as the terrible
+implication of his words, startled me with I cannot say what horrible
+fear about my brother. I asked, "Why! Why--what has happened?"
+
+With a sweep of his hand toward Smith at his desk--a gesture and a look
+the most unkind I ever saw him use--he answered: "A few weeks ago,
+Abraham took a plural wife, Lillian Hamlin. It became known. He would
+have had to face a prosecution in Court. His death has saved us from a
+calamity that would have been dreadful for the Church--and for the
+state."
+
+"Father!" I cried. "Has this thing come back again! And the ink hardly
+dry on the bill that restored your church property on the pledge of
+honor that there would never be another case--" I had caught the look
+on Smith's face, and it was a look of sullen defiance. "How did it
+happen?"
+
+My father replied: "I know--it's awful. I would have prevented it if I
+could. I was asked for my consent, and I refused it. President Smith
+obtained the acquiescence of President Woodruff, on the plea that it
+wasn't an ordinary case of polygamy but merely a fulfillment of the
+biblical instruction that a man should take his dead brother's wife.
+Lillian was betrothed to David, and had been sealed to him in eternity
+after his death. I understand that President Woodruff told Abraham he
+would leave the matter with them if he wished to take the responsibility--
+and President Smith performed the ceremony."
+
+Smith could hear every word that was said. My father had included him in
+the conversation, and he was listening. He not only did not deny his
+guilt; he accepted it in silence, with an expression of sulky
+disrespect.
+
+He did not deny it later, when the whole community had learned of it. He
+went with Apostle John Henry Smith to see Mr. P. H. Lannan, proprietor
+of the Salt Lake Tribune, to ask him not to attack the Church for this
+new and shocking violation of its covenant. Mr. Lannan had been
+intimately friendly with my brother, and he was distressed between his
+regard for his dead friend and his obligation to do his public duty. I
+do not know all that the Smiths said to him; but I know that the
+conversation assumed that Joseph F. Smith had performed the marriage
+ceremony; I know that neither of the Smiths made any attempt to deny the
+assumption; and I know that Joseph F. Smith sought to placate Mr. Lannan
+by promising "it shall not occur again." And this interview was sought
+by the Smiths, palpably because wherever the marriage of Abraham H.
+Cannon and Lillian Hamlin was talked of, Joseph F. Smith was named as
+the priest who had solemnized the offending relation. If it had not been
+for Smith's consciousness of his own guilt and his knowledge that the
+whole community was aware of that guilt, he would never have gone to the
+Tribune office to make such a promise to Mr. Lannan.
+
+All of which did not prevent Joseph F. Smith from testifying--in the
+Smoot investigation at Washington in 1904--that he did not marry
+Abraham Cannon and Lillian Hamlin, that he did not have any conversation
+with my father about the marriage, that he did not know Lillian Hamlin
+had been betrothed to Abraham's dead brother, that the first time he
+heard of the charge that he had married them was when he saw it printed
+in the newspapers!
+
+[FOOTNOTE: See Proceedings before Senate Committee on Privileges and
+Elections, 1904, Vol. 1, pages 110, 126, 177, etc.]
+
+If this first polygamous marriage had been the last--if it were an
+isolated and peculiar incident as the Smiths then claimed it was and
+promised it should be--it might be forgiven as generously now as Mr.
+Lannan then forgave it. But, about the same time there became public
+another case--that of Apostle Teasdale--and as this narrative shall
+prove, here was the beginning of a policy of treachery which the present
+Church leaders, under Joseph F. Smith, have since consistently
+practiced, in defiance of the laws of the state and the "revelation of
+God," with lies and evasions, with perjury and its subornation, in
+violation of the most solemn pledges to the country, and through the
+agency of a political tyranny that makes serious prosecution impossible
+and immunity a public boast.
+
+The world understands that polygamy is an enslavement of women. The
+ecclesiastical authorities in Utah today have discovered that it is more
+powerful as an enslaver of men. Once a man is bound in a polygamous
+relation, there is no place for him in the civilized world outside of a
+Mormon community. He must remain there, shielded by the Church, or
+suffer elsewhere social ostracism and the prosecution of bigamous
+relations. Since 1890, the date of the manifesto (and it is to the
+period since 1890 that my criticism solely applies) the polygamist must
+be abjectly subservient to the prophets who protect him; he must obey
+their orders and do their work, or endure the punishment which they can
+inflict upon him and his wives and his children. Inveigled into a plural
+marriage by the authority of a clandestine religious dogma--encouraged
+by his elders, seduced by the prospect of their favor, and impelled
+perhaps by a daring impulse to take the covenant and bond that shall
+swear him into the dangerous fellowship of the lawlessly faithful--he
+finds himself, at once, a law breaker who must pay the Church hierarchy
+for his protection by yielding to them every political right, every
+personal independence, every freedom of opinion, every liberty of act.
+
+I do not believe that Smith fully foresaw the policy which he has since
+undoubtedly pursued. I believe now, as I did then, that in betraying my
+brother into polygamy Smith was actuated by his anger against my father
+for having inspired the recession from the doctrine; that he desired to
+impair the success of the recession by having my brother dignify the
+recrudescence of polygamy by the apostolic sanction of his
+participation; and that this participation was jealously designed by
+Smith to avenge himself upon the First Councillor by having the son be
+one of the first to break the law, and violate the covenant. I saw that
+my brother's death had thwarted the conspiracy. Smith was so obviously
+frightened--despite his pretense of defiance--that I believed he had
+learned his needed lesson. And I accepted the incident as a private
+tragedy on which the final curtain had now fallen.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+
+
+The Church and the Interests
+
+
+
+Meanwhile, I had been taking part in the Presidential campaign of 1896,
+and I had been one of the four "insurgent" Republican Senators (Teller
+of Colorado, Dubois of Idaho, Pettigrew of South Dakota and myself) who
+withdrew from the national Republican convention at St. Louis, in
+fulfillment of our obligations to our constituents, when we found that
+the convention was dominated by that confederation of finance in
+politics which has since come to be called "the System." I was a member
+of the committee on resolutions, and our actions in the committee had
+indicated that we would probably withdraw from the convention if it
+adopted the single gold platform as dictated by Senator Lodge of
+Massachusetts acting for a group of Republican leaders headed by Platt
+of New York, and Aldrich of Rhode Island. At the most critical point of
+our controversy I received a message from Church headquarters warning me
+that "we" had made powerful friends among the leading men of the nation
+and that we ought not to jeopardize their friendship by an inconsiderate
+insurgency. Accordingly, in bolting the convention, I was guilty of a
+new defiance of ecclesiastical authority and a new provocation of
+ecclesiastical vengeance.
+
+President Woodruff spoke to me of the matter after I returned to Utah,
+and I explained to him that I thought the Republican party, under the
+leadership of Mark Hanna and the flag of the "interests," had forgotten
+its duty to the people of the nation. I argued, to the President, that
+of all people in the world we, who had suffered so much ourselves, were
+most bound to bow to no unfairness ourselves and to oppose the
+imposition of unfairness upon others. And I talked in this strain to him
+not because I wished his approval of my action but because I wished to
+fortify him against the approach of the emissaries of the new
+Republicanism, who were sure to come to him to seek the support of the
+Church in the campaign.
+
+Some days later, while I was talking with my father in the offices of
+the Presidency, the secretary ushered in Senator Redfield Proctor of
+Vermont. I withdrew, understanding that he wished to speak in private
+with President Woodruff and his councillors. But I learned subsequently
+that he had come to Salt Lake to persuade the leaders of the Church to
+use their power in favor of the Republican party throughout the
+intermountain states.
+
+Senator Proctor asked me personally what chance I thought the party had
+in the West. I pointed out that the Republican platform of 1892 had
+reproached Grover Cleveland for his antagonism to bimetallism--"a
+doctrine favored by the American people from tradition and interest," to
+quote the language of that platform--and the Republicans of the
+intermountain states still held true to the doctrine. It had been
+repudiated by the St. Louis platform of June, 1896, and the
+intermountain states would probably refuse their electoral votes to the
+Republican party because of the repudiation.
+
+Senator Proctor thought that the leaders of the Church were powerful
+enough to control the votes of their followers; and he argued that
+gratitude to the Republican party for freeing Utah ought to be stronger
+than the opinions of the people in a merely economic question.
+
+I reminded him that one of our covenants had been that the Church was to
+refrain from dictating to its followers in politics; that we had been
+steadily growing away from the absolutism of earlier times; and that for
+the sake of the peace and progress of Utah I hoped that the leaders
+would keep their hands off. I did not, of course, convince him. Nor was
+it necessary. I was sure that no power that the Church would dare to use
+would be sufficient at this time to influence the people against their
+convictions.
+
+Joseph F. Smith, soon afterward, notified me that there was to be a
+meeting of the Church authorities in the Temple, and he asked me to
+attend it. Since I had never before been invited to one of these
+conferences in the "holy of holies," I inquired the purposes of the
+conclave. He replied that they desired to consider the situation in
+which our people had been placed by my action in the St. Louis
+convention, and to discuss the perceptible trend of public opinion in
+the state. I saw, then, that Senator Proctor's visit had not been
+without avail.
+
+On the appointed afternoon, I went to the sacred inner room of the
+temple, where the members of the Presidency and several of the apostles
+were waiting. I shall not describe the room or any of the religious
+ceremonies with which the conference was opened. I shall confine myself
+to the discussion--which was begun mildly by President Woodruff and
+Lorenzo Snow, then president of the quorum of apostles.
+
+To my great surprise, Joseph F. Smith made a violent Republican speech,
+declaring that I had humiliated the Church and alienated its political
+friends by withdrawing from the St. Louis convention. He was followed by
+Heber J. Grant, an apostle, who had always posed as a Democrat; and he
+was as Republican and denunciatory as Smith had been. He declaimed
+against our alienation of the great business interests of the country,
+whose friendship he and other prominent Mormons had done so much to
+cultivate, and from whom we might now procure such advantageous
+co-operation if we stood by them in politics.
+
+President Woodruff tried to defend me by saying that he was sure I had
+acted conscientiously; but by this time I desired no intervention of
+prophetic mercy and no mitigation of judgment that might come of such
+intervention. As soon as the President announced that they were prepared
+to hear from me, I rose and walked to the farther side of the solemn
+chamber, withdrawn from the assembled prophets and confronting them.
+Having first disavowed any recognition of their right as an
+ecclesiastical body to direct me in my political actions, I rehearsed
+the events of the two campaigns in which I had been elected on pledges
+that I had fulfilled by my course in Congress, in the Senate, and
+finally in the St. Louis convention. That course had been approved by
+the people. They had trusted me to carry out the policies on which they
+had elected me to Congress. They had reiterated the trust by electing me
+to the Senate after I had revolted against the Republican bond and
+tariff measures in the lower House. I could not and would not violate
+their trust now. And there was no authority on earth which I would
+recognize as empowered to come between the people's will and the people's
+elected servants.
+
+The prophets received this defiance in silence. Their expressions
+implied condemnation, but none was spoken--at least not while I was
+there. President Woodruff indicated that the conference was at an end,
+so far as I was concerned; and I withdrew. Some attempts were
+subsequently made to influence the people during the campaign, but in a
+half-hearted way and vainly. The Democrats carried Utah overwhelmingly;
+only three Republican members of the legislature were elected out of
+sixty-three.
+
+It was this conference in the Temple which gave me my first realization
+that most of the Prophets had not, and never would have, any feeling of
+citizenship in state or nation; that they considered, and would continue
+to consider, every public issue solely in its possible effect upon the
+fortunes of their Church. My father alone seemed to have a larger view;
+but he was a statesman of full worldly knowledge; and his experience in
+Congress, during a part of the "reconstruction period," and throughout
+the Tilden-Hayes controversy, had taught him how effectively the
+national power could assert itself. The others, blind to such dangers,
+seemed to feel that under Utah's sovereignty the literal "kingdom of
+God" (as they regard their Church) was to exercise an undisputed
+authority. Unable, myself, to take their viewpoint, I was conscious of a
+sense of transgression against the orthodoxy of their religion. I was
+aware, for the first time, that in gaining the fraternity of American
+citizenship I had in some way lost the fraternity of the faith in which
+I had been reared. I accepted this as a necessary consequence of our new
+freedom--a freedom that left us less close and unyielding in our
+religious loyalty by withdrawing the pressure that had produced our
+compactness. And I hoped that, in time, the Prophets themselves--or, at
+least, their successors--would grow into a more liberal sense of
+citizenship as their people grew. I knew that our progress must be a
+process of evolution. I was content to wait upon the slow amendments of
+time.
+
+My hope carried me through the disheartening incidents of the Senatorial
+campaign that followed upon the election of the legislature--a campaign
+in which the power of the hierarchy was used publicly to defeat the
+deposed apostle, Moses Thatcher, in his second candidacy for the United
+States Senate. But the Church only succeeded in defeating him by
+throwing its influence to Joseph L. Rawlins, whom the Prophets loved as
+little as they loved Thatcher; and I felt that in Rawlins' election the
+state at least gained a representative who was worthy of it.
+
+What was quite as sinister a use of Church influence occurred among the
+Mormons of Idaho, where I went to help Senator Fred. T. Dubois in his
+campaign for re-election. He had aided us in obtaining Utah's statehood
+as much as any man in Washington. He had accepted all the promises of
+the Mormon leaders in good faith--particularly their promise that no
+Church influence should intrude upon the politics of Idaho. Yet in his
+campaign I was followed through the Mormon settlements by Charles W.
+Penrose, a polygamist, since an apostle of the Church, and at that time
+editor of the Church's official organ, the Deseret News.
+
+I supposed that he was lying in his claim to represent the Presidency;
+and as soon as I returned to Salt Lake, I went to Church headquarters
+and asked whether Penrose had been authorized to say (as he had been
+saying) that he was sent out to prevent my making any misrepresentations
+of the political attitude of the Presidency.
+
+Joseph F. Smith replied, "Yes,"--speaking for himself and apparently
+for President Woodruff.
+
+"And when"--I demanded--"when did I ever claim to represent or
+misrepresent you in politics? Haven't I always said that I don't
+recognize you as politicians--and always denied that you have any right
+to dictate the politics of our people?"
+
+President Woodruff interposed gently:
+
+"Well, you know, Frank, we have no criticism to pass on you, but we were
+advised that you might tell the voters of Idaho we were friendly to
+Senator Dubois, and so we sent Brother Penrose, at the request of
+President Budge" (a Mormon stake president in Idaho) "to counsel our
+people. And Brother Penrose says you attacked him in one of your
+meetings, and said he was not a trustworthy political guide."
+
+President Woodruff's mildness was always irresistible. "If that's all he
+told you I said about him," I replied, "he didn't do justice to my
+remarks." And I explained that I had described Penrose as "a lying, oily
+hypocrite," come to advise the Idaho Mormons that the Presidency wished
+them to vote a certain political ticket although the Presidency had no
+interest in the question and although I myself had taken to Washington
+the Presidency's covenant of honor that the Church would never attempt
+to interfere in Idaho's political affairs.
+
+Smith sprang to his feet angrily. "I don't care what has been promised
+to Dubois or anyone else," he said. "He was the bitterest enemy our
+people had in the old days, and I'll never give my countenance to him in
+politics while the world stands. He sent many a one of our brethren to
+prison when he was marshal of the territory, and I can't forget his
+devilish persecutions--even if you can."
+
+I closed the conversation by remarking that not one among us would have
+had a vote as a citizen either of Utah or of Idaho if Dubois and men of
+his kind had not accepted our pledges of honor; and if we were
+determined to remember the persecutions and not the mercy, we ought to
+go back to the conditions from which mercy had rescued us.
+
+I left for Washington, soon after, with an unhappy apprehension that
+there were evil influences at work in Utah which might prove powerful
+enough to involve the whole community in the worst miseries of reaction.
+I saw those influences embodied in Joseph F. Smith; and because he was
+explosive where others were reflective, he had now more influence than
+previously--there being no longer any set resistance to him. The
+reverence of the Mormon people for the name of Smith was (as it had
+always been) his chief asset of popularity. He had a superlative
+physical impressiveness and a passion that seemed to take the place of
+magnetism in public address. But he never said anything memorable; he
+never showed any compelling ability of mind; he had a personal cunning
+without any large intelligence, and he was so many removes from the
+First Presidency that it seemed unlikely he would soon attain to that
+position of which the power is so great that it only makes the
+blundering more dangerous than the astute.
+
+I was going to Washington, before Congress reconvened, to confer with
+Senator Redfield Proctor. He wished to see me about the new protective
+tariff bill that was proposed by the Republican leaders. I wished to ask
+him not to use his political influence in Idaho against Senator Fred. T.
+Dubois, who had been Senator Proctor's political protege. I knew that
+Senator Proctor had once been given a semi-official promise that the
+Mormon Church leaders would not interfere in Idaho against Dubois. I
+wished to tell Proctor that this promise was not being kept, and to
+plead with him to give Dubois fair play--although I knew that Senator
+Dubois' "insurgency" had offended Senator Proctor.
+
+He received me, in his home in Washington, with an almost paternal
+kindliness that became sometimes more dictatorial than persuasive--as
+the manner of an older Senator is so apt to be when he wishes to correct
+the independence of a younger colleague. He explained that the House was
+Republican by a considerable majority; a good protective tariff bill
+would come from that body; and a careful canvass of the Senate had
+proved that the bill would pass there, if I would vote for it. "We have
+within one vote of a majority," he said. "As you're a devoted
+protectionist in your views--as your state is for protection--as your
+father and your people feel grateful to the Republican party for leading
+you out of the wilderness--I have felt that it was proper to appeal to
+you and learn your views definitely. If you'll pledge your support to
+the bill, we shall not look elsewhere for a vote--but it's essential
+that we should be secure of a majority."
+
+I replied that I could not promise to vote for the measure until I
+should see it. It was true that I had been a devoted advocate of
+protection and still believed in the principle; but I had learned
+something of the way in which tariff bills were framed, and something of
+the influences that controlled the party councils in support of them. I
+could not be sure that the new measure would be any more just than the
+original Dingley bill, which I had helped to defeat in the Senate; and
+the way in which this bill had been driven through the House was a
+sufficient warning to me not to harness myself in a pledge that might be
+misused in legislation.
+
+Senator Proctor did me the honor to say that he did not suppose any
+improper suggestion of personal advantage could influence me, and he
+hoped I knew him too well to suppose that he would use such an argument;
+"but," he added, "anything that it's within the 'political' power of the
+party to bestow, you may expect; I'm authorized to say that we will take
+care of you."
+
+As I still refused to bind myself blindly, he said, with regret: "We had
+great hopes of you. It seems that we must look elsewhere. I will leave
+the question open. If you conclude to assure us of your vote for the
+bill, I shall see that you are restored to a place in Republican
+councils. If I do not hear anything from you, it will be necessary to
+address ourselves to one or two other Senators who are probably
+available."
+
+It is, of course, a doctrine of present-day Republicanism that the will
+of the majority must rule within the party. An insurgent is therefore an
+apostate. The decision of the caucus is the infallible declaration of
+the creed. In setting myself up as a judge of what it was right for me
+to do, as the sworn representative of the people who had elected me, I
+was offending against party orthodoxy, as that orthodoxy was then, and
+is now, enforced in Washington.
+
+I was given an opportunity to return to conformity. I was sent a written
+invitation to attend the caucus of Republican Senators after the
+assembling of Congress; and, with the other "insurgents," I ignored the
+invitation. It was finally decided by the party leaders to let the
+tariff bill rest until after the inauguration of the President-elect,
+William McKinley, with the understanding that he would call a special
+session to consider it; and, in the interval, the Republican machine,
+under Mark Hanna, was set to work to produce a Republican majority in
+the Senate.
+
+Hanna was elected Senator, at this time, to succeed John Sherman, who
+had been removed to the office of Secretary of State, in order to make a
+seat for Hanna. The Republican majority was produced. (Senator Dubois
+had been defeated). And when the special session was called, in the
+spring of 1897, my vote was no longer so urgently needed. I was invited
+to a Republican caucus, but I was unwilling to return to political
+affiliations which I might have to renounce again; for I saw the power
+of the business interests in dictating the policy of the party and I did
+not propose to bow to that dictation.
+
+When the tariff bill came before the Senate, I could not in conscience
+support it. The beneficiaries of the bill seemed to be dictating their
+own schedules, and this was notably the case with the sugar trust, which
+had obtained a differential between raw and refined sugar several times
+greater than the entire cost of refining. I denounced the injustice of
+the sugar schedule particularly. A Mr. Oxnard came to remonstrate with
+me on behalf of the beet sugar industry of the West. "You know," he
+said, "what a hard time we're having with our sugar companies. Unless
+this schedule's adopted I greatly fear for our future."
+
+I replied that I was not opposing any protection of the struggling
+industries of the country, or of the sugar growers, but I was set
+against the extortionate differential that the sugar trust was
+demanding. Everybody knew that the trust had built its tremendous
+industrial power upon such criminally high protection as this
+differential afforded, and that its power now affected public councils,
+obtained improper favors, and terrorized the small competing beet sugar
+companies of the West. I argued that it was time to rally for the
+protection of the people as well as of the beet sugar industry.
+
+He predicted that if the differential was reduced the protection on beet
+sugar would fail. I laughed at him. "You don't know the temper of the
+Senate," I said. "Why, even some of the Democrats are in favor of
+protecting the beet sugar industry. That part of the bill is safe,
+whatever happens to the rest."
+
+"Senator Cannon," he replied, with all the scorn of superior knowledge,
+"you're somewhat new to this matter. Permit me to inform you that if we
+don't do our part in supporting the sugar schedule, including the
+differential, the friends of the schedule in the Senate will prevent us
+from obtaining our protection."
+
+"That," I retorted angrily, "is equivalent to saying that the sugar
+trust is writing the sugar schedule. I can't listen with patience to any
+such insult. The Senate of the United States cannot be dictated to, in a
+matter of such importance, by the trust. I will not vote for the
+differential. I will continue to oppose it to the end. If you're right--
+if the trust has such power--better that our struggling sugar industry
+should perish, so that we may arouse the people to the iniquitous
+manipulation that destroyed it."
+
+I continued to oppose the schedule. Soon after, I received a message
+from the Church authorities asking me to go to New York to attend to
+some of their financial affairs. I entered the lobby of the Plaza Hotel
+on Fifth Avenue about nine o'clock at night; I was met, unexpectedly, by
+Thomas R. Cutler, manager of the Utah Sugar Company, who was a Bishop of
+the Mormon Church; and he asked, almost at once, how the tariff bill was
+progressing at Washington.
+
+I had known Bishop Cutler for years. I knew that he had labored with
+extraordinary zeal and intelligence to establish the sugar industry in
+Utah. I understood that he had risked his own property, unselfishly, to
+save the enterprise when it was in peril. And I had every reason to
+expect that he would be as indignant as I was, at the proposal to use
+the support of the beet sugar states in behalf of their old tyrant.
+
+I told him of my conversation with Oxnard. "I'm glad," I said, "that
+we're independent enough to refuse such an alliance with the men who are
+robbing the country."
+
+A peculiar, pale smile curled Bishop Cutler's thin lips. "Well, Frank,"
+he replied, "that's just what I want to see you about. We"--with the
+intonation that is used among prominent Mormons when the "we" are
+voicing the conclusions of the hierarchy--"wouldn't like to do anything
+to hurt the sugar interests of the country. I've looked into this
+differential, and I don't see that it is particularly exorbitant. As a
+matter of fact, the American Sugar Refining Company is doing all it can
+to help us get our needed protection, and we have promised to do what we
+can for it, in return. I hope you can see your way clear to vote for the
+bill. I know that the brethren"--meaning the Church authorities--"will
+not approve of your opposition to it."
+
+I understand what his quiet warning meant, and when we had parted I went
+to my room to face the situation. Already I had been told, by a
+representative of the Union Pacific Railway, that the company intended
+to make Utah the legal home of the corporation, and to enter into a
+close affiliation with the prominent men of the Church. I had been asked
+to participate, and I had refused because I did not feel free, as a
+Senator, to become interested in a company whose relations with the
+government were of such a character. But I had not foreseen what this
+affiliation meant. Bishop Cutler's warning opened my eyes. The Church
+was protecting itself, in its commercial undertakings, by an alliance
+with the strongest and most unscrupulous of the national enemies.
+
+I saw that this was natural. The Mormon leaders had been for years
+struggling to save their community from poverty. Proscribed by the
+Federal laws, their home industries suffering for want of finances,
+fighting against the allied influences of business in politics, these
+leaders had been taught to feel a fearful respect for the power that had
+oppressed them. They were now being offered the aid and countenance of
+their old opponents. Our community, so long the object of the world's
+disdain, was to advance to favor and prosperity along the easy road of
+association with the most influential interests of the country.
+
+I remembered the long hard struggle of our people. I remembered the days
+and nights of anxiety that I myself had known when we were friendless
+and proscribed. Here was an open door for us, now, to power and wealth
+and all the comfort and consideration that would come of these. Other
+men better than I in personal character, more experienced in legislation
+than I, and wiser by natural gift, were willing to vote for the bill;
+and Bishop Cutler, a man whom I had always esteemed, the representative
+of the men whom I most revered, had urged me, for them, to support the
+bill, under suggestion of their anger if I refused to be guided by their
+leadership.
+
+I saw why the "interests" were eager to have our friendship; we could
+give them more than any other community of our size in the whole
+country. In the final analysis, the laws of our state and the
+administration of its government would be in the hands of the church
+authorities. Moses Thatcher might lead a rebellion for a time, but it
+would be brief. Brigham H. Roberts might avow his independence in some
+wonderful burst of campaign oratory, but he would be forced to fast and
+pray and see visions until he yielded. I might rebel and be successful
+for a moment, but the inexorable power of church control would crush me
+at last. Yet, if I surrendered in this matter of the tariff, I should be
+doing exactly what I had criticized so many of my colleagues for doing--
+for more than one man in the House and the Senate had given me the
+specious excuse that it was necessary to go against his conscience,
+here, in order to hold his influence and his power to do good in other
+instances.
+
+I did not sleep that night. On the day following, I transacted the
+financial affairs that I had been asked to undertake, and then I
+returned to Washington. My wife met me at the railway station, and--if
+you will bear with the intimacy of such psychology--the moment I saw
+her I knew how I would vote. I knew that neither the plea of community
+ambition, nor the equally invalid argument of an industrial need at
+home, nor the financial jeopardy of my friends who had invested in our
+home industries, nor the fear of church antagonism, could justify me in
+what would be, for me, an act of perfidy. When I had taken my oath of
+office I had pledged myself, in the memory of old days of injustice,
+never to vote as a Senator for an act of injustice. The test had come.
+By all the sanctities of that old suffering and the promise that I had
+made in its spirit, I would keep the faith.
+
+When the tariff bill came to its final vote in the Senate, I had the
+unhappy distinction of being the only Republican Senator who voted
+against it. A useless sacrifice! And yet if it had been my one act of
+public life, I should still be glad of it. The "interests" that forced
+the passage of that bill are those that have since exploited the country
+so shamefully. It is their control of Republican party councils that has
+since caused the loss of popular faith in Republicanism and the split in
+the party which threatens to disrupt it. It is their control of politics
+in Utah that has destroyed the whole value of the Mormon experiment in
+communism and made the Mormon Church an instrument of political
+oppression for commercial gain. They are the most dangerous domestic
+enemy that the nation has known since the close of the Civil War. My
+opposition was as doomed as such single independence must always be--
+but at least it was an opposition. There is a consolation in having been
+right, though you may have been futile!
+
+My father, visiting Washington soon afterwards, took occasion to
+criticize my vote publicly, in a newspaper interview; but he was
+content, by that criticism, to clear himself and his colleagues of any
+responsibility for my act. "You made a great mistake," he told me
+privately. "You are alienating the friends who have done so much for
+us." He added as if casually--with an air of off-handedness that was
+significant to me--"You lay yourself open to attack from your political
+enemies. When a man's head is high, it is easily hit." I was afterwards
+to understand how serious a danger he then foresaw and thus predicted.
+
+Many reports soon reached me of attacks that were being made upon me by
+the ecclesiastical authorities, particularly by Joseph F. Smith and
+Apostle Heber J. Grant. The formal criticism passed upon me by my father
+was magnified to make my tariff vote appear an inexcusable party and
+community defection. A vigorous and determined opposition was raised
+against me. And in this, Smith and his followers were aided by the
+perfect system of Church control in Utah--a system of complete
+ecclesiastical tyranny under the guise of democracy.
+
+Practically every Mormon man is in the priesthood. Nearly every Mormon
+man has some concrete authority to exercise in addition to holding his
+ordination as an elder. Obedience to his superiors is essential to his
+ambition to rise to higher dignity in the church; and obedience to his
+superiors is necessary in order to attract obedience to himself from his
+subordinates. There can be no lay jealousy of priestly interference in
+politics, because there are no laymen in the proper sense of the word. A
+man's worldly success in life is largely involved in his success as a
+churchman, since the church commands the opportunities of enterprise,
+and the leaders of the Church are the state's most powerful men of
+affairs. It is not uncommon, in any of our American communities, for men
+to use their church membership to support their business; but in Utah
+the Mormons practically must do so, and even the Gentiles find it wise
+to be subservient.
+
+Add to this temporal power of the Church the fact that it was
+establishing a policy of seeking material success for its people, and
+you have the explanation of its eagerness to accept an alliance with the
+"interests" and of its hostility to anyone who opposed that alliance.
+The Mormons, dispossessed of their means by the migration from Illinois,
+had been taught the difficulty of obtaining wealth and the value of it
+when once obtained. They fancied themselves set apart, in the mountains,
+by the world's exclusion. They were ambitious to make themselves as
+financially powerful in proportion to their numbers as the Jews were;
+and it was a common argument among them that the world's respect had
+turned to the Jews because of the dependence of Christian governments
+upon the Jewish financiers.
+
+The exploitation of this solid mass of industry and thrift could not
+long be obscured from the eyes of the East. The honest desire of the
+Mormon leaders to benefit their people by an alliance with financial
+power made them the easy victims of such an alliance. With the death of
+the older men of the hierarchy, the Church administration lost its
+tradition of religious leadership for the good of the community solely,
+and the new leaders became eager for financial aggrandizement for the
+sake, of power. Like every other church that has added a temporal
+scepter to its spiritual authority, its pontiffs have become kings of a
+civil government instead of primates of a religious faith.
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+
+
+
+At the Crossways
+
+
+
+In 1897, the Church, freed of proscription, with its people enjoying the
+sovereignty of their state rights, had--as I have already said--only
+one further enfranchisement to desire: and that was its freedom from
+debt. The informal "finance committee" of which I was a member, had
+succeeded in concentrating the bulk of the indebtedness in the East, on
+short term loans, and had brought a certain order out of the confusion
+of the older methods of administration. But, in 1897, my father proposed
+a comprehensive plan of Church finance that included the issuance of
+Church bonds and the formation of responsible committees to regulate and
+manage the business affairs of the Church, so that the bonds might be
+made a normal investment for Eastern capital by having a normal business
+method of administration to back them. The idea was tentatively approved
+by the Presidency, and I was asked to draw up the plan in detail.
+
+To this end there were placed in my hands sheets showing the assets,
+liabilities, revenues and disbursements of the Church. They gave a total
+cash indebtedness of $1,200,000, approximately. The revenues from tithes
+for the year 1897 were estimated at a trifle more than a million dollars--
+the total being low because of the financial depression from which the
+country was just recovering. The available property holdings--exclusive
+of premises used for religious worship, for educational and benevolent
+work, and such kindred purposes--were valued at several millions (from
+four to six), although there was no definite appraisal or means of
+obtaining appraisal, since the values would largely attach only when the
+properties were brought into business use. I was advised that the
+incomes of the Church would probably increase at the rate of ten per
+cent per annum, but I do not know by what calculations this ratio was
+reached.
+
+The disbursements were chiefly for interest on debt, for the maintenance
+of the temples and tabernacles, for educational and charitable work, for
+missionary headquarters in other countries, and for the return of
+released missionaries. The missionaries themselves received no
+compensation; they were supposed to travel "without purse or scrip;"
+their expenses were defrayed by their relatives, and they had to pay out
+of their own pockets for the printed tracts which they distributed.
+Neither the President nor any of the general authorities received
+salaries. There was an order that each apostle should be paid $2,000 a
+year, but this rule had been suspended, except, perhaps, in the cases of
+men who had to give their whole time to religious work and who had no
+independent incomes. Some occasional appropriations had been made for
+meeting houses in communities that had been unable to erect their own
+chapels of worship, but for the most part there were few calls made upon
+the Church revenues to support its religious activities, its priests or
+its propaganda.
+
+Our proposed committees, therefore, were a committee on missionary work,
+one on publication, one on colonization, one on political protective
+work for the Mormons in foreign countries, and most important--a
+finance committee selected from the body of apostles, with the addition
+of some able men connected with financial institutions. As a basis for
+the work of the finance committee, we proposed the establishment of an
+interest fund, a sinking fund, and a scale of percentage disbursements
+for the various community purposes. These committees were to be
+appointed by the Conferences of the people, and the committee reports
+were to be public. President Woodruff eagerly accepted the plan as
+relieving the Presidency of administrative cares that were becoming too
+great for the quorum to carry. Joseph F. Smith did not at once awake to
+the real meaning of the proposal; but when the scheme was submitted in
+its matured details, he spoke of the danger of allowing power to pass
+from the hands of the "trustee in trust" in business matters. His idea
+was sufficiently clear in its resistance to any diffusion of authority,
+but it was correspondingly void of any suggestion of substitute. For the
+time being he was pacified by the assurance that the "Kingdom of God"
+and the rule of its prophets would not be endangered by the organization
+of committees and the submission of financial plans to the general
+knowledge, and even to the consent, of the people.
+
+It was, of course, evident to the First Councillor that this scheme of
+Church administration would give the Mormon people a measure of
+responsible government, and the proposal was a part of his wisdom as a
+community leader seeking the common welfare. While we had been a people
+on whom the whole world seemed to be making war, a dictatorship had been
+necessary; but now that we had arrived at peace and liberty, a
+concentration of irresponsible power would surely become dangerous to
+progress. Without, therefore, impairing the religious authority of the
+Prophet, the First Councillor was willing to divide the temporal power of
+the Church among its members.
+
+He was as silent, about these aims, with me as with all others; but I
+had learned to understand him in his silences; and, in joining with him
+in his work of reform, I was as sure of his purpose as I have since been
+sure of the disaster to the Mormon people that has come of the failure
+to effect the reform.
+
+When the Presidency had approved of the flotation of bonds, I went with
+my father to New York to aid him in interesting Eastern capitalists in
+the investment. We interviewed Judge John F. Dillon and Mr. Winslow
+Pierce, of the law firm of Dillon and Pierce, attorneys for some of the
+Union Pacific interests; and through them we met Mr. Edward H. Harriman,
+Mr. George J. Gould and members of the firm of Kuhn Loeb and Company. It
+was interesting to watch the encounters between the Mormon prophet and
+some of these astutest of the nation's financiers; for it was as if one
+of the ancient patriarchs had stepped down from the days of early Israel
+to discuss the financial problems of his people with a modern "captain
+of industry." He described a condition of society that was, to Wall
+Street, archaic. He spoke with a serene assurance that the order of
+affairs in Utah was constituted in the wisdom of the word of God. He was
+listened to, with the interest of curiosity, as the chief living
+exponent of the Mormon movement, its processes and its aims; and I was
+impressed by the fact that these men of the world had a large and
+splendid sympathy for any wholesome social effort designed to abolish
+poverty and establish a quicker justice in the practical affairs of the
+race.
+
+It was of the abolition of poverty and the justice of the social order
+among the Mormons, that the First Councillor chiefly spoke. "Your
+clients," he said to Judge Dillon, "make their investments frequently in
+railroad stocks and bonds. What are the underlying bases of the values
+of railroad securities? Largely the industry and stability of the
+communities through which the railroad lines shall operate. Then, in
+reality, the security is valuable in proportion to the value of the
+community in its steadfastness, its prosperity and the safety of its
+productive labor. In your railroad investments you are obliged to take
+such considerations as a secondary security. In negotiating this Church
+loan with your clients, you can offer the same great values as a primary
+security. Probably no where else in the world is there a people at once
+so industrious and so stable as ours."
+
+It was the boast of the Mormons that there had not been an almshouse or
+an almstaker in any of their settlements, up to the time of the escheat
+proceedings by the Federal officials; and this was literally true. Every
+man had been helped to the employment for which he was best fitted. If
+an immigrant, in his former estate, had been a silk-weaver, efforts were
+made to establish his industry and give it public support. If he had
+been a musician of talent, a little conservatory was founded, and
+patronage obtained for him. When the growth of population made it
+necessary to open new valleys for agriculture, the Church, out of its
+community fund, rendered the initial aid; in many instances the original
+irrigation enterprises of small settlements were thus financed; and the
+investments were repaid not only directly, by the return of the loan,
+but indirectly, many times over, by the increased productiveness and
+larger contributions of the people. Co-operation, in mercantile,
+industrial and stock-raising undertakings, assured the support and
+patronage of each community for its own particular enterprise, prevented
+destructive competition and checked the greed of the individual--for
+the more he toiled for himself, the larger the share of the general
+burden he had to carry.
+
+It was the First Councillor's theory that when people contributed to a
+common fund they became interested in one another's material welfare.
+The man who paid less in tithes this year than last was counselled with
+as to why his business had been unsuccessful, and the wise men of his
+little circle aided him with advice and material help. The man who
+contributed largely was glad of a prosperity from which he yielded a
+part--in recognition of what the community had done for him and in a
+reverent gratitude to God for making him "a steward of mighty
+possessions"--but he was anxious that his neighbor also should be a
+larger contributor each year.
+
+The whole system of tithe-paying was built upon a series of purported
+"revelations" received by Joseph Smith, the original Prophet. It was
+declared to be the will of God that all men, as stewards of their
+possessions, should give of their increase annually into "the storehouse
+of the Lord," which should always be open for the relief of the poor.
+Inasmuch as the man who received help--or whose widow and children did
+so--had been a tithe-payer during all his productive years, there was
+none of the feeling of personal humiliation on the part of the
+recipient, nor any of the feeling of condescending charity on the part
+of the giver, in the distribution of funds to the needy. And it was
+astonishing how few the needy were--because of the abstemious lives,
+the industry, and the thrift of the workers.
+
+The Church tribunals heard and settled all disputes over property or
+personal rights not involving the criminal law. Expensive litigation was
+thus avoided. Society was saved the cost of innumerable courts. There
+were many counties in which no lawyer could be found; and everywhere,
+among the Mormons, it was considered an act of evil fellowship,
+amounting almost to apostasy, for a man to bring suit against his
+brother in the civil tribunals.
+
+In short--as my father pointed out--Utah, at that time, expressed the
+only full-bodied social proposition in the United States. There never
+had been in America another community whose future, in the economic
+aspects, offered so clear a solution of problems which still remain
+generally unsettled. It was as if a segment of the great circle of
+modern humanity had been transported to another world, otherwise
+unpopulated, and there with the experience gained through centuries of
+human travail--had attempted the establishment of a just, beneficent
+and satisfying social order.
+
+I am here repeating this argument--this exposition--because the
+financial absolutism of the Prophets of the Church has since ruined the
+whole Mormon experiment in communism, put the Mormon paupers into the
+public poor houses, used the tithes to support the large financial
+ventures of the Prophet's favorites, and turned the Church's "community
+enterprises" into monopolistic exploitations of the Mormon people. And
+this change began even while our negotiations were pending in New York--
+for they were prolonged, for various reasons, into the summer of 1898,
+and they were interrupted finally by the death of President Woodruff.
+
+As soon as I received word of his illness I took train for Utah. The
+news of his death met me on the journey home. Since I derived my
+authority solely from him, upon my arrival in Salt Lake I went to the
+Cashier of the Church, gave him the keys and the password to the safety
+deposit box in New York, and withdrew from any further participation in
+the Church's financial affairs. When I came to the office of the
+Presidency I found that my father had removed his desk; and this was an
+indication to me of what was happening in the inner circles of Church
+intrigue.
+
+The president of the quorum of apostles invariably succeeds to the
+Presidency of the Church, although it is left to the apostles to decide,
+and their choice is supposed to be directed by inspiration. His election
+is subsequently ratified by the General Conference; but this
+ratification is a mere form, because the conference must either accept
+the choice of the apostles or rebel against "the revelation of God."
+
+Apostle Lorenzo Snow was president of the quorum of apostles, and
+therefore in line for the Presidency. But usually, after the death of a
+President, a considerable period was allowed to elapse before the
+selection of his successor, with the government resting in the quorum of
+apostles meanwhile, even for a term of years. As soon as I arrived in
+Salt Lake, Apostle Snow asked me to a private interview (in the same
+small back room of the President's offices), inquired about the
+financial negotiations that I had been conducting, and asked me whether
+it was not essential to the success of our business affairs that as soon
+as possible the Church should elect a President, empowered as "trustee
+in trust." I replied that it was. He invited me to attend a conference
+of the apostles and give my views upon the situation to them.
+
+This seemed to me an act of rather shallow cunning, for I knew I was too
+unimportant a person to be so consulted unless he thought my report
+would aid his intrigue. Such intriguing was offensive to the religious
+traditions of the Church; and it outraged my feeling for President
+Woodruff, who was hardly cold in death before this personal and worldly
+ambition caught at the reins of his office. Snow had been a man of small
+weight in the government of the Church. He had known none of the
+responsibilities of great leadership. He was eighty-four years old.
+
+However, it was impossible for us to maintain the Church's credit in the
+East unless our community were represented by some choate authority,
+since our credit rested on the belief that the Mormon people were ready
+to consecrate all their possessions at any time to the service of the
+Church at the command of the President. I advised the apostles of this
+fact. Snow was elected President on September 13, 1898, eleven days
+after Woodruff's death. He followed the usual precedent in choosing my
+father and Joseph F. Smith as his Councillor's.
+
+But he took possession of his new authority with the manner of an heir
+entering upon the ownership of a personal estate for which he had long
+waited--and which he proposed to enjoy to the full for his remaining
+years. In a most literal sense he held that all the property of the
+people of the Church was subject to his direction, as chief earthly
+steward of "the Divine Monarch," and he proceeded to exercise his
+assumed prerogatives with an autocracy that made even Joseph F. Smith
+complain because the Councillor's were never asked for counsel. As
+resident apostle of Box Elder County and president of the Box Elder
+"stake of Zion," Snow had already shown his ambition as a financier,
+disastrously; and it was as the financial head of the Church that he was
+chiefly to rule during his term of absolutism.
+
+Of all the Church leaders whom I had known he was the only man who
+showed none of the robustness of the Western experience. Tall, stately,
+white-bearded, elegant and courtly, he prided himself most obviously on
+his manners and his culture. He rarely spoke in any but the most subdued
+and silken tones of suavity. He walked with a step that was almost
+affected in its gentility. If he had any passions, he held them in such
+smooth concealment that the public credited him with neither force nor
+unkindness. He had been a great traveler (as a missionary); he had
+written his autobiography, somewhat egotistically; he was devoted to the
+forms of his religion, like a mediaeval Prince of the Church and an
+elegante. But under all the artificialities of personal vanity and
+exterior grace, he proved to have a cold determination that seemed more
+selfishly ambitious than religiously zealous.
+
+At once, upon his accession to power, he notified us that he did not
+intend to carry out any such plan as we had suggested for the
+administration of the Church's finances. It meant a diffusion of
+authority; and he held that the best results had been obtained by
+keeping all power in the hands of the Prophet, Seer and Revelator, and
+of those whom he might appoint to work with him. Joseph F. Smith, at a
+meeting of the Presidency, was even more positive. No good, he said,
+could come of publishing the affairs of the community to the people of
+it; those affairs were purely the concern of the Prophets; the Lord
+revealed His will to the Prophets and they were responsible only to Him.
+
+My father necessarily bowed to the President's decision. "It is within
+the authority of the Prophet of the Lord," he counselled me, "to
+determine how he will conduct the business of the Church. President Snow
+has his own ideas."
+
+By that decision, as I see it now, an autocracy of financial power was
+confirmed to the President of the Mormon Church at a time when a renewal
+of prosperity among its people was about to make such power fatal to
+their liberties. It was confirmed to a man who proved himself eager for
+it, ambitious to increase it and secretly unscrupulous in his use of it.
+He proceeded at once to preach the doctrine of contribution with
+unexampled zeal, but he administered the "common fund," so collected,
+with none of the old feeling of responsibility to the people who
+contributed it He became the first of the new financial pontiffs of the
+Church who have used the "money power" as an aid to hierarchical
+domination.
+
+Moreover, in his desire to fill the coffers of the Church, he engaged in
+"practical politics" and made a profit out of Church influence, both in
+business enterprises and in political campaigns. He proved himself
+peculiarly qualified by nature to construct and direct a secret
+political machine--a machine whose operations were never to be
+observable except to the close student of Utah's ecclesiasticism--a
+machine that was to be all the more effective because of its silent
+certainty. As the succeeding chapters of this narrative will show,
+although he affected a fine superiority to unclean political work and
+always publicly professed that the Church of Christ was holding itself
+aloof from the strife of partisanship, there was no political event on
+which he did not fix the calculating eye of his ambitious clericalism
+and no candidacy that he did not reach with those slender but powerful
+fingers that controlled the destiny of a state and trifled with the
+honor of a people.
+
+His accession marked the change from the old to the new regime in Utah.
+Leadership was no longer a dangerous honor. Proscription no longer made
+the authorities of the Church strong by persecution--hardy chiefs of a
+poverty-stricken people--leaders as sensible of the obligations of
+power as their followers were faithful in their allegiance of duty.
+Political freedom and worldly prosperity made the office of President a
+luxurious sovereignty, easily tyrannical, fortified in its religious
+absolutism by its irresponsible power of finance, and protected in its
+social abuses, from the interference of the nation, by an alliance with
+the commercial rulers of the nation and by a duplicity that worldliness
+has learned to dignify with the respectability of material success.
+
+
+
+Chapter X
+
+
+
+On the Downward Path
+
+
+
+During the last years of President Woodruff's life there had been a slow
+decline of the feeling that it was necessary for self-protection that
+the hierarchy should preserve a political control over the people. I
+cannot say that the feeling had wholly passed. It had continued to show
+itself, here and there, whenever a candidate was so pertinacious in his
+independence that words of disfavor were sent out from Church
+headquarters in one of those whispers that carry to the confines of the
+kingdom of the priests. But the progress was apparent. The tendency was
+clear. And in 1898 there was neither internal revolt nor external threat
+to provoke a renewal of the exercise of that force which is necessarily
+despotic if it be used at all.
+
+Yet, in September, 1898, President Snow, if he did not instigate, at
+least authorized the candidacy of Brigham H. Roberts for Congress--a
+polygamist who had been threatened with excommunication for his
+opposition to the "political manifesto" of 1896 and who had recanted and
+made his peace with the hierarchy. His election, now, would be a proof
+that the Church could punish a brilliant orator and courageous citizen
+in the time of his independence and then reward him in the day of his
+submission; and the authorities would thus demonstrate to all the people
+that the one way to political preferment lay through the annihilation of
+self-will and the submergence of national loyalty in priestly devotion.
+Such a candidacy was a sufficient shame to the state; but there was also
+a United States Senatorship to be bestowed; and it was deliberately
+bargained for, between the Church authorities and a man who deserved
+better than the alliance into which he entered.
+
+Alfred W. McCune was a citizen of Utah who had gone out from the
+territory in the days of its poverty (and his own), had made a fortune
+in British Columbia and Montana, and had returned to his home state to
+enrich it with his generosities. He was not a Mormon, but he had wide
+Mormon connections. He spent his millions in public enterprises and
+benefactions; and the Church had benefited in the sum of many thousands
+by his subscriptions to its funds and institutions.
+
+Apostle Heber J. Grant, a Republican by sentiment but a Democrat by
+pretension, was selected by President Snow to barter the Senatorship to
+McCune. There can be no doubt of it. Everyone immediately suspected it.
+Letters from Grant, published in the newspapers of January, 1899,
+subsequently confirmed it. And President Snow's actions, toward the end
+of the campaign, proved it.
+
+The other candidates were Judge O. W. Powers, a prominent Democrat;
+William H. King, also a Democrat, a former member of Congress and at one
+time a Federal judge; and myself as an independent Silver Republican. I
+had not allied myself with the Democrats after withdrawing from the
+Republican convention of 1896, and the Republican machine in Utah
+(thanks to the power of the "interests") had repudiated me, in
+September, 1898, by adopting a platform that refused to support as
+Senator any man who had opposed the Dingley Tariff Bill. But I had the
+votes of my own county of Weber, and some other votes that had been
+pledged to me before the election of members of the legislature; and
+though my return to the Senate seemed plainly impossible, I went into
+the fight in fulfillment of understandings which I had with progressive
+elements in Utah and with the "insurgents," of that day, in Washington.
+
+During the campaign to elect members of the Legislature, I supported the
+Democratic State and Congressional ticket. Brigham H. Roberts had been
+nominated for Congress on this ticket despite the protests of my father
+and many others who foresaw the evil results of electing a polygamist. I
+accepted Roberts' nomination as proof that this question must be settled
+anew at Washington; and I contented myself with predicting, throughout
+the campaign, that the House of Representatives would determine whether
+it would admit a polygamist and a member of the hierarchy as a lawmaker,
+and would so forever dispose of these ecclesiastical candidacies of
+which Utah refused to dispose for itself. (And it is a fact that since
+the prompt exclusion of Roberts from the House of Representatives no
+known polygamist has been elected to either House of Congress.)
+
+A Democratic legislature was elected, and A. W. McCune was put forward
+prominently as a candidate for the United States senatorship. He was
+assisted by his own newspaper, the Salt Lake Herald, by numberless
+business interests, cleverly by the Deseret News (the organ of the
+hierarchy) flagrantly and for financial reasons by Apostle Heber J.
+Grant, and incidentally by the Smiths on behalf of the Church. Also a
+Republican assistance was given him by my former colleague in the
+Senate, Arthur Brown, who specialized as an opponent to my candidacy.
+
+My old campaign manager, Ben Rich, had been withdrawn from me by a
+Church order appointing him in control of the Eastern missions. I was
+without the support of either the Democratic or Republican
+organizations: my following was a personal one: and consequently the
+attack upon me chiefly took the form of stories of personal immorality,
+privately circulated. These stories culminated in a motion before the
+Woman's Republican Club, demanding my withdrawal from the Senatorial
+contest on the ground of "gross misconduct"--a motion introduced by a
+Mrs. Anna M. Bradley, a woman politician (who was a stranger to me),
+with the assistance of Mrs. Arthur Brown, wife of the former Senator.
+
+If I ever had any resentment against these unfortunate women for
+allowing themselves to be used as the agents of slander, it passed in
+the miseries that overtook them later; for Mrs. Brown died of the
+scandal of her husband's intimacy with Mrs. Bradley, and Mrs. Bradley
+shot and killed ex-Senator Brown, in a Washington hotel, because he
+refused to marry her and recognize her child after her divorce from her
+husband.
+
+My anger then, and since, was not against the women, but against the men
+who hid behind them--against Apostle Heber J. Grant and Apostle John
+Henry Smith and their tool, ex-Senator Brown. In my anger I decided to
+take an action that looked as desperate as it proved successful. I hired
+the Salt Lake Theatre--for a night (February 9, 1899), and announced
+that I would speak on "Senatorial Candidates and Pharisees"--intending
+to use the opportunity of self-defense in order to attack the "financial
+apostles" who were selling Church influence.
+
+In taking that step I understood, of course, that it meant the death for
+me of any political ambition in Utah. It meant offending my father, who
+besought me not to raise my hand against "the Lord's anointed," but to
+leave my enemies "to God's justice"--as he had always done with his. It
+meant a breach with many of my friends in the Church who would blindly
+resent my criticism of the political apostles as an encouragement to the
+enemies of the faith. But the part that I had taken in helping Utah to
+gain its statehood made it impossible for me to stand aside, now, and
+see all our pledges broken, all our promises betrayed. I had to offer
+myself as a sacrifice to hierarchical resentment in the hope that my
+destruction might give at least a momentary pause to the reactionaries
+in their career.
+
+It is needless that I should relate all the incidents of that wild
+night. The theatre was packed with people who joined me for the moment
+in a sympathetic protest against the disgrace of Utah. President Lorenzo
+Snow, his two councillors and several apostles were present, and I spoke
+without any reservations on account of personal relationship, my own
+candidacy or the possible effect upon my own affairs. I appealed to the
+people to prevent the sale of Utah's senatorship to McCune by Apostle
+Grant and the Church reactionaries; and by turning the light of
+publicity upon the methods that were being employed in the legislature,
+I made it impossible for the hierarchy to sway enough votes to elect
+McCune. The men who had pledged themselves to the other candidates could
+not be shaken from their support without a national scandal. The
+election settled for the time into a deadlock, in which no candidate
+could obtain enough votes to elect him.
+
+Apostle Heber J. Grant started to write letters that should counteract
+the effect of my speech, but President Snow forbade him to continue the
+controversy and sent word to me that he had forbidden Grant to continue
+it. I did not know why President Snow wished me to feel that he was
+friendly to me, but I was soon to learn.
+
+The deadlock in the legislature continued, in spite of all the efforts
+of the Church authorities to break it. Our political workers, summoned
+one by one by messengers from Church headquarters, had gone to
+interviews from which they did not return to us--until I had left only
+Judge Ed. F. Colborn (a famous character in Kansas, Colorado and Utah),
+and an old friend, Jesse W. Fox. One night, about a week after the
+meeting in the theatre, we three were sitting alone in my rooms, when
+the door opened and someone beckoned to Fox. He went out. Judge Colborn
+opened a window to see Fox getting into a carriage with a man from
+Church headquarters--and we knew that our last worker was gone.
+
+He returned only to tell me that President Snow wished to see me--that
+if I were willing, the President would like to have me call upon him, at
+half past nine the following evening, in his residence. And I understood
+the significance of such an invitation for such an hour. I had been too
+often in contact with the power of the Prophets to doubt what was
+required of me. I was curious merely to know what form the ultimatum
+would take.
+
+President Snow was then living with his youngest wife in a house a few
+blocks from the offices of the Presidency. I drove there in a carriage
+and ordered the driver to wait for me. President Snow opened the door to
+me himself, received me with his usual engaging smile, and ushered me
+into a reception room that was shut off, by portieres, from a larger
+parlor. There, when he had invited me to be seated, he said, winningly:
+"I was not sure you would come in answer to my message."
+
+I assured him that I had not so far lost my regard for the men with whom
+my father was associated. "And besides," I said, "if there were no other
+reason, it is my place, as the younger of the two, to attend on your
+convenience."
+
+"I did not know," he replied, "but that you thought me one of the
+'Pharisees' of whom you spoke."
+
+I did not accept this invitation to reply that I did not consider him
+one of the Pharisees. I explained merely that I had identified the
+Pharisees in my speech by name and deed and accusation. "Unless
+something there said is applicable to you, I have no charge to make
+against you."
+
+He excused himself a moment to go to an infant whom we could hear crying
+in an inner room; and, when he returned, he had the child in his arms--
+a little girl, in a night gown. He sat down, petting her, stroking her
+hair with his supple lean hand, affectionately, and smiling with a sort
+of absentminded tenderness as he took up the conversation again.
+
+This memory of him sticks in my mind as one of the most extraordinary
+pictures of my experience. I knew that I had come there to hear my own
+or some other person's political death sentence. I knew that he would
+not have invited me at such an hour, with such secrecy, unless the issue
+of our conference was to be something dark and fatal. And in the soft
+radiance of the lamp he sat smiling--fragile of build, almost
+spiritual, white-haired, delicately cultured--soothing the child who
+played with his long silvery beard and blinked sleepily. He inquired
+whether my carriage was waiting for me, and I replied that it was. He
+asked me to dismiss it. When I returned to the room, the little girl was
+resting quiet, and he excused himself to take her to her cot. I heard
+him closing the doors behind him as he came back. "We may now talk with
+perfect freedom," he announced. "There's no one else in this part of the
+house."
+
+He sat down in his chair, composing himself with an air that might have
+distinguished one of the ancient kings. "I have sent for you to talk
+about the Senatorial situation. May I speak plainly to you?"
+
+I replied that he might. He was watching me, under his gray eyebrows,
+with his soft eyes, in which there was a glitter of blackness but none
+of the rheum of old age.
+
+"It would be most unfortunate," he said, "for us, as a people, if we
+failed to elect a Senator. I've had many business and other anxieties
+for the Church, and I want this question settled. If we act wisely--
+with the power and influence at our command--aid will come to me. I
+think you would not willingly permit our situation to become more
+difficult."
+
+He must have seen a change in my expression--a change that indicated
+how well I understood the significance of this guarded introduction.
+Suddenly, his manner broke into animation, and holding out both hands to
+me, palms up, he said, smiling: "You must know, Brother Frank, that I
+had nothing to do with Mr. McCune's candidacy for the Senate, do you
+not? I was not responsible for what Brother Grant did. Before we go on,
+I want you to acquit me of responsibility for that project."
+
+"President Snow," I replied, "I can't admit so much. I, too, wish to
+talk plainly--with your permission. Your responsibility is evident even
+to the casual observer--to say nothing of one reared as I've been.
+Every man in this community knows that when you point your finger your
+apostles go, and when you crook your finger your apostles return--and
+Heber J. Grant has only done what you permitted him to do with your full
+knowledge."
+
+He drew himself up, coldly. "What I have done," he retorted, "has been
+done with the knowledge of my Councillor's."
+
+The thrust was obvious. I replied: "If my father desires to discuss with
+me his responsibility for this indignity to the state, he knows I'm at
+his command. And if I have any charge to make, involving his good faith
+toward the country, I'll seek him alone."
+
+"Very well," he said, with a frigid suavity. "We will leave that part of
+the question." He paused. "Last night," he continued, "lying on my bed,
+I had a vision. I saw this work of God injured by the political strife
+of the brethren. And the voice of the Lord came to me, directing me to
+see that your father was elected to the Senate." He studied me a moment
+before he added: "What have you to say?"
+
+I answered: "It seems to me impossible. This legislature is strongly
+Democratic. My father's a Republican. It seems to me not only
+impracticable but very unwise--if it could be done."
+
+"Never mind that," he said. "The Lord will take care of the event. I
+want you to withdraw from the race and throw your strength to your
+father. It is the will of the Lord that you do so."
+
+"Have you a revelation to that effect also?" I asked.
+
+He answered, pontifically, "Yes."
+
+"You'll publish it to the world, then, the same as other revelations?"
+
+"No," he replied. "No."
+
+"Then I'll not obey it," I said, "because if God is ashamed of it, I
+am."
+
+His air of prophetic authority changed to one of combative resolution.
+He explained that one of the other candidates, a strong Democrat, had
+agreed to accept the revelation if I would; that the two of us could
+give our strength to the church candidate; that the Church would turn to
+my father the votes that it had already in command for McCune, and my
+father's election would be carried.
+
+I felt that the thumb-screws were being put on me again. For the second
+time I was being forced to the point of denying the Senatorship to my
+father by refusing him my support. And there could not have been, for
+me, a more vivid and instantaneous illumination of the hidden depths in
+this Church system--or in the individual Prophet of the cult--than was
+made by Snow's determined insistence that I should break my word of
+honor to the people of the state and of the nation, pledge that broken
+faith to him, induce all my supporters in the legislature to violate
+their covenants--Mormon and Gentile alike!--and upon his mere
+assumption of divine authority, direct Mormon and Gentile to stultify
+and disgrace themselves forever as men and public officials. There was
+something appalling in the calculating cruelty with which he proposed to
+devote us all to destruction and dishonor. There was something inhumanly
+malignant in the plan to use my known affection for my father in order
+to make me guilty of the very betrayal of the people which I had
+publicly denounced. I looked at him--and heard him, now, placidly,
+confidently, with a renewed suavity, urging me to do the thing.
+
+"President Snow," I interrupted, "does my father know of this?"
+
+He answered: "No."
+
+"I'm glad of it," I said. (And I was!) "This is not the way to work out
+either the destiny of 'God's people' or the destiny of this state. It
+would place my father in a most humiliating position to be elected--at
+the orders of the Church--under the assumption that God Almighty had
+directed men to break their solemn promises to their constituents. I
+have as high an admiration for my father's wisdom and ability as you or
+the Democratic candidate who has offered to withdraw at the will of the
+Church, but I should be paying no honor to my father by dishonoring my
+pledge to my constituents and asking other men to dishonor theirs."
+
+He dismissed me with an air of benignant sorrow!
+
+The deadlock in the legislature continued unbroken. Among my supporters
+was Lewis W. Shurtliff, the President of the "Stake of Zion" in which I
+lived; he was one of the highest Church dignitaries in the legislature
+and was regarded as my foremost champion in the Senatorial contest. On
+the last day of the legislative session, at President Snow's
+instruction, my father, known as a Republican, was offered as a
+senatorial candidate to this Democratic legislature, and all the power
+of the Church influence was thrown to him. President Shurtliff's wife
+came to our headquarters, that night, and knelt, with a number of other
+ladies, to pray that her husband might be spared the humiliation of
+breaking his repeated promise not to desert me! We all knew that if he
+broke his promise, it would cause him more mental anguish than anyone
+else; but we knew, too, that if the command came from Church
+headquarters, he would have to obey it. Men broke their political
+pledges to their people and outraged their own feelings of personal
+independence or partisan loyalty, rather than offend against "the will
+of the Lord." The forces of the other candidates went to pieces, and on
+the last night of the session my father's vote reached twenty-three. (It
+required thirty-two votes to elect.)
+
+The situation was saved by the action of a number of Democrats who got
+together and obtained a recess; when the recess was ended, a final
+ballot was taken, and, since no candidate had enough votes to elect him,
+the presiding officer, by pre-concertment, declared the joint assembly
+adjourned sine die, by operation of law. No Senator was elected.
+
+But it was the last time that the Church authorities were to be balked.
+Since that day, they have dictated the nominations and carried the
+elections of the United States Senators from Utah as if these were
+candidates for a church office. The present Senator, Reed Smoot, is an
+apostle of the Church; he obtained the Mormon President's "permission"
+to become a candidate, as he admitted to an investigating committee of
+the Senate; and when the recent tariff bill was being attacked by
+insurgent Republicans and carried by Senator Aldrich, Senator Smoot
+acted as Aldrich's lieutenant in debate, and remained to watch the
+defense of the "interests" when his chief was absent from the Senate
+chamber. (Not because Smoot was such an able defender of those
+"interests"! Not because his constituents would uphold his course! But
+because he has no constituents, and is responsible to no one but the
+hierarchical partners of those "interests.")
+
+Every pledge of the Mormon leaders that the Church would not interfere
+in politics has been broken at every election in Utah since President
+Snow that night pleaded to me that he had had many business anxieties
+for the Church and that if we elected the Church candidate "aid" would
+come to him. The covenants by which Utah obtained its statehood have
+been violated again and again. The provisions of the state constitution
+have been nullified. The trust of the Mormon people has been abused;
+their political liberties have been denied them; their Gentile brethren
+have been betrayed. And all this has been done not for the protection of
+the people, who were threatened with no proscription--and not for the
+advancement of the faith, which has been free to work out its own
+future. It has been done as a part of the alliance between the
+"financial" prophets of the Church and the financial "interests" of the
+country--which have been exploiting the people of Utah as they have
+exploited the whole nation with the aid of the ecclesiastical
+authorities in Utah.
+
+
+
+Chapter XI
+
+
+
+The Will of the Lord
+
+
+
+The Mormon leaders were now hurried down their chosen path of dishonor
+with a fateful rapidity. A reform movement was demanding of Washington
+the adoption of a constitutional amendment that should give Congress
+power to regulate the marriage and divorce laws of all the states in the
+Union. And this proposed amendment--partly inspired by a growing doubt
+of the good faith of the Mormon leaders--gave the politicians in
+Washington something to trade for Mormon votes, in the presidential
+campaign of 1900.
+
+The Republicans had lost the electoral votes of Utah and the surrounding
+states, in 1896.
+
+Utah was now Democratic, and its one United States Senator (who was
+still in office) was a Democrat. Senator Hanna's lieutenant, Perry S.
+Heath, came to Salt Lake City in the summer of 1900, to confer with the
+heads of the Mormon Church. His authority (as representative of the
+ruler of the Republican party) had been authenticated by correspondence;
+and he was received by President Snow as royalty receives the envoy of
+royalty.
+
+Heath negotiated with his usual directness. In the phrase of the time,
+"he laid down his cards on the table, face up, and asked Snow to play to
+that hand." If the Mormon Church would pledge its support to the
+Republican party, the Republican leaders would avert the threatened
+constitutional amendment that was to give Congress the power to
+interfere in the domestic affairs of the Mormon people. But if the
+Church denied its support to the Republican party, the constitutional
+amendment would be carried, and the Mormons, in their marriage
+relations, would be returned to the Federal jurisdiction from which they
+had escaped when the territory was admitted to statehood.
+
+The sentiment of the country was known to be in favor of giving Congress
+such power. A strong body of reformers was urging the amendment, and the
+Church leaders had sent Apostle John Henry Smith and Bishop H. B.
+Clawson to lobby against it. After consulting with my father, I had
+written to President Snow pointing out the danger to the Mormons of
+having a lobby opposing such an amendment--for I was not then aware of
+the secret return to the practice of polygamy, after 1896. President
+Snow replied to me (in a message of guarded prudence) that although the
+Church inhibited plural marriage and did not intend to allow the
+practice, he was opposed to the interference of Congress in the domestic
+concerns of the other states of the Union!
+
+He made his "deal" with Perry Heath. Church messengers were sent out
+secretly to the Mormons in Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, Montana,
+Washington, Oregon, California and the territories, with the whispered
+announcement that it was "the will of the Lord" that the Republicans
+should be aided. Utah went Republican; the Mormons in the surrounding
+states either openly supported, or secretly voted for McKinley; and the
+constitutional amendment was "side tracked" and forgotten.
+
+Utah elected a Republican legislature. Apostle Reed Smoot applied to
+President Snow for permission to become a candidate for the United
+States Senatorship, and obtained a promise that if he stood aside, for
+the time, he should receive his reward later. President Snow had decided
+that Thomas Kearns, already an active candidate, was the man whom the
+Church would support--since Mr. Kearns' ability, his wealth and his
+business connection promised greater advantages for the state and (under
+cunning manipulation by the priests) greater advantages for the Church
+than the election of any other candidate. And all this may be fairly
+said without assuming that there was any definite arrangement between he
+Church and any friends of Mr. Kearns.
+
+Kearns was associated with Senator Clark of Montana and R. C. Kerens of
+St. Louis in building a railroad from Salt Lake to Los Angeles, and the
+Church owned some fifteen miles of track that had been laid from Salt
+Lake City, as the beginning of a Los Angeles line. It was apparently
+assumed by President Snow that Kearns' election to the Senate would
+facilitate the sale of this Church railroad to the Clark-Kearns
+syndicate. The Church had a direct interest in numerous iron and coal
+properties in Southern Utah, and many members of the Church also had
+private properties there, which the Los Angeles line would develop. Some
+of Kearns' friends were negotiating for the purchase of Church
+properties, and one of his partners was proposing to buy (and
+subsequently bought) the Church's "Amelia Palace," a useless and
+expensive property which Brigham Young had built for his favorite wife,
+and which the Church had long been eager to sell.
+
+My father had been in ill-health for some months and he was away from
+Utah a large part of the time. President Snow took counsel of his Second
+Councillor, Joseph F. Smith, and of Apostle John Henry Smith; and to the
+Smiths, he indicated Thos. Kearns as the one whose election to the
+United States Senate might do most to advance Snow's concealed purpose.
+But the Smiths had other plans, that were equally advantageous to the
+Church and more advantageous to the Smiths; they rebelled against
+President Snow's dictation, and he ordered them both away on temporary
+"missions."
+
+As Joseph F. Smith was leaving the President's offices, in a rage, he
+met an old friend, Joseph Howell, who (at this writing) is a member of
+Congress from Utah, and was then a member of the Utah legislature. He
+told Smith that President Snow had sent for him, and Smith, controlling
+himself--without betraying any knowledge of the probable purpose of
+Snow's summons to Howell--said affectionately: "Brother Howell, I want
+you to make a promise to me on your honor as an elder in Israel. I want
+you to pledge yourself never to vote in this legislature for Thomas
+Kearns as Senator. I ask it as your friend, and as a Prophet to the
+people."
+
+Howell gave his promise, and proceeded to his interview with President
+Snow. There he received the announcement that it was "the will of the
+Lord" that he should vote for Kearns, and he had to reply that he had
+already received an inspired instruction, on this point, from a Prophet
+of the Lord, and had given his pledge against Kearns.
+
+The incident became one of the jokes of the campaign, for Howell held to
+his promise to Smith (and was subsequently rewarded by Smith with a seat
+in Congress), and President Snow was compelled to waive the question of
+conflicting "revelations."
+
+Kearns was elected. But he had had a powerful political machine of his
+own, and he had been supported by a strong Gentile vote. He immediately
+showed his independence by refusing to take orders from the political
+Church leaders. He declined, further, for himself and his financial
+confreres, to engage with the Church in business affairs. Many charges
+were made that he was breaking his agreement of cooperation with the
+authorities, but there never has been produced any evidence of such an
+agreement, and I do not believe (from my knowledge of Senator Kearns)
+that the agreement was ever made.
+
+The railroad into Southern Utah was later built by the Harriman
+interests in combination with Clark and Kearns; but there, too, Snow was
+disappointed. The expected development of the Church properties proved
+far less profitable than had been supposed, and the financial prophecies
+of the Seer and Revelator were not fulfilled.
+
+By this time it was abundantly evident that some of the Church leaders
+intended to rule their people in politics with an absolutism as supreme
+as any that Utah had ever known in the old days. And for these leaders
+to maintain their authority--despite the covenant of their amnesty, the
+terms of Utah's statehood and the provisions of the constitution--and
+to maintain that authority against the robust American sentiment that
+would be sure to assert itself--it was necessary that they should have
+the most effective political protection afforded by any organization in
+the whole country. The ideal arrangement of evil was offered to them by
+the men then in temporary leadership of the Republican party. The
+Prophets were able to make the Republican party a guilty partner of
+their perfidy by making it a recipient of the proceeds of that perfidy,
+and to assure themselves protection in every religious tyranny so long
+as they did not run counter to Republican purpose.
+
+For the moment, the Church took more benefit from the partnership than
+it conferred. The result of the presidential elections of 1900 showed
+that the Republicans could have elected their ticket without any help
+from the Prophets. But without the help of the dominant party the
+Prophets could not have renewed the rule of the state by the Church
+could not have prevented the passage of a constitutional amendment
+punishing polygamy by Federal statute--and could not have obtained such
+intimate relation and commanding influence with the great "interests" of
+the country.
+
+Throughout all these miserable incidents, I had a vague hope that they
+would prove merely temporary and peculiar to the term of Snow's
+presidency. He was now in his eighty-sixth year. My father was next in
+succession for the Presidency, and he was seventy-three. He had remained
+personally faithful to every pledge that he had made to the nation, and
+though he had been powerless to prevent the breaches of covenant that
+had followed the sovereignty of statehood, I knew that he had opposed
+some of them and been a willing party to none. It is true that he had
+become a director of the Union Pacific Railway and was close to the
+leading financiers of the East; but his Union Pacific connection had
+come from the fact that he had been one of the builders of the road that
+had afterward merged in the Oregon Short Line; and his financial
+relations had been those of a financier and not a politician. In all the
+years that I had been working with him, I had never known him to have
+any purpose that was not communistic in its final aspect and designed
+for the good of his people.
+
+Up to his seventieth year, he had shown no ill result of his early
+hardships. Living the abstemious life of the orthodox Mormon, to whom
+wine, tobacco and even tea and coffee are prohibited, he had seemed
+inexhaustibly robust and untiring. But almost from the day of
+President's Snow accession to office--deprived of the sustaining
+consciousness of the responsibilities of leadership--his physical
+strength gave signs of breaking. In the fall of 1900 he made a trip to
+the Sandwich Islands, to recuperate, and to assist at the fiftieth
+anniversary of the Mormon mission that he had founded there; but the
+Utah winter proved too rigorous for him on his return, and in March,
+1901, he was taken to California--to Monterey. In April the word came
+to me in New York that he was sinking.
+
+I found him in a cottage overlooking the beautiful Bay of Monterey and
+its wooded slope; and the doctors in attendance told me that he had been
+kept alive only by the determination to see me before he died. There was
+no hope. He had still a clear mind, but with ominous lapses of
+unconsciousness that foreboded the end; and in these intervals of coma,
+as we wheeled him to and fro on the veranda in an invalid chair--in an
+attempt to refresh him with the motion of the sea air--he would swing
+his right hand upward, with an old pulpit gesture, and say "Priesthood!
+Priesthood!" as if in that word he expressed the ruling thought of his
+life, the inspiration that had sustained his power, the obligation that
+had governed him in his direction of his people.
+
+On the afternoon of the 11th of April, he was lying in a stupor on a
+couch before an open window, with the sound of the surf in the quiet
+room. One of the doctors entered, looked at him intently, and said to
+me: "I can do nothing more here--and my patients need me in San
+Francisco. He can't last long. He'll probably never recover
+consciousness. If there's anything imperative--anything you must say to
+him--any word you wish to have from him--you could perhaps rouse him"
+--I said "No." We had never intruded upon any mood of his silence during
+his masterful life; and I felt a jealous rebellion against the idea that
+we should intrude now upon this last, helpless silence of
+unconsciousness. The doctor left us. I summoned the other members of the
+family from the veranda to the bedside. He lay motionless and placid,
+scarcely breathing, his eyes closed, his hands folded. In accordance
+with the rites of the Church, we laid our hands on his head, while my
+eldest brother said the prayer of filial blessing that "sealed" the
+dying man to eternity.
+
+In the silence that followed the last "Amen" of the prayer, he opened
+his eyes, and said in a steady, strong voice: "You thought I was passing
+away?"
+
+We replied that we had seen he was very weak.
+
+With a glance at the door through which the physician had departed, he
+said resolutely: "I shall go when my Father calls me--and not till
+then. I shall know the moment, and I will not struggle against His
+command. Lift me up. Carry me out on the balcony I want to see the water
+once more. And I want to talk with you."
+
+To me, it was the last struggle of the unconquerable will that had
+silently, composedly, cheerfully fought and overcome every obstacle that
+had opposed the purposes of his manhood for half a century. He would not
+yield even to death at the dictation of man. He would go when he was
+ready--when his mind had accepted the inevitable as the decree of God.
+
+We sat around his couch on the veranda, and for two hours he talked to
+us as clearly and as forcibly as ever. He spoke of the Church and of its
+mission in the world, with all the hope of a religious altruist. From
+the humblest beginnings, it had grown to the greatest power. From the
+depths of persecution, it had risen to win favor from the wisest among
+men. It had abolished poverty for hundreds of thousands, by its sound
+communal system. In its religious solidarity, it had become a guardian
+and administrator of equal justice within all the sphere of its
+influence. It was full of the most splendid possibilities of good for
+mankind.
+
+With his eyes fixed on the sea--facing eternity as calmly as he faced
+that great symbol of eternity--he voiced the sincerity of his life and
+the hope that had animated his statesmanship. In an exaltation of
+spirituality that made the moment one of the sublime experiences of my
+life, he adjured us all to hold true to our covenants. I do not write of
+his personal words of love and admonition to the members of his family.
+I wish to express only the aspects that may be of public interest, in
+his last aspirations--for these were the aspirations of the Mormon
+leaders of the older generation, whom he represented--and they are the
+aspirations of all the wise among the Mormons today, whatever may be the
+folly and the treachery of their Prophets.
+
+Ten hours later, he was dead.
+
+I cannot pretend that I had any true apprehension, then, of what his
+loss meant to the community. I had no clearer vision of events than
+others. I felt that I had no longer any tie to connect me closely with
+the government of the Church, and I was willing to stand aside from its
+affairs, believing that the momentum of progress imparted to it would
+carry it forward. The nation had cleared the path for it. Its faith, put
+into practice as a social gospel, had been freed of the offensive things
+that had antagonized the world. My father's last messages of hope
+remained with me as a cheering prophecy.
+
+At his funeral in the great tabernacle, President Snow put forward a
+favorite son, Leroy, to read an official statement in which the
+President took occasion to deny that my father had dictated the recent
+policies of the Church: those policies, he said, had been solely the
+President's. (He is welcome to the credit of them!) Joseph F. Smith
+showed more generosity of emotion, now that his path of succession was
+clear of the superior in authority whom he had so long regarded
+enviously; and he spoke of my father, both privately and in public, in a
+way that won me to him.
+
+The shock of grief had perhaps "mellowed" me. I felt more tolerant of
+these men, since I was no longer necessarily engaged in opposing them.
+When President Snow died (October, 1901), I shared only the general
+interest in the way Joseph F. Smith set about asserting his family's
+title to rulership of the "Kingdom of God on Earth;" for, in effect, he
+notified the world that his branch of the Smith family had been
+designated by Divine revelation to rule in the affairs of all men, by an
+appointment that had never been revoked. He has since made his cousin,
+John Henry Smith, his First Councillor; and he has inducted his son Hyrum
+into the apostolate by "revelation." This latter act roused the jealousy
+of the mother of his son Joseph F. Smith, Jr., and the amused gossip of
+the Mormons predicted another revelation that should give Joseph Jr. a
+similar promotion. The revelation came. So many others have also come
+that the Smith family is today represented in the hierarchy by Joseph F.
+Smith, President, "Prophet, Seer and Revelator to all the world;" John
+Smith (a brother) presiding Patriarch over the whole human race; John
+Henry Smith (a cousin) Apostle and First Councillor to the President;
+Hyrum Smith and Joseph F. Smith (sons) Apostles; George A. Smith (son of
+John Henry) apostle; David S. Smith (son of Joseph F.) Councillor to the
+presiding Bishop of the Church and in line of succession to the
+bishopric; and Bathseba W. Smith, President of the Relief Societies[4].
+[FOOTNOTE: She has died since this was written.]
+
+As Joseph F. Smith has still thirty other sons--and at least four wives
+who are not represented in the apostolate--there may yet be a quorum of
+Smiths to succeed endlessly to the Presidency and make the Smith family
+a perpetual dynasty in Utah.
+
+It is one of the fascinating contradictions of Mormonism that many of
+the sincere people--who smilingly predicted the Divine interposition by
+which this family succession was founded--accept its rule devoutly.
+"The Lord," they will tell you, "will look after the Church. If these
+men are good enough for God, they are good enough for me. I do not have
+to save the Kingdom." And they continue paying their devotion (and their
+tithes) to a family autocracy whose imposition would have provoked a
+rebellion in any other community in the civilized world!
+
+It is "the will of the Lord!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII
+
+
+
+The Conspiracy Completed
+
+
+
+The Smiths were no sooner firm in power than rumors began to circulate
+of a recrudescence of plural marriage, and I heard reports of political
+plots by which the Prophets were to reestablish their autocracy in
+worldly affairs in the name of God. I sought to close my mind against
+such accusations, for I remembered how often my father had been
+misjudged, and I felt that nothing but the most direct evidence should
+be permitted to convince me of a recession by the Church authorities
+from the miraculous opportunity of progress that was now open to their
+leadership. Such direct evidence came, in part, in the state elections
+of 1902.
+
+The Utah Democrats re-nominated Wm. H. King for Congress; Senator Joseph
+L. Rawlins was their candidate to succeed himself in the United States
+Senate. The Republicans nominated President Smith's friend, Joseph
+Howell, for Congress; and there began to spread a rumor that Apostle
+Reed Smoot was to become a Republican candidate for the Senatorship
+under an old promise given him by President Snow and now endorsed by
+President Smith. I had been made state chairman of the Democratic party;
+and with the growing report of Apostle Smoot's candidacy, I observed a
+gradual cessation of political activity on the part of those prominent
+Democrats who were close to the Church leaders.
+
+Now, our party was not making war on the Church nor on any of its proper
+missions in the world. Our candidates were capable and popular men
+against whom no just ecclesiastical antagonism could be raised. We were
+asking no favors from the Church. And we were determined to have no
+opposition from the Church without a protest and an understanding.
+
+For this reason--after consulting confidentially with the leaders of
+our party--undertook to make a personal visit to President Smith's
+office to demand that the Church authorities should keep their hands out
+of politics. But even while I discussed the matter with our party
+leaders, I was afraid that some of them might betray our concerted
+purpose to Church headquarters. And my fear was well grounded. When I
+went to the offices of the Presidency, the authorities--for the first,
+last and only time--refused to see me; and the secretary betrayed a
+knowledge of my mission by telling me that I should hear from some one
+of the hierarchy, later.
+
+Two or three days afterward, Apostle M. F. Cowley came to me with word
+that my call had been considered and that he had been deputed to talk
+with me. We appointed a time for conference in my rooms at Democratic
+headquarters, where we spent the large part of a day in consultation.
+And since the argument between us covered the whole ground of Apostle
+Smoot's candidacy, I wish to give an account of that interview, as a
+brief exposition of some of the present-day aspects of the Church's
+interference in politics.
+
+Apostle Cowley and I had been boyhood friends. He had been one of the
+older students at the school that I had attended as a child; and I knew
+the integrity and directness of his character. He was a stocky, strong
+man, with a wholesome sort of face, brown with the sunburn of his
+missionary travels in Canada and in Mexico. (He had been, in fact,
+solemnizing plural marriages in these polygamous refuges--as we found
+out later.)
+
+As soon as it was clearly understood between us that I represented the
+Democratic state committee and he represented the Church authorities, I
+asked for an explanation of Apostle Smoot's candidacy.
+
+Cowley began by admitting the candidacy, which President Smith had
+endorsed (he said) in spite of the opposition of some of the apostles.
+He argued that Apostle Smoot was only exercising his right of American
+citizenship in aspiring to the Senatorship; and he explained that the
+Church authorities did not see why the Church should be drawn into the
+campaign.
+
+But, as I pointed out to him, the Church had already drawn itself in. It
+had held a solemn conclave of its hierarchy to authorize an apostle's
+candidacy. The opponents of Church rule would circulate the fact; in any
+close campaign, the apostle's friends would use the fact upon the
+faithful; and the Church would be compelled to support its apostle in an
+assumed necessity of defending itself.
+
+Perhaps I was objectionably forceful in my reply to him. With his
+characteristic gentleness, he rebuked me by recalling that President
+Woodruff had once taken him into "sacred places," assured him that
+"Frank Cannon, like David, was a man after God's own heart," and asked
+him to "labor" for me in politics. If it had been right for the Prophet
+of God to favor me, why was it not right for the Prophet now to favor
+some one else?
+
+My personal regard for Apostle Cowley kept me from showing the amusement
+I felt at finding myself in this new scriptural role remembering how
+President Woodruff had once devoted me to destruction like another Isaac
+on the altar of Church control. I replied to Cowley, as soberly as I
+could, that I had never consciously received the aid of any Church
+influence; that I had always objected to its use, either for or against
+either party; that I could oppose it now with free hands.
+
+He retreated upon the favorite argument of the ecclesiasts: that an
+apostle did not relinquish his citizenship because of his Church rank;
+that the very political freedom which we demanded, to be effective, must
+apply to all men, in or out of the Church. He asked naively: "What did
+we get statehood for--and amnesty--and our political rights--if we're
+not to enjoy them?"
+
+The answer to that was obvious: The Mormon Church is so constructed that
+the apostle carries with him the power of the Church wherever he
+appears. The whole people recognize in him the personified authority of
+the Church; and if an apostle were allowed to make a political campaign
+without a denunciation from the other Church authorities, it would be
+known that he had been selected for political office by "the mouthpiece
+of the Almighty." I cited the case of Apostle Moses Thatcher as proof
+that the Church did exercise power openly to negative an apostle's
+ambition. If it failed now to rebuke Smoot, this very failure would be
+an affirmative use of its power in his behalf; all Mormons who did not
+wish to raise their hands "against the Lord's anointed," would have to
+support Smoot's legislative ticket, regardless of their political
+convictions; and all Gentiles and independent Mormons would have to
+fight the intrusion of the Church into open political activities.
+
+Cowley replied that "the brethren"--meaning the hierarchy--believed
+that a Mormon should have as many political rights, as a Catholic; and
+he asked me if I would object to seeing a Catholic in the Senate.
+
+Of course not. There are, and have been, many such. "But suppose," I
+argued, "that the Pope were to select one of his Italian cardinals to
+come to this country and be naturalized in some state of this Union that
+was under the sole rule of the Roman Catholic Church; and suppose that
+still holding his princedom in the Catholic Church and exercising the
+plenary authority conferred on him by the Pope--suppose he were to
+appear before the Senate in his robes of office, with his credentials as
+a Senator from his Church-ruled state--all of this being a matter of
+public knowledge--do you think the Senate would seat him? Certainly
+not. Yet the cases are exactly analogous. We were but lately alien and
+proscribed. We were admitted into the Union on a covenant that forbade
+Church interference in politics. It is the whole teaching of the Church
+that a Prophet wears his prophetic authority constantly as a robe of
+office. The case of Moses Thatcher is proof to the world that the Church
+appoints and disappoints at its pleasure. I don't believe that Smoot, if
+elected, will be allowed to hold his seat, and--if he is allowed to
+hold it--a greater trouble than his exclusion will surely follow. For,
+with the princes of the Mormon Church holding high place in the national
+councils--and using the power of the Church to maintain themselves
+there--we are assuring for ourselves an indefinite future of the most
+bitter controversy."
+
+When Cowley had no more arguments to offer, he said: "Well, the Prophet
+has spoken. That's enough for me. I submit cheerfully when the will of
+the Lord comes to me through his appointed servants. The matter has been
+decided, and it does not lie in your power--or anyone else's--to
+withstand the purposes of the Almighty." He rose and put his hand on my
+shoulder, affectionately. "Your father is gone, Frank. I loved him very
+dearly. I hope that you are not going to be found warring against the
+Lord's anointed."
+
+"Mat," I replied, "you have already pointed out that Apostle Smoot
+appears in politics only as an American citizen. For the purposes of
+this fight--and to avoid the consequences that you fear I'll regard him
+as a politician merely, and fight him as such."
+
+"But, you know, Frank," he remonstrated, "he has been consecrated to the
+apostleship, and I'm afraid that you'll overstep the bounds."
+
+"Mat," I assured him, "I'll watch carefully, and unless he makes his
+lightning changes too fast, I'll aim my shots only when he's in his
+political clothes. If the change is too indefinite, blame yourselves and
+not us. The whole teaching of the Church is that an apostle must be
+regarded as an apostle at all times; but the whole teaching of politics
+is that all men should appear upon equal terms--in this country. That's
+why we insist that no apostle should become a candidate for public
+office."
+
+Cowley took his departure with evident relief. He had discharged his
+ambassadorial duty--and given me the warning which he had been
+authorized to deliver--without a rupture of our personal friendship.
+And I saw him go, for my part, in a sorrowful certainty that the Church
+had thrown off all disguise and proposed to show the world, by the
+election of an apostle to the United States Senate, that the "Kingdom of
+God" was established in Utah to rule in all the affairs of men. I knew
+that if Smoot were excluded from the Senate, his exclusion would be
+argued a proof that the wicked and unregenerate nation was still
+devilishly persecuting God's anointed servants, to its own destruction;
+and, if he were permitted to take his seat, that this fact would be
+cited to the faithful as proof that the Prophets had been called to save
+the nation from the destruction that threatened it!
+
+Of course, throughout the campaign that followed, the Church's
+newspapers and many of its political workers kept protesting publicly
+that the election of the Republican legislative ticket did not mean the
+election of Apostle Smoot to the Senate. But by means of the
+authoritative whisper of ecclesiasts--carried by visiting apostles to
+Presidents of Stakes, from them to the bishops, and from the bishops to
+the presiding officers of subsidiary organizations--the inspired order
+was given to the faithful that they must vote for the legislators who
+could be relied upon to do the will of the Lord by voting for the Lord's
+anointed prophet, Apostle Reed Smoot. This message was delivered to the
+sacred Sunday prayer circles. Even Senator Rawlins' mother received it,
+from one of the ecclesiastical authorities of her ward, who instructed
+her to vote against the election of her own son; and it was "at the
+peril of her immortal soul" that she disobeyed the injunction. Long
+before election day, every Mormon knew that he had been called upon by
+the Almighty to sacrifice his individual conviction in politics to
+protect his "assailed Church."
+
+The profound effectiveness of that appeal needs no further proof than
+the issue of the election. King and Rawlins, the popular leaders of the
+Democracy in a state that had but recently been overwhelmingly
+Democratic--after a campaign in which they studiously avoided an attack
+upon the Church--were overwhelmingly defeated. The Republican
+legislative ticket was carried. Apostle Smoot was elected to the United
+States Senate; and on January 21, 1903, Governor Wells issued to him a
+certificate of election.
+
+Five days later, a number of prominent citizens signed a protest, to
+President Roosevelt and the Senate, against allowing Apostle Smoot to
+take his seat. And the grounds of the protest, briefly stated, were
+these: The Mormon priesthood claimed supreme authority in politics, and
+such authority was exercised by the first presidency and the twelve
+apostles, of whom Smoot was one. They had not only not abandoned the
+practice of political dictation, but they had not abandoned the belief
+in polygamy and polygamous cohabitation; they connived at and encouraged
+its practice, sought to pass laws that should nullify the statutes
+against the practice, and protected and honored the violators of those
+statutes. And they had done all these things despite the public
+sentiment of the civilized world, in violation of the pledges given in
+procuring amnesty and in obtaining the return of the escheated Church
+property, contrary to the promises given by the representatives of the
+Church and of the territory in their plea for statehood, contrary to the
+pledges required by the Enabling Act and given in the State
+constitution, and contrary to the laws of the State itself.
+
+These charges were supported by innumerable citations from the published
+doctrines of the Church, and from the published speeches and sermons of
+the Prophets. Evidence was offered of the continuance of polygamous
+cohabitation (since 1890) by President Smith, all but three or four of
+the apostles, the entire Presidency of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion, and
+many others. New polygamy was specifically charged against three
+apostles, and against the son of a fourth. A second protest, signed by
+John L. Leilich, repeated these grounds of objection to Apostle Smoot,
+and charged further that Apostle Smoot was himself a polygamist; but no
+attempt was made to prove this latter charge.
+
+Upon the filing of the protest, there was a storm of anger at Church
+headquarters; and the ecclesiastical newspapers railed with the
+bitterness of anxious apprehension. Throughout Utah it seemed to be the
+popular belief that Apostle Smoot would be excluded--on the issue of
+whether a responsible representative of a Church that was protecting and
+encouraging law-breaking should be allowed a seat in the highest body of
+the nation's law-makers. But the issue against him was not to be heard
+until twelve months after his election, and every agent and influence of
+the Church was set to work at once to nullify the effect of the protest.
+
+Every financial institution, East or West, to which the Church could
+appeal, was solicited to demand a favorable hearing of the Smoot case
+from the Senators of its state. Every political and business interest
+that could be reached was moved to protect the threatened Apostle. The
+sugar trust magnates and their Senators were enlisted. The mercantile
+correspondents of the Church were urged to write letters to their
+Congressmen and to their Senators, and to use their power at home to
+check the anti-Mormon newspapers. The Utah representative of a powerful
+mercantile institution, that had vital business relations with the
+Church, confessed to me that he had been called East to consult with the
+head of his company, who had been asked to use his influence for Smoot.
+"I could not advise our president," he said, "to send the letter that
+was demanded of him. And yet I couldn't take the responsibility of
+injuring the company by advising him to refuse the Church request. You
+know, if we had refused it, point-blank, they would have destroyed every
+interest we had within the domain of their power. I should have been
+ruined financially. All our stockholders would have suffered. They would
+never have forgiven me."
+
+The president of the company failed to send the letter. His failure
+became known, through Church espionage and the report of the Church's
+friends in the Senate. Pressure was brought to bear upon him; and, with
+the aid of his Utah representative, he compromised on a letter that did
+partial violence to his conscience and partially endangered his business
+relations with the Church.
+
+Both these men were aware that the Church had broken its covenants to
+the country, and that Apostle Smoot could not be either a loyal citizen
+of the nation or a free representative of the people of his state. "I
+did not like the compromise we made," my friend told me. "I feel
+humiliated whenever I think of it. But I tried to do the best I could
+under the circumstances."
+
+The results of this pressure of political and business interests upon
+Washington showed gradually in the tone of the political newspapers
+throughout the whole country. It showed in the growing confidence
+expressed by the organs of the Church authorities in Utah. It showed in
+the cheerful predictions of the Prophets that the Lord would overrule in
+Apostle Smoot's behalf. It showed in Smoot's exercise of an autocratic
+leadership in the political affairs of the State.
+
+He was allowed to take his oath of office as Senator on March 5, 1903;
+the protests against him were referred to the Senate Committee on
+Privileges and Elections for a hearing (January 27, 1904); and a contest
+began that lasted from January, 1904, to February, 1907. During those
+years was completed the business and political conspiracy between
+financial "privilege" and religious absolutism, of which conspiracy this
+narrative has described the beginning and the growth.
+
+It is almost impossible to expose the progression of incident by which
+the end of that conspiracy was approached--since it was necessarily
+approached in the darkest secrecy. But several indications of the method
+and the progress did show, here and there, on the surface of events; and
+these indications are powerfully significant.
+
+As early as 1901 it had become known that Apostle Smoot was negotiating
+a sale, to the sugar trust, of the Church's sugar holdings. On May 13,
+1902, the president of the trust reported to the trust's executive
+committee--
+
+[FOOTNOTE: See a synopsis of the minutes of the trust's executive
+committee, published in Hampton's Magazine, in January, 1910.]
+
+that he had agreed to buy a one-half interest in the consolidation of the
+Mormon factories of La Grande, Logan and Ogden. (The following day, May
+14, 1902, is given by Apostle Smoot as the day on which he obtained
+President Joseph F. Smith's permission to become a candidate for the
+Senatorship.) On June 24, 1902 the sugar trust's executive committee was
+informed of the trust's purchase of one-half of the capital stock of
+these three Church-owned sugar companies. On July 5, 1902 the three
+companies were consolidated under the name of the Amalgamated Sugar
+Company, with David Eccles, polygamist, trustee of Church bonds, and
+protege of Joseph F. Smith, as President; and the sugar trust took half
+the stock, in exchange for its holdings in the three original companies.
+
+Similarly, in this same year, the old Church-owned Utah Sugar Company
+increased its stock in order to buy the Garland sugar factory, and the
+sugar trust, it is understood, was concerned in the purchase In 1903,
+1904 and 1905, the Idaho Sugar Company, the Freemont Sugar Company, and
+West Idaho Sugar Company were incorporated; and in 1906 all these
+companies were amalgamated in the present Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, of
+which Joseph F. Smith is president, T. R. Cutler, a Mormon, is
+vice-president, Horace G. Whitney, the general manager of the Church's
+Deseret News, is secretary and treasurer, and other Church officials are
+directors. Of the stock of this company the sugar trust holds fifty-one
+per cent. So that between 1902 and 1906 a partnership in the manufacture
+of beet sugar was effected between the Church and the trust; and Apostle
+Smoot became a Sugar trust Senator, and argued and voted as such.
+
+Furthermore, it was at this same period that the Church sold the street
+railway of Salt Lake City and its electric power company to the
+"Harriman interests" under peculiar circumstances--a matter of which I
+have written in an earlier chapter. The Church owners of this Utah Light
+and Railway Company, through the Church's control of the City Council,
+had attempted to obtain a hundred-year franchise from the city on terms
+that were outrageously unjust to the citizens; and finally, on June 5,
+1905, a franchise was obtained for fifty years, for the company of which
+Joseph F. Smith was the president. On August 3, 1905, another city
+ordinance was passed, consolidating all former franchises, then held by
+the Utah Light and Power Company, but originally granted to D. F.
+Walker, the Salt Lake and Ogden Gas and Electric Light Company, the
+Pioneer Power Company and the Utah Power Company; and this ordinance
+extended the franchises to July 1, 1955. The properties were bonded for
+$6,300,000, but it was understood that they were worth not more than
+$4,000,000. They were sold to "the Harriman interests" for $10,000,000.
+The equipment of the Salt Lake City street railway was worse than
+valueless, and the new company had to remove the rails and discard the
+rolling stock. But the ten millions were well invested in this
+public-utility trust, for the company had a monopoly of the street
+railway service and electric power and gas supply of Salt Lake City; and
+its franchises left it free to extort whatever it could from the people
+of the whole country side, by virtue of a partnership with the Church
+authorities whereby extortion was given the protection of "God's
+anointed Prophets."
+
+Joseph F. Smith, of course, was already a director of Harriman's Union
+Pacific Railroad, a position to which he had been elected after his
+accession to the First Presidency. And he was so elected not because of
+his railroad holdings--for he came to the Presidency a poor man--and
+not because of his ability or experience as a financier or a railroad
+builder, for he had not had any such experience and he had not shown any
+such ability. He was elected because of the partnership between the
+Church leaders and the Union Pacific Railroad--a partnership that was
+doubtlessly used in defense of Apostle Smoot's seat in the Senate, just
+as the power of the Sugar Trust was used and the influence of the whole
+financial confederation in politics.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII
+
+
+
+The Smoot Exposure
+
+
+
+Just before the subpoenas were issued in the Smoot investigation, I met
+John R. Winder (then First Councillor to President Smith) on the street
+in Salt Lake City, and he expressed the hope that when I went "to
+Washington on the Smoot case," I would not "betray" my "brethren." I
+assured him that I was not going to Washington as a witness in the Smoot
+case; that the men whom he should warn, were at Church headquarters. He
+replied, with indignant alarm, "I don't see what 'the brethren' have to
+do with this!"
+
+But when the subpoenas arrived for Smith and the hierarchy, alarm and
+indignation assumed a new complexion. The authorities, for themselves,
+and through the mouths of such men as Brigham H. Roberts, began to boast
+of how they were about to "carry the gospel to the benighted nation" and
+preach it from the witness stand in Washington. The Mormon communities
+resounded with fervent praises to God that He had, through His servant,
+Apostle Smoot, given the opportunity to His living oracles to speak to
+an unrighteous people! And when the Senators decided that they would not
+summon polygamous wives and their children en bloc to Washington to
+testify (because it was not desired to "make war on women and children")
+some of Joseph F. Smith's several wives even complained feelingly that
+they "were not allowed to testify for Papa."
+
+The first oracular disclosure made by the Prophets, on the witness
+stand, came as a shock even to Utah. They testified that they had
+resumed polygamous cohabitation to an extent unsuspected by either
+Gentiles or Mormons. President Joseph F. Smith admitted that he had had
+eleven children borne to him by his five wives, since pledging himself
+to obey the "revealed" manifesto of 1890 forbidding polygamous
+relations. Apostle Francis Marion Lyman, who was next in succession to
+the Presidency, made a similar admission of guilt, though in a lesser
+degree. So did John Henry Smith and Charles W. Penrose, apostles. So did
+Brigham H. Roberts and George Reynolds, Presidents of Seventies. So did
+a score of others among the lesser authorities. And they confessed that
+they were living in polygamy in violation of their pledges to the nation
+and the terms of their amnesty, against the laws and the constitution of
+the state, and contrary to the "revelation of God" by which the doctrine
+of polygamy had been withdrawn from practice in the Church!
+
+President Joseph F. Smith admitted that he was violating the law of the
+State. He was asked: "Is there not a revelation that you shall abide by
+the law of the State and of the land?" He answered, "Yes, sir." He was
+asked: "And if that is a revelation, are you not violating the laws of
+God?" He answered: "I have admitted that, Mr. Senator, a great many
+times here."
+
+Apostle Francis Marion Lyman was asked: "You say that you, an apostle of
+your Church, expecting to succeed (if you survive Mr. Smith) to the
+office in which you will be the person to be the medium of Divine
+revelations, are living, and are known to your people to live, in
+disobedience of the law of the land and the law of God?" Apostle Lyman
+answered: "Yes, sir." The others pleaded guilty to the same charge.
+
+But this was not the worst. There had been new polygamous marriages.
+Bishop Chas. E. Merrill, the son of an apostle, testified that his
+father had married him to a plural wife in 1891, and that he had been
+living with both wives ever since. A Mrs. Clara Kennedy testified that
+she had been married to a polygamist in 1896, in Juarez, Mexico, by
+Apostle Brigham Young, Jr., in the home of the president of the stake.
+There was testimony to show that Apostle George Teasdale had taken a
+plural wife six years after the "manifesto" forbidding polygamy, and
+that Benjamin Cluff, Jr., president of the Church university, had taken
+a plural wife in 1899. Some ten other less notorious cases were exposed--
+including those of M. W. Merrill, an apostle, and J. M. Tanner,
+superintendent of Church schools. It was testified that Apostle John W.
+Taylor had taken two plural wives within four years, and that Apostle M.
+F. Cowley had taken one; and both these men had fled from the country in
+order to escape a summons to appear before the Senate committee.
+
+President Joseph F. Smith, in his attempts to justify his own polygamy,
+gave some very involved and contradictory testimony. He said that he
+adhered to both the divine revelation commanding polygamy and the divine
+revelation "suspending" the command. He said he believed that the
+principle of plural marriage was still as "correct a principle" as when
+first revealed, but that the "law commanding it" had been suspended by
+President Woodruff's manifesto. He said that he accepted President
+Woodruff's manifesto as a revelation from God, but he objected to having
+it called "a law of the Church;" he insisted that it was only "a rule of
+the Church." He admitted that the manifesto forbidding polygamy had
+never been printed among the other revelations in the Church's book of
+"Doctrine and Covenants," in which the original revelation commanding
+polygamy was still printed without note or qualification of any kind. He
+admitted that this anti-polygamy manifesto was not printed in any of the
+other doctrinal works which the Mormon missionaries took with them when
+they were sent out to preach the Mormon faith. He claimed that the
+manifesto was circulated in pamphlet form, but he subsequently admitted
+that the pamphlet did not "state in terms" that the manifesto was a
+"revelation." He finally pleaded that the manifesto had been omitted
+from the book of "Doctrine and Covenants" by an "oversight," and he
+promised to have it included in the next edition!
+
+[FOOTNOTE: He did not keep his promise. The manifesto was not added
+to the book of revelations until some time later, after considerable
+protest in Utah.]
+
+In short, it was shown, by the testimony given and the evidence
+introduced, not only that the Church authorities persisted in living in
+polygamy, not only that polygamous marriages were being contracted, but
+that the Church still adhered to the doctrine of polygamy and taught it
+as a law of God.
+
+President Joseph F. Smith denied the right of Congress to regulate his
+"private conduct" as a polygamist. "It is the law of my state to which I
+am amenable," he said, "and if the officers of the law have not done
+their duty toward me I can not blame them. I think they have some
+respect for me."
+
+A mass of testimony showed why the officers of the law did not do their
+duty. During the anti-polygamy agitation of 1899 (which ended in the
+refusal of Congress to seat Brigham H. Roberts) a number of prosecutions
+of polygamists had been attempted. In many instances the county attorney
+had refused to prosecute even upon sworn information. Wherever
+prosecutions were had, the fines imposed were nominal; these were in
+some cases never paid, and in other cases paid by popular subscription.
+It was testified that in Box Elder County subscription lists had been
+circulated to collect money for the fines, but that the fines were never
+paid, though the subscriptions had been collected. All the prosecutions
+had been dropped, at last. It was pleaded that there was a strong
+Gentile sentiment against these prosecutions, because of the hope that
+no new polygamous marriages were being contracted; but it was shown
+also, that the Church authorities controlled the enforcement of the law
+by their influence in the election of the agents of the law.
+
+The Church controlled, too, the making of the law. For example,
+testimony was given to show that in 1896 the Church authorities had
+appointed a committee of six elders to examine all bills introduced into
+the Utah legislature and decide which were "proper" to be passed. In the
+neighboring state of Idaho, the legislature, in 1904, unanimously and
+without discussion passed a resolution for a new state constitution that
+should omit the anti-polygamy test oath clauses objectionable to the
+Mormons; and in this connection it was testified that the state chairman
+of both political parties in Idaho always went to Salt Lake City, before
+a campaign, to consult with the Church authorities; that every request
+of the authorities made to the Idaho political leaders was granted; that
+six of the twenty-one countries in Idaho were "absolutely controlled" by
+Mormons, and the "balance of power" in six counties more was held by
+Mormons; and that it was "impossible for any man or party to go against
+the Mormon Church in Idaho." Apostle John Henry Smith testified that
+one-third of the population of Idaho was Mormon and one-fourth of the
+population of Wyoming, and that there were large settlements in Nevada,
+Colorado, California, Arizona and the surrounding states and
+territories.
+
+A striking example of the power of the Church as against the power of
+the nation was given to the Senate committee by John Nicholson, chief
+recorder of the temple in Salt Lake City. He had failed to produce some
+of the temple marriage records for which the committee had called. He
+was asked whether he would bring the books, on the order of the Senate
+of the United States, if the First Presidency of the Church forbade him
+to bring them. He answered: "I would not." He was asked: "And if the
+Senate should send the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate and arrest you and
+order you to bring them" (the records) "with you, you would still refuse
+to bring them, unless the First Presidency asked you to?" He answered,
+"Yes, sir."
+
+It was shown that classes of instruction in the Mormon religion had been
+forced upon teachers in a number of public schools in Utah by the orders
+of the First Presidency. (These orders were withdrawn after the exposure
+before the committee.) Church control had gone so far in Brigham City,
+Box Elder County, Utah, that in a dispute between the City Council and
+the electric lighting company of the city, the local ecclesiastical
+council interfered. In the same city, two young men built a dancing
+pavilion that competed with the Church-owned Opera House; the
+ecclesiastical council "counselled" them to remove the pavilion and
+dispose of "the material in its construction;" they were threatened that
+they would be "dropped" if they did not obey this "counsel;" and they
+compromised by agreeing to pay twenty-five percent of the net earnings
+of their pavilion into the Church's "stake treasury." In Monroe ward,
+Sevier County, Utah, in 1901, a Mormon woman named Cora Birdsall had a
+dispute with a man named James E. Leavitt about a title to land. Leavitt
+went into the bishop's court and got a decision against her. She wrote
+to President Joseph F. Smith for permission either to appeal the case
+direct to him or "to go to law" in the matter; and Smith advised her "to
+follow the order provided of the Lord to govern in your case." The
+dispute was taken through the ecclesiastical courts and decided against
+her. She refused to deed the land to Leavitt and she was excommunicated
+by order of the High Council of the Sevier Stake of Zion. She became
+insane as a result of this punishment, and her mother appealed to the
+stake president to grant her some mitigation. He wrote, in reply: "Her
+only relief will be in complying with President Smith's wishes. You say
+she has never broken a rule of the Church. You forget that she has done
+so by failing to abide by the decision of the mouthpiece of God." She
+finally gave up a deed to the disputed land and was rebaptized in 1904.
+(Letters of the First Presidency were, however, introduced to show that
+it had been the policy of the presidency--particularly in President
+Woodruff's day--not to interfere in disputes involving titles to land.)
+
+It was testified that a Mormon merchant was expelled from the Church,
+ostensibly for apostasy, but really because he engaged in the
+manufacture of salt "against the interests of the President of the
+Church and some of his associates;" that a Mormon Church official was
+deposed "for distributing, at a school election, a ticket different from
+that prescribed by the Church authorities"--and so on, interminably.
+
+Witness after witness swore to the incidents of Church interference in
+politics which this narrative has already related in detail. But no
+attempt was made to show the Church's partnership with the "interests;"
+and the power of the Church in business circles was left to be inferred
+from President Smith's testimony that he was then president of the
+Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution, the State Bank of Utah, the
+Zion's Savings Bank and Trust Company, the Utah Sugar Company, the
+Consolidated Wagon and Machine Company, the Utah Light and Power
+Company, the Salt Lake and Los Angeles Railroad Company, the Saltair
+Beach Company, the Idaho Sugar Company, the Inland Crystal Salt Company,
+the Salt Lake Knitting Company, and the Salt Lake Dramatic Association;
+and that he was a director of the Union Pacific Railway Company,
+vice-president of the Bullion-Beck and Champion Mining Company, and
+editor of the Improvement Era and the Juvenile Instructor.
+
+It was shown that Utah had not been admitted to statehood until the
+Federal government had exacted, from the Church authorities and the
+representatives of the people of Utah, every sort of pledge that
+polygamy had been forever abandoned and polygamous relations
+discontinued by "revelation from God"; that statehood had not been
+granted until solemn promise had been given and provision made that
+there should be "no union of church and state," and no church should
+"dominate the state or interfere with its functions;" and that the
+Church's escheated property had been restored upon condition that such
+property should be used only for the relief of the poor of the Church,
+for the education of its children and for the building and repair of
+houses of worship "in which the rightfulness of the practice of
+polygamy" should not be "inculcated."
+
+Therefore the testimony given before the Senate committee by these
+members of the Mormon hierarchy, showed that they had not only broken.
+their covenants and violated their oaths, but that they had been guilty
+of treason. What was the remedy? Jeremiah M. Wilson, a lawyer employed
+by the Church authorities in 1888 to argue, before a Congressional
+committee, in behalf of the admission of Utah to statehood, had pointed
+out the remedy in these words:
+
+"It is idle to say that such a compact may be made, and then, when the
+considerations have been mutually received--statehood on the one side
+and the pledge not to do a particular thing on the other--either party
+can violate it without remedy to the other. But you ask me what is the
+remedy, and I answer that there are plenty of remedies in your own
+hands.
+
+"Suppose they violate this compact; suppose that after they put this
+into the constitution, and thereby induce you to grant them the high
+privilege and political right of statehood, they should turn right
+around and exercise the bad faith which is attributed to them here--
+what would you do? You could shut the doors of the Senate and House of
+Representatives against them; you could deny them a voice in the
+councils of this nation, because they have acted in bad faith and
+violated their solemn agreement by which they succeeded in getting
+themselves into the condition of statehood. You could deny them the
+Federal judiciary; you could deny them the right to use the mails--that
+indispensable thing in the matter of trade and commerce of this country.
+There are many ways in which peaceably, but all powerfully, you could
+compel the performance of that compact."
+
+This argument by Mr. Wilson in 1888 was recalled by the counsel for the
+protestants in the investigation. It was recalled with the qualification
+that though Congress might not have the power to undo the sovereignty of
+the state of Utah it could deal with Senator Smoot. And it was further
+argued: "The chief charge against Senator Smoot is that he encourages,
+countenances, and connives at the defiant violation of law. He is an
+integral part of a hierarchy; he is an integral part of a quorum of
+twelve, who constitute the backbone of the Church.... He, as one of
+that quorum of twelve apostles, encourages, connives at, and
+countenances defiance of law."
+
+On June 11, 1906, a majority of the committee made a report to the
+Senate recommending that Apostle Smoot was not entitled to his seat in
+the Senate. They found that he was one of a "self-perpetuating body of
+fifteen men, uniting in themselves authority in both Church and state,"
+who "so exercise this authority as to encourage a belief in polygamy as
+a divine institution, and by both precept and example encourage among
+their followers the practice of polygamy and polygamous cohabitation;"
+that the Church authorities had "endeavored to suppress, and succeed in
+suppressing, a great deal of testimony by which the fact of plural
+marriages contracted by those who were high in the councils of the
+Church might have been established beyond the shadow of a doubt;" and
+that "aside from this it was shown by the testimony that a majority of
+those who give law to the Mormon Church are now, and have been for
+years, living in open, notorious and shameless polygamous cohabitation."
+Concerning President Woodruff's anti-polygamy manifesto of 1890, the
+majority of the committee reported that "this manifesto in no way
+declares the principle of polygamy to be wrong or abrogates it as a
+doctrine of the Mormon Church, but simply suspends the practice of
+polygamy to be resumed at some more convenient season, either with or
+without another revelation." They found that Apostle Smoot was
+responsible for the conduct of the organization to which he belonged;
+that he had countenanced and encouraged polygamy "by repeated acts and
+in a number of instances, as a member of the quorum of the twelve
+apostles;" and that he was "no more entitled to a seat in the Senate
+than he would be if he were associating in polygamous cohabitation with
+a plurality of wives."
+
+The report continued: "The First Presidency and the twelve apostles
+exercise a controlling influence over the action of the members of the
+Church in secular affairs as well as in spiritual matters;" and
+"contrary to the principles of the common law under which we live, and
+the constitution of the State of Utah, the First Presidency and twelve
+apostles dominate the affairs of the State and constantly interfere in
+the performance of its functions.... But it is in political affairs
+that the domination of the First Presidency and the twelve apostles is
+most efficacious and most injurious to the interests of the State....
+Notwithstanding the plain provision of the constitution of Utah, the
+proof offered on the investigation demonstrates beyond the possibility
+of doubt that the hierarchy at the head of the Mormon Church has, for
+years past, formed a perfect union between the Mormon Church and the
+State of Utah, and that the Church, through its head, dominates the
+affairs of the State in things both great and small." And the report
+concluded: "The said Reed Smoot comes here, not as the accredited
+representative of the State of Utah in the Senate of the United States,
+but as the choice of the hierarchy which controls the Church and has
+usurped the functions of the State in Utah. It follows, as a necessary
+conclusion from these facts, that Mr. Smoot is not entitled to a seat in
+the Senate as a Senator from the State of Utah."
+
+On the same day a minority report was presented by Senators J. B.
+Foraker, Albert J. Beveridge, Wm. P. Dillingbam, A. J. Hopkins and P. C.
+Knox. They found that Reed Smoot possessed "all the qualifications
+prescribed by the Constitution to make him eligible to a seat in the
+Senate;" that "the regularity of his election" by the Utah legislature
+had not been questioned; that his private character was
+"irreproachable;" and that "so far as mere belief and membership in the
+Mormon Church are concerned, he is fully within his rights and
+privileges under the guaranty of religious freedom given by the
+Constitution of the United States." Having thus summarily excluded all
+the large and troublesome points of the investigation, these Senators
+decided that there remained "but two grounds on which the right or title
+of Reed Smoot to his seat in the Senate" was contested. The first was
+whether he had taken a certain "endowment oath" by which "he obligated
+himself to make his allegiance to the Church paramount to his allegiance
+to the United States;" and the second was whether "by reason of his
+official relation to the Church" he was "responsible for polygamous
+cohabitation" among the Mormons.
+
+As to the first charge, the minority found that the testimony upon the
+point was "limited in amount, vague and indefinite in character and
+utterly unreliable, because of the disreputable character of the
+witnesses"--oddly overlooking the fact that one of these witnesses had
+been called for Apostle Smoot; that no attempt had been made to impeach
+the character of this witness; that the other witnesses had been
+denounced, by a Mormon bishop, named Daniel Connolly, as "traitors who
+had broken their oaths to the Church" by betraying the secrets of the
+"endowment oath;" and that all the Smoot witnesses who denied the
+anti-patriotic obligation of the oath refused, suspiciously enough, to
+tell what obligation was imposed on those who took part in the ceremony.
+
+The charge that Smoot, as an apostle of the Church, had been responsible
+for polygamous cohabitation was as easily disposed of, by the minority
+report. He had himself, on oath, "positively denied" that he had "ever
+advised any person to violate the law either against polygamy or against
+polygamous cohabitation," and no witness had been produced to testify
+that Apostle Smoot had ever given "any such advice" or defended "such
+acts." True, it was admitted that he had "silently acquiesced" in the
+continuance of polygamous cohabitation by polygamists who had married
+before 1890; but it was contended that to understand this acquiescence
+it was "necessary to recall some historical facts, among which are some
+that indicate that the United States government is not free from
+responsibility for these violations of the law."
+
+In short, although Reed Smoot was one of a confessed band of
+law-breaking traitors, he was of "irreproachable" private character.
+Although the band had been guilty of every treachery, none of the band
+had admitted that Smoot had encouraged them in their villainies. Smoot
+had only "silently acquiesced"--and in this he had been no guiltier
+than the intimidated bystanders and the gagged victims of the outrages.
+Although the gang had stolen the machinery of elections and used it to
+print a Senatorial certificate for Smoot, there was nothing to show that
+the form of the certificate was not correct. Moreover, the band operated
+in politics as a religious organization, and the constitution of the
+United States protects a man in his right of religious freedom!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV
+
+
+
+Treason Triumphant
+
+
+
+While these disclosures of the Smoot investigation were shocking the
+sentiment of the whole nation, the Prophets carried on the conspiracy of
+their defense with all the boldness of defiant guilt. In Salt Lake City,
+the office of the United States Marshal and even the post-office were
+watched for the arrival of subpoenas from Washington; men were posted in
+the streets to give the alarm whenever the Marshal should attempt to
+serve papers; and before he entered the front door of a Mormon's house,
+the Church sentry had entered by the back door to warn the inmates. If
+the Federal power had been moving in a foreign land, it could not have
+been more determinedly opposed by local authority. Notorious
+polygamists, wanted as witnesses before the Senate committee, made a
+public flight through Utah, couriered, flanked and rear-guarded by the
+power of the hierarchy. One of these law-breakers (who, it was known,
+had been subpoenaed) went from Salt Lake City to take secret employment
+in one of the Church's sugar factories in Idaho. When he was discovered
+there and served with the Senate requisition, he gave his word that he
+would appear at Washington, and then he fled with his new polygamous
+wife to a polygamous Mormon settlement in Alberta, Canada--a fugitive,
+honored because he was a fugitive, and officially sustained as a ward of
+the Church.
+
+Apostles John W. Taylor and Mathias F. Cowley left the country, to
+escape a summons to Washington; and President Smith pleaded that he had
+no control over their movements, and promised that he would, if
+possible, bring them back to comply with the Senate subpoenas. He knew,
+as every Mormon and every well-informed Gentile knew, that the slightest
+expression of a wish from him would be the word of God to those two men.
+They would have gloried in going to Washington to show the courage of
+their fanaticism. They would never have left the country without
+instructions from their President. But they could not have married
+plural wives after the manifesto, and solemnized plural marriages for
+other polygamists, without Smith's knowledge and consent; their
+testimony would have placed the responsibility for these unlawful
+practices upon the Prophet; and the penalty would have fallen on the
+Prophet's Senator.
+
+They not only fled, but they allowed themselves in their absence to be
+made the scapegoats of the hierarchy. They were proven guilty of "new
+polygamy" before the Senate committee; and, for the sake of the effect
+upon the country, they were ostensibly deposed from the apostolate by
+order of the President, who, by their dismissal from the quorum,
+advanced his son Hyrum in seniority. But their apparent degradation
+involved none of the consequences that Moses Thatcher had suffered. They
+continued their ministrations in the Church. They remained high in favor
+with the hierarchy. They claimed and received from the faithful the
+right to be regarded as holily "the Lord's' anointed" as they had ever
+been. They still held their Melchisedec priesthood. One of them
+afterward took a new plural wife. It seems to be well authenticated that
+the other continued to perform plural marriages; and every Mormon looked
+upon them both--and still looks upon them--as zealous priests who
+endured the appearance of shame in order to preserve the power of the
+Prophet in governing the nation.
+
+Another crucial point in President Smith's responsibility was his
+solemnization of the plural marriage between Apostle Abraham H. Cannon
+and Lillian Hamlin, of which I have already written. One of the women
+of the dead apostle's family was subpoenaed to give her testimony in the
+matter. She thrice telephoned to me that she wished to consult me; but
+she was surrounded by such a system of espionage that again and again
+she failed to keep her appointment. At last, late at night, she arrived
+at my office--the editorial office of the Salt Lake Tribune--having
+escaped, as she explained, in her maid's clothes. The agents of the
+hierarchy had been subtly and ingeniously suggesting to her that she was
+perhaps mistaken in her recollection of the facts to which she would
+have to testify, and she was distressed with the doubt and fear which
+they had instilled into her mind. I could only adjure her to tell the
+truth as she remembered it. But on her journey to Washington she was
+constantly surrounded by Church "advisers;" and the effect of their
+"advice" showed in the testimony that she gave--a testimony that failed
+to prove the known guilt of the Prophet.
+
+For the Gentiles, there had begun a sort of "reign of terror," which can
+be best summed up by an account of a private conference of twelve
+prominent non-Mormons held as late as 1905. That conference was called
+to consider the situation, and to devise means of acquainting the nation
+with the desperate state of affairs in Utah. It was independent of the
+political movement that had already begun; it aimed rather to organize a
+social rebellion, so that we might not be dependent for all our
+opposition upon the annual or semi-annual campaigns of politics.
+
+The meeting first agreed upon the following statement of facts:
+
+"Utah's statehood, as now administered, is but a protection of the
+Mormon hierarchy in its establishment of a theocratic kingdom under the
+flag of the republic. This hierarchy holds itself superior to the
+Constitution and to the law. It is spreading polygamy throughout the
+ranks of its followers. Through its agents, it dominates the politics of
+the state, and its power is spreading to other common-wealths. It exerts
+such sway over the officers of the law that the hierarchy and its
+favorites cannot be reached by the hand of justice. It is master of the
+State Legislature and of the Governor.
+
+"By means of its immense collection of tithes and its large investments
+in commercial and financial enterprises, it dominates every line of
+business in Utah except mines and railroads; and these latter it
+influences by means of its control over Mormon labor and by its control
+of legislation and franchises. It holds nearly every Gentile merchant
+and professional man at its vengeance, by its influence over the
+patronage which he must have in order to be successful. It corrupts
+every Gentile who is affected by either fear or venality, and makes of
+him a part of its power to play the autocrat in Utah and to deceive the
+country as to its purposes and its operations. Every Gentile who refuses
+to testify at its request and in its behalf becomes a marked and
+endangered man. It rewards and it punishes according to its will; and
+those Gentiles who have gone to Washington to testify for Smoot are well
+aware of this fact. Unless the Gentiles of Utah shall soon be protected
+by the power of the United States they will suffer either ruin or exile
+at the hands of the hierarchy."
+
+When this declaration had been accepted, by all present, as truly
+expressing their views of the situation, it was decided that they should
+confer with other leading Gentiles, hold a mass meeting, adopt a set of
+resolutions embodying the declaration on which they had agreed, and then
+dispatch the resolutions to the Senate committee, as a protest against
+the testimony of some of the Gentiles in the Smoot case, and as an
+appeal to the nation for help.
+
+But although all approved of the declaration and all approved of the
+method by which it was to be sent to the nation, no man there dared to
+stand out publicly in support of such a protest, to offer the
+resolutions, or to speak for them. The merchant knew that his trade
+would vanish in a night, leaving him unable to meet his obligations and
+certain of financial destruction. The lawyer knew not only that the
+hierarchy would deprive him of all his Mormon clients, but that it would
+make him so unpopular with courts and juries that no Gentile litigant
+would dare employ him. The mining man knew that the hierarchy could
+direct legislation against him, might possibly influence courts and
+could assuredly influence jurors to destroy him. And so with all the
+others at the conference.
+
+They were not cowards. They had shown themselves, in the past, of more
+than average human courage, loyalty and ability. All recognized that if
+the power of the hierarchy were not soon met and broken it would grow
+too great to be resisted--that another generation would find itself
+hopelessly enslaved. Every father felt that the liberties of his
+children were at stake; that they would be bond or free by the issue of
+the conflict then in course at Washington. And yet not one dared to
+throw down the gauntlet to tyranny--to devote himself to certain ruin.
+They had to prefer simple slavery to beggary and slavery combined. They
+had to hope silently that the power of the nation would intervene. They
+could work only secretly for the fulfillment of that hope.
+
+At first, in President Roosevelt they saw the promise of their
+salvation. He had opposed the election of Apostle Smoot. When the report
+of the apostle's candidacy had first reached Washington, the President
+had summoned to the White House Senator Thomas Kearns of Utah and
+Senator Mark Hanna, who was chairman of the National Republican
+committee; and to these two men he had declared his opposition to the
+candidacy of a Mormon apostle as a Republican aspirant for a
+Senatorship. At his request Senator Hanna, as chairman of the party,
+signed a letter of remonstrance to the party chiefs in Utah, and
+President Roosevelt, at a later conference, gave this letter to Senator
+Kearns to be communicated to the state leaders. Senator Kearns
+transmitted the message, and by so doing he "dug his political grave" as
+the Mormon stake president, Lewis W. Shurtliff, expressed it.
+
+Colonel C. B. Loose of Provo went to Washington on behalf of the Church
+authorities. He was a Gentile, a partner of Apostle Smoot and of some of
+the other Mormon leaders in business undertakings, a wealthy mining man,
+a prominent Republican. It was reported in Utah that his arguments for
+Smoot carried some weight in Washington. President Roosevelt was to be a
+candidate for election; and the old guard of the Republican party,
+distrustful of the Roosevelt progressive policies, was gathering for a
+grim stand around Senator Mark Hanna. Both factions were playing for
+votes in the approaching national convention. I have it on the authority
+of a Mormon ecclesiast, who was in the political confidence of the
+Church leaders, that President Roosevelt was promised the votes of the
+Utah delegation and such other convention votes as the Church
+politicians could control. The death of Senator Hanna made this promise
+unnecessary, if there ever was an explicit promise. But this much is
+certain. President Roosevelt's opposition to Apostle Smoot, for whatever
+reason, changed to favor.
+
+The character and impulses of the President were of a sort to make him
+peculiarly susceptible to an appeal for help on the part of the Mormons.
+He had lived in the West. He knew something of the hardships attendant
+upon conquering the waste places. He sympathized with those who dared,
+for their own opinions, to oppose the opinions of the rest of the world.
+He had received the most adulating assurances of support for his
+candidacies and his policies. It would have required a man of the
+calmest discrimination and coolest judgment to find the line between any
+just claim for mercy presented by the Mormon advocates of "religious
+liberty" and the willful offenses which they were committing against the
+national integrity.
+
+I have received it personally, from the lips of more than one member of
+the Senate committee, that never in all their experience with public
+questions was such executive pressure brought to bear upon them as was
+urged from the White House, at this time, for the protection of Apostle
+Smoot's seat in the Senate. The President's most intimate friends on the
+committee voted with the minority to seat Smoot. One of the President's
+closest adherents, Senator Dolliver, after having signed a majority
+report to exclude Smoot and having been re-elected, in the meantime, by
+his own State legislature, to another term in the Senate--afterwards
+spoke and voted against the report which he had signed. Senator A. J.
+Hopkins of Illinois, who had supported Smoot consistently, found himself
+bitterly attacked, in his campaign for reelection, because of his record
+in the Smoot case, and he published in his defense a letter from
+President Roosevelt that read: "Just a line to congratulate you upon the
+Smoot case. It is not my business, but it is a pleasure to see a public
+servant show, under trying circumstances, the courage, ability and sense
+of right that you have shown."
+
+After the outrageous exposures of the violations of law, the treason and
+the criminal indifference to human rights shown by the rulers of the
+Church, if an early vote had been taken by the committee and by the
+Senate itself, the antagonism of the nation would have forced the
+exclusion of the Apostle from the upper House. Delay was his salvation.
+More to the President's influence than to any other cause is the delay
+attributable that prolonged the case through a term of three years.
+During that time the unfortunate Gentiles of Utah learned that, instead
+of receiving help from the President, they were to have only the most
+insuperable opposition. They believed that the President was being
+grossly misled; that it was, of course, impossible for him to read all
+the testimony given before the Senate committee, and that the matters
+that reached him were being tinged with other purpose than the
+vindication of truth and justice. But it was impossible to obtain the
+opportunity of setting him right. Even the women who were leading the
+national protest against the polygamous teaching and practices of
+Smoot's fellow apostles were told that the President had made up his
+mind and could not be re-convinced.
+
+The Mormon appeal to his generosity was not confined to Washington. On
+his travels he met President Smith more than once--the Prophet being
+accompanied by a different wife each time--and naturally Smith made
+every effort to impress President Roosevelt with his earnestness, the
+purity of his life, and the high motives that actuated the exercise of
+his authority. And at this sort of pretense the Lord's anointed are
+expert. They themselves may be crude in ideas and coarse in method, but
+their diplomacy is a growth of eighty years of applied devotion and
+energy.
+
+The American people are used to meeting prominent Mormons who are models
+of demeanor who are hearty of manner; who carry a kindly light in their
+eyes; who have a spontaneity that precludes hypocrisy or even deep
+purpose. These are not the men who make the Church diplomacy--they
+simply obey it. It is part of that diplomacy to send out such men for
+contact with the world. But the ablest minds of the Church, whether they
+are of the hierarchy or not, construct its policies. And given a system
+whose human units move instantly and unquestioningly at command; given a
+system whose worldly power is available at any point at any moment;
+given a system whose movement may be as secret as the grave until result
+is attained--and the clumsiest of politicians or the crudest of
+diplomats has a force to effect his ends that is as powerful for its
+size as any that Christendom has ever known.
+
+Among the emissaries of the Church who were deputed to "reach" President
+Roosevelt, was our old friend Ben Rich, the gay, the engaging, the
+apparently irresponsible agent of hierarchical diplomacy. And I should
+like to relate the story of his "approach," as it is still related in
+the inner circle of Church confidences. Not that I expect it to be
+wholly credited--not that I doubt but it will be denied on all sides--
+but because it is so characteristic of Church gossip and so typical
+(even if it were untrue) of the humorous cynicism of Church diplomacy.
+
+When President Roosevelt was making his "swing around the circle," Rich
+was appointed to join him, found the opportunity to do so, and (so the
+story is told) delighted the President by the spirit and candor of his
+good fellowship. When they were about to part, the President is reported
+to have said, "Why don't you run for Congress from your state? You're
+just the kind of man I'd like to have in the House to support my
+policies." And here (as the Mormons are told) is the dialogue that
+ensued:
+
+Rich: "I have no ambition that way, Mr. President. For many reasons it's
+out of the question although I'm grateful for the flattering suggestion."
+
+The President: "Then let me appoint you to some good office. You're the
+kind of man I'd like to have in my official family."
+
+Rich (impressively and in a low tone): "Mr. President, I'd count it the
+greatest honor of my life to have a commission from you to any office.
+I'd hand that commission down to my children as the most precious
+heritage. But--I love you too much, Mr. President, to put you in any
+such hole. I'm a polygamist. It would injure you before the whole
+country."
+
+The President (leaning forward eagerly): "No! Are you a polygamist? Tell
+me all about it."
+
+Rich. "The Lord has bestowed that blessing on me. I wish you could go
+into my home and see how my wives are living together like sisters--how
+tender they are to each other--how they bear each other's burdens and
+share each other's sorrows--and how fond all my children are of Mother
+and Auntie."
+
+The President: "Well--but how can women agree to share a husband?"
+
+Rich: "They do it in obedience to a revelation from the Lord--a
+revelation that proclaimed the doctrine of the eternity and the
+plurality of the marriage covenant. We believe that men and women,
+sealed in this life under proper authority, are united in the conjugal
+relation throughout eternity. We believe that the husband is tied to his
+wives, and they to him; that their children and all the generations of
+their children will belong to him hereafter. We believe in eternal
+progression; that as man is, God was; and as God is, man shall be. We
+believe that by obedience to this revealed covenant, we will be exalted
+in the celestial realm of our Father, with power in ourselves to create
+and people worlds. It is a never ending and constantly increasing
+intelligence and labor. If I keep my covenants to my wives and they to
+me, in this world, all the powers and rights of our marriage relation
+will be continued and amplified to us in the life to come; and we, in
+our turn, will be rulers over worlds and universes of worlds."
+
+Then--according to the unctuous gossip of the devout--President
+Roosevelt saw the true answer to his own desire to know what was to
+become of his mighty personality after this world should have fallen
+away from him! He saw, in this faith, a possible continuation throughout
+eternity of the tremendous energies of his being! He was to continue to
+rule not merely a nation but a world, a system of worlds, a universe of
+worlds! And it is told--sometimes solemnly, sometimes with a grin--
+that, in the Temple at Salt Lake, a proxy has stood for him and he has
+been baptized into the Mormon Church; that proxies have stood for the
+members of his family and that they have been sealed to him; and finally
+that proxies have stood for some of the great queens of the past (who
+had not already been sealed to Mormon leaders) and that they have been
+sealed to the President for eternity!
+
+[FOOTNOTE: It is a not uncommon practice in the Mormon Church thus to
+"do a work" for a Gentile who has befriended the people or otherwise
+won the gratitude of the Church authorities.]
+
+This may sound blasphemous toward Theodore Roosevelt--if not toward the
+Almighty--but it is told, and it is believed, by hundreds and thousands
+of the faithful among the Mormon people. It is given to them as the
+secret explanation of President Roosevelt's protection of the Mormon
+tyranny--a protection of which Apostle Hyrum Smith boasted in a sermon
+in the Salt Lake tabernacle (April 5, 1905) in these equivocal words:
+"We believe--and I want to say this--that in President Roosevelt we
+have a friend, and we believe that in the Latter-Day Saints President
+Roosevelt has the greatest friendship among them; and there are no
+people in the world who are more friendly to him, and will remain
+friendly unto him just so long as he remains true, as he has been, to
+the cause of humanity."
+
+The Smiths have their own idea of what "the cause of humanity" is.
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV
+
+
+
+The Struggle For Liberty
+
+
+
+As early as 1903, before the Smoot investigation began, the Utah State
+journal (of which I became editor) was founded as a Democratic daily
+newspaper, to attempt a restoration of political freedom in Utah and to
+remonstrate against the new polygamy, of which rumors were already
+insistent. I was at once warned by Judge Henry H. Rolapp (a prominent
+Democrat on the District bench, and secretary of the Amalgamated Sugar
+Company) that we need not look for aid from the political or business
+interests of the community, inasmuch as our avowed purpose had already
+antagonized the Church. He delivered this message in a friendly spirit
+from a number of Democrats whose support we had been expecting. And the
+warning proved to be well-inspired. Although a number of courageous
+Gentiles, like Colonel E. A. Wall of Salt Lake City, gave us material
+aid--and although there was no other Democratic daily paper in Utah
+(unless it was the Salt Lake Herald, owned by Senator Clark of Montana)--
+the most powerful Church Democratic interests stood against us, and we
+found it impossible to make any effective headway with the paper.
+
+After the Prophets began to give their awful testimony at Washington,
+the Democratic National Convention of 1904 (which I attended as a
+delegate from Utah) considered a resolution in opposition to polygamy
+and the Church's rule of the state. This resolution was as vigorously
+fought by some Utah Gentiles as by the Mormon delegates, on the grounds
+that it would defeat the Democratic party in Utah. It carried in the
+convention. Upon returning to Salt Lake City I called a meeting of the
+Democratic state committee (of which I was chairman) and urged that we
+make our state campaign on the issue of ecclesiastical domination, in
+consonance with the party's national platform. Of the whole committee
+only the secretary, Mr. P. J. Daly, supported the proposal. The others
+considered it "an attempt to establish a quarantine against Democratic
+success." Some of them had been promised by members of the hierarchy
+that the party was to have "a square deal this time." Others had
+fatuously accepted the assurances of ecclesiasts that "it looked like a
+Democratic year." In short, the Democratic party in Utah, like the
+Republican party, proved to be then, as it is now, less a political
+organization than the tool of a Church cabal. We found that we could no
+more hope to move the Democratic machine against the hierarchy than to
+move the Smoot-Republican machine itself.
+
+But when Joseph F. Smith, before the Senate committee, admitted that he
+was violating "the laws of God and man" and tried to extenuate his guilt
+with the plea that the Gentiles of Utah condoned it, he issued a
+challenge that no American citizen could ignore. The Gentiles of Utah
+had been silent, theretofore, partly because they were ignorant of the
+extent of the polygamous offenses of the hierarchy, and partly because
+they were hoping for better things. Smith's boast made their silence the
+acquiescence of sympathy. A meeting was called in Salt Lake City, in
+May, 1904, and under the direction of Colonel William Nelson, editor of
+the Salt Lake Tribune, the principles of the present "American party"
+were enunciated as a protest against the lawbreaking tyranny of the
+Church leaders. Later, as it became clear that the opponents of the
+Smith misrule must organize their own party of progress, committees were
+formed and a convention was held (in September, 1904) at which a full
+state and county ticket was put in the field, in the name of the
+American Party of Utah.
+
+We agreed that no war should be made on the Mormon religion as such;
+that no war should be made on the Mormon people because of their being
+Mormons; that we would draw a deadline at the year 1890, when the Church
+had effected a composition of its differences with the national
+government, and all the citizens of Utah, Mormon and Gentile alike, had
+accepted the conditions of settlement; that we would find our cause of
+quarrel in the hierarchy's violation of the statehood pledges; and that
+when we had corrected these evil practices we should dissolve, because
+(to quote the language used at the time) we did not wish "to raise a
+tyrant merely to slay a tyrant."
+
+In the idea that we would fight upon living issues--that we would not
+open the graves of the past to dig up a dead quarrel and parade it in
+its cerements--the American party movement began. Its first enlistment
+included practically all the Gentiles in Salt Lake City who resented the
+claim of the Prophet that they acquiesced in his crimes and his
+treasons. But the most promising sign for the party was its attraction
+of hundreds of independent Mormons of the younger generation. As one
+Mormon of that hopeful time expressed it: "The flag represents the
+political power. The golden angel Moroni, at the top of the Temple,
+represents the ecclesiastical authority. I will not pay to either one a
+deference which belongs to the other. I know how to keep them apart in
+my personal devotion."
+
+This was exactly what the Church authorities would not permit. It would
+have destroyed all the special and selfish prerogatives of the Mormon
+hierarchs. It would have subverted their claim of absolute temporal
+power. It would have set up the nation and the state as the objects of
+civic devotion--instead of the Kingdom of God.
+
+Although we of the American party disavowed and abstained from any
+attack upon the Mormon Church as such--and confined ourselves to a war
+upon the treasons, the violations of law, the breaches of covenant and
+the other offenses of the Church leaders, as the practices of
+individuals--these leaders dragged the whole body of the Church as a
+wall of defense around them, and in countless sermons and printed
+articles declared that the Church and its faith were the objects of our
+assault. In other words, though Smith claimed in Washington--and Smoot
+continues to claim before the nation--that the Church is not
+responsible for the crimes of its Prophets, whenever a criticism or a
+prosecution is directed against any of these men, they all unite in
+declaring that the Church is being persecuted; and the members of the
+hierarchy rouse all their followers, and use all their agencies, in a
+successful resistance.
+
+There was no blithesomeness in the campaign. It was not lightened by any
+humor. It was a hopeless assault on the one side and a grim overpowering
+resistance on the other. The American party, being organized as a
+protest, had at first little regard for offices. It sought to promulgate
+the principles of its cause for the enlightenment of the citizens of
+Utah and for the preservation of their rights. Some of the Gentiles who
+did not join us felt, perhaps, as strong an indignation as those who
+did, but they were entangled in politics with the hierarchs, or had
+business connections that would be destroyed. These men, in course of
+time, became the most dangerous opponents of our progress. (The average
+Mormon is obedient and supine enough in the presence of his Prophets,
+but he is a man of personal independence compared with the sycophantic
+Gentile who accepts political or commercial favors from the Church
+chiefs and yet continues to deny the existence of the very power to
+which he bends the knee.) Of the rebellious but discreet Mormons many
+came to the leaders of our party to say: "I think you're quite right. I,
+myself, have suffered under these tyrannies. I have no sympathy with new
+polygamy. But, as you know, I'm attorney for some of the Church
+interests"--or "I'm in business with high ecclesiasts"--or "I'm
+heavily in debt to the Church bank"--or "I'm closely connected by
+marriage with one of the Prophets"--"and I can do you more good by my
+quiet efforts than by coming out into the open. I'd be treated as an
+apostate. All my influence would be gone." And in most cases he
+preserved his influence, and we lost him. The Church had effective ways
+of recovering his support.
+
+For many reasons the American party looked for its recruits chiefly
+among Republicans, the Democracy being almost entirely Mormon. And in
+the first flush of enthusiasm some of our leaders laughed at the boast
+of the Republican state chairman that, for every Republican he lost, he
+would get two Mormon Democrats to vote the Republican ticket. (This was
+Hon. William Spry, a Mormon, since made Governor of Utah, for services
+rendered the hierarchy.) But the claim proved anything but laughable. He
+got probably four Mormon Democrats for every Republican he lost. As
+usual the hierarchy "delivered the goods" to the national organization
+in power.
+
+According to our best calculations we got from fifteen hundred to
+eighteen hundred Mormon votes. And, during this campaign and those that
+followed, I was approached by hundreds of Mormons who commended our work
+and gave private voice to the hope that we might succeed in freeing Utah
+so that they themselves might be free. After I joined the staff of the
+Salt Lake Tribune, as chief editor, these came to my office by stealth
+and in obvious fear. I could not blame them then, nor do I now. The cost
+of open defiance was too great.
+
+One woman, the first wife of a prominent Mormon physician, came to me to
+enlist in the work of the party. (Her husband was living with a young
+plural wife.) We accepted her aid. Her husband cut off her monthly
+allowance, and she had to take employment as a book canvasser, so that
+she might be able to earn her living. One Mormon who came out openly for
+us, was superintendent of a business owned by Gentiles. He was somewhat
+prominent as an ecclesiast, and he was a Sunday School worker in his
+ward. He reconciled his wife and daughters to his revolt against the
+recrudescence of polygamy and the tyranny of the Church's political
+control. He carried with him the sympathy of his brother, who was a
+newspaper editor. He won over some of his personal friends to pledge
+their support to our cause. He seemed too sturdy ever to retreat, too
+independent in his circumstances to be driven, and with too clear a
+vision to be led astray by the threats, the power, or the persuasions of
+the hierarchy. Yet, before long he came to confess that he could not
+continue to help us openly. His employers--his Gentile employers--had
+notified him that his work in the American party would be dangerously
+injurious to their business. They were in hearty accord with his views;
+they recognized his right as a citizen to act according to his
+convictions; but--they dared not provoke a war of business reprisals
+with the commercial and financial institutions of the Church. He must
+either cease his active opposition to the Church leaders, or lose his
+place of employment.... He retired from the fight.
+
+Another Mormon who joined us was Don. C. Musser, a son of one of the
+Church historians. He had been a missionary in Germany and in Palestine.
+He had been a soldier in the Philippines, and he had edited the first
+American newspaper there. His contact with the world and his experience
+in the military service of the United States had given him a high ideal
+of his country; and a feeling of loyalty to the nation had superseded
+his earlier devotion to the Prophets. His family was wealthy, but he was
+supporting himself and his young wife by his own efforts in business. As
+soon as he came out openly with the American party, his father's home
+was closed against him. His business connections were withdrawn from
+him. He found himself unable to provide for his wife, who was in
+delicate health. After a losing struggle, he came to tell us that he
+could no longer earn a living in Utah; that he had obtained means to
+emigrate; that he must say good-bye. And we lost him.
+
+Two other young men--the son and the son-in-law of an apostle--came to
+me and asked helplessly for advice. They admitted that the practices of
+the hierarchy were, to them, a violation of the covenant with the
+nation, a transgression of the revelation from God given to Wilford
+Woodruff, and destructive of all the securities of community
+association. But would I advise them to sacrifice their influence in the
+Church by joining the "American movement" publicly? Or had they better
+retain their influence and use it within the Church to correct the evils
+that we were attacking?
+
+With awful sincerity they spoke of conditions that had come under their
+own eyes, and related instances to show how mercilessly the polygamous
+favorites of the Church were permitted to prey on the young women
+teachers in Church schools. They spoke of J. M. Tanner, who was at that
+time head of the Church schools, a member of the general Board of
+Education, and one of the Sunday School superintendents. According to
+these young men--and according to general report--Tanner was marrying
+right and left.
+
+I knew of a young Mormon of Brigham City, who had been a suitor for the
+hand of L----, a teacher at the Logan College. He had been away from Utah
+for some time, and he had returned hoping to make her his wife. Stopping
+over night in Salt Lake, on his way home, he saw Tanner and L---- enter
+the lobby of the hotel in which he sat. They registered as man and wife
+and went upstairs together. He followed--to walk the floor of his room all
+night, struggling against the impulse to break in, and kill Tanner, and
+damn his own soul by meddling with the man who had been ordained by the
+Prophets to a wholesale polygamous prerogative.
+
+He had kept his hands clean of blood, but he had been living ever since
+with murder in his heart. Could these two sons of the Church do more to
+remedy such horrors by using their influence to have Tanner deposed, or
+by sacrificing that influence in an open revolt against the conditions
+that made Tanner possible? I could only advise them to act according to
+their own best sense of what was right. They did use their influence to
+help force Tanner's deposition, but we lost the public example of their
+opposition to the crimes of the hierarchy.
+
+I relate these incidents as typical of the different kinds of pressure
+that were brought to bear upon the independent Mormons who wished to aid
+us, and of the local difficulties against which we had to contend.
+Washington, of course, gave us no recognition. And we did not succeed in
+reaching the ear of the nation. Here and there a newspaper noted our
+effort and paid some small heed to our protest, but the overwhelming
+success of the Republican party--and the dumb-driven acquiescence of the
+Democracy--in Utah and the neighboring Church-ruled states, left the
+agitation with little of political interest for the country at large.
+
+And yet the struggle went on. Animated by the spirit of the Salt Lake
+Tribune, the leading newspaper of the community, the American party
+entered the city elections in the fall of 1905 and carried them against
+the hierarchy's Democratic ticket, with the help of the independent
+Mormons, under cover of the secret ballot. Emboldened by this success we
+proposed to move on the state and county offices, with the hope of
+gaining some members of the legislature and some of the judicial and
+executive offices, through which to enforce the laws that the Church
+leaders were defying. But here we failed. Outside of Salt Lake the rule
+of the Prophets was still absolute and unquestioned. The people bowed
+reverently to Joseph F. Smith's dictum: "When a man says 'You may direct
+me spiritually but not temporally,' he lies in the presence of God--
+that is, if he has got intelligence enough to know what he is talking
+about." The state politicians knew that they would destroy themselves by
+joining an organization opposed by the all-powerful-Church; and
+sufficient warning of this doom appeared to them in the fact that no
+member of the American party could obtain any recognition in Federal
+appointments. The Church had meanwhile dictated the election of another
+United States Senator (George Sutherland) to join Apostle Smoot, and
+Senator Kearns was retired for his opposition to the hierarchy.
+[FOOTNOTE: When Senator Aldrich was carrying the tariff bill of 1910
+through the Senate, for the greater profit of the "Interests," Smoot and
+Sutherland did not once vote against him. Smoot supported him on every
+one of the one hundred and twenty-nine votes and missed none. Sutherland
+voted with him one hundred and seventeen times and was recorded as not
+voting on the remaining twelve. Only two other senators made anything
+like such a despicable record.]
+
+It began to be more and more apparent that whatever success we might
+achieve locally, the power of the financial and political allies of the
+Prophets in Washington, aided by the executive "Big Stick" of the
+President, would beat us back from any attempt to rouse the state or the
+nation to our support.
+
+Smoot was in a happy position: all the senators who represented the
+"Interests" were for him, and all the senators who represented the
+supposed progressive sentiment of Theodore Roosevelt were also for him.
+The women of the nation had sent a protest with a million signatures to
+the Senate; but they had not votes; they received, in reply, a public
+scolding. Long before the Senate voted on its committee's report, many
+of the notorious "new" polygamists of the Church returned from their
+exile in foreign missions and began to walk the streets of Salt Lake
+with their old swagger of self-confident authority. We foresaw the end.
+
+Early in December, 1906, Senator J. C. Burrows of Michigan, chairman of
+the committee that had investigated Smoot, called up the committee's
+report and spoke upon it in a denunciation of Smoot. Senator Dubois of
+Idaho followed, two days later, with a supplementary attack, and
+censured President Roosevelt for "allowing his name and office" to be
+used in defense of the Mormons. After an interval of a month, Senator
+Albert J. Hopkins, of Illinois, undertook to reply with a defense of
+Smoot that reduced the Apostle's excuses to the absurd. Smoot, he
+declared, had opposed polygamy, "even from his infancy;" there was
+"nothing in the constitution" prohibiting "a State from having an
+established Church;" the old practices of Mormonism were dying out; and
+Smoot, as an exponent of the newer Mormonism, was largely responsible
+for the improvement.
+
+This bold falsehood was received with laughter by the members who had
+heard the testimony before the Senate committee or read the record of
+its sittings; but it was wired to all newspapers; and the contradictions
+that followed it failed (for reasons) to get the same publicity. It was
+repeated by Senator Sutherland (January 22, 1907); and he had the
+audacity to add that the Mormon Church, as well as Smoot, was opposed to
+polygamy; that the "sporadic cases" of new polygamy were "reprehended by
+Mormon and Gentile alike;" that polygamous marriages in Utah had been
+forbidden by the Enabling Act, but that polygamous cohabitation had been
+left to the state; and that the latter was rapidly dying out. And
+Sutherland knew, as every public man in Utah knew, that almost every
+word of this statement was untrue.
+
+Senator Philander C. Knox, of Pennsylvania (February 14, 1907) took up
+the lie that Smoot had been "from his youth against polygamy," and he
+added to it a legal argument that the Senate could only expel a member,
+by a two-thirds vote, if he were guilty of crime, offensive immorality,
+disloyalty or gross impropriety during his term of service. Senator
+Tillman (February 15) accused President Roosevelt of protecting Smoot in
+return for a pledge of Mormon support given previous to the last
+campaign. Apostle Smoot (February 19) declared that cases of "new"
+polygamy were rare; that they were not sanctioned by the Church; that
+every case since 1890 "has the express condemnation of the Church;" and
+that he himself had always opposed polygamy. On February 20, the
+question was forced to a vote after a debate that repeated these
+falsehoods, in spite of all disproof's of them. And Apostle Smoot was
+retained in his seat by a vote of fifty-one to thirty-seven, counting
+pairs.
+
+After this event, no growth of organization was immediately possible to
+the American party. Having gained political control of Salt Lake City
+and given it good municipal government, we were able to hold a local
+adherency; but hundreds of Mormons, who still vote the American city
+ticket, vote for the Church in state elections, because, though they
+want reform, they are not willing to risk the punishment of their
+relatives and the leaders of the Church to attain that reform. And when
+the national government granted its patent of approval to the hierarchy--
+by holding the hierarchy's appointed representative in the Senate as
+its prophetic monitor--nearly all the people of the intermountain
+country lost heart in the fight. Thousands of Gentiles, who knew the
+truth and had fought for it for years, argued despairingly: "If the
+nation likes this sort of thing--I guess it's the sort of thing it
+likes. I'm not going to ruin myself financially and politically by
+keeping up a losing struggle with these neighbors of mine, and fight the
+government at Washington besides. If the administration wants to be
+bossed by the Prophet, Seer and Revelator, I can stand it."
+
+The nation, having accepted responsibility for past polygamy, now, by
+accepting Senator Smoot, gave its responsible approval to the new
+polygamy and to the commercial and political tyrannies of the Church. In
+the old days the Mormons had claimed immunity for their practice of
+polygamy on the ground that the constitution of the United States
+protected them in the exercises of their faith. The Supreme Court of the
+country determined that the free-religion clause of the constitution did
+not cover violations of law; and the Church deliberately abandoned its
+claim of religious immunity. But now a majority of the Senate, supported
+by President Roosevelt, took the old ground--which the Supreme Court
+had made untenable and the Mormons themselves had vacated--and
+practically declared that violations of law were a part of the
+constitutional guaranty!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI
+
+
+
+The Price of Protest
+
+
+
+The members of the Mormon hierarchy continually boast that they are
+sustained in their power--and in their abuses of that power--"by the
+free vote of the freest people under the sun." By an amazing self
+deception the Mormon people assume that their government is one of
+"common consent;" and nothing angers them more than the expression of
+any suspicion that they are not the freest community in the world. They
+live under an absolutism. They have no more right of judgment than a
+dead body. Yet the diffusion of authority is so clever that nearly every
+man seems to share in its operation upon some subordinate, and feels
+himself in some degree a master without observing that he is also a
+slave.
+
+The male members of the ward--who would be called "laymen" in any other
+Church--all hold the priesthood. Each is in possession of, or on the
+road to, some priestly office; and yet all are under the absolutism of
+the bishop of the ward. Of the hundreds of bishops, with their
+councillors, each seems to be exercising some independent authority, but
+all are obedient to the presidents of stakes. The presidents apparently
+direct the ecclesiastical destinies of their districts, but they are, in
+fact, supine and servile under the commands of the apostles; and these,
+in turn, render implicit obedience to the Prophet, Seer and Revelator.
+No policy ever arises from the people. All direction, all command, comes
+from the man at the top. It is not a government by common consent, but a
+government of common consent--of universal, absolute and unquestioning
+obedience--under penalty of eternal condemnation threatened and earthly
+punishment sure.
+
+Twice a year, with a fine show of democracy, the people assemble in the
+Tabernacle at Salt Lake, and there vote for the general authorities who
+are presented to them by the voice of revelation. If there were no
+tragedy, there would be farce in the solemnity with which this pretense
+of free government is staged and managed. Some ecclesiast rises in the
+pulpit and reads from his list: "It is moved and seconded that we
+sustain Joseph F. Smith as Prophet, Seer and Revelator to all the world.
+All who favor this make it manifest by raising the right hand." No
+motion has been made. No second has been offered. Very often, no adverse
+vote is asked. And, if it were, who would dare to offer it? These
+leaders represent the power of God to their people; and against them is
+arrayed "the power of the Devil and his cohorts among mankind." Three
+generations of tutelage and suppression restrain the members of the
+conference in a silent acquiescence. If there is any rebel among them,
+he must stand alone; for he has scarcely dared to voice his objections,
+lest he be betrayed, and any attempt to raise a concerted revolt would
+have been frustrated before this opportunity of concerted revolt
+presented itself. Being a member of the Church, he must combat the fear
+that he may condemn himself eternally if he raise his voice against the
+will of God. He must face the penalty of becoming an outcast or an exile
+from the people and the life that he has loved. He knows that the
+religious zealots will feel that he has gone wilfully "into outer
+darkness" through some deep and secret sin of his own; and that the
+prudent members of the community will tell him that he should have "kept
+his mouth shut." If there were a majority of the conference inclined to
+protest against the re-election of any of its rulers, the lack of
+communication, the pressure of training and the weight of fear would
+keep them silent. And in this manner, from Prophet down to "Choyer
+leader" (choir leader) the names are offered and "sustained by the free
+vote of the freest people under the sun."
+
+During the days just before the American party's political agitation, a
+young Mormon, named Samuel Russell, returned from a foreign mission for
+the Church and found that the girl whom he had been courting when he
+went away was married as a plural wife to Henry S. Tanner, brother of
+the other notorious polygamist, J. M. Tanner. The discovery that his
+sweetheart was a member of the Tanner household drove Russell almost
+frantic. She was the daughter of an eminent and wealthy family, of
+remarkable beauty, well-educated and rarely accomplished. Young Russell
+was a college student--a youth of intellect and high mind--and he
+suffered all the torments of a horrifying shock. Unless he should choose
+to commit an act of violence there was only one possible way for him to
+protest. At the next conference, when the name of Henry S. Tanner was
+read from the list to be "sustained"--as a member of the general Sunday
+School Board--Russell rose and objected that Tanner was unworthy and a
+"new" polygamist. He was silenced by remonstrances from the pulpit and
+from the people. He was told to take his complaint to the President of
+his Stake. He was denied the opportunity to present it to the
+assemblage.
+
+Almost immediately afterward, Tanner, for the first time in his life,
+was honored with a seat in the highest pulpit of the Church among the
+general authorities. And Russell was pursued by the ridicule of the
+Mormon community, the persecution of the Church that he had served, the
+contempt of the man who had wronged him, and the anger of the woman whom
+he had loved. One of the reporters of the Deseret News, the Church's
+newspaper, subsequently stated that he had been detailed, with others,
+to pursue Russell day and night, soliciting interviews, plaguing him
+with questions, and demanding the legal proofs of Tanner's marriage--
+which, of course, it was known that Russell could not give--until
+Russell's friends, fearing that he might be driven to violence,
+persuaded him to leave the state. Tanner is now reputed to have six
+plural wives (all married to him since the manifesto of 1890) of whom
+this young woman is one.
+
+Similarly, at the General Conference of April, 1905, Don C. Musser (of
+whom I have already written) attempted to protest against the sustaining
+of Apostles Taylor and Cowley; but Joseph F. Smith promptly called upon
+the choir to sing, and Musser's voice was drowned in harmony. In more
+recent years Charles J. Bowen rose at a General Conference to object to
+the sustaining of some of the polygamous authorities, and he was hustled
+from the building by the ushers.
+
+But the most notable case of individual revolt of this period was
+Charles A. Smurthwaite's. He had joined the Church, alone, when a boy in
+England, and the sufferings he had endured, for allying himself with an
+ostracized sect, had made him a very ardent Mormon. He had become a
+"teacher" in his ward of Ogden City, had succeeded in business as a
+commission merchant and was a great favorite with his bishop and his
+people, because of his charities and a certain gentle tolerance of
+disposition and kindly brightness of mind.
+
+Smurthwaite, in partnership with Richard J. Taylor (son of a former
+President of the Church, John Taylor) engaged in the manufacture of
+salt, with the financial backing of a leading Church banker. Along the
+shores of Salt Lake, salt is obtained, by evaporation, at the cost of
+about sixty cents a ton; its selling price, at the neighboring smelting
+centers, ranges from three dollars to fourteen dollars a ton; and the
+industry has always been one of the most profitable in the community. In
+the early days, the Church (as I have already related) encouraged the
+establishment of "salt gardens," financed the companies, protected them
+in their leasehold rights along the lake shores, and finally, through
+the Inland Crystal Salt Company, came to control a practical monopoly of
+the salt industry of the intermountain country. (This Inland Crystal
+Company, with Joseph F. Smith as its president, is now a part of the
+national salt trust.)
+
+After Smurthwaite and Taylor had invested heavily in the land and plant
+of their salt factory, the Church banker who had been helping them
+notified them that they had better see President Smith before they went
+any further. They called on Smith in his office, and there--according
+to Smurthwaite's sworn testimony before the Senate committee--the
+Prophet gave them notice that they must not compete with his Inland
+Crystal Salt Company by manufacturing salt, and that if they tried to,
+he would "ruin" them. This proceeding convinced Smurthwaite that Smith
+had "so violent a disregard and non-understanding of the rights of his
+fellow-man and his duty to God, as to render him morally unqualified for
+the high office which he holds." For expressing such an opinion of Smith
+to elders and teachers--and adding that Smith was not fit to act as
+Prophet, Seer and Revelator, since, according to his own confession to
+the Senate Committee he was "living in sin"--for expressing these
+opinions, charges were preferred against Smurthwaite by an elder named
+Goddard of Ogden City, and excommunication proceedings were begun
+against him.
+
+Smurthwaite replied by making a charge of polygamous cohabitation
+against Goddard; and after the April Conference of 1905, Don Musser and
+Smurthwaite joined in filing a complaint in the District Court of Salt
+Lake City demanding an accounting from Joseph F. Smith of the tithes
+which the Church was collecting. Meanwhile Smurthwaite had been
+"disfellowshipped" at a secret session of the bishop's court, on March
+22, without an opportunity of appearing in his own defense or having
+counsel or witnesses heard in support of his case; and on April 4, after
+a similarly secret and ex-parte proceeding, he was excommunicated by the
+High Council of his Stake, for "apostasy and un-Christianlike conduct."
+His charges against Goddard were ignored, and his suit for an accounting
+of the tithes was dismissed for want of jurisdiction!
+
+From the moment of his first public protest against Smith, all
+Smurthwaite's former associates fell away from him, and by many of the
+more devout he was shunned as if he were infected. Benevolent as he had
+been, he could find no further fellowship even among those whom he had
+benefited by his service and his means. I know of no more blameless life
+than his had been in his home community--and, to this, every one of his
+acquaintances can bear testimony--yet after the brutally unjust
+proceedings of excommunication against him the Deseret News, the
+Church's daily paper, referred to "recent cases of apostasy and
+excommunication" as having been made necessary by the "gross immorality"
+of the victims. When a man like Chas. A. Smurthwaite could not
+remonstrate against the individual offenses of Joseph F. Smith, without
+being overwhelmed by financial disaster, and social ostracism, and
+personal slander, it must be evident how impossible is such single
+revolt to the average Mormon. Nothing can be accomplished by individual
+protest except the ruin of the protestant and his family.
+
+In the case of my own excommunication, the issues were perhaps less
+clearly defined than in Smurthwaite's. I had not been for many years a
+formal member of the Church; and yet in the sense that Mormonism is a
+community system (as much as a religion) I had been an active and loyal
+member of it. In my childhood--when I was seven or eight years of age--
+I began to doubt the faith of my people; and I used to go into the
+orchard alone and thrust sticks lightly into the soft mould and pray
+that God would let them fall over if the Prophets had not been appointed
+by Him to do His work. And sometimes they fell and sometimes they stood!
+Later, when I was appalled by some of the things that had occurred in
+the early history of the Church, I silenced myself with the argument
+that one should not judge any religion by the crudities and
+intolerance's of its past. I felt that if I were not hypocritical--if I
+were myself guided by the truth as I saw it myself--and if I aided to
+the utmost of my power in advancing the community out of its errors, I
+should be doing all that could be asked of me. In the days of Mormon
+misery and proscription, I chose to stand with my own people, suffering
+in their sufferings and rejoicing with them in their triumphs. Their
+tendency was plainly upward; and I felt that no matter what had been the
+origin of the Church--whether in the egotism of a man or in an alleged
+revelation from God--if the tendencies were toward higher things,
+toward a more even justice among men, toward a more zealous patriotism
+for the country, no man of the community could do better than abide with
+the community.
+
+The Church authorities accepted my aid with that understanding of my
+position toward the Mormon religion; and, though Joseph F. Smith, in
+1892, for his own political purposes, circulated a procured statement
+that I was "a Mormon in good standing," later, when he was on the
+witness stand in the Smoot investigation, he testified concerning me:
+"He is not and never has been an official member of the Church, in any
+sense or form." I made no pretenses and none were asked of me. I was
+glad to give my services to a people whom I loved, and trusted, and
+admired; and the leaders were as eager to use me as I was eager to be
+used in the proper service of my fellows. (Even Joseph F. Smith, in
+those days, was glad to give me his "power of attorney" and to trust me
+with the care of the community's financial affairs.) But when all the
+hierarchy's covenants to the nation were being broken; when the tyranny
+of the Prophet's absolutism had been re-established with a fierceness
+that I had never seen even in the days of Brigham Young; when polygamy
+had been restored in its most offensive aspect, as a breach of the
+Church's own revelation; when hopelessly outlawed children were being
+born of cohabitation that was clandestine and criminal under the "laws
+both of God and of man"--it was impossible for me to be silent either
+before the leaders of the Church or in the public places among the
+people. I had spoken for the Mormons at a time when few spoke for them--
+when many of the men who were now so valiantly loyal to the hierarchy
+had been discreetly silent. I had helped defend the Mormon religion when
+it had few defenders. I did not propose to criticize it now; for to me,
+any sincere belief of the human soul is too sacred to be so assailed--if
+not out of respect, surely in pity--and the Mormon faith was the faith
+of my parents. But I was determined to make the strongest assault in my
+power on the treason and the tyranny which Smith and his associates in
+guilt were trying to cover with the sanctities of religion; and I had to
+make that assault, as a public man, for a public purpose, without any
+consideration of private consequences.
+
+After I began criticizing the Church leaders, in the editorial columns
+of the Salt Lake Tribune, my friend Ben Rich, then president of the
+Southern States Missions, and J. Golden Kimball, one of the seven
+presidents of the seventies, came to me repeatedly to suggest that if I
+wished to attack the leaders of the Church I should formally withdraw
+from the Church. This I declined to do: because I was in no different
+position toward the teachings of the Church than I had been in previous
+years--because I was not criticizing the Church or its religious
+teachings, but attacking the civil offenses of its leaders as citizens
+guilty against the state--and because I saw that my attack had more
+power as coming from a man who stood within the community, even though
+he had no standing in the Church. I continued as I had begun. After the
+publication of an editorial (January 22, 1905), in which I charged
+President Smith with being all that the testimony then before the Senate
+committee had proven him to be, Ben Rich advised me that I must either
+withdraw from the Church or Smith would proceed against me in the Church
+tribunals and make my family suffer. I replied that I would not withdraw
+and that I would fight all cases against me on the issue of free speech.
+On February 1, 1905, I published, editorially, "An address to the
+Earthly King of the Kingdom of God," in which I charged Smith with
+having violated the laws (revelations) of his predecessors; with having
+made and violated treaties upon which the safety of his "subjects"
+depended; with having taken the bodies of the daughters of his subjects
+and bestowed them upon his favorites; with having impoverished his
+subjects by a system of elaborate exaction's (tithes) in order to enrich
+"the crown" and so forth. All of which, burlesquely written as if to a
+Czar by a constitutionalist, was accepted by the Mormon people as in no
+way absurd in its tone as coming from one American citizen to another!
+
+Because of these two editorials I was charged (February 21, 1905) before
+a ward bishop's court in Ogden with "un-Christianlike conduct and
+apostasy," after two minor Church officials had called upon me at my
+home and received my acknowledgment of the authorship of the editorials,
+my refusal to retract them, and my statement that I did not "sustain"
+Joseph F. Smith as head of the Church, since he was "leaving the worship
+of God for the worship of Mammon and leading the people astray." On the
+night of February 24, I appeared in my own defense before the bishop's
+court, at the hour appointed, without witnesses or counsel, because I
+had been notified that no one would be permitted to attend with me. And,
+of course, the defense I made was that the articles were true and that I
+was prepared to prove them true.
+
+Such a court usually consists of a bishop and his two councillors, but in
+this case the place of the second councillor had been taken by a high
+priest named Elder George W. Larkin, a man reputed to be "richly endowed
+with the Spirit." I had a peculiar psychological experience with Larkin.
+After I had spoken at some length in my own defense, Larkin rose to work
+himself up into one of the rhapsodies for which he was noted. "Brother
+Frank," he began, "I want to bear my testimony to you that this is the
+work of God--and nothing can stay its progress--and all who interfere
+will be swept away as chaff"--rising to those transports of
+auto-hypnotic exaltation which such as he accept as the effect of the
+spirit of God speaking through them. "You were born in the covenant, and
+the condemnation is more severe upon one who has the birthright than
+upon one not of the faith who fights against the authority of God's
+servants." I had concluded to try the effect of a resistant mental
+force, and while I stared at him I was saying to myself: "This is a mere
+vapor of words. You shall not continue in this tirade. Stop!" He began
+to have difficulty in finding his phrases. The expected afflatus did not
+seem to have arrived to lift him. He faltered, hesitated, and finally,
+with an explanation that he had not been feeling well, he resumed his
+seat, apologetically.
+
+That left me free to "bear testimony" somewhat myself. I warned the
+members of the "court" that no work of righteousness could succeed
+except by keeping faith with the Almighty--which meant keeping faith
+with his children upon earth. I reminded them of the dark days, which
+all of them could recall, when we had repeatedly covenanted to God and
+to the nation that if we could be relieved of what we deemed the world's
+oppression we would fulfill every obligation of our promises. I pointed
+out to them that the Church was passing into the ways of the world; that
+our people were being pauperized; that some of them were in the
+poorhouses in their old age after having paid tithes all their active
+lives; that by our practices we were bearing testimony against the
+revelations which Mormons proclaimed to the world for the salvation of
+the bodies and souls of men.
+
+They listened to me with the same friendly spirit that had marked all
+their proceedings for these men had no animosity against me; they were
+merely obeying the orders of their superiors. And when we arose to
+disperse, the bishop put his hand on my shoulder and said, in the usual
+form of words: "Brother Frank, we will consider your case, and if we
+find you ought to do anything to make matters right, we will let you
+know what it is."
+
+I returned to my home, where I had left my wife and children chatting at
+the dinner table. They had known where I was going. They knew what the
+issue of my "trial" would be for them and for me. Yet when I came back
+to them, none asked me any questions and none seemed perturbed. And this
+is typical of the Mormon family. I think the experiences through which
+the people have passed have given them a quality of cheerful patience.
+They have been schooled to bear persecution with quiet fortitude.
+Tragedy sweeps by them in the daily current of life. A young man goes on
+a mission, and dies in a foreign land; and his parents accept their
+bereavement like Spartans, almost without mourning, sustained by the
+religious belief that he has ended his career gloriously. Taught to
+devote themselves and their children and their worldly goods to the
+service of their Church, they accept even the impositions and injustices
+of the Church leaders with a powerful forbearance that is at once a
+strength and a weakness.
+
+Two days later I was met on the street by a young Dutch elder, who could
+scarcely speak English, and he gave me the official document from the
+bishop's court notifying me that I had been "disfellowshipped for
+un-Christianlike conduct and apostasy." I was then summoned to appear
+before the High Council of the Stake in excommunication proceedings, and
+after filing a defense which it is unnecessary to give here--and after
+refusing to appear before the Council for reasons that it is equally
+unnecessary to repeat I was excommunicated on March 14, 1905. No denial
+was made by the Church authorities of any of the charges which I had
+made against Smith. No trial was made of the truth of those charges. As
+a free citizen of "one of the freest communities under the sun," I was
+officially ostracized by order of the religious despot of the community
+for daring to utter what everyone knew to be the truth about him.
+
+For myself, of course, no edict of excommunication had any terrors; but
+the aim of the authorities was to make me suffer through the sufferings
+of my family; and, in that, they succeeded. I shall not write of it. It
+has little place in such a public record as this, and I do not wish to
+present myself, in any record, as a martyr. It was not I who was
+ostracized from the Mormon Church by my excommunication; it was the
+right of free speech. The Mormon Church deprived me of nothing; it
+deprived itself of the helpful criticism of its members. No anathema of
+bigotry could take from me the affection of my family or the respect of
+any friends whose respect was worth the coveting. In that regard I
+suffered only in my pity for those of my neighbors who were so blindly
+servile to the decrees of religious tyranny that they turned their backs
+on the voice of their own liberty raised, in protest, for their own
+defense.
+
+And it was not by the individual protestants but by the entire community
+that the heaviest price was paid in this whole conflict. It divided the
+state again into the old factions and involved it in the old war from
+which it had been rescued. The Mormons instituted a determined boycott
+against all Gentiles, and "Thou shalt not support God's enemies" became
+a renewed commandment of the Prophet. Wherever a Gentile was employed in
+any Mormon institution, he was discharged, almost without exception,
+whether or not he had been an active member of the American party.
+Teachers in the Church would exclaim with horror if they heard that a
+Mormon family was employing a Gentile physician; and more than one
+Mormon litigant was advised that he not only "sinned against the work of
+God," but endangered the success of his law suit, by retaining a Gentile
+lawyer. Politicians were told that if they aided the American party,
+they need never hope for advancement in this world, or expect anything
+but eternal condemnation in the world to come; and though few of them
+counted on the "spoils" of the hereafter, they understood and
+appreciated the power of the hierarchy to reward in the present day. The
+Gentiles did not attempt any boycott in retaliation; they had not the
+solidarity necessary to such an attempt; and many Gentile business men,
+in order to get any Mormon patronage whatever, were compelled to employ
+none but Mormon clerks.
+
+The Gentiles had been largely attracted to Utah by its mines; they were
+heavily interested in the smelting industry. Colonel B. A. Wall, one of
+the strongest supporters of the American party, owned copper properties,
+was an inventor of methods of reduction, and had large smelting
+industries. Ex-Senator Thomas Kearns, and his partner David Keith,
+owners of the Salt Lake Tribune, and many of their associates, had their
+fortunes in mines and smelters; they were leaders of the American party
+and they were attempting to enlist with them such men as W. S.
+McCornick, a Gentile banker and mine owner, and D. C. Jackling,
+president of the Utah Copper Company, who is now one of the heads of the
+national "copper combine" and one of the ablest men of the West.
+
+In 1904, in the midst of the political crisis, the Church newspapers
+served editorial notice on these men that, on account of the smelter
+fumes and their destructive effect upon the vegetation of the valley,
+the smelters must go; and that if the present laws were not sufficient,
+new laws would be enacted to drive them out. Men like Wall and Keith and
+Kearns and Walker were not terrorized; but McCornick and Jackling and
+the representatives of the American Smelting and Refining Company either
+surrendered to a discreet silence or openly joined the Church in the
+campaign. They were rewarded with the assurance that the Church would
+protect them against any labor trouble and that no adverse legislation
+would be attempted against them. Today	Jackling, of the copper combine,
+is a newspaper partner of Apostle Smoot, and he is mentioned for the
+United States Senate as the Church's selection to succeed George
+Sutherland. The Church has large mining interests; Smoot and Smith are
+in close affiliation with the smelting trust; and this is another
+powerful partnership in Washington that protected Smoot in his seat and
+has been rewarded by the Church's assistance in looting the nation.
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII
+
+
+
+The New Polygamy
+
+
+
+In the old days of Mormonism--and as late as the anti-polygamous
+manifesto of 1890--the whole aim and effort of the Church was to exalt
+and sanctify and make pure the practice of plural marriage by means of
+the community's respect and the reverences of religion. The doctrine of
+polygamy was taught as a revealed mystery of faith. It was accepted as a
+sacrament ordained by God for the salvation of mankind. The most
+important families in the Church dignified it by their participation,
+and were in turn dignified by the Church's approval and by the wealth
+and power that followed approval. The inevitable mental sufferings of
+the plural wives were endured by them as part of an earthly
+self-immolation required by God, for which they should be rewarded in
+eternity. The very necessities of their situation compelled them to
+exact and cherish a super reverence for the doctrine of plural marriage--
+since the only way a mother could justify herself to her children was
+by teaching, as she believed, that she had been selected by God for the
+exaltation of this sacrifice, and by inculcating in her children a
+scrupulous respect for sexual purity. There was no pretense of denial of
+the polygamous relation. Plural wives held the place of honor in the
+community. Their marriages were considered the most sanctified. They and
+their progeny were called "the wives and children of the holy covenant,"
+and they were esteemed accordingly.
+
+But as the history of the Church shows, plural marriage was always a
+heavy cross to the Mormon women; many had refused to bear it, in the
+face of the frequent pulpit scoldings of the Prophets; and few did not
+sometime weep under it in the secrecy of their family life. In the days
+immediately preceding the manifesto of 1890, there was a general hope
+and longing among the Mormon mothers that God would permit a relief
+before their daughters and their sons should become of an age to be
+drafted into the ranks of polygamy. The great majority of the young men
+were monogamists. It required the strong persuasions of personal
+affection as well as the authority of Divine command to make the young
+women accept a polygamist in marriage. And when the Church received
+President Woodruff's anti-polygamous revelation, every profound human
+emotion of the people coincided with the promise to abstain.
+
+Only among a few of the polygamous leaders themselves was there any
+inclination to break the Church's pledge--an inclination that was
+strengthened by resentment against the Federal power that had compelled
+the giving of the pledge. Almost immediately upon obtaining the freedom
+of statehood, some of these leaders returned to the practice of
+polygamous cohabitation--although they had accepted the revelation, had
+bound themselves by their covenant to the nation and had solemnly
+subscribed to the terms of their amnesty. To justify themselves, they
+found it necessary to teach that polygamy was still approved by the law
+of God--that the practice of plural marriage had only been abandoned
+because it was forbidden by the laws of man. Joseph F. Smith continued
+to live with his five wives and to rear children by all of them. Those
+of the apostles who were not assured of that attainment to the
+principality of Heaven which was promised the man of five wives and
+proportionate progeny, were naturally tempted (if, indeed, they were not
+actually encouraged) to take Joseph F. Smith as their examplar. It was
+scarcely worse to break the covenant by taking a new polygamous wife
+than by continuing polygamous relations with former plural wives; and
+when an apostle took a new polygamous wife, his inevitable and necessary
+course was to justify himself by the authority of God. He could not then
+deny the same authority to the minor ecclesiasts, even if he had wished
+to. And, finally, when the evil circle spread to the man on the fringe
+of the Church--who could not obtain even such poor authorization for
+his perfidy he found a way to perpetrate a pretended plural marriage with
+his victim, and the Church authorities did not dare but protect him.
+
+This was polygamy without the great saving grace that had previously
+defended the Mormon women from the cruelties and abuses of the practice.
+It was polygamy without honor--polygamy against an assumed revelation
+of God instead of by virtue of one--polygamy worse than that of the
+Mohammedans, since it was necessarily clandestine, could claim no social
+respect or acceptance, and was forbidden "by the laws of God and man"
+alike.
+
+This is the "new polygamy" of Mormonism. The Church leaders dare not
+acknowledge it for fear of the national consequences. They dare not even
+secretly issue certificates of plural marriage, lest the record should
+be betrayed. They protect the polygamist by a conspiracy of falsehood
+that is almost as shameful as the shame it seeks to cover; and the
+infection of the duplicity spreads like a plague to corrupt the whole
+social life of the people. The wife of a new polygamist cannot claim a
+husband; she has no social status; she cannot, even to her parents,
+prove the religious sanction for her marital relations. Her children are
+taught that they must not use a father's name. They are hopelessly
+outside the law--without the possibility that any further statutes of
+legitimization will be enacted for their relief. They are born in
+falsehood and bred to the living of a lie. Their father cannot claim the
+authority of the Church for their parentage, for he must protect his
+Prophet. He cannot even publicly acknowledge them--any more than he can
+publicly acknowledge their mother.
+
+Out of these terrible conditions comes such an instance as the notorious
+case of one of Henry S. Tanner's wives, who went on a visit to one of
+her relatives, with her children, and denied that they were her
+children, and denied that she was married--and was supported by her
+children's denial that she was their mother. Similarly, a plural wife of
+a wealthy Mormon, whose fortune is estimated at $25,000,000--a partner
+of the sugar trust, a community leader, a favorite of the Church went
+before the Senate Committee in December, 1904, and swore that her first
+husband had died thirteen years before, that she had had a child within
+six years, and that she had no second husband. And by doing so she not
+only marked the child as illegitimate beyond the relief of any future
+statutes--legitimizing the offspring of polygamous marriages, but she
+left herself and the child without any claim upon the estate of its
+father and publicly swore herself a social outcast before a committee of
+the United States Senate, and perjured herself--to the knowledge of all
+her friends and acquaintances in Utah--for the protection of her
+husband and her Church. What can one say of a man who will permit a
+woman to commit such an act of social suicide for him--or of a Church
+that will command it?
+
+Here is a condition of society unparalleled anywhere else in
+civilization--unparalleled even in barbarous countries, for wherever
+else polygamy is practiced it at least has the sanction of local
+convention. And the consequent suffering that falls upon the women and
+the children is a heart-break to see. During the days when I was in the
+editorial office of the Salt Lake Tribune, scores of miserable cases
+came to my knowledge by letter, by the report of friends, and by the
+visits of the agonized wives themselves. I shall never forget one young
+woman, in her twenties, who came to ask my help in forcing her husband
+to obtain a marriage certificate for her from the Church, so that her
+boy might have the right to claim a father. She wept, with her head on
+my desk, sobbing out her story, and appealing to me for aid with a
+convulsed and tear-drenched face.
+
+Four years earlier, she had become friendly with a man twice her age,
+whom she admired and respected. He had taken two wives before the
+manifesto of 1890, but that did not prevent him from coveting the youth
+and beauty of this young woman. He first approached her mother for
+permission to marry the girl, and when the mother-who was herself a
+plural wife replied that it was impossible under the law, he brought an
+apostle to persuade her that the practice of plural marriage was still
+as meet, just and available to salvation as it had been when she
+married. Then he went to the daughter.
+
+"I was terrified," she said, "when he proposed to me. And yet--he asked
+me if I thought my mother had done wrong when she married my father....
+There was no one else I liked as much. He was good. He was rich. He told
+me I'd never want for anything. He said I would be fulfilling the
+command of God against the wickedness of a persecuting world.... I
+don't know what devil of fanaticism entered into me. I thought it would
+be smart to defy the United States."
+
+Late one night, by appointment, he called for her with a carriage,
+driven by a man unknown to her, and took her to a darkened house that
+had a dim light only in the hallway. They entered alone and turned into
+a parlor that was dark, except for the reflection from the hall. He led
+her up to the portieres that hung across an inner door, and through the
+opening between the curtains she saw the indistinct figure of a man.
+They stood before him, hand in hand, while he mumbled over the words of
+a ceremony that sounded to her like the ceremonies she had heard in the
+Temple. She caught little of it clearly; she remembered practically
+nothing. She was not given anything to show that a ceremony had been
+performed, and she did not ask for anything. The elderly bridegroom
+kissed her when the mumbling ceased, led her out to the carriage, took
+her back to her mother's house, and that night became her husband.
+
+She bore him a son. No one except her mother, her father and a few
+trusted friends knew that she was married. In the early months of 1905
+she read in the Tribune the testimony given before the Senate committee
+by Professor James E. Talmage, for the Church, to the effect that since
+the manifesto of 1890 neither the President of the Church nor anybody
+else in the Church had power to authorize a plural marriage, and that
+any woman who had become a plural wife, since the manifesto, was "no
+more a wife by the law of the Church, than she is by the law of the
+land."
+
+She asked her husband about it. He replied that an apostle had married
+them. "I asked my husband," she said, "to get a certificate of marriage
+from the apostle. He told me I needed none--that it was recorded in the
+books here and recorded in heaven--that it would put the apostle in
+danger if he were to sign such a paper. I said that that was nothing to
+me--that I wanted to protect my good name. Finally, he said it was not
+an apostle. Then we had a bitter scene. And he did not come back for a
+long time. And he didn't write as long as he stayed away.
+
+"When he came back he was more loving than ever. I was afraid of having
+more children. I said to him: 'You cannot hold me as a wife any longer
+unless you write a paper certifying that I'm your wife and this boy is
+your child. You may place that paper anywhere you like, so long as I
+know I can get it in case you die. Suppose you were to die and all your
+folks were to deny that I was your wife--say that I was an imposter--
+that I was trying to foist my boy on the estate of a dead man--in the
+name of God, then what could I do?' He went away; and he hasn't come
+back; and he hasn't written. I don't know who married us. I don't even
+know the house where it happened. I don't know who the driver was. I
+don't even know who the apostle was that told mother it would be all
+right. He made her promise under a covenant not to tell.
+
+"I don't know where to go. A friend of mine told me you would advise me.
+He said perhaps you could make them give me a certificate. I don't want
+to expose my husband. I only want something so that my boy, when he
+grows up, won't be"--
+
+What could I do? What could anyone do for this unfortunate girl, seduced
+in the name of religion, with the aid of a Church that repudiated her
+for its own protection? She had to suffer, and see her boy suffer, the
+penalties of a social outcast.
+
+Her case was typical of many that came to my personal knowledge. At the
+Sunday Schools, in the choirs, in the joint meetings of mutual
+improvement associations, young girls--taught to believe that plural
+marriage was sacred, and reverencing the polygamous prophets as the
+anointed of the Lord--were being seduced into clandestine marriage
+relations with polygamous elders who persuaded their victims that the
+anti-polygamous manifesto had been given out to save a persecuted people
+from the cruelties of an unjust government; that it was never intended
+it should be obeyed; that all the celestial blessings promised by
+revelation to the polygamist and his wives were still waiting for those
+who would dare to enjoy them.
+
+If the tempted girl turned to one of her women friends, and besought her
+to say, on her honor, whether she thought that plural marriage was
+right, the other was likely enough to answer: "Yes, yes. Indeed it is.
+Promise me you won't tell a living soul. Tell me you'll die first....
+I'm married to Brother I,----, the leader of the ward choir."
+
+If she asked her mother: "Tell me. Is plural marriage wrong?" the mother
+could only reply: "Oh--I don't know--I don't know. Your father said it
+was right, and I accepted it--and we practiced it--and you have always
+loved your other brothers and sisters, and it seems to me it can't be
+wrong, since we have lived it. But--Oh, I don't know, daughter. I don't
+know."
+
+The man who is tempting her knows. He has the word of an apostle, the
+example of the Prophet, the secret teaching of the Church. He courts her
+as any other religious young girl might be courted--with little
+attentions, at the meetings, over the music books--and he has, to aid
+him, a religious exaltation in her, induced by his plea that she is to
+enter into the mystery of the holy covenant, to become one of the most
+faithful of a persecuted Church, to defy the wicked laws of its enemies.
+She is just as happy in her betrothal as any other innocent girl of her
+age. Even the secrecy is sweet to her. And then, some evening, they
+saunter down a side street to a strange house--or even to a back
+orchard where a man is waiting in a cowl under a tree (perhaps vulgarly
+disguised as a woman with a veil over his face)--and they are married
+in a mutter of which she hears nothing.
+
+Such a case was related to me by a horrified mother who had discovered
+that the marriage ceremony had been performed by an accomplice of the
+libertine who had seduced her daughter and since confessed his crime.
+But whether the ceremony be performed by a priest of the Church or by a
+more unauthorized scoundrel, the girl is equally at the mercy of her
+"husband" and equally betrayed in the world. Even in this case of the
+pretended marriage, the elders of the ward hushed up the threatened
+prosecution because the authorities of the Church objected to a
+proceeding that might expose other plural marriages more orthodox.
+
+Hundreds of Mormon men and women personally thanked me by letter or in
+interviews at the Tribune office, for our editorial attacks upon the
+hierarchy for encouraging these horrors. Strangers spoke to me on
+railroad trains, thanking me and telling me of cases. Three Mormon
+physicians, themselves priests of the Church, told me of innumerable
+instances that had come to them in their practice, and said that they
+did not know what was to become of the community. One Mormon woman wrote
+me from Mexico to say that she had exiled herself there with her husband
+and his two plural wives, and that she felt she had worked out
+sufficient atonement for all her descendants; yet she saw girls of the
+family on the verge of entering into plural marriage--if they had not
+already done so--and she begged us to continue our newspaper exposures,
+so that others might be saved from the bitter experiences of her life.
+
+President Winder met me on the street in 1905, towards the close of the
+year, and said: "Frank, you need not continue your fight against plural
+marriage. President Smith has stopped it." "Then," I replied, "two
+things are evident: I have been telling the truth when I said that
+plural marriage had been renewed--in spite of the authorized denials--and
+if President Smith has stopped it now, he has had authority over it all
+the time."
+
+To me, or to any other well-informed citizen of Utah, President Winder's
+admission was not necessary to prove Smith's responsibility. In the
+April conference of 1904, Smith had read an "official statement," signed
+by him, prohibiting plural marriages and threatening to excommunicate
+any officer or member of the Church who should solemnize one; and this
+official statement was carried to the Senate committee by Professor
+James E. Talmage, and offered in proof that the Church was keeping its
+covenant.
+
+For us, in Utah, the declaration served merely to illuminate the dark
+places of ecclesiastical bad faith. We knew that from the year 1900
+down, there had never been a sermon preached in any Mormon tabernacle,
+by any of the general authorities of the Church, against the practice of
+plural marriage, or against the propriety of the practice, or against
+the sanctity of the doctrine. We knew, on the contrary, that upon
+numerous occasions, at funerals and in public assemblages, Joseph F.
+Smith and John Henry Smith and others of the hierarchy, had proclaimed
+the doctrine as sacred. We knew that it was still being taught in the
+secret prayer meetings. Practically all the leading authorities of the
+Church were living in plural marriage. Some of them had taken new wives
+since the manifesto. None of them had been actually punished. All were
+in high favor. And though Joseph F. Smith denied his responsibility,
+every one knew that none of these things could be, except with his
+active approval.
+
+Perhaps, for a brief time, while Smoot's case was still before the
+Senate, some check was put upon the renewal of polygamy. But, even then,
+there were undoubtedly, occasional marriages allowed, where the parties
+were so situated as to make concealment perfect. And all checks were
+withdrawn when Smoot's case was favorably disposed of, and the Church
+found itself protected by the political power of the administration at
+Washington and by a political and financial alliance with "the
+Interests."
+
+Today, in spite of the difficulty of discovering plural marriages,
+because of the concealments by which they are protected, the Salt Lake
+Tribune is publishing a list of more than two hundred "new" polygamists
+with the dates and circumstances of their marriages; and these are
+probably not one tenth of all the cases. During President Taft's visit
+to Salt Lake City, in 1909, Senator Thomas Kearns, one of the
+proprietors of the Tribune, offered to prove to one of the President's
+confidants hundreds of cases of new polygamy, if the President would
+designate two secret service men to investigate. I believe, from my own
+observation, that there are more plural wives among the Mormons today
+than there were before 1890. Then the young men married early, and were
+chiefly monogamists. Now the change in economic conditions has raised
+the age at which men marry; it has made more bachelors than there were
+when simpler modes of life prevailed. The young women have fewer offers
+of marriage, and more of these come from well-to-do polygamists. The
+girls are still taught, as they have always been, that marriage is
+necessary to salvation; and they are betrayed into plural marriage by
+natural conditions as well as by the persuasions of the Church.
+
+A perfect "underground" system has been put in operation for the
+protection of the lawbreakers. If they reside in Utah, they frequently
+go to Canada or to Mexico to be married; and the whole polygamous
+paraphernalia can be transported with ease and comfort--the priest who
+performs the ceremony, the husband, sometimes the legal wife to give her
+consent so that she may not be damned, and the young woman whose soul is
+to be saved. And this "underground" is maintained against the reluctance
+of the Mormon people. They aid in it from a kindly feeling toward their
+fellow-believers--and with some faint thought that perhaps these
+wayfarers are being "persecuted" but all the time with no personal
+sympathy for polygamy. By one sincere word of reprehension from Joseph
+F. Smith every "underground" station could be abolished, the route could
+be destroyed, and an end could be put to the protection that is, of
+itself, an encouragement to polygamous practice. He has never spoken
+that word.
+
+Recently, the way in which the new polygamy is perpetrated in Utah has
+been almost officially revealed. A patriarch of the Church, resident in
+Davis County, less than fifteen miles from Salt Lake City, had been
+solemnizing these unlawful unions at wholesale. The situation became so
+notorious that the authorities of the Church felt themselves impelled
+about September, 1910, to put restrictions upon his activity. In the
+course of their investigations they discovered that he did not know the
+persons whom he married. They would come to his house, in the evening,
+wearing handkerchiefs over their faces; he sat hidden behind a screen in
+his parlor; and under these circumstances the two were declared man and
+wife, and were sealed up to everlasting bliss to rule over
+principalities and kingdoms, with power of endless increase and
+progression. He refused to tell the hierarchy from which one of the
+authorities he had received his endowment to perpetrate these crimes. He
+refused to give the names of any of the victims, claiming that he did
+not know them!
+
+It is probable that for a long time plural marriage ceremonies were not
+solemnized within the Salt Lake temple. Now, we know that there have
+lately been such marriages in it, and at Manti, and at Logan, and
+perhaps also in the temple at St. George. There are cases on record
+where a man has a wife on one side of the Utah-Colorado line and another
+wife across the border. No prosecutions are possible in Utah; for, as
+Joseph F. Smith told the Senate committee, the officers of the law have
+too much "respect" for the ecclesiastical rulers of the state.
+Similarly, in the surrounding states, the officers show exactly the same
+sort of "respect" and for the same reason. They not only know the
+Church's power in local politics, but they see the national
+administration allowing the polygamists and priests of the Church to
+select the Federal officials, and they are not eager to rouse a
+resentment against themselves, at Washington as well as at home, by
+prosecuting polygamous Mormons.
+
+Some few years ago, Irving Sayford, then representing the Los Angeles
+Times, asked Mr. P. H. Lannan, of the Salt Lake Tribune, why someone did
+not swear out warrants against President Smith for his offenses against
+the law. Mr. Lannan said: "You mean why don't I do it?"
+
+"Oh, no," Mr. Sayford explained, "I don't mean you particularly."
+
+"Oh, yes, you do," Mr. Lannan said. "You mean me if you mean anybody. If
+it's not my duty, it's no one's duty.... Well, I'll tell you why....
+I don't make a complaint, because neither the district attorney nor
+the prosecuting attorney would entertain it. If he did entertain it and
+issued a warrant, the sheriff would refuse to serve the warrant. If the
+sheriff served the warrant, there would be no witnesses unless I got
+them. If I could get the witnesses, they wouldn't testify to the facts
+on the stand. If they did testify to the facts, the jury wouldn't
+bring in a verdict of guilty. If the jury did bring in a verdict of
+guilty, the judge would suspend sentence. If the judge did not suspend
+sentence, he would merely fine President Smith, three hundred dollars.
+And within twenty-four hours there would be a procession of Mormons and
+Gentiles crawling on their hands and knees to Church headquarters to
+offer to pay that three hundred dollar fine at a dime apiece."
+
+Mr. Lannan's statement of the case was later substantiated by an action
+of the Salt Lake District Court. Upon the birth of the twelfth child
+that has been borne to President Smith in plural marriage since the
+manifesto of 1890, Charles Mostyn Owen made complaint in the District
+Court at Salt Lake, charging Mr. Smith with a statutory offense. The
+District Attorney reduced the charge to "unlawful cohabitation" (a
+misdemeanor), without the complainant's consent or knowledge. All the
+preliminaries were then graciously arranged and President Smith appeared
+in the District Court by appointment. He pleaded guilty. The judge in
+sentencing him remarked that as this was the first time he had appeared
+before the court, he would be fined three hundred dollars, but that
+should he again appear, the penalty might be different. Smith had
+already testified in Washington, before the Senate Committee, to the
+birth of eleven children in plural marriage since he had given his
+covenant to the country to cease living in polygamy; he had practically
+defied the Senate and the United States to punish him; he had said that
+he would "stand" his "chances" before the law and courts of his own
+state. All of this was well known to the judge who fined him three
+hundred dollars--a sum of money scarcely equal to the amount of Smith's
+official income for the time he was in court!
+
+A leader of the Church, not long ago, asked me, in private conference,
+what was the policy of the American party with regard to the new plural
+wives and their children. I replied that as far as I knew it, the policy
+was to have the Church accept its responsibility in the matter and give
+the wives and children whatever recognition could be given them by their
+religion. The Church was guilty before God and man of having encouraged
+the awful condition. It was unspeakably cowardly and unfair for the
+Church leaders to put the whole burden of suffering on the helpless
+women and children; and, moreover, this course was a justification to
+polygamists in deserting their wives, on the ground that the Church had
+never sanctioned the relation.
+
+This Church leader, himself a new polygamist, answered miserably: "The
+Church will not let itself be put in such a light before the country.
+That would be to admit that it has been responsible all the time."
+
+I asked: "Has the Church not been responsible?"
+
+He replied--equivocating--: "Well, not the Church. The Church has
+never taken a vote on it."
+
+"That," I said, "answers why you have never got redress and never will
+get it because you are all liars, from top to bottom. You know you would
+never have entered the polygamous relation--nor could you have induced
+your wife to enter it--except with full knowledge that the Church did
+authorize it. The Church is one man, and you know it. The whole theory
+of your theology collapses if you deny that."
+
+He shook his head blankly. "I don't know what is to become of us. I
+don't see any way out."
+
+I could only advise him that he should join with other new polygamists
+in demanding that the Church authorities make all possible reparation to
+the women and children who were being crushed under the penalties of the
+Church's crime. But I knew that such advice was vain. He could not make
+such a demand, any more than any other slave could demand his freedom.
+And if the non-polygamists demanded it, the Prophets would deny that
+polygamy was being practiced. The children could not be legitimized--
+for the Church cannot obtain legitimizing statutes without avowing its
+responsibility for the need of them; and the Gentiles can not pass such
+statutes without encouraging the continuance of polygamy by removing the
+social penalty against it.
+
+So the burden of all this guilt, this shame, this deception, falls upon
+the unfortunate plural wife and her innocent offspring. She is bound by
+the most sacred obligations never to reveal the name of the officiating
+priest--even if she knew it--nor to disclose the circumstances of the
+ceremony. She has justified her degradation by the assumption that God
+has commanded it; that her husband has received a revelation authorizing
+him to take her into his household; that her children will be legitimate
+in the sight of God, and that eventually the civilized world will come
+to a joyous acceptance of the practice of polygamy. When the trials of
+her life afflict her and she finds no relentment in the world's disdain,
+she sees no avenue of retreat. To break the relation is to imply at once
+that it was not ordained of God, and to cast a darker ignominy upon her
+unfortunate children. Her only hope lies in her continued submission to
+her husband and his Church, even after she has mentally and morally
+rejected the doctrine that betrayed her. A more pitiably helpless band
+of self-immolants than these Mormon women has never suffered martyrdom
+in the history of the world. Heaven help them. There is no help for them
+on earth.
+
+
+
+Chapter XVIII
+
+
+
+The Prophet of Mammon
+
+
+
+In an earlier day among the Mormons, the ecclesiastical authorities
+collected one-tenth of the "annual increase" of the faithful into "the
+storehouse of the Lord;" and this was practically the entire assessment
+made by the Church; although, by the same law of tithing, every Mormon
+was held obliged to consecrate all his earthly possessions to "God's
+work" on the demand of the Prophet. The common fund was used, then, to
+promote community enterprises and to relieve the poor. The tithe-payer
+saw the good result of the administration of the Church's moneys, and
+was generally satisfied. He was promised eternal happiness if he paid an
+honest tithe, but he was also given an earthly reward--for the Church
+admitted him to many opportunities and enterprises from which the
+niggardly were adroitly excluded. He was spiritually elevated and
+enlarged by giving for a purpose that he considered worthy--the
+fulfillment of a commandment of God and the relief of his
+fellow-creatures--and the community benefited by having a part of its
+yearly surplus administered for the common good.
+
+But by the time the Church had reached its third generation of
+tithe-payers, the "financial Prophets" had made a change. On the theory
+that since the Mormons were paying the bulk of the taxes, they should
+share in the distribution of the public relief funds, the Mormon poor
+were denied assistance from "the storehouse of the Lord," and were
+compelled to enter the poorhouses, to seek shelter on the "county
+farms," or to take charity from their neighbors. The resulting
+degradation of a sublime principle of human helpfulness is strikingly
+shown in the fact that in some cases, where the county relief funds are
+distributed through a Mormon clerk of paupers for out-door relief, the
+Mormon bishop even collects one-tenth of this money, from the wretched
+recipients, as their contribution to God Almighty!
+
+Nor is the greed of the present hierarchy satisfied with one-tenth of a
+Mormon's income. Said Joseph F. Smith, at the April Conference of 1899
+(according to the Church's official report): "If a farmer raises two
+thousand bushels of wheat, as the result of his year's labor, how many
+bushels should he pay for tithing? Well, some go straightway to
+dickering with the Lord. They will say that they hired a man so and so,
+and his wages must be taken out; that they had to pay such and such
+expenses, and this cost and that cost; and they reckon out all their
+expenses and tithe the balance." To Smith's inspired financial genius
+this was "dickering with the Lord." He wished to collect ten per cent of
+the farmer's entire yield--a tithe that would have bankrupted the
+farmer in three years!
+
+Nor is the tithe any longer the only exaction demanded by the Prophet. A
+score of "donations" have been added. There is the Stake Tabernacle
+Donation, which is a fund collected from the Mormons of each "Stake"
+(corresponding usually to a county) for the building of a house in which
+to hold Stake Conferences. There is the Ward Meeting-House Donation,
+which is a fund collected from the Mormons of every "ward" for the
+erection of a local chapel. There is the Fast Day Donation, made up of
+contributions gathered on the afternoon of the first Sunday of each
+month, at what is called "a fast meeting," for the support of the local
+poor; and this is supplemented by the Relief Society Donation, solicited
+by the members of the Ladies Relief Society, in a house-to-house
+canvass, from Mormons and Gentiles alike. A Light and Heat Donation is
+collected by the deacons of the ward, under direction of the bishop, to
+pay for the lighting and heating of the ward meeting house; a Missionary
+Donation is collected at a "Missionary benefit entertainment," to help
+defray the expenses of a member of a ward sent on a mission; and since a
+missionary must necessarily be an elder, a Quorum Missionary Donation is
+also taken from his fellow members of the quorum, to assist him. So far
+as the Church is concerned, he travels "without purse or scrip," by
+order of "revelation;" but this inhibition does not extend to the use of
+his own money--if he has any left after paying the other exaction's--
+nor does it prevent him either from receiving contributions from his
+impoverished fellows or accepting charity from "the enemies of God's
+people," whom he labors to redeem. And on these terms about ninety per
+cent. of the adult male Mormons perform missionary services for the
+Church.
+
+All priesthood quorums have monthly Quorum Dues collected from their
+members. On one Sunday of each month, called Nickel Sunday, the Sunday
+School members pay in five cents each for the purchase of new books,
+etc. On Dime Tuesday, once a month, the members of the Young Men's and
+the Young Women's Mutual Improvement Associations pay in ten cents each
+for the purchase of books, etc. On Nickel Friday, once a month, the
+infant members of the Primary Association pay in five cents each to the
+association. Religious Class Donations are paid once a month by the
+Mormon public-school pupils for the support of the week-day religious
+classes. Amusement Hall Donations are collected from the members of a
+ward whose bishop finds them able to build a place of amusement. When a
+temple is to be erected, Temple Donations are collected, continuously,
+until the work is finished and paid for; and when members of the Church
+"go through the Temple," they are required to pay another form of Temple
+Donation in any sum that they can afford. Should a need arise, not
+provided for by the specific donations given above, a Special Donation
+is collected to meet it. Yet in the face of all these exaction's of
+tithes and donations, the ecclesiast still boasts: "We are not like the
+'preachers for hire and diviners for money.' We never pass the plate at
+our sacred services. Our clergy labor, without pay, to give free
+salvation to a sinful world!"
+
+In addition to doing missionary service, paying tithes, and contributing
+donations, the latter-day Mormon, if he be obedient to the counsel of
+the Church's anointed financiers, must support the commercial and
+financial undertakings of the hierarchy. These are officially designated
+"the Church's institutions" by the authorities; but they are in no way
+the property of the Church. They are advertised as community
+enterprises, but they are such only in the sense that the community is
+commanded by "the voice of God" to sustain them. There is no voice of
+God to command a distribution of their profits. And they are no longer
+conducted for the benefit of the community but to exploit it.
+
+The good Mormon must purchase his sugar from "the Church's" sugar
+company (Joseph F. Smith, president), which is controlled by the
+national sugar trust and charges trust prices. He must buy salt from
+"the Church's" salt monopoly (Joseph F. Smith, president), which is a
+part of, and pays dividends to, the national salt trust. He is taught to
+go for his merchandise to the Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution
+(Joseph F. Smith, president), where even whiskey is sold under the
+symbol of the All-seeing Eye and the words "Holiness to the Lord" in
+gilt letters; and Joseph F. Smith, at the April Conference, of 1898
+(according to the Church's official report), scolded those "pretendedly
+pious" Mormons who "were shocked and horrified" to find "liquid poison"
+sold under these auspices--for, as Smith argued, with characteristic
+greed, if the Mormon who wanted whiskey could not get it in the Church
+store, "he would not patronize Z.C.M.I. at all, but would go elsewhere
+to deal!"
+
+The farmers are "counselled" to buy their vehicles from "the Church's"
+firm, the Consolidated Wagon and Machine Company (Joseph F. Smith,
+president); to take out their fire insurance with the Church's "Home
+Fire Insurance Company" (Joseph F. Smith, controller); and to insure
+their lives with the Church's "Beneficial Life Insurance Company"
+(Joseph F. Smith, president). The Salt Lake Knitting Company (of which
+Joseph F. Smith is president) makes, among other things, the sacred
+knitted garments that are prescribed for every Mormon who takes the
+"Endowment Oaths," to be worn by him forever after as a shield "against
+the Adversary;" and these garments bear the label: "Approved by the
+Presidency. No knitted garment approved which does not bear this label."
+By which ingenious bit of religious commercialism, the sacred marks on
+the garments (accepted as a sort of passport to Heaven) have been
+increased by the sacred Smith trademark that admits the wearer to the
+Smith Heaven.
+
+The Church's banking institutions, of which Joseph F. Smith is
+president, are recommended as safer than others because the money goes
+into the hands of "the brethren." Church newspapers must be subscribed
+for, because all others are "unreliable"--although the Church's Deseret
+News (Joseph F. Smith, president) is one of the most dishonest, unjust
+and mendacious organs that ever poisoned the public mind. And so on,
+through the whole list of business concerns by which the Church
+authorities are to profit. The Mormons, having learned of old the value
+of a solid, community support for community enterprises established in
+the interests of the community, are still kept solidly supporting
+ecclesiastical enterprises administered for the benefit of the hierarchy
+or its favorites, at the community's expense!
+
+The Utah Light and Railway Company (Joseph F. Smith, president), which
+was supported by the tithes of the Mormon people, was charging $1.25 per
+thousand cubic feet for fuel gas and $1.75 for illuminating gas, just
+before the company was sold to the "Harriman interests." (The Supreme
+Court of the United States has fixed a rate of 80 cents a thousand as a
+fair price for gas in New York City.) The Salt Lake Street Railway
+(operating under a fifty-year franchise, obtained from the City Council
+by, the power of the Church while Joseph F. Smith was president of the
+company) charges a five-cent fare, gives but one transfer, allows no
+half fares for children, and pays the city nothing for the use of its
+streets. Before the transfer of the Church's sugar stocks to the trust,
+the sugar factories paid the farmer $4.50 a ton for his beets and sold
+him sugar for $4.50 a hundred pounds; today beets are bought for $4.50 a
+ton, and sugar sold at $6.00 a hundred. The price asked for salt in
+Utah, where it should be "dirt cheap," is the same as everywhere under
+the salt trust. And so on--through the rest of the list.
+
+To maintain this system of sanctified gain Joseph F. Smith invokes all
+the power of his "divine" authority as "the mouthpiece of the Lord." He
+protects the sugar trust by preventing the establishment of independent
+sugar factories (as for example in Sanpete and Sevier counties in 1905),
+just as he protects the salt trust by preventing the competition of
+independent salt gardens (as in the case of Smurthwaite and Taylor.) He
+issues his edict of protection as "the vicegerent of God on Earth" to
+the Mormons; and he excommunicates and ostracizes, in this world and the
+next, the Mormon protestant who dares rebel against commercial monopoly.
+
+He receives between two and three million dollars a year in tithes,
+gives no accounting of them, and has no responsibility for them, except
+to God and his own conscience. He is able to use this sum, in bulk, at
+any given point, with a weight of financial pressure that would
+overbalance any other such single power in the community. As "trustee in
+trust" for the Church, he has the added income from stocks and previous
+investments; and he has practical control of the wealth of all the
+leading men of the Church to assist him, if he should call upon them for
+assistance. He uses his financial dictatorship to support monopoly
+against the assault of Gentile opposition, and he compels the Gentile to
+pay tribute as the Mormon does.
+
+He backs his financial power with his control of legislation. He can not
+only prevent the passage of any laws against his favored monopolies, but
+(as in the case of the smelters) he can reduce independents to
+submission by threatening them with procured laws to penalize them. He
+largely controls the "labor troubles" of the State by controlling the
+obedience of the Mormon laboring men. He can influence judges, officers
+of the law and all the agents of local government by his power as
+political "Boss," and the same influence extends, through his
+representatives at Washington, to the local activities of Federal
+authority. He can check and govern public opinion among his subjects by
+announcing "the will of God" to them through the officers of the Church
+in every department of religious administration. He is, therefore, at
+once the modern "money king," the absolute political Czar the social
+despot and the infallible Pope of his "Kingdom!"
+
+Just as men fight for the retention of a throne and the maintenance of a
+dynasty, so he and his courtiers defend his rule and maintain his
+autocracy with every weapon of absolutism. And just as royalty, while
+possessed of unlimited wealth, has never lacked mercenaries, press
+bureaus, and all the sycophantic defenders of a crown, so Smith is able
+to command an array of service as great as any ever brought to the
+defense of a social system. This singular and enormous power stands
+solidly against any movement of domestic reform; and, by its alliance
+with the national rulers in finance and politics, it is saved from the
+danger of "foreign" intervention. Like every other such absolutism, it
+is crushing out the life of its subjects; for, in spite of the industry,
+the thrift, and the abstemiousness of the Mormon people, they are
+sinking under the burden of imposed exaction's. Although Utah became a
+territory in 1853, and had its well-settled towns at that time, and was
+organized in a compact social body for the upbuilding of its material
+prosperity before any of the surrounding states had received an organic
+act as a territory, Utah has now lost its leadership, and the individual
+initiative and enterprise of the typical Western community have been
+relatively lost.
+
+In this process of degeneration, one of the most promising modern
+experiments in communism has been frustrated and brought to ruin. In the
+early nineties, Dr. Josiah Strong, of New York City, viewed the Mormon
+system with an interested admiration. He saw that by contribution, and
+co-operation, and arbitration, the energies of the people were conserved
+and the products of their prosperity more equally distributed than under
+the conditions of economic war then prevalent elsewhere. He thought he
+saw in Utah a possible solution of some of the social problems of our
+civilization. But, a few years ago, he confessed that the Mormon system
+was no longer worthy of study. It had been destroyed by the greed of its
+rulers. Community contributions were being used for individual
+commercialism and the aggrandizement of leaders. The aged and infirm
+poor, who had contributed through all the working period of their lives,
+were being thrust into poor houses. The ambition of the earlier
+Prophets, to make the people great in their community prosperity and
+happiness, has been lost in the new desire of the head of the Church to
+exhibit that greatness only in his own person. The Mormon people had
+become the working slaves of a financial and political and religious
+autocracy, and Mormonism was no longer anything but a hopeless failure
+as a social experiment.
+
+It is difficult to say how much of this failure was due to the character
+of the present Prophet, and how much to the national conditions that are
+threatening the success of democracy in every state of the Union. It
+would seem that the conditions were ideal for the production of just
+such a man as Smith, and that Smith was by nature fitted for the
+greatest growth under just such conditions. He came to power with none
+of the feeling of responsibility to his people which the earlier leaders
+showed. He considered that the people lived for him, not that he lived
+for the people. He regarded the Mormon system as an establishment of his
+family, to which he had the family right of inheritance; and he waited
+with a sulky impatience for the deaths of the men who stood between him
+and the control of his family's Church. It was as if he accepted his
+predecessors as exercising their powers, during an inter-regnum, by the
+consent of the Mormon people, but saw himself acceding to the throne by
+family right and the order of divinity.
+
+He had no financial ability; he had no considerable property when he
+became president of the Church at sixty-three. Nor did he need any such
+ability. The continuous inflow of money--to be used without
+accountability to anyone--and the wealth of opportunity offered by the
+men who wished his aid in exploiting his people, made it unnecessary
+that he should have any creative financial vision. He needed only to
+move, with his opportunity, along the line of least resistance which was
+also, with him, the line of choice.
+
+He had, through all his years, shown an obvious envy of any member of
+the Church whose circumstances were better than his own. It was apparent
+in his manner that he regarded such success in the community as an
+encroachment upon the Smith prerogatives. As soon as he came to power,
+he accepted every opportunity of self-aggrandizement as a new Smith
+prerogative. And the system of modern capitalism appealed at once to his
+ambition. By the older method of tithes and conscription's, he could
+collect only from the devotees of the Church; by the larger exploitation
+he could levy tribute upon the Gentiles too.
+
+And he was aided by the Mormons themselves. They had been brought
+together, in obedience to "a command of God," in order that the
+community, by avoiding the sins of the world, might be saved from the
+plagues that were to descend upon the world because of its injustice.
+They were a credulous people, ignorant of the sins of modern finance,
+and prepared by industry and isolation to be exploited. Their previous
+leaders had observed, as a warning only, the modern aspiration for vast
+wealth obtained by economic injustice; but that aspiration made an
+instant appeal to Smith's ambition; and it is the peculiar iniquity of
+conditions in Utah today that his ambition has betrayed his people to
+the very evils which they were originally organized to escape.
+
+In an earlier time it was the pride of the leader that the community in
+the large was advancing and the average of conditions improving. Today
+the leader assumes that as he grows richer the people are prospering and
+"the revelations of God" being vindicated in practice. He speaks with
+pride of "our" growth and wealth under "the benign authority of the
+Almighty" and His "temporal revelations"--because he himself has been
+enriched by the perversion of these same laws--very much as the
+"captain of industry" elsewhere boasts of the "prosperity" of the
+country, because the few are growing so rich at the expense of the many.
+
+Along with this strain of commercial greed in Smith, there is an equally
+strong strain of religious fanaticism that justifies the greed and
+sanctifies it, to itself. He believes (as Apostle Orson Pratt taught, by
+authority of the Church): "The Kingdom of God is an order of government
+established by divine authority. It is the only legal government that
+can exist in any part of the universe. All other governments are illegal
+and unauthorized.... Any people attempting to govern themselves by
+laws of their own making, and by officers of their own appointment, are
+in direct rebellion against the Kingdom of God." Smith believes that
+over this Kingdom the Smiths have been, by Divine revelation, ordained
+to rule. He believes that his authority is the absolute and
+unquestionable authority of God Himself. He believes that in all the
+affairs of life he has the same right over his subjects that the Creator
+has over His creatures. He believes that he has been appointed to use
+the Mormon people as he in his inspired wisdom sees fit to use them, in
+order the more firmly to establish God's Kingdom on Earth against the
+Powers of Evil.
+
+He believes that the people of the American Republic, "being governed by
+laws of their own making and by officers of their own appointment," are
+in direct rebellion against "his Kingdom of God." He believes that the
+national government is destined to be broken in pieces by his power;
+that it has only been preserved from destruction by the concessions
+recently made by the Federal authorities; and that it can only continue
+to save itself so long as it shall recognize Smith's ambassadors at
+Washington--and so allow him to work out its destruction in the
+fullness of time.
+
+But with all this insanity of pretension he has a sort of cowardly
+shrewdness, acquired in his days of hiding "on the underground." On the
+witness stand in Washington he denied that he had had any direct
+communication with God by revelation; and then he returned to Utah and
+pleaded from the pulpit that on this point he had lied in Washington in
+order to escape saying what his "inquisitors" had wished him to say in
+order to "get him into a trap." He preaches in Utah that to deny the
+doctrine of polygamy is to reject the teaching of Jesus Christ; before
+the Senate committee he was coward enough to put the blame of his
+polygamous cohabitation upon his five wives. In Washington he claimed
+that the Gentiles of Utah condoned polygamous cohabitation and had a
+liberal sympathy for the Church; but at St. George, Utah, for example
+(in September, 1904), he was reported by a Church newspaper as saying:
+"The Gentiles are coming among us to buy our homes and land. We should
+not sell to them, as they are the enemies of the Kingdom of God." He is
+that most perfect of all hypocrites--the fanatic who believes that he
+is lying in the service of the Almighty.
+
+In the early spring of 1888, I was in Washington, where measures of
+proscription were then being prepared against our people; and, early in
+the morning, as I walked up Massachusetts Avenue, I saw Joseph F. Smith
+approaching me. For several years he had been "on the underground" under
+the name of "Joseph Mack"--now in the Hawaiian Islands with one wife;
+now hidden, with another, among the faithful in some Mormon village; or
+again with a third, in Washington (which was probably as safe a place as
+any) presiding secretly over the Church lobby. As he passed me, with his
+head down, preoccupied, I said: "Good morning, President Smith." He
+jumped as if I had been a Deputy Marshal with such a sudden start of
+fear that his silk hat rolled on the pavement and his umbrella dropped
+from his hand. He drew back from me as if he were about to take to his
+heels. Then he recognized me, of course, and was quickly reassured; but
+his embarrassment continued for some time, awkwardly.
+
+But a short time ago the President of the United States stood in the
+Salt Lake Tabernacle (which is "Joseph Mack's" capitol and vatican) and
+addressed a multitude that had assembled not more to honor the Chief
+Executive of the nation than to pay their almost idolatrous tribute of
+devotion to the head of their Church, who was reigning there in the
+pulpit with President Taft. "Joseph Mack" no longer fears Deputy
+Marshals--he appoints them; and the present United States Marshal of
+Utah would refuse to serve a paper under the direction of the entire
+power of the United States government if "Joseph Mack" forbade the
+service. He no longer fears the proscriptions of legislators at
+Washington; they come to him, through the leaders of their parties, and
+arrange with him for the support of the trans-Mississippi states in
+which the influence of his Church control is determinative. He no longer
+hides his wives, at the ends of the earth, and visits them by stealth;
+they occupy a row of houses along one of the principal streets of Salt
+Lake City, and the pilgrim and the tourist alike admire his magnificence
+as they go by. He is still a law-breaker. He stands even more in
+defiance of the authority of the nation than he did in 1888, and he
+hates that authority as much as ever. But he is today not only the
+Prophet of the Church; he is the Prophet of Mammon; and all the powers
+and principalities of Mammon now give him gloriously: "All Hail!"
+
+
+
+Chapter XIX
+
+
+
+The Subjects of the Kingdom
+
+
+
+But what of the Mormon people? How can such leaders, directing the
+Church to purposes that have become so cruel, so selfish, so dangerous
+and so disloyal--how can they maintain their power over followers who
+are themselves neither criminal nor degraded? That is a question which
+has given the pause of doubt to many criticisms of the Mormon communism
+of our day. That is the consideration which has obtained from the nation
+the protection of tolerance under which the Prophets flourish. For not
+only are the Mormon men and women obviously as worthy as any in the
+United States: there is plainly much of community value in their social
+life; there is manifestly a great deal of efficiency for human good in
+their system and in the leadership by which it is directed; and this
+good is so apparent that it appeals easily to the sympathetic conscience
+and uninformed mind of the country at large.
+
+Let me try, then, to exhibit and to analyze the causes that keep such a
+virtuous and sturdy people loyally supporting the leadership of men so
+unworthy of them that if the people were as bad as the ends to which
+they are being now directed, modern Mormonism would be destroyed by its
+own evils.
+
+In the first place, the average Mormon chief is sincere in his
+pretensions and self-justified in his aims. Usually, he has been born,
+in the Church, to a family that sees itself set apart, in holiness, from
+the rest of humanity, as the direct heirs of the ancient prophets or
+even as the lineal descendants of Christ. From his earliest age of
+understanding, he is taught the divine splendor of his birth and
+impressed with the high duties of his family privilege in being
+permitted to bear a part in preparing the earth for the second coming of
+the Savior. He is taught that, though all the world may be saved and
+nearly all the people of this sphere will in some eternity work out a
+measure of salvation, he and 143,999 others are to be a band of the
+elect who shall stand about the Savior, on Mount Zion, in the final day.
+
+He is taught that, next to Christ, Joseph Smith, the founder of the
+faith, has performed the largest mission for the salvation of the world;
+that in the councils of the Gods, when the Creator measured off the ages
+of the human race on this earth, to the Savior was apportioned "the
+meridian of time," and to Joseph Smith, the Prophet, was given the "last
+dispensation," which is "the fullness of times," in order that the
+world, having apostatized from the atonement and the redemption, might
+be saved to heaven by Joseph, "the Choice Seer."
+
+He is taught that the disciples of the Mormon Prophet are literally the
+disciples of Jesus Christ; that the laws of right and wrong are within
+the direction and subject to the authority of the Prophet, to be
+changed, enlarged or even revoked by his commandment; that all human
+laws are equally subject to his will, to be made or unmade at his order;
+that he can condemn, by his excommunication, any man or any nation to
+the vengeance of the Almighty here and hereafter; and that he can
+pronounce a blessing upon the head of any man, or the career of any
+people, by virtue of which blessing power shall be held in this world
+righteously and the man elevated to sit at the right hand of God in the
+world to come. He is taught that the greatest sin which can be committed--
+next to the denial of Christ--is to raise hand or voice against "the
+Lord's anointed," the Mormon prophets. And, for morality, he is taught
+from his infancy, that he must scrupulously practice those special
+virtues of his cult, industry, thrift, purity (except as in later life
+he shall be inducted into the practice of the new polygamy) honesty in
+business, and charity toward his needy fellow-men.
+
+Formed in character by this teaching, as a steady inculcation throughout
+his youth, he comes to manhood strong of body, determined of mind,
+practicing rigidly and intolerantly his petty virtues of abstinence from
+the use of tobacco, tea and coffee, proclaiming with fanatical zeal the
+gospel as it has been proclaimed to him, and self-justified in all that
+he says or does by the large measure of sincerity in his delusions.
+
+And that is, in some degree, the common training of all Mormons. Every
+Mormon boy attends Sunday School as soon as he is old enough to lisp his
+song of adoration to Joseph, the Kingly Prophet, and to the Savior with
+whom Joseph is early associated in his childish mind. At six years of
+age, he enters the Primary Association; at twelve he is in the Young
+Men's Mutual Improvement Association; at fourteen or even earlier, he
+stands in the fast-day meeting and repeats like a creed: "Brethren and
+Sisters, I feel called upon to say a few words. I am not able to edify
+you, but I can say that I know this is the Church and Kingdom of God,
+and I bear my testimony that Joseph Smith was a Prophet and that Brigham
+Young was his lawful successor, and that the Prophet Joseph F. Smith is
+heir to all the authority which the Lord has conferred in these days for
+the salvation of men. And I feel that if I live my religion and do
+nothing to offend the Holy Spirit I will be saved in the presence of my
+Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. With these few words I will give way.
+Praying the Lord to bless each and every one of us is my prayer in the
+name of Jesus Christ. Amen."
+
+At fourteen he becomes a Deacon of the Church. Between that age and
+twenty, he becomes an Elder. Very soon thereafter he becomes "a Seventy"
+and perhaps a high priest. He takes upon himself "covenants in holy
+places." He becomes "a priest unto the Most High God"--frequently
+before his eighteenth year. Usually before he is twenty he is sent on a
+mission to proclaim his gospel--the only one he has ever heard in his
+life--to "an unenlightened nation" and "a wicked world." For, in
+addition to being taught that the Mormons are the best, most virtuous,
+most temperate, most industrious, and most God-fearing of all peoples--
+a thing that is dinned into his ears from the pulpit every Sunday in the
+year--he has been convinced by equal iteration that the rest of the
+world is a festering mass of corruption.
+
+Often he goes abroad, to some country whose language and customs he must
+learn and upon the charity of whose toilers he must depend for his
+maintenance. He goes with an implicit reliance upon God, strong in the
+small virtues that have been taught him from the time he knelt at his
+mother's knee. He sees, probably for the first time, the afflictions
+and the sins among mankind; and he keeps himself unspotted from them,
+congratulating himself that these grossnesses are unknown to his
+sheltered home-life and to the religion which he holds as the ideal of
+his soul. He proclaims his belief that God has spoken from the Heavens,
+through the Mormon Prophet, in this last day, to restore the gospel of
+Christ from which the peoples of the earth have wandered. He "bears
+testimony" to the whole world, and he binds himself to the authority of
+his Church by proclaiming his belief in it.
+
+When he returns home, after years of service, he is called to the stand
+in the tabernacle to give a report of his work. He finds waiting for him
+a ready advancement in the offices of the Church, according as he may
+show himself worthy of advancement or as the power of family or the
+favor of ecclesiastical authority may obtain it for him. He marries a
+girl who has had a training almost identical with his own. She, too, has
+borne her testimony before she reached years of responsibility. She has
+taken her vows as a priestess at the age when he was dedicating himself
+a priest. She may even have performed a foreign mission. They have both
+been promised that they shall become kings and queens in the eternal
+world. They are bound by their covenants to obey their superior priests.
+They cannot disregard their Church affiliations without recanting their
+vows. The only way they can adhere to their covenants with their
+Almighty Father--the only way they can demonstrate their acceptance of
+the atoning power of the Redeemer's sacrifice--is by yielding such
+obedience to the Prophet as they would pay to the Father and the Son if
+They were on earth in Their proper persons. To deviate from this
+faithfulness is to be marked as a Judas Iscariot by all the Latter-Day
+Saints.
+
+As soon as the Mormon becomes the head of a family--in addition to all
+the testimonies and performances which he must give as proof of his
+continued adherence--he must submit himself and his household to the
+examination and espionage of the ward teachers, who invade his home at
+least once a month. They enter absolutely as the proprietors of the
+house. If the husband is there, they ask him whether he performs his
+duties in the Church; whether he holds family prayer morning and
+evening; whether he "keeps the word of wisdom"--that is, does he
+abstain from the use of alcohol, tobacco, tea and coffee--whether he pays
+a full tithe and all the prescribed donations to the Church; whether he
+has any hard feelings against any of his brethren and sisters; and
+finally, does he devoutly sustain the Prophet as the ruler of God's
+Kingdom upon earth. These questions, so far as they apply, are put to
+each member of the family above the age of eight years. Should the
+husband be away, all the inquiries concerning him are made of the wife.
+If both parents are absent, the questions concerning them are put to
+their children!
+
+This one branch of the ecclesiastical service is sufficient of itself to
+mark the Mormon Church as the most perfectly disciplined institution
+among mankind. The teachers' quorum in any neighborhood consists of some
+tried elders, usually of considerable ability and experience. With these
+are associated numerous young men, many of them returned missionaries.
+The fact that they have countless other duties in the Church and many
+other and weightier responsibilities, is not permitted to excuse them
+from performing strictly this important labor. Perhaps a dozen or twenty
+families are assigned to a couple of teachers. They are required to
+visit each of these families once every month. And if they discover any
+lapse of fidelity, they report at once to the Bishop.
+
+No one who has not seen them on their rounds will believe with what an
+air of divinely privileged authority they enter a home and force its
+secrets of conscience--with what an imposing and arrogant zeal--with
+what a calm assumption of spiritual over-lordship and inquisitorial
+right. Some few years ago after my public criticisms of Joseph F. Smith
+had been followed by my excommunication, two teachers, on their monthly
+rounds, came to my home in the evening and made their way calmly to the
+library where I was sitting with some members of my family. I had just
+returned from a long absence abroad, and the visit was an untimely
+intrusion at its best; but we observed the obligations of hospitality
+with what courtesy we could, and merely evaded the familiar questions
+which they began to put to us. Finally, the elder of the two teachers, a
+man of some local prominence in the Church, undertook to "bear
+testimony" to the wickedness of anyone who opposed the divine rule of
+Joseph F. Smith; and when I cut him short with a request that he leave
+the house, he was as shocked and surprised as if he had been Milton's
+Archangel Michael, after "the fall," and I, a defiant Adam, showing him
+the door.
+
+In addition to the visitations of the ward teachers, some members of the
+Ladies Relief Society call upon every family usually once a month, not
+only to gather donations for the poor, but to have a little quiet talk
+with the wife and mother of the household. These women of the Relief
+Society are genuine "Sisters of Charity." In most cases they have
+themselves plenty of household cares, yet they give much of their time
+to visiting the sick, supplying the wants of the needy or ministering to
+the miseries of the afflicted; and if it were not for them and their
+noblework, the Mormon poor would fare ill in these days of Mormon Church
+grandeur. Outside of their monthly visitations, they have definite
+preaching to do. At the meetings of their organization, they "bear
+testimony" that Joseph was a Prophet--and so on. They have the
+quarterly stake conferences to attend. Their traveling missionaries go
+from Salt Lake to the four quarters of the globe to institute and
+maintain the discipline of the organization and to teach the methods of
+its practical work in Nursing Schools, mother's classes and the like.
+They make up one of the noblest bodies of women associated with any
+social movement of humanity. And in their zeal and submissiveness they
+are so innocently meek and "biddable" that they can listen with
+reverence to young Hyrum Smith publicly lecturing the grandmothers of
+the order for occasionally partaking of a cup of thin tea.
+
+Under such a system of teaching, discipline and espionage, how can the
+average Mormon man or woman develop any independence of thought or
+action? At what time of life can he assert himself? Before he has
+attained the age of reason he has declared his faith in public. If he
+shall then, in his teens, express any doubt, the priests are ready for
+him. "You have borne your testimony many times in the Church," they say
+sternly. "Were you lying then, or have you lost the Spirit of God
+through your transgressions?" If he reveals any doubt to the ward
+teachers, they will overwhelm him with argument, and either absolutely
+reconvert him or silence him with authority. The pressure of family love
+and pride will be brought to bear upon him. The ecclesiastical
+authorities will move against him. He knows that every one of his
+relatives will be humiliated by his unfaithfulness. His "sin" will
+become known to the whole community, and he will be looked at askance by
+his friends and his companions.
+
+After he has taken his vows as a priest, how shall he dare to violate
+them? He knows that if he loses his faith on a mission--in other words,
+if he dares to make any inquiry into the authenticity of the mission
+which he is performing--he becomes a deserter from God in the very
+ranks of battle. He knows that he will be held forever in dishonor among
+his people; that he will be looked upon as one worse than dead; that he
+will ruin his own life and despoil his parents of all their eternal
+comfort and their hope in him.
+
+While I was editing the Salt Lake Tribune, a son of one of the famous
+apostles came to me with some anxious inquiries, and said: "Frank, I
+have been working in the Church and teaching this gospel so assiduously
+for nearly forty years that I have never had time to find out whether
+it's true or not!"
+
+If the Mormon, in his later years of manhood, dares to doubt, he must
+either reveal his disloyalty to the ward teachers or continue to deny
+it, from month to month, and remain a supine servant of authority. If he
+reveals it, he knows that the news of his defection will permeate the
+entire circle with which he is associated in politics, in business and
+in religion. If his superstition does not hold him, his worldly prudence
+will. He knows that all the aid of the community will be withdrawn from
+him; every voice that has expressed affection for him will speak in
+hate; every hand that has clasped his in friendship will be turned
+against him. And into this very prudence there enters something of a
+moral warning. For he has seen how many a man, deprived of the
+association and fraternity of the Church, feeling himself shunned in a
+lonely ostracism, has not been strong enough to endure in rectitude and
+has fallen into dissipation. Every instance of the sort is rehearsed by
+the faithful, with many exultant expressions of mourning, in the hearing
+of the doubter. And finally, it is the prediction of the priests that no
+apostate can prosper; and though the Mormon people are charitable and do
+not intend to be unjust, they inevitably tend to fulfill the prophecy
+and devote the apostate to material destruction.
+
+The great doctrine of the Mormon faith is obedience; the one proof of
+grace is conformity. So long as a man pays a full tithe, contributes all
+the required donations, and yields unquestioningly to the orders of the
+priests, he may even depart in a moral sense from any other of the
+Church's laws and find himself excused. But any questioning of the
+rulership of the Prophets--the rightfulness of their authority or the
+justice of its exercise is apostasy, is a denial of the faith, is a sin
+against the Holy Ghost. The man who obeys in all things is promised that
+he shall come forth in the morning of the first resurrection; the man
+who disobeys, and by his disobedience apostatizes, is condemned to work
+out, through an eternity of suffering, his offense against the Holy
+Spirit. At the first sign of defection--almost inevitably discovered in
+its incipiency--the rebel is either disciplined into submission or at
+once pushed over "the battlements of Heaven!"
+
+By such perfect means, the leaders, chosen under a pretense of
+revelation from God, maintain an unassailable sanctity in the eyes of
+the people, who are themselves priests. These people implicitly believe
+that the voice of the leader is the voice of God. They follow with a
+passionate devotion that is made up of a fanatical priestly faith and of
+a sympathy that sees their Prophets "persecuted" by an ungenerous,
+impure and vindictive world. We love that for which we suffer; and it
+has become the inheritance of the Mormons to love the priesthood, for
+whose protection their parents and grandparents suffered, and under
+whose oppressions they now suffer themselves.
+
+Joseph Smith, the original Prophet, was slain in the Carthage jail; to
+the Mormon mind this is proof that he was the anointed of God and that
+he sealed his testimony with his blood, as did the Savior. John Taylor,
+afterwards President of the Church, was not slain at Carthage, but only
+wounded; and this to the Mormons is proof that he was of the eternal
+kindred of the Prophets, because, under God's direction, he gave his
+blood to their defense. But Willard Richards, a companion of Smith and
+Taylor, was not even injured at Carthage; and this is accepted as proof
+that God had charge of his holy ones, and would not permit wicked men to
+do them harm. When the people left Nauvoo and journeyed through Iowa,
+some of the citizens of that state would not harbor them; and this is
+argued as evidence that the Mormon movement was God's work, since the
+hand of the wicked was against it; but in some localities of Iowa the
+emigrants were aided, and this also is proof that the Mormon movement
+was God's work, since the hearts of the people were melted to assist it.
+When Johnston's army was sent to Utah, it was proof that the Mormon
+Church was the true Church, hated and persecuted by a wicked nation;
+when Johnston's army withdrew without a battle, it was a new guarantee
+of the divinity of the work; and it is even believed among the Mormons
+that the Civil War was ordained from the heavens, at the sudden command
+of God, to compel Johnston's withdrawal and save God's people.
+
+In the same way the persecutions of "the raid," and the cessation of
+those persecutions--the early trials of poverty and the present
+abundance of prosperity--the threat of the Smoot investigation and the
+abortive conclusion of that exposure--are all argued as proofs of the
+divinity of a persecuted Church or given as instances of the miraculous
+"overruling" of God to prosper his chosen people. No matter what occurs,
+the Prophets, by applying either one of these formulae, can translate
+the incident into a new proof of grace; and their followers submissively
+accept the interpretation.
+
+On the night of April 18, 1905, Joseph F. Smith and some eight of his
+sons sat in his official box at the Salt Lake theatre to watch a prize
+fight that lasted for twenty gory rounds. The Salt Lake Tribune
+published the fact that the Prophet of God, and vicegerent of Christ,
+had given the approval of his "holy presence" to this clumsy barbarity.
+A devout old lady, who had been with the Church since the days of
+Nauvoo, rebuked us bitterly for publishing such a falsehood about
+President Smith. "How dare you tell such wicked lies about God's
+servants?" she scolded. "President Smith wouldn't do such a wicked thing
+as attend a prize fight. And you know that no man with any sense of
+decency would take his young sons to look at such a dreadful thing!"
+Some time later, when the facts in the case had come to her, in her
+retirement, from her friends, the editor called upon her to quiz her
+about the incident. She said: "I'm sure I don't see what business it is
+of the outside world anyhow what President Smith does. He has a right to
+go to the theatre if he wants to. I don't believe they would have
+anything but what's good in the Salt Lake theatre. It was built by our
+people and they own it. And if it wasn't good, President Smith wouldn't
+have taken his boys there."
+
+And this was not merely the absurdity of an old woman. It is the logic
+of all the faithful. The leaders cannot do wrong--because it is not
+wrong, if they do it. No criticism of them can be effective. No act of
+theirs can be proven an error. If they do not do a thing, it was right
+not to do it; and it would have been a sin if it had been done. But if
+they do that thing, then it was right to do it; and it would have been a
+sin if it had not been done.
+
+This reliance upon the almighty power and prophetic infallibility of the
+leaders prevents the Mormon people from truly appreciating the dangers
+that threaten them. It keeps them ignorant of outside sentiment. It
+makes them despise even a national hostility. And it has left them
+without gratitude, too, for a national grace. Before these people can be
+roused to any independence of responsible thought, it will be necessary
+to break their trust in the ability of their leaders to make bargains of
+protection with the world; and then it will still be necessary to force
+the eyes of their self-complacency to turn from the satisfied
+contemplation of their own virtues. "You will never be able to reach the
+conscience of the Mormons," a man who knows them has declared. "I have
+had my experiences with both leaders and people. If you tell them
+'You're ninety-nine-and-one-half per cent. pure gold,' they will ask,
+surprised and indignant: 'What? Why, what's the matter with the other
+half per cent?'"
+
+
+
+Chapter XX
+
+Conclusion
+
+Of the men who could have written this narrative, some are dead; some
+are prudent; some are superstitious; and some are personally foresworn.
+It appeared to me that the welfare of Utah and the common good of the
+whole United States required the publication of the facts that I have
+tried to demonstrate. Since there was apparently no one else who felt
+the duty and also had the information or the wish to write, it seemed my
+place to undertake it. And I have done it gladly. For when I was
+subscribing the word of the Mormon chiefs for the fulfillment of our
+statehood pledges, I engaged my own honor too, and gave bond myself
+against the very treacheries that I have here recorded.
+
+We promised that the Church had forever renounced the doctrine of
+polygamy and the practice of plural marriage living, by a "revelation
+from God" promulgated by the supreme Prophet of the Church and accepted
+by the vote of the whole congregation assembled in conference. We
+promised the retirement of the Mormon Prophets from the political
+direction of their followers--the abrogation of the claim that the
+Mormon Church was the "Kingdom of God" re-established upon earth to
+supersede all civil government--the abandonment by the Church of any
+authority to exercise a temporal power in competition with the civil
+law. We promised to make the teaching and practice of the Church conform
+to the institutions of a Republic in which all citizens are equal in
+liberty. We promised that the Church should cease to accumulate property
+for the support of illegal practices and un-American government. And we
+made a record in proof of our promises by the anti-polygamy manifesto of
+1890 and its public ratification; by the petition for amnesty and the
+acceptance of amnesty upon conditions; by the provisions of Utah's
+enabling act and of Utah's state constitution; by the acts of Congress
+and the judicial decisions restoring escheated Church property; by the
+proceedings of the Federal courts of Utah in re-opening citizenship to
+the alien members of the Mormon Church; by the acquiescence of the
+Gentiles of Utah in the proceedings by which statehood was obtained; and
+finally, and most indisputably, by the admission of Utah into equal
+sovereignty in the Union--since that admission would never have been
+granted, except upon the explicit understanding that the state was to
+uphold the laws and institutions of the American republic in accordance
+with our covenants.
+
+Of all these promises the Church authorities have kept not one. The
+doctrine and practice of polygamy have been restored by the Church, and
+plural marriage living is practiced by the ruler of the kingdom and his
+favorites with all the show and circumstance of an oriental court. There
+are now being born in his domains thousands of unfortunate children
+outside the pale of law and convention, for whom there can be
+entertained no hope that any statute will ever give them a place within
+the recognition of civilized society. The Prophet of the Church rules
+with an absolute political power in Utah, with almost as much authority
+in Idaho and Wyoming, and with only a little less autocracy in parts of
+Colorado, Montana, Oregon, Washington, California, Arizona and New
+Mexico. He names the Representatives and Senators in Congress from his
+own state, and influences decisively the selection of such "deputies of
+the people" from many of the surrounding states. Through his ambassadors
+to the government of the United States, sitting in House and Senate, he
+chooses the Federal officials for Utah and influences the appointment of
+those for the neighboring states and territories. He commands the making
+and unmaking of state law. He holds the courts and the prosecuting
+officers to a strict accountability. He levies tribute upon the people
+of Utah and helps to loot the citizens of the whole nation by his
+alliance with the political and financial Plunderbund at Washington. He
+has enslaved the subjects of his kingdom absolutely, and he looks to it
+as the destiny of his Church to destroy all the governments of the world
+and to substitute for them the theocracy--the "government by God" and
+administration by oracle--of his successors.
+
+And yet, even so, I could not have recorded the incidents of this
+betrayal as mere matters of current history--and I would never have
+written them in vindication of myself--if I had not been certain that
+there is a remedy for the evil conditions in Utah, and that such a
+narrative as this will help to hasten the remedy and right the wrong.
+Except for the aggressive aid given by the national administrations to
+the leaders of the Mormon Church, the people of Utah and the
+intermountain states would never have permitted the revival of a
+priestly tyranny in politics. Except for the protection of courts and
+the enforced silence of politicians and journalists, polygamy could not
+have been restored in the Mormon Church. Except for the interference of
+powerful influences at Washington to coerce the Associated Press and
+affect the newspapers of the country, the Mormon leaders would never
+have dared to defy the sensibilities of our civilization. Except for the
+greed of the predatory "Interests" of the nation, the commercial
+absolutism of the Mormon hierarchy could never have been established.
+The present conditions in the Mormon kingdom are due to national
+influences. The remedy for those conditions is the withdrawal of
+national sympathy and support.
+
+Break the power at Washington of Joseph F. Smith, ruler of the Kingdom
+of God, and every seeker after federal patronage in Utah will desert
+him. Break his power as a political partner of the Republican party now--
+and of the Democratic party should it succeed to office--and every
+ambitious politician in the West will rebel against his throne. Break
+his power to control the channels of public communication through
+interested politicians and commercial agencies, and the sentiment of the
+civilized world will join with the revolt of the "American movement" in
+Utah to overthrow his tyrannies. Break his connection with the illegal
+trusts and combines of the United States, and his financial power will
+cease to be a terror and a menace to the industry and commerce of the
+intermountain country.
+
+The nation owes Utah such a rectification, for the nation has been, in
+this matter, a chief sinner and a strong encourager of sin. President
+Theodore Roosevelt, representing the majesty of the Republic, stayed us
+when we might have won our own liberties in the revolt that was provoked
+by the election of Senator Apostle Reed Smoot. Misled by political and
+personal advisers, the President procured delays in the Smoot
+investigation. He seduced senators from their convictions. He certified
+the ambassador from the Kingdom of God as a qualified senator of the
+United States. He gave the hand of fellowship to Joseph, the tyrant of
+the Kingdom. He rebuked our friends and his own, in their struggle for
+our freedom, by warning them that they were raising the flag of a
+religious warfare. He filled the Mormon priests with the belief that
+they might proceed unrestrainedly to the sacrifice of women and children
+upon the polygamous altar, to the absolute rule of politics in the
+intermountain states, and to the commercial exploitation of their
+community in partnership with the trusts. The one policy that President
+Taft seems to have accepted unimpaired from his predecessor is this same
+respect for the power of the Mormon kingdom. In his placid but
+wholehearted way he has encouraged his co-ordinate ruler, the Mormon
+Prophet, and extended the Executive license to the support and
+inevitable increase of these religious tyrannies of the Mormon hierarchs
+which now the people of Utah, unaided, are wholly unable to combat.
+
+And the nation owes such a rectification not only to Utah, but also to
+itself. The commercial and financial Plunderbund that is now preying
+upon the whole country is sustained at Washington by the agents of the
+Mormon Church. The Prophet not only delivers his own subjects up to
+pillage; he helps to deliver the people of the entire United States. His
+senators are not representatives of a political party; they are the
+tools of "the Interests" that are his partners. The shameful conditions
+in Utah are not isolated and peculiar to that state; they are largely
+the result of national conditions and they have a national effect. The
+Prophet of Utah is not a local despot only: he is a national enemy; and
+the nation must deal with him.
+
+I do not ask for a resumption of cruelty, for a return to proscription.
+I ask only that the nation shall rouse itself to a sense of its
+responsibility. The Mormon Church has shown its ability to conform to
+the demands of the republic--even by "revelation from God" if
+necessary. The leaders of the Church are now defiant in their treasons
+only because the nation has ceased to reprove and the national
+administrations have powerfully encouraged. As soon as the Mormon
+hierarchy discovers that the people of this country, wearied of violated
+treaties and broken covenants, are about to exclude the political agents
+of the Prophet from any participation in national affairs, the advisers
+of his inspiration will quickly persuade him to make a concession to
+popular wrath. As soon as the "Interests" realize that the burden of
+shame in Utah is too large to be comfortable on their backs, they will
+throw it off. The President of the United States will be unable to gain
+votes by patronizing the crucifiers of women and children. The national
+administrations will not dare to stand against the efforts of the
+Gentiles and independent Mormons of Utah to regain their liberty. And
+Utah, the Islam of the West, will depose its old Sultan and rise free.
+
+With this hope--in this conviction--I have written, in all candor,
+what no reasons of personal advantage or self-justification could have
+induced me to write. I shall be accused of rancor, of religious
+antagonism, of political ambition, of egotistical pride. But no man who
+knows the truth will say sincerely that I have lied. Whatever is
+attributed as my motive, my veracity in this book will not be
+successfully impeached. In that confidence, I leave all the attacks that
+guilt and bigotry can make upon me, to the public to whom they will be
+addressed. The truth, in its own time, will prevail, in spite of
+cunning. I am willing to await that time--for myself--and for the
+Mormon people.
+
+
+
+The End
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Under the Prophet in Utah
+by Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH ***
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