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 assurances 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 circumstances, 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 coarse 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:
Rich: "I have no ambition that way, Mr. President. For many reasons it's out of the question although I'm grateful for the flattering suggestion."
The President: "Then let me appoint you to some good office. You're the kind of man I'd like to have in my official family."