by Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins

Frank J. Cannon (1859–1933) was the son of George Q. Cannon, a counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and was himself Utah's first United States Senator after statehood in 1896. He broke with the Church hierarchy over politics in the early 1900s. Under the Prophet in Utah, subtitled "The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft," is his first-person narrative (written with the magazine journalist Harvey J. O'Higgins, who had co-written it with him for serialization in Everybody's Magazine) of the Utah Raid of the 1880s, the 1890 Manifesto that officially ended plural marriage, the 1896 statehood settlement he helped negotiate, and what he charges was the Church leadership's covert return to both plural marriage and one-party political control in the years that followed, climaxing in the 1903–1907 Senate investigation of Apostle Reed Smoot.

This is a hostile, first-person political memoir, not a neutral history: Cannon writes as a man who felt personally betrayed by leaders he had served, and the book is built around that accusation. Readers wanting the case for the other side have it close at hand on this shelf, James E. Talmage's The Story of Mormonism, written by a faithful Apostle of the same church in the very years this book was making its charges. Reading the two side by side is more instructive than reading either alone.

Contents

Chapter I — In the Days of the Raid

Chapter II — On a Mission to Washington

Chapter III — Without a Country

Chapter IV — The Manifesto

Chapter V — On the Road to Freedom

Chapter VI — The Goal—and After

Chapter VII — The First Betrayals

Chapter VIII — The Church and the Interests

Chapter IX — At the Crossways

Chapter X — On the Downward Path

Chapter XI — The Will of the Lord

Chapter XII — The Conspiracy Completed

Chapter XIII — The Smoot Exposure

Chapter XIV — Treason Triumphant

Chapter XV — The Struggle for Liberty

Chapter XVI — The Price of Protest

Chapter XVII — The New Polygamy

Chapter XVIII — The Prophet of Mammon

Chapter XIX — The Subjects of the Kingdom

Chapter 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
incorporations of the salt trust; and he supports the exactions 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 vicegerent 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 mis-government
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. Blaine, 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 fulfil 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 fulfilment
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 eccle-siasts, 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 Blaine 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 defence 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.

Foreword

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 offence 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.

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 Blaine. 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, lamp-lit 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 "horse-hair" 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 practised
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 settle-mient of every dispute of every kind without
litigation; for their High Council 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 offence 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 thoughfully: "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 pro-scriptive 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-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, gray-bearded, 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 un-softened 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-headed-ness
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. Hiles. 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 nay 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 practised it.

Why didn't I practise it?

Those who practised 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 out
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 moustache
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 detail, had 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 con-siderateness entitled
them to my full confidence, and I told them all-begging them, if I was indiscreet
or undiplomatic, to charge the offence 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.
Blaine, whom he had defeated for the Presidency; I believed Mr. Blaine 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 offence 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 travelling in the West,
and came to an un-bridged 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 Councillors,
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, nay 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 quizically, 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 disfran-chisement
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 defences,
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 Councillors,
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 Councillors
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 defence 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 defiances
of the Mormon people ceased to give grounds for a complaint against them. The old
harshnesses of the Federal government were cancelled 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 faction 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.[1]
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 preferments 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 him, self, 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 counsellor 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 offence,
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 pellucid 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.

[1] Statehood seemed still very
far away. 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!

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 Senator-ship 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 practised,
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. Alien) 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 E. Alien, 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.[1]

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 fulfil
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 elects
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 fulfilment 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 fulfil 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.

[1] He was afterwards elected
to the House of Representatives and was refused his seat as a polygamist.

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 as 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, un-appreciative 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 misunderstanding. 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 programme 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 Councillors 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 fulfil 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 fulfilment 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![1]

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 practised,
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
pretence 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.

[1] See Proceedings before Senate
Committee on Privileges and Elections, 1904, Vol. 1, pages 110, 126, 177, etc.

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 fulfilment 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 pioved 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 esteem'ed, 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 Councillors. 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 Councillors 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 traveller (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 511 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 baiter 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 fulfilment 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 senator-ship.
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-defence 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 annointed," 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, nay 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 absent-minded 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 spirituelle, 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 Councillors."

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 Sena-torship 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 preconcertment, 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 defence 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 the 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
co-operation 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. Hell 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.[1]
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!"

[1] She has died since this was
written.

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 re-establish 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-I 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[1]
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 protégé" 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 defence 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.

[1] See a synopsis of the minutes
of the trust's executive committee, published in Hampton's Magazine, in January,
1910.

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![1]

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 Co-operative 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. Dillingham, 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!

[1] 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.

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
defence 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
commonwealths. 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 despatch 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 fulfilment 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. E. 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 wilful offences 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 re-election, because of his record in the Smoot case, and he published in his
defence 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 pretence 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 un-questioningly 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 nattering 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![1]

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.

[1] 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.

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 offences 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 law-breaking 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 offences of the Church
leaders, as the practices of individuals-these leaders dragged the whole body of
the Church as a wall of defence 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.[1]
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 defence of the Mormons. After an interval of
a month, Senator Albert J. Hopkins, of Illinois, undertook to reply with a defence
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 disproofs 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!

[1] 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.

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 pretence 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. Smurth-waite'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 Smurth-waite'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 defence 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 offences 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 protest ant 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 intolerances 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 offences 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
exactions (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 "unchristianlike 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 defence 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 defence 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 defence, 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 fulfil 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 unchristianlike
conduct and apostasy." I was then summoned to appear before the High Council of
the Stake in excommunication proceedings, and after filing a defence 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 defence.

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 E. 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 practised 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 L-, 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 practised 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 polyga-mists. 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 polyga-mists 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 Say ford, 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 offences
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 offence. 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 practised. 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 fulfilment 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 poor-houses, 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 exactions-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 exactions 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 trade-mark 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 defence 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 exactions. 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 conscriptions,
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 practise 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, practising
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 overlordship 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
noble work, 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 travelling 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 fulfil 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 offence 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 defence. 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 Lalt 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 fulfilment 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 practised 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 inter-mountain 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 commerical 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

Colophon

Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins published Under the Prophet in Utah in 1911 through the C. M. Clark Publishing Company of Boston, after its serialization in Everybody's Magazine. The 1911 publication places this edition in the public domain in the United States.

This edition is prepared from the complete digitized text of the sacred-texts.com archive (mor/upu), from the library's local mirror: the title page's note on the book's origin, the introduction, the foreword, and all twenty chapters, with their chapter-end footnotes bracketed for clarity (the source already bracketed the in-text markers; the footnote-body anchors themselves were bare unbracketed digits in the mirror markup and have been bracketed to match). Sacred-texts navigation apparatus has been removed. The original print edition's frontispiece photograph of Frank J. Cannon is not reproduced in this text edition; the mirror preserves it as a separate image file. Otherwise the wording, spelling, and punctuation (including the period's plain hyphens where a printer might now set an em dash) follow the mirror text as transcribed.

Prepared for the Good Work Library by the Tianmu Anglican Church with AI-assisted research, transcription, and editorial work.

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