Two days later I received the expected word from Colonel Lamont, and I went to the White House as a man might go to face his own trial. I met the secretary in one of the eastern upstairs rooms of the official apartments; and after the usual crowd had passed out, he led me into the President's office—which then overlooked the Washington monument, the Potomac and the Virginia shore. Mr. Cleveland was working at his desk. Colonel Lamont introduced me by name, and added, "the young man from Utah, of whom I spoke."
The President did not look up. He was signing some papers, bending heavily over his work. It took him a moment or two to finish; then he dropped his pen, pushed aside the papers, turned awkwardly in his swivel chair and held out his hand to me. It was a cool, firm hand, and its grasp surprised me, as much as the expression of his eyes—the steady eyes of complete self-control, composure, intentness.
I had come with a prejudice against him; I was a partisan of Mr. Blame, whom he had defeated for the Presidency; I believed Mr. Blame to be the abler man. But there was something in Mr. Cleveland's hand and eyes to warn me that however slow-moving and even dull he might appear, the energy of a firm will compelled and controlled him. It stiffened me into instant attention.
He made some remark to Colonel Lamont to indicate that our conversation was to occupy about half an hour. He asked me to be seated in a chair at the right-hand side of his desk. He said almost challengingly: "You're the young man they want I should talk to about the Utah question."
The tone was not exactly unkind, but it was not inviting. I said, "Yes, sir."
He looked at me, as a judge might eye the suspect of circumstantial evidence. "You're the son of one of the Mormon leaders."
I admitted it.
And then he began.
He began with an account of what he had done to compose the differences in Utah. He explained and justified the appointments he had made there—appointments that had been recommended by Southern senators and representatives who, because they were Southerners, were opposed to the undue extension and arbitrary use of Federal power. He had made Caleb W. West of Kentucky governor of Utah on the recommendation of Senator Blackburn of Kentucky, my father's friend. He had made Frank H. Dyer, originally of Mississippi, United States Marshal. He had appointed a District Attorney in whom he had every confidence. He had a right to believe that these men, recommended by the statesmen of the South, would execute and adjudicate the laws in Utah according to the most lenient Southern construction of Federal rights. He dwelt upon Governor West's charitable intentions towards the Mormon leaders, went over West's efforts at pacification in accurate detail, and told of West's chagrin at his failure—with an irritation that showed how disappointed he himself was with the continued recurrence of the Mormon troubles.
I had to tell him that the situation had not improved, and his face flushed with an anger that he made no attempt to conceal. He declared that the fault must lie in our obstinate determination to hold ourselves superior to the law. He could not sympathize with our sufferings, he said, since they were self-inflicted. He admitted that he had once been opposed to the Edmunds-Tucker bill, but felt now that it was justified by the immovability of the Mormons. All palliatives had failed. The patience of Congress had been exhausted. There was no recourse, except to make statutes cutting enough to destroy the illegal practices and unlawful leadership in the Mormon community.