Just before the subpoenas were issued in the Smoot investigation, I met
John R. Winder (then First Councillor to President Smith) on the street
in Salt Lake City, and he expressed the hope that when I went "to
Washington on the Smoot case," I would not "betray" my "brethren." I
assured him that I was not going to Washington as a witness in the Smoot
case; that the men whom he should warn, were at Church headquarters. He
replied, with indignant alarm, "I don't see what 'the brethren' have to
do with this!"
But when the subpoenas arrived for Smith and the hierarchy, alarm and
indignation assumed a new complexion. The authorities, for themselves,
and through the mouths of such men as Brigham H. Roberts, began to boast
of how they were about to "carry the gospel to the benighted nation" and
preach it from the witness stand in Washington. The Mormon communities
resounded with fervent praises to God that He had, through His servant,
Apostle Smoot, given the opportunity to His living oracles to speak to
an unrighteous people! And when the Senators decided that they would
not summon polygamous wives and their children en bloc to Washington to
testify (because it was not desired to "make war on women and children")
some of Joseph F. Smith's several wives even complained feelingly that
they "were not allowed to testify for Papa."
The first oracular disclosure made by the Prophets, on the witness
stand, came as a shock even to Utah. They testified that they had
resumed polygamous cohabitation to an extent unsuspected by either
Gentiles or Mormons. President Joseph F. Smith admitted that he had had
eleven children borne to him by his five wives, since pledging
himself to obey the "revealed" manifesto of 1890 forbidding polygamous
relations. Apostle Francis Marion Lyman, who was next in succession to
the Presidency, made a similar admission of guilt, though in a lesser
degree. So did John Henry Smith and Charles W. Penrose, apostles. So did
Brigham H. Roberts and George Reynolds, Presidents of Seventies. So did
a score of others among the lesser authorities. And they confessed that
they were living in polygamy in violation of their pledges to the nation
and the terms of their amnesty, against the laws and the constitution of
the state, and contrary to the "revelation of God" by which the doctrine
of polygamy had been withdrawn from practice in the Church!
President Joseph F. Smith admitted that he was violating the law of the
State. He was asked: "Is there not a revelation that you shall abide by
the law of the State and of the land?" He answered, "Yes, sir." He was
asked: "And if that is a revelation, are you not violating the laws
of God?" He answered: "I have admitted that, Mr. Senator, a great many
times here."
Apostle Francis Marion Lyman was asked: "You say that you, an apostle
of your Church, expecting to succeed (if you survive Mr. Smith) to
the office in which you will be the person to be the medium of Divine
revelations, are living, and are known to your people to live, in
disobedience of the law of the land and the law of God?" Apostle Lyman
answered: "Yes, sir." The others pleaded guilty to the same charge.
But this was not the worst. There had been new polygamous marriages.
Bishop Chas. E. Merrill, the son of an apostle, testified that his
father had married him to a plural wife in 1891, and that he had been
living with both wives ever since. A Mrs. Clara Kennedy testified that
she had been married to a polygamist in 1896, in Juarez, Mexico, by
Apostle Brigham Young, Jr., in the home of the president of the stake.
There was testimony to show that Apostle George Teasdale had taken a
plural wife six years after the "manifesto" forbidding polygamy, and
that Benjamin Cluff, Jr., president of the Church university, had
taken a plural wife in 1899. Some ten other less notorious cases were
exposed--including those of M. W. Merrill, an apostle, and J. M. Tanner,
superintendent of Church schools. It was testified that Apostle John W.
Taylor had taken two plural wives within four years, and that Apostle M.
F. Cowley had taken one; and both these men had fled from the country in
order to escape a summons to appear before the Senate committee.
President Joseph F. Smith, in his attempts to justify his own polygamy,
gave some very involved and contradictory testimony. He said that he
adhered to both the divine revelation commanding polygamy and the
divine revelation "suspending" the command. He said he believed that the
principle of plural marriage was still as "correct a principle" as when
first revealed, but that the "law commanding it" had been suspended
by President Woodruff's manifesto. He said that he accepted President
Woodruff's manifesto as a revelation from God, but he objected to having
it called "a law of the Church;" he insisted that it was only "a rule
of the Church." He admitted that the manifesto forbidding polygamy had
never been printed among the other revelations in the Church's book of
"Doctrine and Covenants," in which the original revelation commanding
polygamy was still printed without note or qualification of any kind. He
admitted that this anti-polygamy manifesto was not printed in any of the
other doctrinal works which the Mormon missionaries took with them
when they were sent out to preach the Mormon faith. He claimed that the
manifesto was circulated in pamphlet form, but he subsequently admitted
that the pamphlet did not "state in terms" that the manifesto was a
"revelation." He finally pleaded that the manifesto had been omitted
from the book of "Doctrine and Covenants" by an "oversight," and he
promised to have it included in the next edition!
[FOOTNOTE: 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.]
In short, it was shown, by the testimony given and the evidence
introduced, not only that the Church authorities persisted in living in
polygamy, not only that polygamous marriages were being contracted, but
that the Church still adhered to the doctrine of polygamy and taught it
as a law of God.
President Joseph F. Smith denied the right of Congress to regulate his
"private conduct" as a polygamist. "It is the law of my state to which
I am amenable," he said, "and if the officers of the law have not
done their duty toward me I can not blame them. I think they have some
respect for me."
A mass of testimony showed why the officers of the law did not do their
duty. During the anti-polygamy agitation of 1899 (which ended in the
refusal of Congress to seat Brigham H. Roberts) a number of prosecutions
of polygamists had been attempted. In many instances the county
attorney had refused to prosecute even upon sworn information. Wherever
prosecutions were had, the fines imposed were nominal; these were in
some cases never paid, and in other cases paid by popular subscription.
It was testified that in Box Elder County subscription lists had been
circulated to collect money for the fines, but that the fines were never
paid, though the subscriptions had been collected. All the prosecutions
had been dropped, at last. It was pleaded that there was a strong
Gentile sentiment against these prosecutions, because of the hope that
no new polygamous marriages were being contracted; but it was shown
also, that the Church authorities controlled the enforcement of the law
by their influence in the election of the agents of the law.
The Church controlled, too, the making of the law. For example,
testimony was given to show that in 1896 the Church authorities had
appointed a committee of six elders to examine all bills introduced into
the Utah legislature and decide which were "proper" to be passed. In the
neighboring state of Idaho, the legislature, in 1904, unanimously and
without discussion passed a resolution for a new state constitution that
should omit the anti-polygamy test oath clauses objectionable to the
Mormons; and in this connection it was testified that the state chairman
of both political parties in Idaho always went to Salt Lake City, before
a campaign, to consult with the Church authorities; that every request
of the authorities made to the Idaho political leaders was granted; that
six of the twenty-one countries in Idaho were "absolutely controlled"
by Mormons, and the "balance of power" in six counties more was held by
Mormons; and that it was "impossible for any man or party to go against
the Mormon Church in Idaho." Apostle John Henry Smith testified that
one-third of the population of Idaho was Mormon and one-fourth of the
population of Wyoming, and that there were large settlements in
Nevada, Colorado, California, Arizona and the surrounding states and
territories.
A striking example of the power of the Church as against the power of
the nation was given to the Senate committee by John Nicholson, chief
recorder of the temple in Salt Lake City. He had failed to produce some
of the temple marriage records for which the committee had called. He
was asked whether he would bring the books, on the order of the Senate
of the United States, if the First Presidency of the Church forbade him
to bring them. He answered: "I would not." He was asked: "And if the
Senate should send the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate and arrest you and
order you to bring them" (the records) "with you, you would still refuse
to bring them, unless the First Presidency asked you to?" He answered,
"Yes, sir."
It was shown that classes of instruction in the Mormon religion had been
forced upon teachers in a number of public schools in Utah by the orders
of the First Presidency. (These orders were withdrawn after the exposure
before the committee.) Church control had gone so far in Brigham City,
Box Elder County, Utah, that in a dispute between the City Council and
the electric lighting company of the city, the local ecclesiastical
council interfered. In the same city, two young men built a dancing
pavilion that competed with the Church-owned Opera House; the
ecclesiastical council "counselled" them to remove the pavilion and
dispose of "the material in its construction;" they were threatened that
they would be "dropped" if they did not obey this "counsel;" and they
compromised by agreeing to pay twenty-five percent of the net earnings
of their pavilion into the Church's "stake treasury." In Monroe ward,
Sevier County, Utah, in 1901, a Mormon woman named Cora Birdsall had a
dispute with a man named James E. Leavitt about a title to land. Leavitt
went into the bishop's court and got a decision against her. She wrote
to President Joseph F. Smith for permission either to appeal the case
direct to him or "to go to law" in the matter; and Smith advised her
"to follow the order provided of the Lord to govern in your case." The
dispute was taken through the ecclesiastical courts and decided against
her. She refused to deed the land to Leavitt and she was excommunicated
by order of the High Council of the Sevier Stake of Zion. She became
insane as a result of this punishment, and her mother appealed to the
stake president to grant her some mitigation. He wrote, in reply: "Her
only relief will be in complying with President Smith's wishes. You say
she has never broken a rule of the Church. You forget that she has done
so by failing to abide by the decision of the mouthpiece of God." She
finally gave up a deed to the disputed land and was rebaptized in 1904.
(Letters of the First Presidency were, however, introduced to show that
it had been the policy of the presidency--particularly in President
Woodruff's day--not to interfere in disputes involving titles to land.)
It was testified that a Mormon merchant was expelled from the
Church, ostensibly for apostasy, but really because he engaged in the
manufacture of salt "against the interests of the President of the
Church and some of his associates;" that a Mormon Church official was
deposed "for distributing, at a school election, a ticket different from
that prescribed by the Church authorities"--and so on, interminably.
Witness after witness swore to the incidents of Church interference
in politics which this narrative has already related in detail. But no
attempt was made to show the Church's partnership with the "interests;"
and the power of the Church in business circles was left to be inferred
from President Smith's testimony that he was then president of the
Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institution, the State Bank of Utah,
the Zion's Savings Bank and Trust Company, the Utah Sugar Company,
the Consolidated Wagon and Machine Company, the Utah Light and Power
Company, the Salt Lake and Los Angeles Railroad Company, the Saltair
Beach Company, the Idaho Sugar Company, the Inland Crystal Salt Company,
the Salt Lake Knitting Company, and the Salt Lake Dramatic Association;
and that he was a director of the Union Pacific Railway Company,
vice-president of the Bullion-Beck and Champion Mining Company, and
editor of the Improvement Era and the Juvenile Instructor.
It was shown that Utah had not been admitted to statehood until the
Federal government had exacted, from the Church authorities and the
representatives of the people of Utah, every sort of pledge that
polygamy had been forever abandoned and polygamous relations
discontinued by "revelation from God"; that statehood had not been
granted until solemn promise had been given and provision made that
there should be "no union of church and state," and no church should
"dominate the state or interfere with its functions;" and that the
Church's escheated property had been restored upon condition that such
property should be used only for the relief of the poor of the Church,
for the education of its children and for the building and repair
of houses of worship "in which the rightfulness of the practice of
polygamy" should not be "inculcated."
Therefore the testimony given before the Senate committee by these
members of the Mormon hierarchy, showed that they had not only broken.
their covenants and violated their oaths, but that they had been guilty
of treason. What was the remedy? Jeremiah M. Wilson, a lawyer employed
by the Church authorities in 1888 to argue, before a Congressional
committee, in behalf of the admission of Utah to statehood, had pointed
out the remedy in these words:
"It is idle to say that such a compact may be made, and then, when the
considerations have been mutually received--statehood on the one side
and the pledge not to do a particular thing on the other--either party
can violate it without remedy to the other. But you ask me what is
the remedy, and I answer that there are plenty of remedies in your own
hands.
"Suppose they violate this compact; suppose that after they put this
into the constitution, and thereby induce you to grant them the high
privilege and political right of statehood, they should turn right
around and exercise the bad faith which is attributed to them here--what
would you do? You could shut the doors of the Senate and House of
Representatives against them; you could deny them a voice in the
councils of this nation, because they have acted in bad faith and
violated their solemn agreement by which they succeeded in getting
themselves into the condition of statehood. You could deny them the
Federal judiciary; you could deny them the right to use the mails--that
indispensable thing in the matter of trade and commerce of this country.
There are many ways in which peaceably, but all powerfully, you could
compel the performance of that compact."
This argument by Mr. Wilson in 1888 was recalled by the counsel for the
protestants in the investigation. It was recalled with the qualification
that though Congress might not have the power to undo the sovereignty of
the state of Utah it could deal with Senator Smoot. And it was further
argued: "The chief charge against Senator Smoot is that he encourages,
countenances, and connives at the defiant violation of law. He is an
integral part of a hierarchy; he is an integral part of a quorum of
twelve, who constitute the backbone of the Church.... He, as one of that
quorum of twelve apostles, encourages, connives at, and countenances
defiance of law."
On June 11, 1906, a majority of the committee made a report to the
Senate recommending that Apostle Smoot was not entitled to his seat in
the Senate. They found that he was one of a "self-perpetuating body of
fifteen men, uniting in themselves authority in both Church and state,"
who "so exercise this authority as to encourage a belief in polygamy as
a divine institution, and by both precept and example encourage among
their followers the practice of polygamy and polygamous cohabitation;"
that the Church authorities had "endeavored to suppress, and succeed
in suppressing, a great deal of testimony by which the fact of plural
marriages contracted by those who were high in the councils of the
Church might have been established beyond the shadow of a doubt;" and
that "aside from this it was shown by the testimony that a majority
of those who give law to the Mormon Church are now, and have been for
years, living in open, notorious and shameless polygamous cohabitation."
Concerning President Woodruff's anti-polygamy manifesto of 1890, the
majority of the committee reported that "this manifesto in no way
declares the principle of polygamy to be wrong or abrogates it as a
doctrine of the Mormon Church, but simply suspends the practice of
polygamy to be resumed at some more convenient season, either with
or without another revelation." They found that Apostle Smoot was
responsible for the conduct of the organization to which he belonged;
that he had countenanced and encouraged polygamy "by repeated acts
and in a number of instances, as a member of the quorum of the twelve
apostles;" and that he was "no more entitled to a seat in the Senate
than he would be if he were associating in polygamous cohabitation with
a plurality of wives."
The report continued: "The First Presidency and the twelve apostles
exercise a controlling influence over the action of the members of
the Church in secular affairs as well as in spiritual matters;" and
"contrary to the principles of the common law under which we live, and
the constitution of the State of Utah, the First Presidency and twelve
apostles dominate the affairs of the State and constantly interfere in
the performance of its functions.... But it is in political affairs that
the domination of the First Presidency and the twelve apostles is
most efficacious and most injurious to the interests of the State....
Notwithstanding the plain provision of the constitution of Utah, the
proof offered on the investigation demonstrates beyond the possibility
of doubt that the hierarchy at the head of the Mormon Church has, for
years past, formed a perfect union between the Mormon Church and the
State of Utah, and that the Church, through its head, dominates the
affairs of the State in things both great and small." And the report
concluded: "The said Reed Smoot comes here, not as the accredited
representative of the State of Utah in the Senate of the United States,
but as the choice of the hierarchy which controls the Church and has
usurped the functions of the State in Utah. It follows, as a necessary
conclusion from these facts, that Mr. Smoot is not entitled to a seat in
the Senate as a Senator from the State of Utah."
On the same day a minority report was presented by Senators J. B.
Foraker, Albert J. Beveridge, Wm. P. Dillingbam, A. J. Hopkins and P.
C. Knox. They found that Reed Smoot possessed "all the qualifications
prescribed by the Constitution to make him eligible to a seat in the
Senate;" that "the regularity of his election" by the Utah
legislature had not been questioned; that his private character was
"irreproachable;" and that "so far as mere belief and membership in
the Mormon Church are concerned, he is fully within his rights and
privileges under the guaranty of religious freedom given by the
Constitution of the United States." Having thus summarily excluded all
the large and troublesome points of the investigation, these Senators
decided that there remained "but two grounds on which the right or title
of Reed Smoot to his seat in the Senate" was contested. The first was
whether he had taken a certain "endowment oath" by which "he obligated
himself to make his allegiance to the Church paramount to his allegiance
to the United States;" and the second was whether "by reason of his
official relation to the Church" he was "responsible for polygamous
cohabitation" among the Mormons.
As to the first charge, the minority found that the testimony upon the
point was "limited in amount, vague and indefinite in character and
utterly unreliable, because of the disreputable character of the
witnesses"--oddly overlooking the fact that one of these witnesses had
been called for Apostle Smoot; that no attempt had been made to impeach
the character of this witness; that the other witnesses had been
denounced, by a Mormon bishop, named Daniel Connolly, as "traitors who
had broken their oaths to the Church" by betraying the secrets of
the "endowment oath;" and that all the Smoot witnesses who denied the
anti-patriotic obligation of the oath refused, suspiciously enough, to
tell what obligation was imposed on those who took part in the ceremony.
The charge that Smoot, as an apostle of the Church, had been responsible
for polygamous cohabitation was as easily disposed of, by the minority
report. He had himself, on oath, "positively denied" that he had "ever
advised any person to violate the law either against polygamy or against
polygamous cohabitation," and no witness had been produced to testify
that Apostle Smoot had ever given "any such advice" or defended "such
acts." True, it was admitted that he had "silently acquiesced" in the
continuance of polygamous cohabitation by polygamists who had married
before 1890; but it was contended that to understand this acquiescence
it was "necessary to recall some historical facts, among which are
some that indicate that the United States government is not free from
responsibility for these violations of the law."
In short, although Reed Smoot was one of a confessed band of
law-breaking traitors, he was of "irreproachable" private character.
Although the band had been guilty of every treachery, none of the band
had admitted that Smoot had encouraged them in their villainies. Smoot
had only "silently acquiesced"--and in this he had been no guiltier
than the intimidated bystanders and the gagged victims of the outrages.
Although the gang had stolen the machinery of elections and used it to
print a Senatorial certificate for Smoot, there was nothing to show that
the form of the certificate was not correct. Moreover, the band operated
in politics as a religious organization, and the constitution of the
United States protects a man in his right of religious freedom!