I pass now to the political aspect of this hierarchy, as some call it,
but this monarchy as I choose to term it.
I have previously called your attention to the social and business
powers, monopolies, autocracies, exercised by the leaders. Through these
channels of social and business relations they can spread the knowledge
of their political desires without appearing obtrusively in politics.
When the end of their desire is accomplished, they affect to wash their
hands of all responsibility by denying that they engaged in political
activities. Superficial persons, and those desiring to accept this
argument, are convinced by it. But never, in the palmy days of Brigham
Young, was there a more complete political tyranny than is exercised by
the present president of the Mormon Church and his apostles, who are
merely awaiting the time when by the death of their seniors in rank they
may become president, and select some other man to hold the apostleship
in their place--as they now hold it in behalf of the ruling monarch.
In this statement I merely call your attention to what a perfect system
of ecclesiastical government is maintained by these presidents and
apostles; and I do not need to more than indicate to you what a
wonderous aid their ecclesiastical government can be, and is, in
accomplishing their political purposes.
Parties are nothing to these leaders, except as parties may be used by
them. So long as there is Republican administration and Congress, they
will lead their followers to support Republican tickets; but if, by any
chance, the Democratic party should control this Government, with a
prospect of continuance in power, you would see a gradual veering around
under the direction of the Mormon leaders. When Republicans are in power
the Republican leaders of the Mormon people are in evidence and the
Democratic leaders are in retirement. If the Democracy were in power,
the Republican leaders of the Mormon people would go into retirement and
Democrats would appear in their places. No man can be elected to either
House of Congress against their wish. I will not trespass upon your
patience long enough to recite the innumerable circumstances that prove
this assertion, but will merely refer to enough instances to illustrate
the method. In 1897, at the session of the legislature which was to
elect a Senator, and which was composed of sixty Democrats and three
Republicans, Moses Thacher was the favored candidate of the Democracy in
the State. He had been an apostle of the Mormon Church, but had been
deposed because he was out of harmony with the leaders. The Hon. Jos. L.
Rawlins was a rival candidate, but not strongly so at first. He was
encouraged by the church leaders in every way; and finally, when his
strength had been advanced sufficiently to need but one vote, a Mormon
Republican was promptly moved over into the Democratic column and he was
elected by the joint assembly. I do not charge that Hon. Joseph L.
Rawlins, who occupied a seat with distinguished honor in this great body
for six years, had any improper bargain with the church, or any
knowledge of the secret methods by which his election was being
compassed; but he was elected under the direction of the leaders of the
church because they desired to defeat and further humiliate a deposed
apostle.
I will not ignore my own case. During nearly three years I have waited
this great hour of justice in which I could answer the malignant
falsehood and abuse which has been heaped upon a man who is dead and can
not answer, and upon myself, a living man willing to wait the time for
answer. Lorenzo Snow, a very aged man, was president of the church when
I was elected to the Senate. He had reached that advanced time of life,
being over eighty, when men abide largely in the thoughts of their
youth. He was my friend in that distant way which sometimes exists
without close acquaintanceship, our friendship (if I may term it such)
having arisen from the events attendant upon Utah's struggle for
statehood. For some reason he did not oppose my election to the Senate.
Every other candidate for the place had sought his favor; it came to me
without price or solicitation on my part. The friends and mouthpieces of
some of the present leaders have been base enough to charge that I
bought the Senatorship from Lorenzo Snow, president of their own church.
Here and now I denounce the calumny against that old man, whose unsought
and unbought favor came to me in that contest. That I ever paid him one
dollar of money, or asked him to influence legislators of his faith, is
as cruel a falsehood as ever came from human lips. So far as I am
concerned he held his power with clean hands, and I would protect the
memory of this dead man against all the abuse and misrepresentation
which might be heaped upon him by those who were his adherents during
life, but who now attack his fame in order that they may pay the greater
deference to the present king.
You must know that in that day we were but five years old as a State.
Our political conditions were and had been greatly unsettled. The
purpose of the church to rule in politics had not yet been made so
manifest and determined. Lorenzo Snow held his office for a brief
time--about two years. What he did in that office pertaining to my
election I here and now distinctly assume as my burden, for no man shall
with impunity use his hatred of me to defame Lorenzo Snow and dishonor
his memory to his living and loving descendants.
As for myself, I am willing to take the Senate and the country into my
confidence, and make a part of the eternal records of the Senate, for
such of my friends as may care to read, the vindication of my course to
my posterity. I had an ambition, and not an improper one, to sit in the
Senate of the United States. My competitors had longer experience in
polities and may have understood more of the peculiar situation in the
State. They sought what is known as church influence. I sought to obtain
this place by purely political means. I was elected. After all their
trickery my opponents were defeated, and to some extent by the very
means which they had basely invoked. I have served with you four years,
and have sought in a modest way to make a creditable record here. I have
learned something of the grandeur and dignity of the Senate, something
of its ideals, which I could not know before coming here. I say to you,
my fellow Senators, that this place of power is infinitely more
magnificent than I dreamed when I first thought of occupying a seat
here. But were it thrice as great as I now know it to be, and were I
back in that old time of struggle in Utah, when I was seeking for this
honor, I would not permit the volunteered friendship of President Snow
to bestow upon me, even as an innocent recipient, one atom of the church
monarch's favor. My ideals have grown with my term of service in this
body, and I believe that the man who would render here the highest
service to his country must be careful to attain to this place by the
purest civic path that mortal feet can tread.
I have said enough to indicate that for my own part I never
countenanced, nor knowingly condoned, the intrusion of the church
monarchy into secular affairs. And I have said enough to those who know
me to prove for all time that, so far as I am concerned, my election
here was as honorable as that of any man who sits in this chamber; and
yet I have said enough that all men may know that rather than have a
dead man's memory defamed on my account, I will make his cause my own
and will fight for the honor which he is not on earth to defend. This
will not suit the friends and mouthpieces of the present rulers, but I
have no desire to satisfy or conciliate them; and in leaving this part
of the question, I avenge President Snow sufficiently by saying that
these men did not dare to offend his desire nor dispute his will while
he was living, and only grew brave when they could cry: "Lorenzo, the
king, is dead! Long live Joseph, the king!"
As a Senator I have sought to fulfill my duty to the people of this
country. I am about to retire from this place of dignity. No man can
retain this seat from Utah and retain his self-respect after he
discovers the methods by which his election is procured and the objects
which the church monarchy intends to achieve. Some of my critics will
say that I relinquished that which I could not hold. I will not pause to
discuss that point further than to say that if I had chosen to adopt the
policy with the present monarch of the church, which his friends and
mouthpieces say I did adopt with the king who is dead, it might have
been possible to retain this place of honor with dishonor.
Every apostle is a part of this terrible power, which can make and
unmake at its mysterious will and pleasure. Early in 1902 warning had
been publicly uttered in the State against the continued manifestation
of church power in politics. The period of unsettled conditions during
which I was elected had ended and we had opportunity to see the manner
in which the church monarch was resuming his forbidden sway; and we had
occasion to know the indignant feelings entertained by the people of the
United States when they contemplated the flagrant breaking of the pledge
given to the country to secure the admission of Utah. I myself, after
conference with distinguished men at Washington, journeyed to Utah and
presented a solemn protest and warning to the leaders of the church
against the dangerous exercise of their political power. I did it to
repay a debt which I owed to Utah, and not for any selfish reason. I
knew that from the day I uttered that warning the leaders of the Mormon
Church would hate and pursue me for the purpose of wreaking their
vengeance. But as the consequences of their misconduct, their pledge
breaking would fall upon all of the people of the State, upon the
innocent more severely than upon the guilty, I felt that I must assert
my love and gratitude to the State, even though my warning should lead
to my own destruction by these autocrats. If there had been one desire
in my heart to effect a conjunction with this church monarchy, if I had
been willing to retain office as its gift, I would not have taken this
step, for I knew its consequences. I began in that hour my effort to
restore to the people of Utah the safety and the political freedom which
are their right, and I shall continue it while I live until the fight is
won.
The disdain with which that message was received was final proof of the
contempt in which that church monarchy holds the Senate and the people
of the United States, and of the disregard in which the church monarchy
holds the pledges which it made in order to obtain the power of
statehood.
They do not need to utter explicit instructions in order to assert their
demand. The methods of conveying information of their desire are
numerous and sufficiently effective, as is proved by results. To show
how completely all ordinary political conditions, as they obtain
elsewhere in the United States, are without account in Utah, I have but
to cite you to the fact that after the recent election, which gave 57
members out of 63 on joint ballot to the Republican party, and when the
question of my successor became a matter of great anxiety to numerous
aspirants for this place, the discussion was not concerning the fitness
of candidates, nor the political popularity of the various gentlemen who
composed that waiting list, nor the pledges of the legislators, but was
limited to the question as to who could stand best with the church
monarchy; as to whom it would like to use in this position; as to who
would make for the extension of its ambitions and power in the United
States.