The situation was saved by the action of a number of Democrats who got together and obtained a recess; when the recess was ended, a final ballot was taken, and, since no candidate had enough votes to elect him, the presiding officer, by pre-concertment, declared the joint assembly adjourned sine die, by operation of law. No Senator was elected.
But it was the last time that the Church authorities were to be balked. Since that day, they have dictated the nominations and carried the elections of the United States Senators from Utah as if these were candidates for a church office. The present Senator, Reed Smoot, is an apostle of the Church; he obtained the Mormon President's "permission" to become a candidate, as he admitted to an investigating committee of the Senate; and when the recent tariff bill was being attacked by insurgent Republicans and carried by Senator Aldrich, Senator Smoot acted as Aldrich's lieutenant in debate, and remained to watch the defense of the "interests" when his chief was absent from the Senate chamber. (Not because Smoot was such an able defender of those "interests"! Not because his constituents would uphold his course! But because he has no constituents, and is responsible to no one but the hierarchical partners of those "interests.")
Every pledge of the Mormon leaders that the Church would not interfere in politics has been broken at every election in Utah since President Snow that night pleaded to me that he had had many business anxieties for the Church and that if we elected the Church candidate "aid" would come to him. The covenants by which Utah obtained its statehood have been violated again and again. The provisions of the state constitution have been nullified. The trust of the Mormon people has been abused; their political liberties have been denied them; their Gentile brethren have been betrayed. And all this has been done not for the protection of the people, who were threatened with no proscription—and not for the advancement of the faith, which has been free to work out its own future. It has been done as a part of the alliance between the "financial" prophets of the Church and the financial "interests" of the country—which have been exploiting the people of Utah as they have exploited the whole nation with the aid of the ecclesiastical authorities in Utah.
Chapter XI. The Will of the Lord
The Mormon leaders were now hurried down their chosen path of dishonor with a fateful rapidity. A reform movement was demanding of Washington the adoption of a constitutional amendment that should give Congress power to regulate the marriage and divorce laws of all the states in the Union. And this proposed amendment—partly inspired by a growing doubt of the good faith of the Mormon leaders—gave the politicians in Washington something to trade for Mormon votes, in the presidential campaign of 1900.
The Republicans had lost the electoral votes of Utah and the surrounding states, in 1896.
Utah was now Democratic, and its one United States Senator (who was still in office) was a Democrat. Senator Hanna's lieutenant, Perry S. Heath, came to Salt Lake City in the summer of 1900, to confer with the heads of the Mormon Church. His authority (as representative of the ruler of the Republican party) had been authenticated by correspondence; and he was received by President Snow as royalty receives the envoy of royalty.
Heath negotiated with his usual directness. In the phrase of the time, "he laid down his cards on the table, face up, and asked Snow to play to that hand." If the Mormon Church would pledge its support to the Republican party, the Republican leaders would avert the threatened constitutional amendment that was to give Congress the power to interfere in the domestic affairs of the Mormon people. But if the Church denied its support to the Republican party, the constitutional amendment would be carried, and the Mormons, in their marriage relations, would be returned to the Federal jurisdiction from which they had escaped when the territory was admitted to statehood.
The sentiment of the country was known to be in favor of giving Congress such power. A strong body of reformers was urging the amendment, and the Church leaders had sent Apostle John Henry Smith and Bishop H. B. Clawson to lobby against it. After consulting with my father, I had written to President Snow pointing out the danger to the Mormons of having a lobby opposing such an amendment—for I was not then aware of the secret return to the practice of polygamy, after 1896. President Snow replied to me (in a message of guarded prudence) that although the Church inhibited plural marriage and did not intend to allow the practice, he was opposed to the interference of Congress in the domestic concerns of the other states of the Union!