In any discussion of the public affairs that make the subject matter of
this narrative, a line of discrimination must be drawn at the year 1890.
In that year the Church began a progressive course of submission to
the civil law, and the nation received each act of surrender with
forgiveness. The previous defiance's of the Mormon people ceased to give
grounds for a complaint against them. The old harshnesses of the Federal
government were canceled by the new generosity of a placated nation. And
neither party to the present strife in Utah should go back, beyond the
period of this composition, to dig up, from the past, its buried wrongs.
In relating, here, some of the events of 1888 and 1889, I have tried
neither to justify the Mormons nor to defend their prosecutors. I have
wished merely to make clear the situation in Utah, and to introduce to
you, in advance, some of the leaders of the distracted community, so
that you might understand the conditions from which the Mormons escaped
by giving their covenant to the nation and be able to judge of the
obligations and responsibilities of the men who gave it.
I, have described the promulgation and acceptance of "the manifesto"
with such circumstance and detail, because of what has since occurred in
Utah. Let me add that some two weeks later the General Conference of
the Church endorsed the President's pronouncement as "authoritative and
binding." And let me point out that it was the first and only law of the
Mormon Church ever so sustained by triple sanctities--"revealed" as
a command from God, accepted by the prophets in solemn fraternity
assembled, and ratified by the vote of the entire "congregation of
Israel" before it was declared to be binding upon men.
At first, because of the somewhat indefinite promise of the message
itself, many of the non-Mormons of Utah remained suspicious and in
doubt of it. But it was recognized by Judge Zane, in court--on the
day following the close of the Conference--as an official declaration,
"honest and sincere." The newspapers throughout the whole country so
received it. The Church authorities sent assurances to Washington that
convinced the statesmen, there, of the completeness and finality of the
submission. And the good faith of the covenant was at last admitted by
the non-Mormons of Utah and endorsed by their trust. I do not know
of any change in human affairs dependent on human will--more speedy,
effective and comprehensive than this recession. Within the space of a
few days a revolution was completed that had been sought by the power
of our nation and of the civilized world, for a generation, with stripes
and imprisonment, death, confiscation and the ostracism of the country's
public contempt. It had been obtained, I knew, chiefly by the sagacity
of the First Councillor using the pressure of circumstances to enforce
the persuasions of diplomacy. I felt that a miracle of change had been
brought to pass. He had placed us on the road to freedom; and I trusted
his guidance to lead us to our goal.
That goal, to me personally, was the honor of American citizenship--an
ambition that had been an obsession with me from my earliest youth. I
had never heard a man on a railroad train talk of how he was going to
vote in a national election, without feeling a pang of shamed envy;
for my lack of citizenship seemed a mark of inferiority. The patriotic
reading of my boyhood had made the American republic, to me, the noblest
administration of freemen in the history of government and the exercise
of its franchise literally the highest dignity of human privilege. I
would have been as proud--I was as proud when the day came--to vote for
the President of the United States as he could have been to take his
oath of office. I do not believe that any poor serf, escaped from the
tyranny of Russia, ever saw the American shore with a more grateful eye
than I looked to the prospect of being admitted, with the citizens of
Utah, into the enfranchisement of the Republic.
But it was evident that the Church's recession from polygamy would not
be enough to free us, so long as its control of politics remained. Its
other practices had flourished and been sheltered under its political
power; and now that the Church had ceased to be a lawbreaker, our
friends in Washington were properly expecting that it would cease to
interfere with its members in the exercise of their citizenship. For
this reason, when I was notified that I had been selected as a member of
the advisory committee of the People's Party (the Church party), I went
at once to my father and told him that I would not take the place;
that I intended to work, personally, and through my newspaper, for the
political division of Utah on the lines of the national parties. He held
that until Gentile solidarity was dissolved, it would be dangerous to
divide the allegiance of the Mormons; but he did not stand against
my protest; he contented himself--diplomatically--with sending me to
consult with President Woodruff and Joseph F. Smith.
To them, I argued that the political emancipation of the Mormon people
from ecclesiastical direction was as necessary as the recession from
polygamy had been. We must be set free to perform our duty to the
country solely as citizens of the country, before we could expect to be
given the right to perform it at all. And, for my part, the only action
I would consent to take as a member of the advisory committee of the
People's Party would be to vote for the dissolution of the party.
President Woodruff referred me to my father, and advised me to be guided
by him. Joseph F. Smith urged that a division of the Mormon people on
national party lines would enable the Liberal (the Gentile) party to
march in between. I argued in reply that we must divide at some time,
and the sooner the better, since every year was increasing the Gentile
population. They would never split as long as we remained solid. And if
we were ever to be permitted to nationalize ourselves, it would not be
until we had dissolved the party organizations whose very names were a
proof of the continued rule of the Church in politics.
When he had no more arguments to advance, he gave a reluctant assent to
mine. I reported back to my father and he approved of my plans. He asked
me humorously with whom I expected to affiliate, since he knew of no one
who was likely to go with me; but I could see that he was pleased with
my independence and hoped I might succeed in doing something to break
the deadlock-grapple of Mormon and Gentile that held Utah apart from the
rest of the country in politics.
His humorous idea of my undertaking gave its color to my beginnings.
It was rather a spirited adventure, as I look back upon it now. When we
organized a Republican Club at Ogden, my intimate friend, Ben E. Rich,
and another friend named Joseph Belnap, were the only Mormons, so far
as I know, who joined me in becoming members. Outside of us three, I did
not know of another Mormon Republican in the whole territory.
Indeed, the status of the Mormon people, in their fancied relation to
the two great parties of the country, was almost identical with that of
the people of the South after the Civil War. Practically every Mormon
believed himself to be a Democrat. Among the young men of the Church
there had been occasional attempts to form Democratic Clubs. Mr. John
T. Caine, delegate in Congress from the territory, was a Democrat. My
father had sat on the Democratic side of the House. Almost all the men
who had braved the sentiments of their own states, to speak for us in
Congress, had been Democrats. And, of course, the administration of the
laws that had been so cruel to the feelings of the Mormons had been in
Republican hands.
Two years earlier, in Ogden, I had spoken in a meeting of Republicans
that had been called to rejoice over the election of Benjamin Harrison
to the Presidency; and I was still being taunted by my Mormon friends
with having clasped hands with "the persecutors of the Prophets." When
I came out, now, as an advocate of Republicanism, I was met everywhere
with this charge--that I had joined the enemies of the Church, that
I was assisting the persecutors of my father. The fact that my father
approved of what I was doing, relieved the seriousness of the situation
for me; and the humorous assistance of Ben Rich in our political
evangelism gave a secret chuckle to many of the incidents of our
campaign.
We went from town to town, from district to district, up the
mountain valleys, across the plains, into mining camps and farming
communities--using the meeting-houses, the school-rooms, the town
halls--taking the afternoon to coax the tired workers of the fields or
of the mines to come and hear us in the evening, and watching them fall
asleep in the light of our borrowed kerosene lamps while we talked. They
came eagerly. Indeed, my own ambition for citizenship--for a right to
participate in the affairs of the nation--was probably no keener than
theirs; and they had an innocent curiosity about the questions of
national politics, of which they had never before been invited to know
anything. They listened almost devoutly.
"Brethren and sisters," a bishop exhorted them at a meeting in which one
of our party was to speak, "we have come to listen to this man, and I
hope we will be guided in all our reflections by the Spirit of God
and that we will do nothing to offend that Spirit. Let there be no
commotion, no whispering, and, above all, no hand clapping."
In a life that had as few diversions as theirs, a political meeting was
an exciting event. The whole family came, and the mothers brought their
babies. Surely in no other American community did politics ever have
such a homely and serious consideration. Certainly no other community
would have so quickly understood the theories of the two parties or
accepted them so implicitly.
But it was all theory! I recognize, now, that I preached a Republicanism
that was an ideal of what it should be, rather than any modern faith
of the "practical politician." I had gathered it from my reading, from
hearing the speeches in Congress, from sympathetic conferences with the
great men who were responsible for the dogmas of the party; and every
assurance of grace that their ability could give and my credulity
accept, I proclaimed religiously as a political salvation to our people.
I built up an ideal, and then judged the party thereafter according to
the measure of that ideal. When I found that some of the charges
against the Republican party were true--charges which I had indignantly
repelled--I was as shocked as any pious worshipper who ever found that
his idol had feet of clay. Our people, having accepted the faith with as
simple a hope as it was offered, were as easily turned from it when they
found that it was false. The political moods of Utah, for its first
few years of statehood, were a puzzle to the "practical" leaders of the
parties; but to us who understood the impulses of honesty that moved the
changes, things were as clear as they were encouraging.
During the previous summer in Washington, I had met General James S.
Clarkson, then president of the National League of Republican Clubs;
and now, on his invitation, in the Spring of 1891, Rich and I went
to Louisville to speak before the national convention of the league.
Through the kindness of General Clarkson, I was given the official
recognition of a perfunctory place on the executive committee of the
league's national committee, and came into touch with many of the party
leaders. It was about this time, I imagine, that they conceived the idea
of using the gratitude of the Mormons in order to carry Utah and the
surrounding states in which the Mormon vote might constitute a balance
of political power. I know that the idea was old and established when
I came upon it, in 1894, during the campaign for statehood. As I also
found, still later, the Republican leaders and the business interests
with which they were in relation, had their eyes on a distant prospect
of fabulous financial schemes in which the secret funds of the Church
were to help in the building of railroads and the promoting of other
enterprises of associated capital. But at the time of which I am
writing, I had not had sufficient experience to suspect the motives of
the men who encouraged our work in Utah; and I accepted in good faith
their public declarations that the sole aim of the party was to serve
the needs of the people of the United States--and therefore of the
people of Utah!
It seemed to me that such a noble principle should win the support of
Mormon and Gentile alike, and it was on this principle that I appealed
for the support of both. I was so sure of winning with it that I
resented and fought against the aid of the Church that came to us as our
campaign succeeded.
The People's Party (the Church Party) had been dissolved (June, 1891)
by the formal action of the executive committee, under the direct
instruction of the leaders of the Church. The tendency was for its
members to organize themselves immediately as a Democratic party.
They were led by such brilliant and trusted defenders of the Church as
Franklin S. Richards, Chas. C. Richards, Wm. H. King, James H. Moyle,
Brigham H. Roberts and Apostle Moses Thatcher; and a group of abler
advocates could not have been found in any state in the Union. It was
against the sentiment of the Mormon people, vivified by such inspiring
Democracy as these men taught, that our little organization of
Republicans had to make headway; and an anxiety began to show
itself among the Church authorities for a less unequal division, and
consequently a greater appearance of political independence, among the
faithful.
Apostle John Henry Smith came out as a Republican stump speaker in
rivalry with Moses Thatcher, the Democratic Prophet. Joseph F. Smith
announced himself a Republican descendant of Whigs. Apostle Francis
Marion Lyman, in his religious ministrations, counselled leading
brethren to withhold themselves from the Democratic party unless they
had gone too far to retreat. Men of ecclesiastical office in various
parts of the territory--who were regarded as being safe in their wisdom
and fidelity--were urged to hold themselves and their influence in
reserve for such use on either side of politics as the future might
demand.
Against this ecclesiastical direction of the people's choice, I objected
again and again to the Presidency, and my objections seemed to meet with
acquiescence. It required no prescience on my part to foresee that the
growing dislike and distrust of Moses Thatcher at Church headquarters
would lead to a strife in the Church that might be carried into our
politics; and I knew how small would be the hope of preserving any
political independence, if once it were involved in the intrigues of
priests and their rivalries for a supremacy of influence among the
people. I was resolved that not even a Church, ruling by "divine
right," should interpose between my country and my franchise; and an
encroachment that I would not permit upon my own freedom, I would not
help to inflict upon others.
The men with whom I had been working proposed me as the candidate for
Congress of the new Utah Republicans; and I was supported by a strong
delegation from my own country and from other parts of the territory;
but I found that I was not "satisfactory" to some of the Mormon leaders,
and in the convention (1892) Apostle John Henry Smith and my cousin
George M. Cannon led in an attempt to nominate Judge Chas. Bennett, a
Gentile lawyer. After a bitter fight of two days and nights, we carried
the convention against them, and I was nominated.
The Democrats selected, as their candidate, one of the strongest
characters in the territory, Joseph L. Rawlins. He was the son of a
Mormon bishop, but he had left the Church immediately upon reaching
manhood. He was a great lawyer, a staunch Democrat, and wonderfully
popular. There followed one of the swiftest and most exciting campaigns
ever seen in Utah. The whole people rose to it with enthusiasm. Our
party chairman, Chas. Crane, had a genius for organization; our speakers
drew crowded meetings; and though charges of Church influence were
made by both sides, the question of religion was no longer the one that
divided Utah.
We were getting on famously, when an incident occurred that was at once
disastrous and salutary. While I was away from headquarters, stumping
the districts, Chairman Crane (who was a Gentile), Ben Rich and Joseph
F. Smith, issued a pamphlet in Republican behalf called "Nuggets of
Truth." It gave a picture of Joseph Smith, the original Prophet, on
the first page and a picture of me on the last one. (They issued also
a certificate, obtained by Joseph F. Smith and given out by him, that
I was a Mormon "in good standing.") As soon as I heard of the matter,
I wired Chairman Crane that unless the pamphlet were immediately
withdrawn, I should return to Salt Lake City and publicly denounce such
methods. It was withdrawn, but the damage was done, I was defeated, as
I deserved to be--though I was the innocent victim of the atrocity--and
Mr. Rawlins was elected.
The campaign proved, however, that if the Church leaders would only
keep their hands off, there was ample strength in either party to make
a presentation of national issues of sufficient appeal to divide the
people on party lines; and it was evident that the people would choose
the party that made the best showing of principles and candidates.
"Nuggets of Truth" left us with a nasty sense that at no hour were we
assured of safety from ecclesiastical interference--or the nefarious
attempt to make an appearance of such interference--in our political
affairs. But the disaster that followed, in this instance, was so prompt
that we could hope it would prove a lesson.
Most important of all, the campaign had made it evident that there
was now no political mission in Utah for the Liberal (the Gentile)
party--assuming that the retirement of the Mormon priests from politics
was sincere and permanent. Accordingly, the organization formally met
some months later, and formally dissolved; and, by that act, the
last great obstacle to united progress was removed from our road to
statehood, and the men who removed it acted with a generosity that
makes one of the noblest records of self-sacrifice in the history of the
state.
They could foresee that their dissolution as a separate force meant
statehood for Utah--a sovereignty in itself that would leave the
Gentiles in the minority and without any appeal to the nation. Under
territorial conditions, although the non-Mormons were less than
one-third of the population, they had two-thirds of the political power.
They held all the Federal offices, including executive and judicial
positions. They had the Governor, with an absolute veto over the acts
of the Mormon legislature. They had the President and Congress who could
annul any statute of the territory; and they had with them almost the
entire sentiment of the nation. It was in their power to have protracted
the Mormon controversy, and to have withstood the appeal for statehood,
to this day.
They yielded everything; they accepted, in return, only the good faith
of the Mormons. Was it within the capacity of any human mind to foresee
that in return for such generosity the Church would ever give over its
tabernacles to teaching its people to hold in detestation the very,
names of these men who saved us? Was it to be suspected that the
political power surrendered by them would ever be used as a persecution
upon them?--that the liberty, given by them to us, would ever afterward
be denied them by us? It was inconceivable. Neither in the magnanimity
of their minds nor in the gratitude of ours was there a suspicion of
such a catastrophe.
During 1891, President Woodruff's manifesto had been ratified in local
Church conferences in every "stake of Zion;" and a second General
Conference had endorsed it in October of that year. President Woodruff,
Councillor Joseph F. Smith and Apostle Lorenzo Snow went before the
Federal Master in Chancery--in a proceeding to regain possession of
escheated Church property--and swore that the manifesto had prohibited
plural marriages, that it required a cessation of all plural marriage
living, and that it was being obeyed by the Mormon people. These facts
were recited in a petition for amnesty forwarded to President Harrison
in December, 1891, accompanied by signed statements from Chief Justice
Zane, Governor Thomas and other non-Mormons who pledged themselves that
the petitioners were sincere and that if amnesty were granted good faith
would be kept. "Our people are scattered," President Woodruff and his
apostles declared in their petition. "Homes are made desolate. Many are
still imprisoned; others are banished and in hiding. Our hearts bleed
for these. In the past they followed our counsels, and while they are
still afflicted our souls are in sackcloth and ashes.... As shepherds
of a patient and suffering people we ask amnesty for them and pledge our
faith and honor for their future."
At Washington, the Church's attorney, Mr. Franklin S. Richards, and
delegate John T. Caine supported the petition with their avowals of
the sincerity of the Church leaders, the genuineness of our political
division, and the sanctity with which we regarded the promise to obey
the laws. The Utah Commission, a non-Mormon body, favored amnesty in an
official report of September, 1892. And when I went to Washington, in
the winter of 1892-3, the changed attitude of the Federal authorities
toward us was strikingly evident.
President Harrison issued his amnesty proclamation, early in January,
1893, to all persons liable to the penalties of the Edmunds-Tucker Act,
but "on the express condition that they shall in the future faithfully
obey the laws of the United States... and not otherwise." The
proclamation concluded: "Those who fail to avail themselves of the
clemency hereby offered will be vigorously prosecuted." Not a polygamist
in Utah, to my knowledge, declined to take advantage of the mercy, by
refusing the expressly implied pledge.
Meanwhile the campaign had been continued for the return of the
escheated Church property and for the passage of an Enabling Act that
should permit the territory to organize for statehood.
[FOOTNOTE: Statehood seemed still very faraway. There was a
Trans-Mississippi Congress held at Ogden in 1892, and though the
delegates--coming from all the states and territories "west of the
river," were the guests of the people of Utah, so hopeless was our
status in the consideration of mankind that the delegates from the
territories of New Mexico and Arizona would not let our names be joined
to theirs in a resolution for statehood which we wished the committee
on resolutions to propose to the Congress. Governor Prince of New Mexico
replied, to our plea for a share in the resolution, that he did not
intend to damn New Mexico by having her mixed up with Utah. We appealed
to the Congress, and we were saved by a speech made by Thos. M.
Patterson of Colorado, subsequently senator from Colorado, who carried
the day for us. At a recent Trans-Mississippi Congress held in Denver,
I sat with ex-Senator Patterson to hear Mr. Prince still proposing
resolutions in support of statehood for New Mexico. Twenty years later!]
Joseph L. Rawlins, Democratic delegate from Utah, worked valiantly among
the Democrats, and he was assisted by the influence of Mr. Franklin S.
Richards and John T. Caine and others among their old associates in that
party. But, in the very midst of the fight, we were advised that,
unless the Republican leaders would let the Enabling Act go through, the
Democratic leaders would falter in our advocacy.
I had been urged to go to Washington by the Presidency to do what I
might to allay Republican antagonism, and I found that a number of
self-appointed lobbyists (who expected political preferment's and other
rewards from the Church in the event of statehood) had been using the
most amazing arguments in our behalf. For example, they told some of
the "financial Senators" that the Church had fourteen million dollars in
secret funds with which to help build a railroad to the coast as soon
as statehood should be granted. They cited the number of the Church's
adherents in all the states and territories of the Pacific Coast and as
far east as Iowa and Missouri, and predicted that the gratitude of these
people to the Republicans who were helping to free Utah would enable the
Republican party to control a balance of political power in the several
states. They declared positively that plural marriages and plural
marriage living had utterly ceased among the Mormons for all time. And
they made such statements with great particularity to Senator Orville H.
Platt, of Connecticut, who was too wise a man to credit them.
As soon as I returned to Washington, he summoned me to a private
meeting, in his parlor in the Arlington Hotel, and confronted me with
one of the Republican lobbyists who had been soliciting his personal
favor and his almost controlling influence. "Now, Mr. Cannon," he said,
in his dry way, "have the Mormons stopped living with their plural
wives? And will there never be another case of plural marriage among
them?"
I remembered the lesson of my interview with him at the time of the
campaign against the disfranchisement bill, and I answered: "No. Not
all the men of the Church have complied fully with the law. So far as
I know, all the general authorities of the Church--with two or three
exceptions--are fulfilling the covenant they gave; and so far as I can
judge there will never be another plural marriage ceremony with the
consent or connivance of the leaders of the Church. But human nature is
very much the same in Utah as it is in Connecticut. Here and there, no
doubt, a man feels that he's under an obligation to keep his covenant
with his plural wives in preference to the covenant of his accepted
amnesty; and there and here, possibly, in the future, some man will
break the law and defy the orders of the Church and take a plural wife.
But the leaders of the Church do not countenance either proceeding, and
any man who violates the law, in either respect, offends against the
revelations of the Church and, I believe, will be dealt with as an
apostate. I come direct from the Presidency of the Church, and I am
authorized to pledge their word of honor that they will themselves obey
the law and do all in their power as men and leaders to bring their
people into harmony with the institutions of this country as rapidly as
possible."
Senator Platt had slowly unwrapped himself, rising from his chair to his
full height of more than six feet, in a lank and alarming indignation.
"There," he said, striding up and down the room. "That's it! That's just
it. These people have been telling us that you were obeying the law--all
of you--in every instance--and would always obey it. And now you come
here and admit, openly, that some of you, to whom we have granted
amnesty, are breaking your word--and that 'possibly' others, in the
future, will do the same thing!"
"Senator," I pleaded, "what confidence could you have in me if I were to
tell you the Mormons were so superhuman that in a single day they could
eliminate all their human characteristics? I'm asking you to recognize
that the tendency imparted to a whole community is more important
than any one man's breach of the law. Believe me, if you grant us our
statehood, there will never be any lawbreaking sanctioned or protected
by the Church leaders, and just as speedily as possible the entire
system will be brought into harmony with the institutions of the nation.
I'm telling you the truth."
He turned on me to ask, abruptly, how the polygamists had adjusted their
family affairs.
I answered that in nearly all cases within my personal knowledge, the
polygamist had relinquished conjugal relations with his plural wives
with the full acquiescence of them and their children. He supported
them, cared for the children, and in all other ways acted as the
guardian and protector of the household. In a few cases men had gone,
to an extreme. For instance, my uncle, Angus M. Cannon--president of the
Salt Lake "stake of Zion," a man of most decided character--had declared
that he had entered into his marriage relations with his wives under a
covenant that gave them equality in his regards; and in order that he
might not wound the sensibilities of any, he had separated himself from
all.
I reminded Senator Platt that with such examples on the part of the
leaders, there could be no general law-breaking among the Mormons, and
that gradually the polygamous element would accommodate itself to the
demands of law and the commands of God.
He waved us away with a curt announcement that he would have to think
the matter over. If I had not known the essential justice and common
sense under his dry and irascible exterior, I might have been alarmed.
The lobbyist's concern was almost comic. As soon as we were out of
hearing of the Senator's apartment, shaking both fists frantically at
me, he cried: "You've ruined everything! We had him. We had him--all
right--until you came down here and let the cat out of the bag! You knew
what we'd been telling him. Why didn't you stick to it?"
I replied with equal warmth: "You may lie all you please; but if we have
to win Utah's statehood with lies I don't want it. Senator Platt has
been generous to us in our time of need, and I don't intend to deceive
him--or any other man."
As a matter of fact, this was not only common honesty; it was also the
best policy. Senator Platt was, from that time to the day of his death,
a good friend and wise counselor of the people of Utah. And I wish to
lay particular stress upon this conversation with him, because it was
a type of many had with such men as he. Fred T. Dubois, delegate in
Congress from the territory of Idaho and subsequently Senator from that
state, had been perhaps the strongest single opponent, in Washington, of
the Mormon Church; he took our promises of honor, as Senator Platt did,
and he pacified Senator Cullom, Senator Pettigrew and many others among
our antagonists, who afterwards told me that they had accepted the
pledges given by Senator Dubois in our behalf.
They recognized that the Church and the community ought not to be
held responsible for a few possible cases of individual resistance or
offense, so long as there should be a strict adherence by the Church and
its leaders to their personal and community covenant. I emphasize the
nature of this generous appreciation of our difficulties, because
the present-day polygamists in Utah claim that there was a "tacit
understanding," between the statesmen in Washington and the agents
of the Church, to the effect that the polygamists of that time might
continue to live with their plural wives. This is not true. There never
was any such understanding, to my knowledge. And there could not have
been one, in the circumstances, without my knowledge. For though I
did not know what delegate Rawlins, and former delegate Caine, and our
attorney, Mr. Richards, were saying in their private interviews with
senators and congressmen, I know that in all the frequent conversations
I had with them I never heard an intimation of any "tacit understanding"
beyond the one which I have defined.
For my part I was more than eager to have all our political disabilities
removed, the Church property restored, and the right of statehood
accorded--believing implicitly in the sincerity of the Mormon leaders. I
knew President Woodruff too well to doubt the pellacid character of his
mind and purpose. I knew from my father's personal assurance--and from
his constant practice from that time to the day of his death--that he
was acting in good faith. I knew that the community was gladly following
where these men led. I saw no slightest indication that any reactionary
policy was likely to be entered upon in Utah, or that our people would
accept it if it were.
The Church's personal property was restored by an Act of Congress
approved October 25, 1893, but it was stipulated in the Act that the
money was not to be used for the support of any church buildings in
which "the rightfulness of the practice of polygamy" should be taught.
Similarly, when the Enabling Act was approved, in July 16, 1894,
it, too, provided that "polygamous or plural marriage" was forever
prohibited. A constitutional convention was held at Salt Lake City under
the provisions of that act, and a constitution was adopted in which
it was provided that "polygamous or plural marriages" were forever
prohibited, that the territorial laws against polygamy were to be
continued in force, that there should be "no union of church and state,"
and that no church should "dominate the state or interfere with its
functions." Upon no other basis would the nation have granted us our
statehood; and we accepted the grant, knowing the expressed condition
involved in that acceptance.
But there was one other gift that came to us from the nation--by
Congressional enactment and later by Utah statute as a consequence of
statehood; and that gift was the legitimizing of every child born
of plural marriage before January, 1896. The solemn benignity of the
concession touched me, as it must have touched many, to the very heart
of gratitude. By it, ten thousand children were taken from the outer
darkness of this world's conventional exclusion and placed within
the honored relations of mankind. It was a tribute to the purity
and sincerity of the Mormon women who had borne the cross of plural
marriage, believing that God had commanded their suffering. It
recognized the holy nature and honorable intent of the marriages
of these women, by according their children every right of legal
inheritance from their fathers. If all other covenants could be
forgotten and their proof obliterated, this should remain as Utah's
pledge of honor--sacred for the sake of the Mormon mothers, holy in the
name of the uplifted child.