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

by Frank J. Cannon; Harvey Jerrold O'Higgins

He received me, in his home in Washington, with an almost paternal kindliness that became sometimes more dictatorial than persuasive—as the manner of an older Senator is so apt to be when he wishes to correct the independence of a younger colleague. He explained that the House was Republican by a considerable majority; a good protective tariff bill would come from that body; and a careful canvass of the Senate had proved that the bill would pass there, if I would vote for it. "We have within one vote of a majority," he said. "As you're a devoted protectionist in your views—as your state is for protection—as your father and your people feel grateful to the Republican party for leading you out of the wilderness—I have felt that it was proper to appeal to you and learn your views definitely. If you'll pledge your support to the bill, we shall not look elsewhere for a vote—but it's essential that we should be secure of a majority."

I replied that I could not promise to vote for the measure until I should see it. It was true that I had been a devoted advocate of protection and still believed in the principle; but I had learned something of the way in which tariff bills were framed, and something of the influences that controlled the party councils in support of them. I could not be sure that the new measure would be any more just than the original Dingley bill, which I had helped to defeat in the Senate; and the way in which this bill had been driven through the House was a sufficient warning to me not to harness myself in a pledge that might be misused in legislation.

Senator Proctor did me the honor to say that he did not suppose any improper suggestion of personal advantage could influence me, and he hoped I knew him too well to suppose that he would use such an argument; "but," he added, "anything that it's within the 'political' power of the party to bestow, you may expect; I'm authorized to say that we will take care of you."

As I still refused to bind myself blindly, he said, with regret: "We had great hopes of you. It seems that we must look elsewhere. I will leave the question open. If you conclude to assure us of your vote for the bill, I shall see that you are restored to a place in Republican councils. If I do not hear anything from you, it will be necessary to address ourselves to one or two other Senators who are probably available."

It is, of course, a doctrine of present-day Republicanism that the will of the majority must rule within the party. An insurgent is therefore an apostate. The decision of the caucus is the infallible declaration of the creed. In setting myself up as a judge of what it was right for me to do, as the sworn representative of the people who had elected me, I was offending against party orthodoxy, as that orthodoxy was then, and is now, enforced in Washington.

I was given an opportunity to return to conformity. I was sent a written invitation to attend the caucus of Republican Senators after the assembling of Congress; and, with the other "insurgents," I ignored the invitation. It was finally decided by the party leaders to let the tariff bill rest until after the inauguration of the President-elect, William McKinley, with the understanding that he would call a special session to consider it; and, in the interval, the Republican machine, under Mark Hanna, was set to work to produce a Republican majority in the Senate.

Hanna was elected Senator, at this time, to succeed John Sherman, who had been removed to the office of Secretary of State, in order to make a seat for Hanna. The Republican majority was produced. (Senator Dubois had been defeated). And when the special session was called, in the spring of 1897, my vote was no longer so urgently needed. I was invited to a Republican caucus, but I was unwilling to return to political affiliations which I might have to renounce again; for I saw the power of the business interests in dictating the policy of the party and I did not propose to bow to that dictation.

When the tariff bill came before the Senate, I could not in conscience support it. The beneficiaries of the bill seemed to be dictating their own schedules, and this was notably the case with the sugar trust, which had obtained a differential between raw and refined sugar several times greater than the entire cost of refining. I denounced the injustice of the sugar schedule particularly. A Mr. Oxnard came to remonstrate with me on behalf of the beet sugar industry of the West. "You know," he said, "what a hard time we're having with our sugar companies. Unless this schedule's adopted I greatly fear for our future."

I replied that I was not opposing any protection of the struggling industries of the country, or of the sugar growers, but I was set against the extortionate differential that the sugar trust was demanding. Everybody knew that the trust had built its tremendous industrial power upon such criminally high protection as this differential afforded, and that its power now affected public councils, obtained improper favors, and terrorized the small competing beet sugar companies of the West. I argued that it was time to rally for the protection of the people as well as of the beet sugar industry.

He predicted that if the differential was reduced the protection on beet sugar would fail. I laughed at him. "You don't know the temper of the Senate," I said. "Why, even some of the Democrats are in favor of protecting the beet sugar industry. That part of the bill is safe, whatever happens to the rest."