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."