Under the Prophet in Utah; the National Menace of a Political Priestcraft Part 15

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 pa.s.sed. In the neighboring state of Idaho, the legislature, in 1904, unanimously and without discussion pa.s.sed a resolution for a new state const.i.tution 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 cla.s.ses 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 (These orders were withdrawn after the exposure before the committee.)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 t.i.tle 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 G.o.d." 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 t.i.tles 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 a.s.sociates;" 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 Inst.i.tution, 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 a.s.sociation; 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 G.o.d"; 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 const.i.tution, 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 const.i.tute 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 ent.i.tled 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 inst.i.tution, 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 ent.i.tled to a seat in the Senate than he would be if he were a.s.sociating 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 const.i.tution 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 const.i.tution 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 ent.i.tled 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 Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution 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 t.i.tle 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 const.i.tution of the United States protects a man in his right of religious freedom!

Chapter XIV. Treason Triumphant

While these disclosures of the Smoot investigation were shocking the sentiment of the whole nation, the Prophets carried on the conspiracy of their defense with all the boldness 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 whenever 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 he would appear at Washington, and then he fled with his new polygamous wife to a polygamous Mormon settlement in Alberta, Canada--a fugitive, honored because he was a fugitive, 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 subpoenas. 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 G.o.d 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 knowledge and consent; their testimony would have placed the responsibility for these unlawful practices upon the Prophet; and the penalty would have fallen on the Prophet's Senator.

They not only fled, but they allowed themselves in their absence to be made the scapegoats of the hierarchy. They were proven guilty of "new polygamy" before the Senate committee; and, for the sake of the effect upon the country, they were ostensibly deposed 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 afterward 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 governing 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 to keep her appointment. At last, late at night, she arrived at my office--the editorial office of the Salt Lake Tribune--having escaped, 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 consider 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:

"Utah's statehood, as now administered, 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 Const.i.tution and to the law. It is spreading polygamy throughout the ranks of its followers. Through its agents, it dominates 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 Governor.

"By means of its immense collection of t.i.thes 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 successful. It corrupts every Gentile who is affected by either fear or venality, and makes of him a part of its 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 rewards 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. Unless 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 ma.s.s meeting, adopt a set of resolutions embodying the declaration on which they had agreed, and then dispatch 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 his trade would vanish in a night, leaving him unable to meet his obligations and certain 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 a.s.suredly 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 generation 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 fulfillment of that hope.

At first, in President Roosevelt they saw the promise of their salvation. He had opposed 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 candidacy 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 chiefs in 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. B. Loose of Provo went to Washington 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 reported in Utah that his arguments for Smoot carried some weight in Washington. President 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 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 President 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 promise unnecessary, if there ever was an explicit promise. But this much is certain. President 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 susceptible 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 sympathized with those who dared, for their own opinions, to oppose the opinions of the rest of the world. He had received the most adulating a.s.surances of support for his candidacies 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 willful offenses which they were committing against the national integrity.

I have received it personally, from the lips of more than one member of the Senate committee, 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 protection 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 reelection, because of his record in the Smoot case, and he published in his defense 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 circ.u.mstances, the courage, ability and sense of right that you have shown."

After the outrageous exposures of the violations 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 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, impossible 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-convinced.

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 exercise of his authority. And at this sort of pretense the Lord's anointed are expert. They themselves may be crude in ideas and coa.r.s.e 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 demeanor 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 unquestioningly at command; given a system whose worldly power is available at any point at any moment; given a system whose movement 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 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 characteristic 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: