BANCROFT 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 < 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 

UNDER THE PROPHET 
 IN UTAH 
 
Under the Prophet 
 in Utah 
 
 The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft 
 BY 
 
 FRANK J. CANNON 
 
 Formerly United States Senator from Utah 
 
 AND 
 HARVEY J. O'HIGGINS 
 
 Author 
 "The Smoke-Eaters," "Don-a-Dreams," etc. 
 
 THE C. M. CLARK PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 
 
C22 
 
 Copyright 1911 
 
 By 
 
 THE C. M. CLARK PUBLISHING Co. 
 
 BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
xj ( O 
 
 BANCROFT 
 LIBRARY 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 Note 7 
 
 Introduction 9 
 
 Foreword 19 
 
 I In the Days of the Raid .... 23 
 
 II On a Mission to Washington ... 44 
 fv. 
 
 III Without a Country 66 
 
 IV The Manifesto 95 
 /H 
 
 V On the Road to Freedom .... 112 
 
 VI The Goal and After 138 
 
 VII The First Betrayals 159 
 
 VIII The Church and the Interests ... 182 
 
 IX At the Crossways 205 
 
 X On the Downward Path 220 
 
 XI The Will of the Lord 236 
 
 XII The Conspiracy Completed .... 250 
 
 XIII The Smoot Exposure 267 
 
 XIV Treason Triumphant 285 
 
 XV The Struggle for Liberty .... 301 
 
 XVI The Price of Protest 318 
 
 XVII The New Polygamy 338- 
 
 XVIII The Prophet of Mammon .... 360 
 
 XIX The Subjects of the Kingdom ... 378 
 
 XX Conclusion 395 
 
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 commis- 
 sioned 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 through- 
 out, 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 relig- 
 ious 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 excommuni- 
 cation. He is president of a system of "company 
 stores," from which the faithful buy their merchan- 
 dise; 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 
 
 9 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 the votes of his people by revelation of the Will of 
 God, practically appointing the United States Sena- 
 tors 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 him- 
 self from criminal prosecution and to help Utah obtain 
 the powers of statehood which he has since usurped. 
 He secretly preaches a proscribed doctrine of polyg- 
 amy as necessary to salvation; he publicly denies 
 his own teaching, so that he may escape responsibility 
 for the sufferings of the "plural wives" and their 
 unfortunate children, who have been betrayed by 
 the authority of his dogma. And these women, by 
 the hundreds, seduced into clandestine marriage 
 relations with polygamous elders of the Church, 
 unable to claim their husbands even in some cases 
 disowning their children and teaching these children 
 to deny their parents are suffering a pitiful self- 
 immolation as martyrs to the religious barbarism 
 of his rule. 
 
 Demanding unquestioning obedience in all things, 
 as the "mouthpiece of the Lord," and "sole vice- 
 gerent 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, 
 
 10 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 the social despot and the infallible Pope of his King- 
 dom." 
 
 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 repub- 
 lic 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 con- 
 cerns 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 care- 
 fully 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 imagi- 
 native 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. 
 
 11 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 estab- 
 lishing 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 com- 
 munities, 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 ail the diplomacies of the Church's politicians 
 had been unable to procure. Again, in 1890, when 
 the Mormons were threatened with a general dis- 
 franchisement 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 prac- 
 tice 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 
 
 12 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 freed them from the factions of a religious dispute. 
 He delivered to Washington the pledges of the Mor- 
 mon 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 re- 
 awaken 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 con- 
 trol 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 
 ?~i 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 
 
 13 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 particu- 
 larly against Joseph F. Smith, the new President of 
 the Church, who was principally responsible for the 
 Church's breach of public faith. Through the col- 
 umns of the Salt Lake Tribune he exposed the treason- 
 able 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 state- 
 hood 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 
 
 14 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 inci- 
 dent 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 knowl- 
 edge 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 
 
 15 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 confi- 
 dential 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 state- 
 hood, 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 Mor- 
 mon 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 situa- 
 tion 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 Elaine to 
 discuss American politics with men who believe them- 
 selves 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, 
 
 16 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 unhappi- 
 ness 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. 
 
 17 
 
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 Repub- 
 lic 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 Gen- 
 tiles of Utah and betrayed the trust of the 
 people under their power, by using that 
 power to prevent the state of Utah from be- 
 coming 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 traitor- 
 ous to the generosity that saved them; that 
 
 19 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 aggran- 
 dizement of their power. I undertake, in 
 fact, in this narrative, to expose and to demon- 
 strate 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 senti- 
 ments 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 affec- 
 tion 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 be- 
 trayed. A human devotion the like of 
 
 20 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 Mor- 
 mons 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 Washing- 
 ton, 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 
 
 21 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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. 
 
 22 
 
Under the Prophet in Utah 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IN THE DAYS OF THE RAID 
 
 About ten o'clock one night in the spring 
 of 1888, I set out secretly, from Salt Lake 
 City, on a nine-mile drive to Bountiful, to 
 meet my father, who was concealed "on the 
 underground," among friends; and that 
 night drive, with its haste and its apprehen- 
 sion, 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 
 
 23 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 affec- 
 tions. He was an elder of the Church; he 
 had been an aristocrat in his own country; 
 but he forgot his e very t 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 
 
 24 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 sub- 
 limities 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 
 
 25 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 
 pplygamists had been disfranchised by the 
 bill" of 1882, and all the women of Utah by 
 the bill of 1887. The Governor of the terri- 
 tory 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 con- 
 trolled the legislature, and though the Gov- 
 ernor could veto all legislation he could 
 
 26 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 com- 
 plete 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 govern- 
 ment, 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 
 
 27 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 at- 
 tempted 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 Elaine. 
 As a missionary in England he had impressed 
 Dickens, who wrote of him in "An Uncom- 
 mercial 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 
 
 28 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 suc- 
 cessful 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 
 
 29 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 Mormonism as the Uitlander scorned the 
 faith of the Boer, his sagacity and his diplo- 
 macy 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 tribu- 
 lations 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 
 
 30 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 straighten- 
 ing 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 per- 
 formed 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 priest- 
 hood, 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 Wash- 
 ington twice, on my own initiative, conferring 
 
 31 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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. 
 
 32 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 
 11 revelations " established a new social order 
 but they had practised whole volumes. Their 
 community was founded on the three prin- 
 ciples 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 civiliza- 
 tion, the abolition of poverty, and had ad- 
 justed the straps of the community burden 
 to the strength of the individual to bear it. 
 By arbitration, they had effected the settle- 
 ment of every dispute of every kind without 
 litigation; for their High Councils decided 
 
 33 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 com- 
 munity 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 mar- 
 riage, 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 commun- 
 ism, now threatened to split. Not that 
 polygamy was so large an incident in the life 
 of the community for only a small propor- 
 tion 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 objec- 
 tion 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 
 
 34 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 author- 
 ize 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. 
 
 35 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 influ- 
 ence 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 polyga- 
 mist. But he w r ould immediately ask us to 
 abandon plural marriage, and that is estab- 
 lished 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 Presi- 
 dent 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 
 
 36 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 all the miracles of faith. He did believe in 
 Divine guidance. He was sincere in his sub- 
 mission 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 possi- 
 bilities, 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 sum- 
 mons 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. 
 
 37 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 Mis- 
 souri, 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 pre- 
 scriptive legislation of "the raid," been out- 
 lawed, been in exile, been in hiding, hunted 
 like a thief. He had been taught, and he 
 
 38 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 inten- 
 sified 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 
 
 39 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 evi- 
 dently 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, car- 
 peted, furnished with bookcases, chairs, a 
 table. The window blinds had all been care- 
 fully 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 w r e 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 
 
 40 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 helpless- 
 ness. " 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." 
 
 41 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 "deceiv- 
 ing 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 
 
 42 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 tribula- 
 tions 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 hope- 
 less 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 Con- 
 federate 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. 
 
 43 
 
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, be- 
 cause 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 Stales 
 Marshals had been pursuing my father from 
 place to place with such determined persist- 
 ence 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 prosecut- 
 ing he would be convicted on so many 
 counts that he would be held in prison indefi- 
 nitely 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. 
 
 44 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 judg- 
 ment upon us, if it saw thousands of men 
 the bankers, the farmers, the merchants, and 
 all the religious leaders of a civilized com- 
 munity 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 
 
 45 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 govern- 
 ment and soften the severity of the prosecu- 
 tions 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 cham- 
 bers 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 mat- 
 tress on the floor of Zane's office. Two more 
 
 46 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 mean- 
 time, while the grand jury was hearing testi- 
 mony 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 Conti- 
 nental 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 
 
 47 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 
 
 48 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 suggested to the court that sentence be sus- 
 pended. 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 consti- 
 tution 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, unforgiv- 
 ingly. 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 
 
 49 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 retire- 
 ment 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 friend- 
 ship; our fear and hatred of our prosecutors 
 changed to respect; and their opposition to 
 
 50 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 rail- 
 road 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 
 
 51 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 strug- 
 gled 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 r 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 deter- 
 mined 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 pun- 
 ishing 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! 
 
 52 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 Wash- 
 ington. 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 con- 
 fidence 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 
 
 53 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 keen sense of discouragement that I took my 
 place, at last, in the long line of applicants 
 waiting for a word with the man who directed 
 the municipal activities of this tremendous 
 hive of eager energy. 
 
 He was in the old Stewart building, on 
 Broadway, near Park Place; and he had his 
 desk in what was, I think, a temporary 
 office an empty shop used as an office on 
 the ground floor. There must have been 
 fifty men ahead of me, and they were the 
 unemployed, as I remember it, besieging 
 him for work. They came to his desk, spoke, 
 and passed with a rapidity that was ominous. 
 As I drew nearer, I watched him anxiously, 
 and saw the incessant, nervous, querulous 
 activity of eyes, lips, hands, as he dismissed 
 each with a word or a scratch of the pen, 
 and looked up sharply at the next one. 
 
 " Well, young man," he greeted me, "what 
 do you want?" 
 
 I replied : " I want a half hour of your time. ' ' 
 
 " Good God," he said, in a sort of reproach- 
 ful indignation, "I couldn't give it to the 
 President of the United States." 
 
 I felt the^ r 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." 
 
 54 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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?" 
 
 11 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 inter- 
 est 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 
 
 55 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 priva- 
 tions 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 
 
 56 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 111 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 com- 
 munity come into his court and accept sen- 
 tences 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, coura- 
 geous, of undoubted integrity. Come to me, 
 tomorrow. I'll introduce you to him." 
 
 It was the first time that I had even heard 
 
 57 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 com- 
 municated 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, dig- 
 nified 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 govern- 
 ment despised because of the actions of 
 Federal " carpet-baggers. ' ' 
 
 58 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 examina- 
 tion, 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 
 
 59 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 un- 
 affected. I took a somewhat distracted im- 
 pression 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 polyg- 
 amy. How did the women endure it ? 
 
 I repeated a conversation I had once had 
 
 60 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 polyg- 
 amy was driving young Mormons into the 
 practice, instead of frightening them from it. 
 And so I arrived at another recount al of the 
 miserable condition of persecution and suffer- 
 ing which I had come to ask her husband 
 help us relieve ; and I made my appeal again, 
 
 61 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 to them both, with something of despair, be- 
 cause 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 up- 
 right judge." 
 
 In such a happy spirit of good-natured 
 raillery, my petition was provisionally enter- 
 tained, 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 moment- 
 ous 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 
 
 62 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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, 
 
 63 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 slow one whose mental operations are stub- 
 bornly deliberate and leisurely. And he was 
 obviously irritated by the President's con- 
 tinual 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 suc- 
 cessful 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 con- 
 vince 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 senti- 
 mentality to carry it out." 
 
 He gave me a letter to Mr. William C. 
 Whitney, then Secretary of the Navy, ex- 
 plaining my purpose in coming to Washington, 
 and asking him to obtain for me an interview 
 with President Cleveland without using Mr. 
 
 64 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 ! 
 
 65 
 
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 wist- 
 ful 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 patriot- 
 ism in Statuary Hall, erected to the men whose 
 histories had been the inspiration of my boy- 
 hood; 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 
 
 66 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 enter- 
 tain! 
 
 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. 
 
 67 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 Out of this mood of despondence I had to 
 lift myself by an act of will. There, Wash- 
 ington itself helped me against itself. I made 
 a pilgrimage of courage to its commemora- 
 tions 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 emo- 
 tion in the hope that it may help to explain 
 a success that might otherwise seem inexplic- 
 able. 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 suc- 
 ceeded. 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 
 
 68 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 with- 
 out 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 dissent ions 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." 
 
 69 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 "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 
 
 70 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 confi- 
 dence, 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 
 
 71 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 tw r o 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, com- 
 posure, intentness. 
 
 I had come with a prejudice against him; 
 I was a partisan of Mr. Elaine, whom he had 
 defeated for the Presidency; I believed Mr. 
 Elaine 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. 
 F 7 - 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 
 
 72 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 rep- 
 resentatives who, because they were South- 
 erners, 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 pacifica- 
 
 73 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 tion 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 im- 
 movability 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 situa- 
 tion only from Federal office holders who con- 
 sider 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 prov- 
 ince of the President his power or his duty 
 to consider the mental attitude of men who 
 were opposing the enforcement of the law. 
 
 74 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 atten- 
 tion of Congress with a determined recalci- 
 trance. 
 
 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 deter- 
 mination to concede nothing more to a com- 
 munity 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 contra- 
 dict 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 citi- 
 zens 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 
 
 75 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 be- 
 ginning 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 
 
 76 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 ex- 
 pression 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 get- 
 ting the Mormon leaders to come voluntarily 
 into court and it can be done! with the 
 assurance that the object of the administra- 
 tion is to correct the community evil not to 
 exterminate the Mormon Church or to perse- 
 cute 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, 
 
 77 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 in- 
 terested 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 dis- 
 heartening. 
 
 But as soon as he turned to me, I found 
 him another man. He was interested, recep- 
 tive, almost genial. He gave me an oppor- 
 tunity 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 inci- 
 dents of pathetic suffering among our people ; 
 and at first he seemed doubtful whether he 
 should be amused by the humorous episodes 
 
 78 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 destruc- 
 tion. 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 pains- 
 taking 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 
 
 79 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 Lament kept me informed of the growth of 
 the President's good feeling and of his genu- 
 inely 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 situa- 
 tion. ' ' 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 
 
 80 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 the Presidency. It is true that not many 
 cases, relatively speaking, came to Justice 
 Sandford; but the leader whom the authori- 
 ties 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 under- 
 going 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 manl 
 
 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 
 
 81 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 doc- 
 trine of polygamy, and that he may have 
 counted on the spectacle of his imprisonment 
 to help prepare his people for a general sub- 
 mission to the law. 
 
 With the entry of these leaders into prison, 
 the Mormons felt for them a warmer admira- 
 tion, 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 neces- 
 sary permission, as head of the Church, to the 
 solemnization of any more plural marriages; 
 and he ordered the demolition of the Endow- 
 ment 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 
 
 82 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 of young Utah, it was argued that the perse- 
 cution 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 move- 
 ment, 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 ad- 
 judicate 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, 
 
 83 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 asiured that it was 
 
 84 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 bitter- 
 ness against anybody. President Woodruff 
 believed that all the persecutions of the Mor- 
 mons were due to the Devil's envy of the 
 Lord's power as it showed itself in the estab- 
 lishment 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. When- 
 ever he could escape for a day from the worldly 
 duties of his office, he went fishing! 
 
 When the progress of the Cullom-St ruble 
 bill began to make its threatening advance, 
 my father went secretly to Washington; and 
 
 85 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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-St ruble 
 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 promi- 
 nent 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 Sena- 
 tor 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 
 
 86 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 ad- 
 vised 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 re- 
 assured by a tranquility which he seemed to 
 be able to maintain in the face of any despera- 
 tion. 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. Elaine, my 
 father's friend, the friend of our people, the 
 statesman whom I in common with millions 
 of other Americans regarded with a rever- 
 ence 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. 
 
 87 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 He was instantly and deeply interested in 
 what I had to say; he seated himself on a 
 sofa, near the embrasure of a window mo- 
 tioned 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 sys- 
 tem, 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 ob- 
 servance/ 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 com- 
 
 88 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 promise; 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. Elaine's interest in 
 Utah was almost wholly one of responsible 
 statesmanship, warmed by a personal kind- 
 liness 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 in- 
 effective. We must use the personal and" 
 he added it significantly "the political ap- 
 peal. If you find difficulty, let me know. 
 I shall not be idle in your behalf. If you meet 
 
 89 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 disobedi- 
 ence 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 disf ranchisement ; but nothing perma- 
 nent 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 speech- 
 less 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 
 
 90 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 the Secretary of State; he heard me, silently, 
 meditatively. When I concluded with Mr. 
 Elaine's assurance that we should not be 
 harmed " this time," but must " get into line," 
 he looked up at me with a significant steadi- 
 ness 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 calen- 
 dar 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. 
 
 91 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 de- 
 fiance 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. Hey wood'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 
 
 92 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 per- 
 functory 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 polyg- 
 amy. 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 author- 
 izing 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 reconsidera- 
 tion 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. Elaine's powerful friendship, we were 
 saved "for the time. " 
 
 93 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 It remained to make our safety permanent, 
 and I took train for Utah, on my father's coun- 
 sel, 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. 
 
 94 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE MANIFESTO 
 
 I found him in the office of the Presidency 
 in the little one-story house that I have de- 
 scribed 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: "Wlidt 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 our- 
 selves, 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 beck- 
 onings 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 senti- 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 ments, sweet in his language, sweet in the 
 expression of his face. 
 
 I told him, in detail, of the events in Wash- 
 ington, 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 govern- 
 ment. 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 cun- 
 ning in his benignity, with an expression, 
 
 96 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 misunder- 
 standing, I put into plainer words what I 
 meant and what the prominent men in Wash- 
 ington 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 
 
 97 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 minds of the people of this nation to the truth, 
 so that they might be converted to the ever- 
 lasting covenant. Our prophets have suffered 
 like those of old, and I thought that the perse- 
 cutions 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 pro- 
 foundly oppressed by the sense of his respon- 
 sibility. " 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 per- 
 secuted 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 civiliza- 
 tion 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 sanc- 
 tity, 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 
 
 98 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 hast- 
 ened to Salt Lake City, to the offices of the 
 Presidency. President Woodruff took me 
 into a private room and read me his " mani- 
 festo." 
 
 It was the same that was issued on Sep- 
 tember 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 
 
 99 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 hand- 
 writing. Its authorship has since been vari- 
 ously 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 appre- 
 ciate 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 
 
 100 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 equiv- 
 ocally-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 misappre- 
 hension, 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 
 
 101 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 know they didn't get our brethren in prison 
 for polygamy, but for living with their plural 
 
 wives." 
 
 Perhaps no other man in UtarTcould 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, com- 
 posed of three members. These quorums 
 
 102 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 oppo- 
 sition would come to the acceptance and pub- 
 lication 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 illumi- 
 nating subduedly the anxiety of their silent 
 faces. President Woodruff and his two Coun- 
 cillors entered to them; and this insignificant- 
 looking apartment of such tremendous com- 
 munity 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 imperturba- 
 bility of ^ their gaze. No word from them! 
 In the midst of the broken utterance of emo- 
 tion when the tears were wet on faces to 
 whose manliness tears were the very sweat 
 
 103 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 of martyrdom I saw those immovable coun- 
 tenances 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 im- 
 pending 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 
 
 104 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 Wood- 
 ruff 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 emo- 
 tion taking its breath. He called on my father 
 to speak. The First Councillor rose to make 
 
 105 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 cessa- 
 tion 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 
 
 106 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 man- 
 lier 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 re- 
 quired to obey its laws. And when we found, 
 by the highest judicial interpretation of stat- 
 ute 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 submit- 
 ting 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 sac- 
 rifice. The leaders of the Church had no 
 right to think of themselves. They must 
 remember how loyally the people had sacri- 
 
 107 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 ficed 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 resist- 
 ance 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 hun- 
 dreds of thousands of the undistinguished 
 mass who would make no decision for them- 
 selves, 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 Wash- 
 ington 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. 
 
 108 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 Wood- 
 ruff, 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 as- 
 sured 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 
 
 109 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 of God and their worldly opportunity. The 
 others followed. Not one referred to the 
 equivocal language of the manifesto or ques- 
 tioned 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 out- 
 stretched, 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. 
 
 11 1 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 
 
 110 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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, 
 Lord, but Thine, be done!" 
 
 ill 
 
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 pre- 
 vious defiances of the Mormon people ceased 
 to give grounds for a complaint against them. 
 The old harshnesses of the Federal govern- 
 ment 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 situa- 
 tion 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. 
 
 112 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 pro- 
 nouncement as "authoritative and binding." 
 And let me point out that it was the first and 
 only law of the Mormon Church ever so sus- 
 tained 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 news- 
 papers 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 
 
 113 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 citizen- 
 ship seemed a mark of inferiority. The 
 patriotic reading of my boyhood had made the 
 American republic, to me, the noblest ad- 
 ministration of freemen in the history of 
 government and the exercise of its franchise 
 literally the highest dignity of human privi- 
 lege. 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 
 
 114 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET JN UTAH 
 
 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 reces- 
 sion from polygamy would not be enough to 
 free us, so long as its control of politics re- 
 mained. 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 diplomatic- 
 ally with sending me to consult with Presi- 
 dent Woodruff and Joseph F. Smith. 
 
 To them, I argued that the political eman- 
 cipation of the Mormon people from ecclesi- 
 astical direction was as necessary as the 
 
 115 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 recession from polygamy had been. We 
 must be set free to perform our duty to the 
 country solely as citizens of the country, 
 before we could expect to be given the right 
 to perform it at all. And, for my part, the 
 only action I would consent to take as a 
 member of the advisory committee of the 
 People's Party would be to vote for the dis- 
 solution 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 dis- 
 solved 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 ad- 
 vance, 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 
 
 116 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 in doing something to break the deadlock-grap- 
 ple 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 Repub- 
 lican 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 Con- 
 gress 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 Demo- 
 crats. And, of course, the administration 
 of the laws that had been so cruel to the feel- 
 ings of the Mormons had been in Republican 
 hands. 
 
 117 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 cam- 
 paign. 
 
 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. In- 
 deed, 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 
 
 118 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 had never before been invited to know any- 
 thing. 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 hear- 
 ing 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 pro- 
 claimed religiously as a political salvation 
 to our people. I built up an ideal, and then 
 judged the party thereafter according to the 
 
 119 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 measure of that ideal. When I found that 
 some of the charges against the Republican 
 party <were true charges which I had indig- 
 nantly 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 under- 
 stood the impulses of honesty that moved 
 the changes, things were as clear as they were 
 encouraging. 
 
 During the previous summer in Washing- 
 ton, I had met General James S. Clarkson, 
 then president of the National League of 
 Republican Clubs; and now, on his invita- 
 tion, in the Spring of 1891, Rich and I went 
 to Louisville to speak before the national 
 convention of the league. Through the kind- 
 ness 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 con- 
 stitute a balance of political power. I know 
 
 120 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 inter- 
 ests 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 enter- 
 prises 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 ap- 
 pealed 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 
 
 121 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 Repub- 
 lican descendant of Whigs. Apostle Francis 
 Marion Lyman, in his religious ministrations, 
 counselled leading brethren to withhold them- 
 selves from the Democratic party unless they 
 had gone too far to retreat. Men of ecclesi- 
 astical office in various parts of the territory 
 who were regarded as being safe in their wis- 
 dom and fidelity were urged to hold them- 
 selves 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 
 
 122 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 inde- 
 pendence, 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 en- 
 croachment 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 "satis- 
 factory" 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 conven- 
 tion against them, and I was nominated. 
 
 The Democrats selected, as their candidate, 
 one of the strongest characters in the terri- 
 tory, Joseph L. Rawlins. He was the son of a 
 Mormon bishop, but he had left the Church 
 
 123 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 immediately upon reaching manhood. He 
 was a great lawyer, a staunch Democrat, 
 and wonderfully popular. There followed 
 one of the swiftest and most exciting cam- 
 paigns ever seen in Utah. The whole people 
 rose to it with enthusiasm. Our party chair- 
 man, Chas. Crane, had a genius for organiza- 
 tion; 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 head- 
 quarters, stumping the districts, Chairman 
 Crane (who was a Gentile), Ben Rich and 
 Joseph F. Smith, issued a pamphlet in Repub- 
 lican 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 certifi- 
 cate, 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 mat- 
 ter, 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 w r as done, I was defeated, 
 as I deserved to be though I was the inno- 
 cent victim of the atrocity and Mr. Rawlins 
 was elected. 
 
 124 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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. " Nug- 
 gets 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 inter- 
 ference 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 politi- 
 cal mission in Utah for the Liberal (the Gen- 
 tile) party assuming that the retirement of 
 the Mormon priests from politics was sincere 
 and permanent. Accordingly, the organiza- 
 tion 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 
 
 125 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 Gentiles in the minority and without any 
 appeal to the nation. Under territorial con- 
 ditions, 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 Gov- 
 ernor, with an absolute veto over the acts of 
 the Mormon legislature. They had the Presi- 
 dent and Congress who could annul any stat- 
 ute 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 gen- 
 erosity the Church w^ould 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 mani- 
 festo had been ratified in local Church con- 
 
 126 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 ferences 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 pos- 
 session 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 them- 
 selves that the petitioners were sincere and 
 that if amnesty were granted good faith would 
 be kept. "Our people are scattered," Presi- 
 dent Woodruff and his apostles declared in 
 their petition. " Homes are made desolate. 
 Many are still imprisoned; others are ban- 
 ished 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 am- 
 nesty 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 
 
 127 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 Com- 
 mission, a non-Mormon body, favored am- 
 nesty 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 con- 
 tinued for the return of the escheated Church 
 property and for the passage of an Enabling 
 Act that should permit the territory to organ- 
 ize for statehood.* Joseph L. Rawlins, 
 
 *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 
 
 128 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 Demo- 
 cratic 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 re- 
 wards from the Church in the event of state- 
 hood) had been using the most amazing argu- 
 ments 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 terri- 
 
 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, subse- 
 quently 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! 
 
 129 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 tories 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 con- 
 
 130 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 nivance 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 obli- 
 gation to keep his covenant with his plural 
 wives in preference to the covenant of his 
 accepted amnesty; and there and here, pos- 
 sibly, 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 Presi- 
 dency 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 
 
 131 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 'possibly 1 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 com- 
 munity 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 house- 
 hold. 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 
 
 132 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 covenant that gave them equality in his re- 
 gards ; 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 announce- 
 ment 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 Sena- 
 tor'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 T '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 
 
 133 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 of his death, a good friend and wise coun- 
 sellor 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, dele- 
 gate in Congress from the territory of Idaho 
 and subsequently Senator from that state, 
 had been perhaps the strongest single oppo- 
 nent, 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 Sena- 
 tor 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 appre- 
 ciation 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 knowl- 
 edge. And there could not have been one, 
 in the circumstances, without my knowledge. 
 
 134 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 congress- 
 men, I know that in all the frequent conver- 
 sations 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 re- 
 actionary 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 re- 
 stored by an Act of Congress approved Octo- 
 ber 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 Enab- 
 ling Act was approved, in July 16, 1894, it, 
 
 135 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 too, provided that "polygamous or plural 
 marriage" was forever prohibited. A con- 
 stitutional convention was held at Salt Lake 
 City under the provisions of that act, and a 
 constitution was adopted in which it was pro- 
 vided 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 enact- 
 ment and later by Utah statute as a conse- 
 quence 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 
 
 136 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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. 
 
 137 
 
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 develop- 
 ment of the land and the industries and the 
 business of the community. The persecu- 
 tions 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 
 
 138 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 audi- 
 tors, 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 contribu- 
 tors 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 obliga- 
 tion to develop the natural resources of the 
 country in order to meet the people's needs. 
 Asjthe 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. 
 
 139 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 pay- 
 ments 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 conse- 
 quence 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 
 
 140 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 build- 
 ing 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 suc- 
 cessful. They performed a large public ser- 
 vice beneficently. The fact that Mr. Banni- 
 gan 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 
 
 141 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 East- 
 ern " interests" to whom the Prophet of the 
 Church has sold them bodily. The difference 
 between selling the bonds of the sugar com- 
 pany 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 
 
 142 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 re- 
 minded 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 Sena- 
 torship as a public vindication, since, in the 
 
 143 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 old days of quarrel, he had been legislated 
 out of his place in the House of Representa- 
 tives; 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 affec- 
 tion. 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 ex- 
 cused myself from attending any further 
 sittings of the committee for that day, be- 
 cause I had to go to Provo to receive the Re- 
 publican nomination for Congress. 
 
 My father said: "I am sorry to hear it. 
 I thought Judge Zane or someone else 
 
 144 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 prac- 
 tically 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 dis- 
 solved." 
 
 He accepted this mild declaration of politi- 
 cal independence without protest, and I went 
 to Provo, happily, a free man. The Repub- 
 licans 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 evi- 
 dence that we were now beyond the old quar- 
 rels a further guarantee that we were pre- 
 pared to take our place among the states of 
 the Union, free of parochialism and its sec- 
 tarian enmities. 
 
 The campaign gave every proof of such 
 
 145 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 Repub- 
 licans had been re-enforced by the dissolution 
 of the Liberal Party, whose last preceding 
 candidate (Mr. Clarence E. Allen) went on 
 the stump for us. The Smith jealousy of 
 Moses Thatcher divided the Church influence; 
 and though charges of ecclesiastical inter- 
 ference were made on both sides, such inter- 
 ference was personal rather than official. 
 Mr. Rawlins was defeated, and I was elected 
 delegate in Congress from the territory 
 with the United States Senatorship practi- 
 cally 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. 
 
 146 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 The Democrats, in their convention, nomi- 
 nated 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 That- 
 cher. 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 mani- 
 festo" 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 infringe- 
 
 147 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 ment 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. Allen, as member 
 of Congress) were elected. Thatcher, sub- 
 sequently 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.* 
 
 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 
 
 *He was afterwards elected k to the House of Representatives 
 and was refused his seat as a polygamist. 
 
 148 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 Democrat, although the new "political mani- 
 festo" bound him, although it was doubtful 
 whether the Senate would allow him to be 
 seated. Two influences were urging his elec- 
 tion. 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 undertak- 
 ing, and he had received written assurances 
 from Republican leaders, senators and poli- 
 ticians, 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 independ- 
 ent votes of both Mormons and Gentiles; 
 
 149 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 and I decided to confront the First Presi- 
 dency (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 authori- 
 ties 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 assur- 
 ance 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 Wash- 
 ington to attend to my duties as delegate in 
 Congress. Before I return, Utah will be ad- 
 mitted to statehood, and the legislature will 
 have to elect two United States Senators. 
 As you all know, I've been a candidate for 
 one of these places. It has been assured to 
 me by the probably unanimous vote of the 
 Republican caucus when it shall convene." 
 I laid my clenched hand on the table, knuckles 
 down, with a calculated abruptness. "The 
 first senatorship from Utah is there,' 1 I said. 
 " If it's to be disturbed by any ecclesiastical 
 
 150 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 Presi- 
 dency 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 expres- 
 sions, 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 empti- 
 ness and the assumption of what it held, con- 
 fused him. Joseph F. Smith, frowning, eyed it 
 askance with a darting glance, apparently an- 
 noyed by the mute insolence of its demand for 
 a decision which he was not prepared to make. 
 
 My father, at length, looking at me imper- 
 turbably, 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 con- 
 cerning the Senatorship. And I have pur- 
 posely refrained from any allusions to it of 
 
 151 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 late, with you, because I wished to lav it before 
 the Presidency, as a body, formally, in order 
 that there might be no possible misunder- 
 standing. ' ' 
 
 "In that case," he said, "the matter rests 
 with President Woodruff." 
 
 The President, thus forced to an explana- 
 tion, 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 candi- 
 dacy as infringing upon his duties in the 
 
 152 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 moment- 
 ous. 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) , Presi- 
 dent Woodruff, speaking from the pulpit, 
 declared that it was the right of the priest- 
 hood 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 
 
 153 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 mag- 
 nanimous 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. 
 
 154 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 Mr. Lannan responded instantly to the 
 appeal to his generosity, and after consulta- 
 tion 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 scrupu- 
 lously 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 introduc- 
 tory 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. 
 
 155 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 soft- 
 ened, 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 dispos- 
 sessed 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 
 
 156 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 remember that I saw the Washington Monu- 
 ment 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 Depart- 
 ment 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 
 
 157 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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. 
 
 158 
 
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 " revela- 
 tion" had percolated through the whole com- 
 munity. 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 confer- 
 ence 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: 
 11 1 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 hast- 
 
 159 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 ened 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, w r ith 
 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. Ordi- 
 narily, 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 
 
 160 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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. 
 
 11 Well ? " I said. " What was it you wanted 
 of me?" 
 
 Smith looked up at the President. And 
 Smith had always, hitherto, seemed so un- 
 seeing 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 Presi- 
 dent, and the plan of ambitious church poli- 
 ticians 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 
 
 161 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 to convince anyone that my father is worthy 
 to go to the Senate, but you will need a reve- 
 lation to tell how he is to get there." 
 
 He seemed to raise himself to the inspira- 
 tion 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 Washing- 
 ton 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 Sen- 
 ate. I knew that some prominent Gentiles, 
 desiring to curry favor at Church headquarters 
 had solicited his candidacy. I had been told 
 
 162 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 that General Clarkson and others had assured 
 him by letter that his election would be ac- 
 cepted at Washington, and elsewhere. I dis- 
 cussed 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 
 
 163 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 
 
 164 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 de- 
 scendants and collateral relatives were there, 
 as well as the members of the Presidency and 
 many friends. After dinner, the usual exer- 
 cises 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 con- 
 gratulation; and in the course of it, with his 
 
 165 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 hand on my father's shoulder, he said be- 
 nignly: " Abraham was the friend of God. 
 He had only one son on whom all his hopes 
 were set. But the voice of the Lord com- 
 manded 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 with- 
 out 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. Every- 
 one 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 ! 
 
 166 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 (com- 
 posed of my uncle Angus, my brother Abra- 
 ham, 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. 
 
 167 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 When I called upon my father at the Presi- 
 dent's offices after the election, he said to 
 me before his colleagues : "I wish to congratu- 
 late you on having acted honorably and fear- 
 lessly. You have my blessing." He turned 
 to the President. " You see, President Wood- 
 ruff," 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 pur- 
 poses of this narrative. In the course of the 
 various discussions and conferences upon 
 the Senatorship, I learned that the inspira- 
 tion of the whole attempted betrayal had 
 come from certain Republican politicians 
 and lobbyists (like Colonel Isaac Trumbo), 
 who claimed to represent a political combina- 
 tion 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 
 
 168 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 con- 
 tinue the resistance. I was in a good posi- 
 tion 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 com- 
 mittee 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 
 
 169 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 at such times and in such sums as the Execu- 
 tive 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 in- 
 dustrial 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 oppo- 
 sition 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 advo- 
 cated. He received us with sarcasm, put 
 
 170 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 con- 
 victions 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 
 
 171 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 appar- 
 ently 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 diffi- 
 culty had arisen, of course, out of the agita- 
 tion 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 
 
 172 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 maasures, 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 author- 
 ities had wished to remonstrate. The fact 
 was that the people of Utah were with us in 
 our insurgency, and when the financial inter- 
 ests 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 
 1 '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: 
 
 173 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 con- 
 spiracy rather lightly. 
 
 Believing still in the good faith of the Mor- 
 mon 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 re- 
 ceiver, 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 
 
 174 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 com- 
 mon to the other communities of the country. 
 
 But before I continue further with these 
 political events, I must relate a private inci- 
 dent in the secret betrayal of Utah an in- 
 cident 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 trag- 
 edy for it was a tragedy, as dark in its im- 
 port 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 misrepre- 
 sentation 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 be- 
 trayal of the living, to expose a public treason 
 
 175 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 expres- 
 sion^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?" 
 
 176 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 With a sweep of his hand toward Smith at 
 his desk a gesture and a look the most un- 
 kind 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." 
 
 11 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. Presi- 
 dent 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 cere- 
 mony." 
 
 Smith could hear every word that was said. 
 
 177 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 My father had included him in the conversa- 
 tion, 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 be- 
 tween 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. Can- 
 non 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 com- 
 munity was aware of that guilt, he w r ould 
 never have gone to the Tribune office to make 
 such a promise to Mr. Lannan. 
 
 178 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 All of which did not prevent Joseph F. 
 Smith from testifying in the Smoot investi- 
 gation at Washington in 1904 that he did 
 not marry Abraham Cannon and Lillian 
 Hamlin, that he did not have any conversa- 
 tion 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!* 
 
 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 for- 
 given 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 im- 
 possible and immunity a public boast. 
 
 The world understands that polygamy is 
 
 *See Proceedings before Senate Committee on Privileges 
 and Elections, 1904, Vol. 1, pages 110, 126, 177, etc. 
 
 179 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 rela- 
 tion, 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 author- 
 ity of a clandestine religious dogma en- 
 couraged by his elders, seduced by the pros- 
 pect 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 
 
 180 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 apos- 
 tolic sanction of his participation; and that 
 this participation was jealously designed by 
 Smith to avenge himself upon the First Coun- 
 cillor 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. 
 
 181 
 
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 con- 
 vention 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 indi- 
 cated 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 Repub- 
 lican 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 
 
 182 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 ex- 
 plained 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, under- 
 standing 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 intermoun- 
 tain states. 
 
 Senator Proctor asked me personally what 
 chance I thought the party had in the West. 
 
 183 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 tradi- 
 tion 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 suffi- 
 cient at this time to influence the people 
 against their convictions. 
 
 Joseph F. Smith, soon afterward, notified 
 
 184 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 confer- 
 ences 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 de- 
 scribe the room or any of the religious cere- 
 monies with which the conference was opened. 
 I shall confine myself to the discussion 
 which was begun mildly by President Wood- 
 ruff 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 alien- 
 ated 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 Repub- 
 lican and denunciatory as Smith had been. 
 He declaimed against our alienation of the 
 great business interests of the country, whose 
 
 185 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 con- 
 scientiously; but by this time I desired no 
 intervention of prophetic mercy and no miti- 
 gation of judgment that might come of such 
 intervention. As soon as the President an- 
 nounced 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. 
 
 186 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 The prophets received this defiance in 
 silence. Their expressions implied condem- 
 nation, but none was spoken at least not 
 while I was there. President Woodruff indi- 
 cated 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 legis- 
 lature 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 au- 
 thority. Unable, myself, to take their view- 
 point, I was conscious of a sense of transgres- 
 
 187 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 sion 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 un- 
 yielding in our religious loyalty by withdraw- 
 ing the pressure that had produced our com- 
 pactness. And I hoped that, in time, the 
 Prophets themselves or, at least, their suc- 
 cessors would grow into a more liberal sense 
 of citizenship as their people grew. I knew 
 that our progress must be a process of evolu- 
 tion. I v/as content to wait upon the slow 
 amendments of time. 
 
 My hope carried me through the dishearten- 
 ing incidents of the Senatorial campaign that 
 followed upon the election of the legislature 
 a campaign in which the power of the hie- 
 rarchy was used publicly to defeat the deposed 
 apostle, Moses Thatcher, in his second can- 
 didacy 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 representa- 
 tive 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. 
 
 188 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 
 
 189 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 Presi- 
 dency'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 
 190 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 deter- 
 mined to remember the persecutions and not 
 the mercy, we ought to go back to the con- 
 ditions 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 com- 
 munity 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 in- 
 fluence 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 
 
 191 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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' " in- 
 surgency" had offended Senator Proctor. 
 
 He received me, in his home in Washington, 
 with an almost paternal kindliness that be- 
 came sometimes more dictatorial than per- 
 suasive 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 major- 
 ity," he said. "As you're a devoted protec- 
 tionist in your views as your state is for 
 protection as your father and your people 
 feel grateful to the Republican party for lead- 
 ing you out of the wilderness I have felt that 
 
 192 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 it was proper to appeal to you and learn your 
 views definitely. If you'll pledge your sup- 
 port 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 sug- 
 gestion 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. 
 
 193 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 I will leave the question open. If you con- 
 clude 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 off ending against party orthodoxy, 
 as that orthodoxy was then, and is now, 
 enforced in Washington. 
 
 I was given an opportunity to return to 
 conformity. J 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 invita- 
 tion. It was finally decided by the party 
 leaders to let the tariff bill rest until after 
 the inauguration of the President-elect, 
 William McKmley, with the understanding 
 that he would call a special session to consider 
 it; and, in the interval, the Republican ma- 
 chine, under Mark Hanna, was set to work to 
 produce a Republican majority in the Senate. 
 
 Hanna was elected Senator, at this time, 
 
 194 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 pro- 
 tection of the struggling industries of the 
 country, or of the sugar growers, but I was 
 
 195 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 pro- 
 tecting 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 some- 
 what 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 
 
 196 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 iniqui- 
 tous 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 
 
 197 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 thin lips. " Well, Frank," he replied, " that's 
 just what I want to see you about. We" 
 with the intonation that is used among promi- 
 nent 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 differ- 
 ential, and I don't see that it is particularly 
 exorbitant. As a matter of fact, the Ameri- 
 can 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 breth- 
 ren " 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 promi- 
 nent 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 gov- 
 ernment 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 com- 
 mercial undertakings, by an alliance with 
 
 198 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 pros- 
 perity 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 considera- 
 tion that would come of these. Other men 
 better than I in personal character, more 
 experienced in legislation than I, and wiser 
 by natural gift, were willing to vote for the 
 bill; and Bishop Cutler, a man whom I had 
 always esteemed, the representative of the 
 men whom I most revered, had urged me, 
 for them, to support the bill, under suggestion 
 of their anger if I refused to be guided by 
 their leadership. 
 
 199 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 
 
 200 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 
 
 201 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 after- 
 wards, took occasion to criticize my vote 
 publicly, in a newspaper interview; but he 
 was content, by that criticism, to clear him- 
 self 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 eccle- 
 siastical 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 de- 
 fection. A vigorous and determined opposi- 
 tion 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 
 
 202 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 priesthood. Nearly every Mormon man has 
 some concrete authority to exercise in addi- 
 tion 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 practi- 
 cally 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, 
 
 203 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 by the world's exclusion. They were am- 
 bitious to make themselves as financially 
 powerful in proportion to their numbers as 
 the Jews were; and it was a common argu- 
 ment among them that the world's respect 
 had turned to the Jews because of the de- 
 pendence of Christian governments upon the 
 Jewish financiers. 
 
 The exploitation of this solid mass of in- 
 dustry 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 hie- 
 rarchy, 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 be- 
 come kings of a civil government instead of 
 primates of a religious faith. 
 
 204 
 
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 concen- 
 trating 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 issu- 
 ance of Church bonds and the formation of 
 responsible committees to regulate and man- 
 age the business affairs of the Church, so that 
 the bonds might be made a normal investment 
 for Eastern capital by having a normal busi- 
 ness 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, ap- 
 
 205 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 proximately. 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 avail- 
 able property holdings exclusive of premises 
 used for religious worship, for educational 
 and benevolent work, and such kindred pur- 
 poses 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 busi- 
 ness 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 mis- 
 sionaries. The missionaries themselves re- 
 ceived 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 t the President nor any of the general 
 authorities received salaries. There was an 
 order that each apostle should be paid $2,000 
 
 206 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 pub- 
 lication, 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 pro- 
 posed 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 adminis- 
 trative 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 
 
 207 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 ad- 
 ministration 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 wel- 
 fare. 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. With- 
 out, therefore, impairing the religious author- 
 ity 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 under- 
 stand him in his silences; and, in joining with 
 
 208 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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. Harri- 
 man, Mr. George J. Gould and members of 
 the firm of Kuhn Loeb and Company. It 
 was interesting to watch the encounters be- 
 tween 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 consti- 
 tuted 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 
 
 209 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 rail- 
 road 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 indus- 
 trious 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 offi- 
 cials; 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 
 
 210 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 musician of talent, a little conservatory was 
 founded, and patronage obtained for him. 
 When the growth of population made it neces- 
 sary 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 i^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 con- 
 tributions of the people. Co-operation, in 
 mercantile, industrial and stock-raising under- 
 takings, 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 unsuc- 
 cessful, 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 
 
 211 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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" re- 
 ceived 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 Mor- 
 mons, it was considered an act of evil fellow- 
 ship, amounting almost to apostasy, for a man 
 to bring suit against his brother in the civil 
 tribunals. 
 
 212 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 com- 
 munity 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 estab- 
 lishment 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 ''com- 
 munity enterprises" into monopolistic ex- 
 ploitations 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 sum- 
 mer 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 
 
 213 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 par 
 ticipation 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 sub- 
 sequently 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 finan- 
 
 214 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 cial 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 tradi- 
 tions of the Church; and it outraged my feel- 
 ing 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 toTmain- 
 tain 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 Wood- 
 ruff's death. He followed the usual precedent 
 
 215 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 prop- 
 erty 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 
 
 216 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 medieval 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 com- 
 munity 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 Presi- 
 dent'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." 
 
 217 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 By that decision, as I see it now, an autoc- 
 racy 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 in- 
 crease 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 hie- 
 rarchical 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 suc- 
 ceeding 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 hold- 
 
 218 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 ing 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. Proscrip- 
 tion no longer made the authorities of the 
 Church strong by persecution hardy chiefs 
 of a poverty-stricken people leaders as sen- 
 sible of the obligations of power as their fol- 
 lowers 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 ab- 
 solutism 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. 
 
 219 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 ON THE DOWNWARD PATH 
 
 During the last years of President Wood- 
 ruff'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 con- 
 tinued to show itself, here and there, when- 
 ever 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 w r hich 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 threat- 
 ened 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 
 
 220 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 de- 
 served 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 v.ith his generosities. He was not a Mor- 
 mon, but he had wide Mormon connections. 
 He spent his millions in public enterprises 
 and benefactions; and the Church had bene- 
 fited 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 sus- 
 pected it. Letters from Grant, published in 
 the newspapers of January, 1899, subsequently 
 
 221 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 Repub- 
 lican. I had not allied myself with the Demo- 
 crats 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 Sep- 
 tember, 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 ques- 
 
 222 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 tion 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 can- 
 didacies 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 bv my former colleague in the 
 Senate, Arthur Brown, who specialized as an 
 opDonent 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 con- 
 sequently the attack upon me chiefly took 
 
 223 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 the form of stories of personal immorality, 
 privately circulated. These stories culmi- 
 nated in a motion before the Woman's Repub- 
 lican Club, demanding my withdrawal from 
 the Senatorial contest on the ground of " gross 
 misconduct" a motion introduced by a Mrs. 
 A" ma 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 "Sena- 
 torial Candidates and Pharisees " intending 
 to use the opportunity of self-defence in order 
 to attack the "financial apostles" who were 
 selling Church influence. 
 
 224 
 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 politi- 
 cal apostles as an encouragement to the ene- 
 mies 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 prom- 
 ises 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 reser- 
 vations on account of personal relationship, 
 my own candidacy or the possible effect upon 
 my own affairs. I appealed to the people 
 to prevent the sale of Utah's senatorship to 
 McCune by Apostle Grant and the Church 
 reactionaries; and by turning the light of 
 
 225 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 publicity upon the methods that were being 
 employed in the legislature, I made it im- 
 possible 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 candi- 
 date 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 author- 
 ities to break it. Our political workers, sum- 
 moned 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 
 
 226 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 sig- 
 nificance 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 en- 
 gaging 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 con- 
 
 venience." 
 
 "I did not know," he replied, "but that 
 you thought me one of the 'Pharisees' of 
 whom you spoke." 
 
 227 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 I did not accept this invitation to reply 
 that I did not consider him one of the Phari- 
 sees. 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, affection- 
 ately, and smiling with a sort of absent- 
 minded tenderness as he took up the conver- 
 sation 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 con- 
 ference 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 
 
 228 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 him- 
 self 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. 
 
 II 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 ques- 
 tion settled. If we act wisely with the power 
 and influence at our command aid will come 
 to me. I think you would not willingly per- 
 mit our situation to become more difficult." 
 
 He must have seen a change in my expres- 
 sion 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 
 
 229 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 for what Brother Grant did. Before we go 
 on, I want you to acquit me of responsibility 
 for that project." 
 
 11 President Snow," I replied, " I can't admit 
 so much. I, too, wish to talk plainly with 
 your permission. Your responsibility is evi- 
 dent 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 respon- 
 sibility 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?" 
 
 230 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 sup- 
 port. And there could not have been, for 
 
 231 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 me, a more vivid and instantaneous illumina- 
 tion of the hidden depths in this Church 
 system or in the individual Prophet of vthe 
 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, in- 
 duce 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 some- 
 thing appalling in the calculating cruelty with 
 which he proposed to devote us all to destruc- 
 tion 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 assump- 
 
 232 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 tion that God Almighty had directedjmen to 
 break their solemn promises to their constit- 
 uents. 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 Republi- 
 can, was offered as a senatorial candidate to 
 this Democratic legislature, and all the power 
 of the Church influence was thrown to him. 
 President ShurtlifFs wife came to our head- 
 quarters, 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 
 
 233 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 candi- 
 date had enough votes to elect him, the pre- 
 siding 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 ''permis- 
 sion" to become a candidate, as he admitted 
 to an investigating committee of the Senate; 
 and when the recent tariff bill was being at- 
 tacked 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 
 
 234 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 his chief was absent from the Senate chamber. 
 (Not because Smoot was such an able de- 
 fender 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 lib- 
 erties 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 pro- 
 scription 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. 
 
 235 
 
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 in- 
 spired 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 correspond- 
 ence ; 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 
 
 236 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 inter- 
 fere 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 Mor- 
 mons, 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 amend- 
 ment 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 con- 
 cerns of the other states of the Union! 
 
 He made his "deal" with Perry Heath. 
 
 237 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 Church messengers were sent out secretly 
 to the Mormons in Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, 
 Nevada, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Cali- 
 fornia 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 con- 
 stitutional 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, al- 
 ready 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 
 
 238 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 rail- 
 road 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 dic- 
 tation, and he ordered them both away on 
 temporary "missions." 
 
 239 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 As Joseph F. Smith was leaving the Presi- 
 dent's offices, in a rage, he met an old friend, 
 Joseph Howell, who (at this writing) is a mem- 
 ber 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 be- 
 traying any knowledge of the probable pur- 
 pose 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. 1 ' 
 
 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 to7his 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 
 
 240 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 vote. He immediately showed his inde- 
 pendence by refusing to take orders from the 
 political Church leaders. He declined, fur- 
 ther, 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 author- 
 ities, 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 combina- 
 tion with Clark and Kearns; but there, too, 
 Snow was disappointed. The expected de- 
 velopment 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 abso- 
 lutism 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 constitu- 
 tion 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 
 
 241 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 pro- 
 ceeds of that perfidy, and to assure them- 
 selves protection in every religious tyranny 
 so long as they did not run counter to Repub- 
 lican 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 polyg- 
 amy by Federal statute and could not have 
 obtained such intimate relation and com- 
 manding 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 
 
 242 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 Rail- 
 way 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 com- 
 munistic 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 inex- 
 haustibly robust and untiring. But almost 
 from the day of President's Snow accession 
 to office deprived of the sustaining con- 
 sciousness of the responsibilities of leadership 
 his physical strength gave signs of breaking. 
 In the fall of 1900 he made a trip to the Sand- 
 wich 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 
 
 243 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 deter- 
 mination 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 llth of April, he 
 was lying in a stupor on a couch before an 
 open window, with the sound of the surf in 
 the quiet room. One of the doctors entered, 
 looked at him intently, and said to me : "I can 
 do nothing more here and my patients need 
 me in San Francisco. He can't last long. 
 He'll probably never recover consciousness. 
 If there's anything imperative anything you 
 must say to him any word you wish to have 
 from him you could perhaps rouse him" 
 
 244 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 mem- 
 bers 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 un- 
 conquerable will that had silently, composedly, 
 cheerfully fought and overcome every ob- 
 stacle that had opposed the purposes of his 
 
 245 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 de- 
 cree 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 perse- 
 cution, it had risen to win favor from the 
 wisest among men. It had abolished poverty 
 for hundreds of thousands, by its sound com- 
 munal 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 spiritual- 
 ity 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 
 
 246 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 appre- 
 hension, 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 
 
 247 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 oppos- 
 ing them. When President Snow died (Octo- 
 ber, 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 appoint- 
 ment 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 "revela- 
 tion." This latter act roused the jealousy 
 of the mother of his son Joseph F. Smith, Jr., 
 and the amused gossip of the Mormons pre- 
 dicted another revelation that should give 
 Joseph Jr. a similar promotion. The revela- 
 tion 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 
 
 248 
 
UNDER TH PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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.* 
 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 Presi- 
 dency 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 con- 
 tinue paying their devotion (and their tithes) 
 to a family autocracy whose imposition would 
 have provoked a rebellion in any other com- 
 munity in the civilized world ! 
 
 It is "the will of the Lord!" 
 
 *She has died since this was written. 
 
 249 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE CONSPIRACY COMPLETED 
 
 The Smiths were no sooner firm in power 
 than rumors began to circulate of a recrudes- 
 cence 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 remem- 
 bered how often my father had been mis- 
 judged, and I felt that nothing but the most 
 direct evidence should be permitted to con- 
 vince me of a recession by the Church authori- 
 ties from the miraculous opportunity of pro- 
 gress 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 him- 
 self in the United States Senate. The Repub- 
 licans 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 
 
 250 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 chairman of the Democratic party; and with 
 the growing report of Apostle Smoot's candi- 
 dacy, I observed a gradual cessation of politi- 
 cal 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 ecclesiasti- 
 cal 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 under- 
 standing. 
 
 For this reason after consulting confi- 
 dentially with the leaders of our party 
 I undertook to make a personal visit to Presi- 
 dent 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 knowl- 
 edge 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 
 
 251 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 had been considered and that he had been 
 deputed to talk with me. We appointed a 
 time for conference in my rooms at Demo- 
 cratic 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 stu- 
 dents at the school that I had attended as a 
 child; and I knew the integrity and direct- 
 ness 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 be- 
 tween 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; 
 
 252 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 and he explained that the Church authorities 
 did not see \frhy 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 gentle- 
 ness, he rebuked me by recalling that Presi- 
 dent 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 
 
 253 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 state- 
 hood 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 author- 
 ity of the Church; and if an apostle were 
 allowed to make a political campaign without 
 a denunciation from the other Church author- 
 ities, 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 sup- 
 port Smoot 's legislative ticket, regardless of 
 their political convictions; and all Gentiles 
 and independent Mormons would have to 
 
 254 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 exer- 
 cising 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 ad- 
 mitted into the Union on a covenant that for- 
 bade 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 
 
 255 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 
 
 256 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 too fast, 111 aim my shots only when he's in 
 his political clothes. If the change is too in- 
 definite, 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 candi- 
 date 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 cer- 
 tainty 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 
 
 257 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 organiza- 
 tions 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 w r hich they studiously 
 avoided an attack upon the Church were 
 
 258 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 Roose- 
 velt 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 aban- 
 doned the belief in polygamy and polygamous 
 cohabitation; they connived at and encour- 
 aged its practice, sought to pass laws that 
 should nullify the statutes against the prac- 
 tice, 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 repre- 
 sentatives 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. 
 
 259 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 These charges were supported by innumer- 
 able 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 specif- 
 ically 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 him- 
 self a polygamist ; but no attempt was made 
 to prove this latter charge. 
 
 Upon the riling of the protest, there was a 
 storm of anger at Church headquarters; and 
 the ecclesiastical newspapers railed with the 
 bitterness of anxious apprehension. Through- 
 out Utah it seemed to be the popular belief 
 that Apostle Smoot would be excluded 
 on the issue of whether a responsible repre- 
 sentative 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 in- 
 fluence of the Church was set to work at once 
 to nullify the effect of the protest. 
 
 Every financial institution, East or West, 
 
 260 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 cor- 
 respondents 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 
 
 261 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 busi- 
 ness 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 representa- 
 tive 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 news- 
 papers 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 
 
 262 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 pro- 
 gression 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* 
 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 pur- 
 chase of one-half of the capital stock of these 
 three Church-owned sugar companies. On 
 July 5, 1902 the three companies were con- 
 
 *See a synopsis of the minutes of the trust's executive 
 committee, published in Hampton's Magazine, in January, 
 1910. 
 
 263 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 V 
 
 solid at ed under the name of the Amalgamated 
 Sugar Company, with David Eccles, polyga- 
 mist, trustee of Church bonds, and protege 
 of Joseph F. Smith, as President; and the 
 sugar trust took half the stock, in exchange 
 for its holdings in the three original companies. 
 
 Similarly, in this same year, the old Church- 
 owned Utah Sugar Company increased its 
 stock in order to buy the Garland sugar fac- 
 tory, 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 amal- 
 gamated in the present Utah- Idaho Sugar 
 Company, of which Joseph F. Smith is presi- 
 dent, 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 direc- 
 tors. Of the stock of this company the sugar 
 trust holds fifty-one per cent. So that between 
 1902 and 1906 a partnership in the manu- 
 facture 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 
 
 264 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 circumstances a matter of which I have 
 written in an earlier chapter. The Church 
 owners of this Utah Light and Railway Com- 
 pany, 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 fran- 
 chises, 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 
 
 265 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 Rail- 
 road 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. 
 
 266 
 
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 wit- 
 ness 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 oppor- 
 tunity to His living oracles to speak to an 
 unrighteous people! And when the Senators 
 decided that they would not summon polyga- 
 
 267 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 '3 
 
 mous 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 ad- 
 mitted 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 prac- 
 tice in the Church! 
 
 President Joseph F. Smith admitted that 
 
 268 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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. Sena- 
 tor, 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 testi- 
 mony 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 
 
 269 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 university, had taken a plural wife in 1899. 
 Some ten other less notorious cases were ex- 
 posed 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 revela- 
 tion 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 com- 
 manding it " had been suspended by President 
 Woodruff's manifesto. He said that he ac- 
 cepted 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 polyg- 
 amy had never been printed among the other 
 revelations in the Church's book of " Doctrine 
 and Covenants," in which the original revela- 
 tion commanding polygamy was still printed 
 without note or qualification of any kind. 
 
 270 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 He admitted that this anti-polygamy mani- 
 festo was not printed in any of the other doc- 
 trinal 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!* 
 
 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 mar- 
 riages were being contracted, but that the 
 Church still adhered to the doctrine of polyg- 
 amy 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 
 
 *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. 
 
 271 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 the anti-polygamy agitation of 1899 (which 
 ended in the refusal of Congress to seat 
 Brigham H. Roberts) a number of prosecu- 
 tions of polygamists had been attempted. 
 In many instances the county attorney had 
 refused to prosecute even upon sworn in- 
 formation. 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 con- 
 trolled 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 
 
 272 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 for a new state constitution that should omit 
 the anti-polygamy test oath clauses objec- 
 tionable to the Mormons ; and in this connec- 
 tion 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 " im- 
 possible 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 
 
 273 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 ex- 
 posure before the committee.) Church con- 
 trol 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 ecclesi- 
 astical 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 compro- 
 mised 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, SL 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 
 
 274 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 court and got a decision against her. She 
 wrote to President Joseph F. Smith for per- 
 mission either to appeal the case direct to 
 him or "to go to law" in the matter; and 
 Smith advised her "to follow the order pro- 
 vided of the Lord to govern in your case." 
 The dispute was taken through the ecclesi- 
 astical 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, how- 
 ever, 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 offi- 
 
 275 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 cial was deposed " for distributing, at a school 
 election, a ticket different from that pre- 
 scribed 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 Ma- 
 chine Company, the Utah Light and Power 
 Company, the Salt Lake and Los Angeles 
 Railroad Company, the Saltair Beach Com- 
 pany, the Idaho Sugar Company, the Inland 
 Crystal Salt Company, the Salt Lake Knitting 
 Company, and the Salt Lake Dramatic Asso- 
 ciation; and that he was a director of the 
 Union Pacific Railway Company, vice-presi- 
 dent of the Bullion- Beck and Champion 
 Mining Company, and editor of the Improve- 
 ment Era and the Juvenile Instructor. 
 
 It was shown that Utah had not been ad- 
 mitted to statehood until the Federal govern- 
 ment had exacted, from the Church authorities 
 and the representatives of the people of Utah, 
 every sort of pledge that polygamy had been 
 
 276 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 forever abandoned and polygamous relations 
 discontinued by "revelation from God ; 
 that statehood had not been granted unti 
 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 ; am 
 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 
 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 Con- 
 gressional committee, in behalf of the admis- 
 sion 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 par- 
 ticular thing on the other either party can 
 violate it without remedy to the other. 
 
 277 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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; sup- 
 pose that after they put this into the con- 
 stitution, 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 hej^ what would you do? You 
 could shut trie 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 indis- 
 pensable thing in the matter of trade and com- 
 merce of this country. There are many ways 
 in which peaceably, but all powerfully, you 
 could compel the performance of that com- 
 pact." 
 
 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 
 
 278 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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, en- 
 courages, connives at,]^and countenances 
 defiance of law." 
 
 On June 11, 1906, a majority of the com- 
 mittee made a report to the Senate recom- 
 mending 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 testi- 
 mony by which the fact of plural marriages 
 contracted by those who^were high in the 
 councils of the Church might have been estab- 
 lished 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." Con- 
 cerning President Woodruff's anti-polygamy 
 
 279 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 manifesto of 1890, the majority of the com- 
 mittee 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 with- 
 out 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 Presi- 
 dency and the twelve apostles exercise a con- 
 trolling influence over the action of the mem- 
 bers 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 con- 
 stantly 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 
 
 280 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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, domi- 
 nates 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 legis- 
 lature 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 
 
 281 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 polyg- 
 amous 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. 
 
 282 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 The charge that Smoot, as an apostle of 
 the Church, had been responsible for polyga- 
 mous 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 acquies- 
 cence it was "necessary to recall some his- 
 torical facts, among which are some that 
 indicate that the United States government 
 is not free from responsibility for these viola- 
 tions 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 ac- 
 quiesced" 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 
 
 283 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 ' 
 
 284 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 TREASON TRIUMPHANT 
 
 While these disclosures of the Smoot in- 
 vestigation were shocking the sentiment of 
 the whole nation, the Prophets carried on the 
 conspiracy of their defence with all the bold- 
 ness 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 when- 
 ever 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 
 
 285 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 he would appear at Washington, and then he 
 fled with his new polygamous wife to a polyga- 
 mous Mormon settlement in Alberta, Canada 
 a fugitive, honored because he was a fugi- 
 tive, 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 sub- 
 poenas. 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 knowl- 
 edge and consent; their testimony would 
 have placed the responsibility for these un- 
 lawful practices upon the Prophet; and the 
 penalty would have fallen on the Prophet's 
 Senator. 
 
 They not only fled, but they allowed them- 
 selves in their absence to be made the scape- 
 goats of the hierarchy. They were proven 
 guilty of "new polygamy" before the Senate 
 
 286 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 committee; and, for the sake of the effect 
 upon the country, they were ostensibly de- 
 posed 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 after- 
 ward 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 gov- 
 erning 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 
 
 287 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 to keep her appointment. At last, late at 
 night, she arrived at my office the editorial 
 office of the Salt Lake Tribune having es- 
 caped, 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 con- 
 sider 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: 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 "Utah's statehood, as now admin- 
 istered, 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 Constitu- 
 tion and to the law. It is spreading 
 polygamy throughout the ranks of its 
 followers. Through its agents, it domi- 
 nates the politics of the state, and its 
 power is spreading to other common- 
 wealths. It exerts such sway over 
 the officers of the law that the hierarchy 
 and its favorites cannot be reached by 
 the hand of justice. It is master of 
 the State Legislature and of the Gov- 
 ernor. 
 
 "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 suc- 
 cessful. It corrupts every Gentile 
 who is affected by either fear or venal- 
 ity, and makes of him a part of its 
 
 289 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 re- 
 wards 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. Un- 
 less 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 
 
 290 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 his trade would vanish in a night, leaving 
 him unable to meet his obligations and cer- 
 tain 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 gen- 
 eration 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 fulfil- 
 ment of that hope. 
 
 At first, in President Roosevelt they saw 
 
 291 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 the promise of their salvation. He had op- 
 posed 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 candi- 
 dacy 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 
 chief sjin 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 Wash- 
 ington 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 re- 
 ported in Utah that his arguments for Smoot 
 carried some weight in Washington. Presi- 
 dent 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 
 
 292 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 Presi- 
 dent 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 prom- 
 ise unnecessary, if there ever was an explicit 
 promise. But this much is certain. Presi- 
 dent 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 sus- 
 ceptible 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 sym- 
 pathized 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 can- 
 didacies 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 commit- 
 ting against the national integrity. 
 
 I have received it personally, from the lips 
 of more than one member of the Senate com- 
 
 293 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 mittee, 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 protec- 
 tion 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 vio- 
 lations 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 
 
 294 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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, im- 
 possible 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-con- 
 vinced. 
 
 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 exer- 
 cise of his authority. And at this sort of 
 pretence the Lord's anointed are expert. 
 
 295 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 de- 
 meanor 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 move- 
 ment 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 
 
 296 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 char- 
 acteristic of Church gossip and so typical 
 (even if it were untrue) of the humorous 
 cynicism of Church diplomacy. 
 
 When President Roosevelt was making 
 his " swing around the circle," Rich was 
 appointed to join him, found the opportunity 
 to do so, and (so the story is told) delighted 
 the President by the spirit and candor of his 
 good-fellowship. When they were about to 
 part, the President is reported to have said, 
 "Why don't you run for Congress from your 
 state? You're just the kind of man I'd like 
 to have in the House to support my policies." 
 And here (as the Mormons are told) is the 
 dialogue that ensued: 
 
 Rich: " I have no ambition that way, 
 Mr. President. For many reasons it's out 
 of the question although I'm grateful for 
 the flattering suggestion." 
 
 The President: "Then let me appoint you 
 to some good office. You're the kind of man 
 I'd like to have in my official family." 
 
 Rich (impressively and in a low tone) : 
 "Mr. President, I'd count it the greatest 
 honor of my life to have a commission from 
 you to any office. I'd hand that commission 
 down to my children as the most precious 
 heritage. But I love you too much, Mr. 
 
 297 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 revela- 
 tion from the Lord a revelation that pro- 
 claimed 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 pro- 
 gression; 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 
 
 298 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 ampli- 
 fied 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 ener- 
 gies 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!* 
 
 This may sound blasphemous toward 
 
 *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 author- 
 ities. 
 
 299 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 taber- 
 nacle (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 friend- 
 ship 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. 
 
 300 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY 
 
 As early as 1903, before the Smoot investi- 
 gation 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 Dis- 
 trict 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 Demo- 
 cratic 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. 
 
 301 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 After the Prophets began to give their 
 awful testimony at Washington, the Demo- 
 cratic National Convention of 1904 (which 
 I attended as a delegate from Utah) con- 
 sidered 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 Demo- 
 cratic party in Utah. It carried in the con- 
 vention. 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 con- 
 sonance 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 fatu- 
 ously 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. 
 
 302 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 sym- 
 pathy. 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 be- 
 cause 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, 
 
 303 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 dis- 
 solve, 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 move- 
 ment 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 authori- 
 ties would not permit. It would have de- 
 stroyed all the special and selfish prerogatives 
 of the Mormon hierarchs. It would have 
 subverted their claim of absolute temporal 
 
 304 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 dis- 
 avowed 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 cam- 
 paign. 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 
 
 305 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 com- 
 pared 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 dis- 
 creet 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. 
 
 ^306 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 For many reasons the American party 
 looked for its recruits chiefly among Repub- 
 licans, 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 organi- 
 zation 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 
 
 307 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 living with a young plural wife.) We ac- 
 cepted her aid. Her husband cut off her 
 monthly allowance, and she had to take em- 
 ployment as a book canvasser, so that she 
 might be able to earn her living. One Mor- 
 mon who came out openly for us, was super- 
 intendent of a business owned by Gentiles. 
 He was somew r hat 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 news- 
 paper editor. He won over some of his per- 
 sonal 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 per- 
 suasions of the hierarchy. Yet, before long 
 he came to confess that he could not continue 
 to help us openly. His employers his Gen- 
 tile employers had notified him that his 
 work in the American party would be danger- 
 ously injurious to their business. They were 
 in hearty accord with his views; they recog- 
 nized his right as a citizen to act according 
 to his convictions; but they dared not pro- 
 voke a war of business reprisals with the 
 commercial and|financial institutions of the 
 Church. He must either cease his active 
 
 308 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 Ameri- 
 can 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 con- 
 nections 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 ob- 
 tained 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 
 
 309 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 God given to Wilford Woodruff, and destruc- 
 tive of all the securities of community asso- 
 ciation. 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 condi- 
 tions 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 
 
 310 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 damn his own soul by meddling with 
 the man who had been ordained by the 
 Prophets to a wholesale polygamous pre- 
 rogative. 
 
 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. Wash- 
 ington, 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. 
 
 311 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 join- 
 ing an organization opposed by the all-power- 
 ful 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 opposi- 
 
 312 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 tion to the hierarchy.* 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 repre- 
 sented 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 author- 
 ity. We foresaw the end. 
 
 Early in December, 1906, Senator J. C. 
 Burrows of Michigan, chairman of the com- 
 mittee that had investigated Smoot, called 
 
 *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. 
 
 313 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 in- 
 fancy;" there was "nothing in the constitu- 
 tion" prohibiting "a State from having an 
 established Church;" the old practices of 
 Mormonism were dying out; and Smoot, as 
 an exponent of the new T er Mormonism, was 
 largely responsible for the improvement. 
 
 This bold falsehood w T as 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 
 
 314 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 Pennsyl- 
 vania (February 14, 1907) took up the lie 
 that Smoot had been " from his youth against 
 polygamy," and he added to it a legal argu- 
 ment that the Senate could only expel a 
 member, by a two-thirds vote, if he were 
 guilty of crime, offensive immorality, dis- 
 loyalty 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 sup- 
 port 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 con- 
 demnation of the Church;" and that he him- 
 self had always opposed polygamy. On 
 February 20, the question was forced to a 
 vote after a debate that repeated these false- 
 hoods, 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 
 
 315 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 Salt Lake City and given it good municipal 
 government, we were able to hold a local ad- 
 herency; 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 Gen- 
 tiles, 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 neigh- 
 bors of mine, and fight the government at 
 Washington besides. If the administration 
 wants to be bossed by the Prophet, Seer and 
 Revelator, / 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 
 
 316 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 protected them in the exercises of their faith. 
 The Supreme Court of the country determined 
 that the free-religion clause of the constitu- 
 tion 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 Roose- 
 velt, 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! 
 
 317 
 
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 decep- 
 tion 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 ob- 
 serving 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 
 
 318 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 con- 
 sent of universal, absolute and unquestion- 
 ing obedience under penalty of eternal con- 
 demnation threatened and earthly punish- 
 ment 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? 
 
 319 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 eter- 
 nally 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 con- 
 ference inclined to protest against the re- 
 election of any of its rulers, the lack of com- 
 munication, 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." 
 
 320 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 notori- 
 ous polygamist, J. M. Tanner. The discovery 
 that his sweetheart was a member of the 
 Tanner household drove Russell almost fran- 
 tic. 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 remon- 
 strances from the pulpit and from the people. 
 He was told to take his complaint to the 
 President of his Stake. He was denied the op- 
 portunity 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 
 
 321 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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. Bo wen rose at a General Confer- 
 ence 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, 
 
 322 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 manu- 
 facture 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 com- 
 munity. In the early days, the Church (as 
 I have already related) encouraged the estab- 
 lishment 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.) 
 
 323 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 After Smurthwaite and Taylor had in- 
 vested 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 Smurth- 
 waite 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 
 
 324 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 op- 
 portunity of appearing in his own defence 
 or having counsel or witnesses heard in sup- 
 port of his case; and on April 4, after a simi- 
 larly 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 juris- 
 diction! 
 
 From the moment of his first public protest 
 against Smith, all Smurthwaite's former asso- 
 ciates 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 immor- 
 ality" of the victims. When a man like 
 
 325 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 Chas. A. Smurthwaite could not remonstrate 
 against the individual offences of Joseph F. 
 Smith, without being overwhelmed by finan- 
 cial disaster, and social ostracism, and per- 
 sonal slander, it must be evident how im- 
 possible 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 ad- 
 
 326 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 vancing the community out of its errors, I 
 should be doing all that could be asked of me. 
 In the days of Mormon misery and proscrip- 
 tion, 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 
 
 327 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 dis- 
 creetly silent. I had helped defend the Mor- 
 mon 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. 
 
 328 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 teach- 
 ings of the Church than I had been in previous 
 years because I was not criticizing the 
 Church or its religious teachings, but attack- 
 ing 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 publi- 
 cation 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 with- 
 draw 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 
 
 329 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 sub- 
 jects 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. 
 
 330 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 psycho- 
 logical 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 testi- 
 mony 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 exalta- 
 tion 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 
 we 1 !, he resumed his seat, apologetically. 
 
 That left me free to "bear testimony" 
 
 331 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 cove- 
 nanted 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 
 
 332 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 ques- 
 tions 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 with- 
 out 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 ser- 
 vice 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 excommunica- 
 tion proceedings, and after filing a defence 
 which it is unnecessary to give here and 
 
 333 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 excom- 
 munication 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 / 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 ser- 
 vile to the decrees of religious tyranny that 
 they turned their backs on the voice of their 
 
 334 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 ex- 
 claim 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 any- 
 thing but eternal condemnation in the world 
 to come; and though few of them counted 
 on the "spoils" of the hereafter, they under- 
 stood 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 
 
 335 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 prop- 
 erties, was an inventor of methods of reduc- 
 tion, 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 for- 
 tunes 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. J adding, 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 
 
 336 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 news- 
 paper 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. 
 
 337 
 
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 im- 
 portant 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 in- 
 evitable 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 be- 
 lieved, that she had been selected by God for 
 the exaltation of this sacrifice, and by incul- 
 cating in her children a scrupulous respect 
 
 338 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 for sexual purity. There was no pretense of 
 denial of the polygamous relation. Plural 
 wives held the place of honor in the com- 
 munity. 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 pre- 
 ceding 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 reve- 
 lation, 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 
 
 339 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 them- 
 selves 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 natu- 
 rally 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 polyga- 
 mous 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 
 
 340 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 Mohamme- 
 dans, 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 
 
 341 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 pro- 
 tect 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 Decem- 
 ber, 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 com- 
 
 342 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 mittee of the United States Senate, and per- 
 jured 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 com- 
 mand 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 sanc- 
 tion 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 
 
 343 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 prevent him from coveting the youth and 
 beauty of this young woman. He first ap- 
 proached her mother for permission to marry 
 the girl, and when the mother who was her- 
 self a plural wife replied that it was im- 
 possible 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 pro- 
 posed 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 un- 
 known 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 
 
 344 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 noth- 
 
 345 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 ing 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 cove- 
 nant 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 hus- 
 band. I only want something so that my 
 boy, when he grows up, won't be" 
 
 What could I do ? What could anyone do 
 
 346 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 pen- 
 alties 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 rela- 
 tions with polygamous elders who persuaded 
 their victims that the anti-polygamous mani- 
 festo had been given out to save a persecuted 
 people from the cruelties of an unjust govern- 
 ment ; that it was never intended it should be 
 obeyed ; that all the celestial blessings prom- 
 ised 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 
 
 347 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 accom- 
 plice of the libertine who had seduced her 
 daughter and since confessed his crime. But 
 
 348 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 author- 
 ities 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 inter- 
 views 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, them- 
 selves priests of the Church, told me of in- 
 numerable 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. 
 
 349 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 keep- 
 ing its covenant. 
 
 For us, in Utah, the declaration served 
 merelyffco illuminate the dark places of eccle- 
 siastical 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 
 
 350 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 knew, on the contrary, that upon numerous 
 occasions, at funerals and in public assem- 
 blages, 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 mani- 
 festo. None of them had been actually pun- 
 ished. 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 conceal- 
 ment 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 discover- 
 ing plural marriages, because of the conceal- 
 ments by which they are protected, the Salt 
 Lake Tribune is publishing a list of more than 
 two hundred "new" polygamists with the 
 date's and circumstances of their marriages ; 
 
 351 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 law- 
 breakers. If they reside in Utah, they fre- 
 quently go to Canada or to Mexico to be 
 married ; and the whole polygamous parapher- 
 nalia can be transported with ease and com- 
 fort the priest who performs the ceremony, 
 the husband, sometimes the legal wife to give 
 her consent so that she may not be damned, 
 
 352 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 and the young woman whose soul is to be 
 saved. And this " underground" is main- 
 tained 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" sta- 
 tion 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 polyg- 
 amy 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 solem- 
 nizing 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 
 
 353 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 ecclesi- 
 astical 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 vears ago, Irving Sayford, then 
 
 354 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 / 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 / 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 sen- 
 tence, 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 
 
 355 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 com- 
 plaint 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 knowl- 
 edge. All the preliminaries were then gra- 
 ciously arranged and President Smith ap- 
 peared 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 mar- 
 riage 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 
 
 356 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 what- 
 ever 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 polyga- 
 mist, 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 respon- 
 sible?" 
 
 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 
 
 357 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 stat- 
 utes 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 cir- 
 cumstances of the ceremony. She has justi- 
 
 358 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 fied 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 ig- 
 nominy 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. 
 
 359 
 
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 prom- 
 ised eternal happiness if he paid an honest 
 tithe, but he was also given an earthly re- 
 ward 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. 
 
 360 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 But by the time the Church had reached 
 its third generation of tithe-payers, the " finan- 
 cial 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 com- 
 pelled /to enter the poor-houses, to seek shelter 
 on the "county farms," or to take charity 
 from their neighbors. The resulting degrada- 
 tion of a sublime principle of human helpful- 
 ness 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 in- 
 come. Said Joseph F. Smith, at the April 
 Conference of 1899 (according to the Church's 
 official report) : " If a farmer raises two thou- 
 sand 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 
 
 361 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 "do- 
 nations" 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 meet- 
 ing," 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 w r ard, 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 
 
 362 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 con- 
 cerned, 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 exac- 
 tions 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 
 
 363 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 salva- 
 tion 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 institu- 
 tions" 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 
 
 364 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 for the benefit of the community but to ex- 
 ploit 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 divi- 
 dends 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.L at 
 all, but would go elsewhere to deal!" 
 
 The farmers are "counselled" to buy their 
 vehicles from "the Church's" firm, the Con- 
 solidated 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 
 
 365 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 Church's " Beneficial Life Insurance Com- 
 pany" (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 Adver- 
 sary;" 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 Mor- 
 mons, having learned of old the value of a solid 
 community support for community enterprises 
 established in the interests of the community, 
 
 366 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 sup- 
 ported 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 "Harri- 
 man 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 (operat- 
 ing 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 
 
 367 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 Lord." He protects the sugar trust by pre- 
 venting 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 saltfgardens (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 excom- 
 municates and ostracizes, in this world and 
 the next, the Mormon protest ant 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 con- 
 trol of legislation. He can not only prevent 
 the passage of any laws against his favored 
 
 368 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 enor- 
 mous power stands solidly against any move- 
 ment of domestic reform; and, by its alliance 
 
 369 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 with the national rulers in finance and politics, 
 it is saved from the danger of " foreign " inter- 
 vention. 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 terri- 
 tory 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 indi- 
 vidual 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 com- 
 munism 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 arbi- 
 tration, the energies of the people were con- 
 served and the products of their prosperity 
 more equally distributed than under the con- 
 ditions of economic war then prevalent else- 
 where. He thought he saw in Utah a possible 
 solution of some of the social problems of our 
 civilization. But, a few years ago, he con- 
 fessed that the Mormon system was no longer 
 worthy of stucty. It had been destroyed by 
 
 370 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 the greed of its rulers. Community contribu- 
 tions were being used for individual com- 
 mercialism 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 Mor- 
 mon people had become the working slaves 
 of a financial and political and religious autoc- 
 racy, 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 con- 
 ditions 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 
 
 371 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 him- 
 self 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 presi- 
 dent of the Church at sixty-three. Nor did 
 he need any such ability. The continuous 
 inflow of money to be used without account- 
 ability to anyone and the wealth of oppor- 
 tunity offered by the men who wished his 
 aid in exploiting his people, made it unneces- 
 sary that he should have any creative finan- 
 cial vision. He needed only to move, with 
 his opportunity, along the line of least resist- 
 ance 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 preroga- 
 tives. As soon as he came to power, he 
 accepted every opportunity of self-aggrandize- 
 ment 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 
 
 372 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 them- 
 selves. 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 ob- 
 served, as a warning only, the modern aspira- 
 tion 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 im- 
 proving. 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 author- 
 ity of the Almighty" and His "temporal 
 revelations" because he himself has been 
 enriched by the perversion of these same laws 
 
 373 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 un- 
 authorized. . . . Any people attempting to 
 govern themselves by laws of their own mak- 
 ing, and by officers of their own appointment, 
 are in direct rebellion against the Kingdom 
 of God." Smith believes that over this King- 
 dom the Smiths have been, by Divine revela- 
 tion, 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 King- 
 dom on Earth against the Powers of Evil. 
 
 He believes that the people of the American 
 Republic, "being governed by laws of their 
 
 374 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 own making and by officers of their own ap- 
 pointment," 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 polyga- 
 mous cohabitation and had a liberal sym- 
 pathy for the Church ; but at St. George, Utah, 
 for example (in September, 1904), he was 
 
 375 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 hypo- 
 crites the fanatic who believes that he is 
 lying in the service of the Almighty. 
 
 In the early spring of 1888, 1 was in Washing- 
 ton, 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 prob- 
 ably 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 Taber- 
 
 376 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 nacle (which is " Joseph Mack's" capitol and 
 Vatican) and addressed a multitude that had 
 assembled not more to honor the Chief Execu- 
 tive 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 proscrip- 
 tions 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!" 
 
 377 
 
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 con- 
 sideration which has obtained from the nation 
 the protection of tolerance under which the 
 Prophets flourish. For not only are the Mor- 
 mon 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; andtthis 
 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 leader- 
 ship of men so unworthy of them that if the 
 people were as bad as the ends to which they 
 
 378 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 understand- 
 ing, 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 eter- 
 nity 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 per- 
 formed 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 
 
 379 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 redemption, might be saved to heaven by 
 Joseph, u the.,Choice Seer." 
 
 He is taught that the disciples of the Mor- 
 mon 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 command- 
 ment; that all human laws are equally sub- 
 ject to his will, to be made or unmade at his 
 order; that he can condemn, by his excom- 
 munication, 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, deter- 
 
 380 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 mined of mind, practising rigidly and intoler- 
 antly his petty virtues of abstinence from 
 the use of tobacco, tea and coffee, proclaim- 
 ing 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 Asso- 
 ciation; 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 
 
 381 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 
 
 382 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 taber- 
 nacle 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 ecclesias- 
 tical 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 per- 
 formed 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 
 
 383 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 covenants with their Almighty Father the 
 only way they can demonstrate their accept- 
 ance 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 faith- 
 fulness 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 pro- 
 prietors 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 ques- 
 tions, 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 
 
 384 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 inquiries concerning him are made of the 
 wife. If both parents are absent, the ques- 
 tions concerning them are put to their 
 children! 
 
 This one branch of the ecclesiastical ser- 
 vice is sufficient of itself to mark the Mormon 
 Church as the most perfectly disciplined in- 
 stitution 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 count- 
 less 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 
 
 385 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 tw T o teachers, a man of some local 
 prominence in the Church, undertook to 
 1 'bear testimony" to the wickedness of any- 
 one 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 
 
 386 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 
 
 387 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 com- 
 munity, 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 man- 
 
 388 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 hood, 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 apos- 
 tate 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 conform- 
 
 389 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 ity. So long as a man pays a^full tithe, con- 
 tributes 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 him- 
 self 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 
 
 390 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 com- 
 panion 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 locali- 
 ties 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, 
 
 391 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 con- 
 clusion of that exposure are all argued as 
 proofs of the divinity of a persecuted Church 
 or given as instances of the miraculous " over- 
 ruling" 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 vice- 
 gerent 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 
 
 392 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 Presi- 
 dent 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 faith- 
 ful. 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 
 
 393 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 
 1 You're ninety- nine-and-one-half per cent, 
 pure gold,' they will ask, surprised and in- 
 dignant: 'What? Why, what's the matter 
 with the other half per cent. ? ' 
 
 394 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 Of the men who could have written this 
 narrative, some are dead; some are prudent; 
 some are superstitious; and some are per- 
 sonally foresworn. It appeared to me that 
 the welfare of Utah and the common good of 
 the whole United States required the publica- 
 tion of the facts that I have tried to demon- 
 strate. Since there was apparently no one 
 else who felt the duty and also had the in- 
 formation 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. BANCRO 
 
 We promised that the Church had forever^- 
 renounced the doctrine of polygamy and the 
 practice of plural marriage living, by a "reve- 
 lation 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 
 
 395 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 govern- 
 ment. 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 sover- 
 eignty 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. 
 
 396 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 Of all these promises the Church authorities 
 have kept not one. The doctrine and prac- 
 tice of polygamy have been restored by the 
 Church, and plural marriage living is prac- 
 tised 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 conven- 
 tion, for whom there can be entertained no 
 hope that any statute will ever give them a 
 place within the recognition of civilized so- 
 ciety. The Prophet of the Church rules with 
 an absolute political power in Utah, with 
 almost as much authority in Idaho and Wy- 
 oming, and with only a little less autocracy 
 in parts of Colorado, Montana, Oregon, Wash- 
 ington, 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 appoint- 
 ment 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 account- 
 ability. He levies tribute upon the people 
 of Utah and helps to loot the citizens of the 
 
 397 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 ad- 
 ministrations 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 inter- 
 ference 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 
 
 398 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 Mormon hierarchy could never have been 
 established. The present conditions in the 
 Mormon kingdom are due to national influ- 
 ences. 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 connec- 
 tion 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. Presi- 
 dent 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- 
 
 399 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 Apostle Reed Smoot. Misled by political 
 and personal advisers, the President procured 
 delays in the Smoot investigation. He se- 
 duced 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 unrestrain- 
 edly 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 Mor- 
 mon kingdom. In his placid but whole- 
 hearted way he has encouraged his co-ordinate 
 ruler, the Mormon Prophet, and extended 
 the Executive license to the support and in- 
 evitable 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 
 
 400 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 en- 
 couraged. As soon as the Mormon hierarchy 
 discovers that the people of this country, 
 wearied of violated treaties and broken cove- 
 nants, 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 
 
 401 
 
UNDER THE PROPHET IN UTAH 
 
 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 confi- 
 dence, 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 
 
 402