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

by Frank J. Cannon; Harvey Jerrold O'Higgins

Chapter XV. The Struggle For Liberty

As early as 1903, before the Smoot investigation began, the Utah State journal (of which I became editor) was founded as a Democratic daily newspaper, to attempt a restoration of political freedom in Utah and to remonstrate against the new polygamy, of which rumors were already insistent. I was at once warned by Judge Henry H. Rolapp (a prominent Democrat on the District bench, and secretary of the Amalgamated Sugar Company) that we need not look for aid from the political or business interests of the community, inasmuch as our avowed purpose had already antagonized the Church. He delivered this message in a friendly spirit from a number of Democrats whose support we had been expecting. And the warning proved to be well-inspired. Although a number of courageous Gentiles, like Colonel E. A. Wall of Salt Lake City, gave us material aid—and although there was no other Democratic daily paper in Utah (unless it was the Salt Lake Herald, owned by Senator Clark of Montana)—the most powerful Church Democratic interests stood against us, and we found it impossible to make any effective headway with the paper.

After the Prophets began to give their awful testimony at Washington, the Democratic National Convention of 1904 (which I attended as a delegate from Utah) considered a resolution in opposition to polygamy and the Church's rule of the state. This resolution was as vigorously fought by some Utah Gentiles as by the Mormon delegates, on the grounds that it would defeat the Democratic party in Utah. It carried in the convention. Upon returning to Salt Lake City I called a meeting of the Democratic state committee (of which I was chairman) and urged that we make our state campaign on the issue of ecclesiastical domination, in consonance with the party's national platform. Of the whole committee only the secretary, Mr. P. J. Daly, supported the proposal. The others considered it "an attempt to establish a quarantine against Democratic success." Some of them had been promised by members of the hierarchy that the party was to have "a square deal this time." Others had fatuously accepted the assurances of ecclesiasts that "it looked like a Democratic year." In short, the Democratic party in Utah, like the Republican party, proved to be then, as it is now, less a political organization than the tool of a Church cabal. We found that we could no more hope to move the Democratic machine against the hierarchy than to move the Smoot-Republican machine itself.

But when Joseph F. Smith, before the Senate committee, admitted that he was violating "the laws of God and man" and tried to extenuate his guilt with the plea that the Gentiles of Utah condoned it, he issued a challenge that no American citizen could ignore. The Gentiles of Utah had been silent, theretofore, partly because they were ignorant of the extent of the polygamous offenses of the hierarchy, and partly because they were hoping for better things. Smith's boast made their silence the acquiescence of sympathy. A meeting was called in Salt Lake City, in May, 1904, and under the direction of Colonel William Nelson, editor of the Salt Lake Tribune, the principles of the present "American party" were enunciated as a protest against the lawbreaking tyranny of the Church leaders. Later, as it became clear that the opponents of the Smith misrule must organize their own party of progress, committees were formed and a convention was held (in September, 1904) at which a full state and county ticket was put in the field, in the name of the American Party of Utah.

We agreed that no war should be made on the Mormon religion as such; that no war should be made on the Mormon people because of their being Mormons; that we would draw a deadline at the year 1890, when the Church had effected a composition of its differences with the national government, and all the citizens of Utah, Mormon and Gentile alike, had accepted the conditions of settlement; that we would find our cause of quarrel in the hierarchy's violation of the statehood pledges; and that when we had corrected these evil practices we should dissolve, because (to quote the language used at the time) we did not wish "to raise a tyrant merely to slay a tyrant."

In the idea that we would fight upon living issues—that we would not open the graves of the past to dig up a dead quarrel and parade it in its cerements—the American party movement began. Its first enlistment included practically all the Gentiles in Salt Lake City who resented the claim of the Prophet that they acquiesced in his crimes and his treasons. But the most promising sign for the party was its attraction of hundreds of independent Mormons of the younger generation. As one Mormon of that hopeful time expressed it: "The flag represents the political power. The golden angel Moroni, at the top of the Temple, represents the ecclesiastical authority. I will not pay to either one a deference which belongs to the other. I know how to keep them apart in my personal devotion."

This was exactly what the Church authorities would not permit. It would have destroyed all the special and selfish prerogatives of the Mormon hierarchs. It would have subverted their claim of absolute temporal power. It would have set up the nation and the state as the objects of civic devotion—instead of the Kingdom of God.

Although we of the American party disavowed and abstained from any attack upon the Mormon Church as such—and confined ourselves to a war upon the treasons, the violations of law, the breaches of covenant and the other offenses of the Church leaders, as the practices of individuals—these leaders dragged the whole body of the Church as a wall of defense around them, and in countless sermons and printed articles declared that the Church and its faith were the objects of our assault. In other words, though Smith claimed in Washington—and Smoot continues to claim before the nation—that the Church is not responsible for the crimes of its Prophets, whenever a criticism or a prosecution is directed against any of these men, they all unite in declaring that the Church is being persecuted; and the members of the hierarchy rouse all their followers, and use all their agencies, in a successful resistance.

There was no blithesomeness in the campaign. It was not lightened by any humor. It was a hopeless assault on the one side and a grim overpowering resistance on the other. The American party, being organized as a protest, had at first little regard for offices. It sought to promulgate the principles of its cause for the enlightenment of the citizens of Utah and for the preservation of their rights. Some of the Gentiles who did not join us felt, perhaps, as strong an indignation as those who did, but they were entangled in politics with the hierarchs, or had business connections that would be destroyed. These men, in course of time, became the most dangerous opponents of our progress. (The average Mormon is obedient and supine enough in the presence of his Prophets, but he is a man of personal independence compared with the sycophantic Gentile who accepts political or commercial favors from the Church chiefs and yet continues to deny the existence of the very power to which he bends the knee.) Of the rebellious but discreet Mormons many came to the leaders of our party to say: "I think you're quite right. I, myself, have suffered under these tyrannies. I have no sympathy with new polygamy. But, as you know, I'm attorney for some of the Church interests"—or "I'm in business with high ecclesiasts"—or "I'm heavily in debt to the Church bank"—or "I'm closely connected by marriage with one of the Prophets"—"and I can do you more good by my quiet efforts than by coming out into the open. I'd be treated as an apostate. All my influence would be gone." And in most cases he preserved his influence, and we lost him. The Church had effective ways of recovering his support.

For many reasons the American party looked for its recruits chiefly among Republicans, the Democracy being almost entirely Mormon. And in the first flush of enthusiasm some of our leaders laughed at the boast of the Republican state chairman that, for every Republican he lost, he would get two Mormon Democrats to vote the Republican ticket. (This was Hon. William Spry, a Mormon, since made Governor of Utah, for services rendered the hierarchy.) But the claim proved anything but laughable. He got probably four Mormon Democrats for every Republican he lost. As usual the hierarchy "delivered the goods" to the national organization in power.