During the last years of President Woodruff's life there had been a slow
decline of the feeling that it was necessary for self-protection that
the hierarchy should preserve a political control over the people. I
cannot say that the feeling had wholly passed. It had continued to show
itself, here and there, whenever a candidate was so pertinacious in
his independence that words of disfavor were sent out from Church
headquarters in one of those whispers that carry to the confines of the
kingdom of the priests. But the progress was apparent. The tendency was
clear. And in 1898 there was neither internal revolt nor external threat
to provoke a renewal of the exercise of that force which is necessarily
despotic if it be used at all.
Yet, in September, 1898, President Snow, if he did not instigate, at
least authorized the candidacy of Brigham H. Roberts for Congress--a
polygamist who had been threatened with excommunication for his
opposition to the "political manifesto" of 1896 and who had recanted and
made his peace with the hierarchy. His election, now, would be a proof
that the Church could punish a brilliant orator and courageous citizen
in the time of his independence and then reward him in the day of his
submission; and the authorities would thus demonstrate to all the people
that the one way to political preferment lay through the annihilation of
self-will and the submergence of national loyalty in priestly devotion.
Such a candidacy was a sufficient shame to the state; but there was
also a United States Senatorship to be bestowed; and it was deliberately
bargained for, between the Church authorities and a man who deserved
better than the alliance into which he entered.
Alfred W. McCune was a citizen of Utah who had gone out from the
territory in the days of its poverty (and his own), had made a fortune
in British Columbia and Montana, and had returned to his home state to
enrich it with his generosities. He was not a Mormon, but he had wide
Mormon connections. He spent his millions in public enterprises and
benefactions; and the Church had benefited in the sum of many thousands
by his subscriptions to its funds and institutions.
Apostle Heber J. Grant, a Republican by sentiment but a Democrat by
pretension, was selected by President Snow to barter the Senatorship to
McCune. There can be no doubt of it. Everyone immediately suspected
it. Letters from Grant, published in the newspapers of January, 1899,
subsequently confirmed it. And President Snow's actions, toward the end
of the campaign, proved it.
The other candidates were Judge O. W. Powers, a prominent Democrat;
William H. King, also a Democrat, a former member of Congress and at one
time a Federal judge; and myself as an independent Silver Republican.
I had not allied myself with the Democrats after withdrawing from
the Republican convention of 1896, and the Republican machine in
Utah (thanks to the power of the "interests") had repudiated me, in
September, 1898, by adopting a platform that refused to support as
Senator any man who had opposed the Dingley Tariff Bill. But I had the
votes of my own county of Weber, and some other votes that had been
pledged to me before the election of members of the legislature; and
though my return to the Senate seemed plainly impossible, I went into
the fight in fulfillment of understandings which I had with progressive
elements in Utah and with the "insurgents," of that day, in Washington.
During the campaign to elect members of the Legislature, I supported the
Democratic State and Congressional ticket. Brigham H. Roberts had been
nominated for Congress on this ticket despite the protests of my father
and many others who foresaw the evil results of electing a polygamist. I
accepted Roberts' nomination as proof that this question must be settled
anew at Washington; and I contented myself with predicting, throughout
the campaign, that the House of Representatives would determine whether
it would admit a polygamist and a member of the hierarchy as a lawmaker,
and would so forever dispose of these ecclesiastical candidacies of
which Utah refused to dispose for itself. (And it is a fact that since
the prompt exclusion of Roberts from the House of Representatives no
known polygamist has been elected to either House of Congress.)
A Democratic legislature was elected, and A. W. McCune was put forward
prominently as a candidate for the United States senatorship. He was
assisted by his own newspaper, the Salt Lake Herald, by numberless
business interests, cleverly by the Deseret News (the organ of the
hierarchy) flagrantly and for financial reasons by Apostle Heber J.
Grant, and incidentally by the Smiths on behalf of the Church. Also
a Republican assistance was given him by my former colleague in the
Senate, Arthur Brown, who specialized as an opponent to my candidacy.
My old campaign manager, Ben Rich, had been withdrawn from me by a
Church order appointing him in control of the Eastern missions. I
was without the support of either the Democratic or Republican
organizations: my following was a personal one: and consequently the
attack upon me chiefly took the form of stories of personal immorality,
privately circulated. These stories culminated in a motion before the
Woman's Republican Club, demanding my withdrawal from the Senatorial
contest on the ground of "gross misconduct"--a motion introduced by a
Mrs. Anna M. Bradley, a woman politician (who was a stranger to me),
with the assistance of Mrs. Arthur Brown, wife of the former Senator.
If I ever had any resentment against these unfortunate women for
allowing themselves to be used as the agents of slander, it passed
in the miseries that overtook them later; for Mrs. Brown died of the
scandal of her husband's intimacy with Mrs. Bradley, and Mrs. Bradley
shot and killed ex-Senator Brown, in a Washington hotel, because he
refused to marry her and recognize her child after her divorce from her
husband.
My anger then, and since, was not against the women, but against the
men who hid behind them--against Apostle Heber J. Grant and Apostle John
Henry Smith and their tool, ex-Senator Brown. In my anger I decided to
take an action that looked as desperate as it proved successful. I hired
the Salt Lake Theatre--for a night (February 9, 1899), and announced
that I would speak on "Senatorial Candidates and Pharisees"--intending
to use the opportunity of self-defense in order to attack the "financial
apostles" who were selling Church influence.
In taking that step I understood, of course, that it meant the death for
me of any political ambition in Utah. It meant offending my father, who
besought me not to raise my hand against "the Lord's anointed," but to
leave my enemies "to God's justice"--as he had always done with his. It
meant a breach with many of my friends in the Church who would blindly
resent my criticism of the political apostles as an encouragement to the
enemies of the faith. But the part that I had taken in helping Utah to
gain its statehood made it impossible for me to stand aside, now, and
see all our pledges broken, all our promises betrayed. I had to offer
myself as a sacrifice to hierarchical resentment in the hope that my
destruction might give at least a momentary pause to the reactionaries
in their career.
It is needless that I should relate all the incidents of that wild
night. The theatre was packed with people who joined me for the moment
in a sympathetic protest against the disgrace of Utah. President Lorenzo
Snow, his two councillors and several apostles were present, and I spoke
without any reservations on account of personal relationship, my own
candidacy or the possible effect upon my own affairs. I appealed to the
people to prevent the sale of Utah's senatorship to McCune by Apostle
Grant and the Church reactionaries; and by turning the light of
publicity upon the methods that were being employed in the legislature,
I made it impossible for the hierarchy to sway enough votes to elect
McCune. The men who had pledged themselves to the other candidates
could not be shaken from their support without a national scandal. The
election settled for the time into a deadlock, in which no candidate
could obtain enough votes to elect him.
Apostle Heber J. Grant started to write letters that should counteract
the effect of my speech, but President Snow forbade him to continue the
controversy and sent word to me that he had forbidden Grant to continue
it. I did not know why President Snow wished me to feel that he was
friendly to me, but I was soon to learn.
The deadlock in the legislature continued, in spite of all the efforts
of the Church authorities to break it. Our political workers, summoned
one by one by messengers from Church headquarters, had gone to
interviews from which they did not return to us--until I had left only
Judge Ed. F. Colborn (a famous character in Kansas, Colorado and Utah),
and an old friend, Jesse W. Fox. One night, about a week after the
meeting in the theatre, we three were sitting alone in my rooms, when
the door opened and someone beckoned to Fox. He went out. Judge Colborn
opened a window to see Fox getting into a carriage with a man from
Church headquarters--and we knew that our last worker was gone.
He returned only to tell me that President Snow wished to see me--that
if I were willing, the President would like to have me call upon him, at
half past nine the following evening, in his residence. And I understood
the significance of such an invitation for such an hour. I had been
too often in contact with the power of the Prophets to doubt what was
required of me. I was curious merely to know what form the ultimatum
would take.
President Snow was then living with his youngest wife in a house a few
blocks from the offices of the Presidency. I drove there in a carriage
and ordered the driver to wait for me. President Snow opened the door
to me himself, received me with his usual engaging smile, and ushered
me into a reception room that was shut off, by portieres, from a larger
parlor. There, when he had invited me to be seated, he said, winningly:
"I was not sure you would come in answer to my message."
I assured him that I had not so far lost my regard for the men with whom
my father was associated. "And besides," I said, "if there were no other
reason, it is my place, as the younger of the two, to attend on your
convenience."
"I did not know," he replied, "but that you thought me one of the
'Pharisees' of whom you spoke."
I did not accept this invitation to reply that I did not consider him
one of the Pharisees. I explained merely that I had identified the
Pharisees in my speech by name and deed and accusation. "Unless
something there said is applicable to you, I have no charge to make
against you."
He excused himself a moment to go to an infant whom we could hear crying
in an inner room; and, when he returned, he had the child in his arms--a
little girl, in a night gown. He sat down, petting her, stroking her
hair with his supple lean hand, affectionately, and smiling with a sort
of absentminded tenderness as he took up the conversation again.
This memory of him sticks in my mind as one of the most extraordinary
pictures of my experience. I knew that I had come there to hear my own
or some other person's political death sentence. I knew that he would
not have invited me at such an hour, with such secrecy, unless the issue
of our conference was to be something dark and fatal. And in the soft
radiance of the lamp he sat smiling--fragile of build, almost spiritual,
white-haired, delicately cultured--soothing the child who played with
his long silvery beard and blinked sleepily. He inquired whether my
carriage was waiting for me, and I replied that it was. He asked me to
dismiss it. When I returned to the room, the little girl was resting
quiet, and he excused himself to take her to her cot. I heard him
closing the doors behind him as he came back. "We may now talk with
perfect freedom," he announced. "There's no one else in this part of the
house."
He sat down in his chair, composing himself with an air that might have
distinguished one of the ancient kings. "I have sent for you to talk
about the Senatorial situation. May I speak plainly to you?"
I replied that he might. He was watching me, under his gray eyebrows,
with his soft eyes, in which there was a glitter of blackness but none
of the rheum of old age.
"It would be most unfortunate," he said, "for us, as a people, if we
failed to elect a Senator. I've had many business and other anxieties
for the Church, and I want this question settled. If we act wisely--with
the power and influence at our command--aid will come to me. I think you
would not willingly permit our situation to become more difficult."
He must have seen a change in my expression--a change that indicated
how well I understood the significance of this guarded introduction.
Suddenly, his manner broke into animation, and holding out both hands
to me, palms up, he said, smiling: "You must know, Brother Frank, that
I had nothing to do with Mr. McCune's candidacy for the Senate, do you
not? I was not responsible for what Brother Grant did. Before we go on,
I want you to acquit me of responsibility for that project."
"President Snow," I replied, "I can't admit so much. I, too, wish to
talk plainly--with your permission. Your responsibility is evident even
to the casual observer--to say nothing of one reared as I've been.
Every man in this community knows that when you point your finger your
apostles go, and when you crook your finger your apostles return--and
Heber J. Grant has only done what you permitted him to do with your full
knowledge."
He drew himself up, coldly. "What I have done," he retorted, "has been
done with the knowledge of my Councillor's."
The thrust was obvious. I replied: "If my father desires to discuss with
me his responsibility for this indignity to the state, he knows I'm at
his command. And if I have any charge to make, involving his good faith
toward the country, I'll seek him alone."
"Very well," he said, with a frigid suavity. "We will leave that part of
the question." He paused. "Last night," he continued, "lying on my bed,
I had a vision. I saw this work of God injured by the political strife
of the brethren. And the voice of the Lord came to me, directing me to
see that your father was elected to the Senate." He studied me a moment
before he added: "What have you to say?"
I answered: "It seems to me impossible. This legislature is strongly
Democratic. My father's a Republican. It seems to me not only
impracticable but very unwise--if it could be done."
"Never mind that," he said. "The Lord will take care of the event.
I want you to withdraw from the race and throw your strength to your
father. It is the will of the Lord that you do so."
"Have you a revelation to that effect also?" I asked.
He answered, pontifically, "Yes."
"You'll publish it to the world, then, the same as other revelations?"
"No," he replied. "No."
"Then I'll not obey it," I said, "because if God is ashamed of it, I
am."
His air of prophetic authority changed to one of combative resolution.
He explained that one of the other candidates, a strong Democrat, had
agreed to accept the revelation if I would; that the two of us could
give our strength to the church candidate; that the Church would turn
to my father the votes that it had already in command for McCune, and my
father's election would be carried.
I felt that the thumb-screws were being put on me again. For the second
time I was being forced to the point of denying the Senatorship to my
father by refusing him my support. And there could not have been, for
me, a more vivid and instantaneous illumination of the hidden depths in
this Church system--or in the individual Prophet of the cult--than was
made by Snow's determined insistence that I should break my word of
honor to the people of the state and of the nation, pledge that broken
faith to him, induce all my supporters in the legislature to violate
their covenants--Mormon and Gentile alike!--and upon his mere assumption
of divine authority, direct Mormon and Gentile to stultify and disgrace
themselves forever as men and public officials. There was something
appalling in the calculating cruelty with which he proposed to devote us
all to destruction and dishonor. There was something inhumanly malignant
in the plan to use my known affection for my father in order to make
me guilty of the very betrayal of the people which I had publicly
denounced. I looked at him--and heard him, now, placidly, confidently,
with a renewed suavity, urging me to do the thing.
"President Snow," I interrupted, "does my father know of this?"
He answered: "No."
"I'm glad of it," I said. (And I was!) "This is not the way to work out
either the destiny of 'God's people' or the destiny of this state. It
would place my father in a most humiliating position to be elected--at
the orders of the Church--under the assumption that God Almighty had
directed men to break their solemn promises to their constituents. I
have as high an admiration for my father's wisdom and ability as you or
the Democratic candidate who has offered to withdraw at the will of the
Church, but I should be paying no honor to my father by dishonoring my
pledge to my constituents and asking other men to dishonor theirs."
He dismissed me with an air of benignant sorrow!
The deadlock in the legislature continued unbroken. Among my supporters
was Lewis W. Shurtliff, the President of the "Stake of Zion" in which I
lived; he was one of the highest Church dignitaries in the legislature
and was regarded as my foremost champion in the Senatorial contest.
On the last day of the legislative session, at President Snow's
instruction, my father, known as a Republican, was offered as a
senatorial candidate to this Democratic legislature, and all the power
of the Church influence was thrown to him. President Shurtliff's wife
came to our headquarters, that night, and knelt, with a number of other
ladies, to pray that her husband might be spared the humiliation of
breaking his repeated promise not to desert me! We all knew that if he
broke his promise, it would cause him more mental anguish than
anyone else; but we knew, too, that if the command came from Church
headquarters, he would have to obey it. Men broke their political
pledges to their people and outraged their own feelings of personal
independence or partisan loyalty, rather than offend against "the will
of the Lord." The forces of the other candidates went to pieces, and on
the last night of the session my father's vote reached twenty-three. (It
required thirty-two votes to elect.)
The situation was saved by the action of a number of Democrats who
got together and obtained a recess; when the recess was ended, a final
ballot was taken, and, since no candidate had enough votes to elect him,
the presiding officer, by pre-concertment, declared the joint assembly
adjourned sine die, by operation of law. No Senator was elected.
But it was the last time that the Church authorities were to be balked.
Since that day, they have dictated the nominations and carried the
elections of the United States Senators from Utah as if these were
candidates for a church office. The present Senator, Reed Smoot, is an
apostle of the Church; he obtained the Mormon President's "permission"
to become a candidate, as he admitted to an investigating committee
of the Senate; and when the recent tariff bill was being attacked by
insurgent Republicans and carried by Senator Aldrich, Senator Smoot
acted as Aldrich's lieutenant in debate, and remained to watch the
defense of the "interests" when his chief was absent from the Senate
chamber. (Not because Smoot was such an able defender of those
"interests"! Not because his constituents would uphold his course! But
because he has no constituents, and is responsible to no one but the
hierarchical partners of those "interests.")
Every pledge of the Mormon leaders that the Church would not interfere
in politics has been broken at every election in Utah since President
Snow that night pleaded to me that he had had many business anxieties
for the Church and that if we elected the Church candidate "aid" would
come to him. The covenants by which Utah obtained its statehood have
been violated again and again. The provisions of the state constitution
have been nullified. The trust of the Mormon people has been abused;
their political liberties have been denied them; their Gentile brethren
have been betrayed. And all this has been done not for the protection
of the people, who were threatened with no proscription--and not for
the advancement of the faith, which has been free to work out its
own future. It has been done as a part of the alliance between the
"financial" prophets of the Church and the financial "interests" of
the country--which have been exploiting the people of Utah as they
have exploited the whole nation with the aid of the ecclesiastical
authorities in Utah.