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

by Frank J. Cannon; Harvey Jerrold O'Higgins

The Church authorities accepted my aid with that understanding of my position toward the Mormon religion; and, though Joseph F. Smith, in 1892, for his own political purposes, circulated a procured statement that I was "a Mormon in good standing," later, when he was on the witness stand in the Smoot investigation, he testified concerning me: "He is not and never has been an official member of the Church, in any sense or form." I made no pretenses and none were asked of me. I was glad to give my services to a people whom I loved, and trusted, and admired; and the leaders were as eager to use me as I was eager to be used in the proper service of my fellows. (Even Joseph F. Smith, in those days, was glad to give me his "power of attorney" and to trust me with the care of the community's financial affairs.) But when all the hierarchy's covenants to the nation were being broken; when the tyranny of the Prophet's absolutism had been re-established with a fierceness that I had never seen even in the days of Brigham Young; when polygamy had been restored in its most offensive aspect, as a breach of the Church's own revelation; when hopelessly outlawed children were being born of cohabitation that was clandestine and criminal under the "laws both of God and of man"—it was impossible for me to be silent either before the leaders of the Church or in the public places among the people. I had spoken for the Mormons at a time when few spoke for them—when many of the men who were now so valiantly loyal to the hierarchy had been discreetly silent. I had helped defend the Mormon religion when it had few defenders. I did not propose to criticize it now; for to me, any sincere belief of the human soul is too sacred to be so assailed—if not out of respect, surely in pity—and the Mormon faith was the faith of my parents. But I was determined to make the strongest assault in my power on the treason and the tyranny which Smith and his associates in guilt were trying to cover with the sanctities of religion; and I had to make that assault, as a public man, for a public purpose, without any consideration of private consequences.

After I began criticizing the Church leaders, in the editorial columns of the Salt Lake Tribune, my friend Ben Rich, then president of the Southern States Missions, and J. Golden Kimball, one of the seven presidents of the seventies, came to me repeatedly to suggest that if I wished to attack the leaders of the Church I should formally withdraw from the Church. This I declined to do: because I was in no different position toward the teachings of the Church than I had been in previous years—because I was not criticizing the Church or its religious teachings, but attacking the civil offenses of its leaders as citizens guilty against the state—and because I saw that my attack had more power as coming from a man who stood within the community, even though he had no standing in the Church. I continued as I had begun. After the publication of an editorial (January 22, 1905), in which I charged President Smith with being all that the testimony then before the Senate committee had proven him to be, Ben Rich advised me that I must either withdraw from the Church or Smith would proceed against me in the Church tribunals and make my family suffer. I replied that I would not withdraw and that I would fight all cases against me on the issue of free speech. On February 1, 1905, I published, editorially, "An address to the Earthly King of the Kingdom of God," in which I charged Smith with having violated the laws (revelations) of his predecessors; with having made and violated treaties upon which the safety of his "subjects" depended; with having taken the bodies of the daughters of his subjects and bestowed them upon his favorites; with having impoverished his subjects by a system of elaborate exaction's (tithes) in order to enrich "the crown" and so forth. All of which, burlesquely written as if to a Czar by a constitutionalist, was accepted by the Mormon people as in no way absurd in its tone as coming from one American citizen to another!

Because of these two editorials I was charged (February 21, 1905) before a ward bishop's court in Ogden with "un-Christianlike conduct and apostasy," after two minor Church officials had called upon me at my home and received my acknowledgment of the authorship of the editorials, my refusal to retract them, and my statement that I did not "sustain" Joseph F. Smith as head of the Church, since he was "leaving the worship of God for the worship of Mammon and leading the people astray." On the night of February 24, I appeared in my own defense before the bishop's court, at the hour appointed, without witnesses or counsel, because I had been notified that no one would be permitted to attend with me. And, of course, the defense I made was that the articles were true and that I was prepared to prove them true.

Such a court usually consists of a bishop and his two councillors, but in this case the place of the second councillor had been taken by a high priest named Elder George W. Larkin, a man reputed to be "richly endowed with the Spirit." I had a peculiar psychological experience with Larkin. After I had spoken at some length in my own defense, Larkin rose to work himself up into one of the rhapsodies for which he was noted. "Brother Frank," he began, "I want to bear my testimony to you that this is the work of God—and nothing can stay its progress—and all who interfere will be swept away as chaff"—rising to those transports of auto-hypnotic exaltation which such as he accept as the effect of the spirit of God speaking through them. "You were born in the covenant, and the condemnation is more severe upon one who has the birthright than upon one not of the faith who fights against the authority of God's servants." I had concluded to try the effect of a resistant mental force, and while I stared at him I was saying to myself: "This is a mere vapor of words. You shall not continue in this tirade. Stop!" He began to have difficulty in finding his phrases. The expected afflatus did not seem to have arrived to lift him. He faltered, hesitated, and finally, with an explanation that he had not been feeling well, he resumed his seat, apologetically.

That left me free to "bear testimony" somewhat myself. I warned the members of the "court" that no work of righteousness could succeed except by keeping faith with the Almighty—which meant keeping faith with his children upon earth. I reminded them of the dark days, which all of them could recall, when we had repeatedly covenanted to God and to the nation that if we could be relieved of what we deemed the world's oppression we would fulfill every obligation of our promises. I pointed out to them that the Church was passing into the ways of the world; that our people were being pauperized; that some of them were in the poorhouses in their old age after having paid tithes all their active lives; that by our practices we were bearing testimony against the revelations which Mormons proclaimed to the world for the salvation of the bodies and souls of men.

They listened to me with the same friendly spirit that had marked all their proceedings for these men had no animosity against me; they were merely obeying the orders of their superiors. And when we arose to disperse, the bishop put his hand on my shoulder and said, in the usual form of words: "Brother Frank, we will consider your case, and if we find you ought to do anything to make matters right, we will let you know what it is."

I returned to my home, where I had left my wife and children chatting at the dinner table. They had known where I was going. They knew what the issue of my "trial" would be for them and for me. Yet when I came back to them, none asked me any questions and none seemed perturbed. And this is typical of the Mormon family. I think the experiences through which the people have passed have given them a quality of cheerful patience. They have been schooled to bear persecution with quiet fortitude. Tragedy sweeps by them in the daily current of life. A young man goes on a mission, and dies in a foreign land; and his parents accept their bereavement like Spartans, almost without mourning, sustained by the religious belief that he has ended his career gloriously. Taught to devote themselves and their children and their worldly goods to the service of their Church, they accept even the impositions and injustices of the Church leaders with a powerful forbearance that is at once a strength and a weakness.

Two days later I was met on the street by a young Dutch elder, who could scarcely speak English, and he gave me the official document from the bishop's court notifying me that I had been "disfellowshipped for un-Christianlike conduct and apostasy." I was then summoned to appear before the High Council of the Stake in excommunication proceedings, and after filing a defense which it is unnecessary to give here—and after refusing to appear before the Council for reasons that it is equally unnecessary to repeat I was excommunicated on March 14, 1905. No denial was made by the Church authorities of any of the charges which I had made against Smith. No trial was made of the truth of those charges. As a free citizen of "one of the freest communities under the sun," I was officially ostracized by order of the religious despot of the community for daring to utter what everyone knew to be the truth about him.

For myself, of course, no edict of excommunication had any terrors; but the aim of the authorities was to make me suffer through the sufferings of my family; and, in that, they succeeded. I shall not write of it. It has little place in such a public record as this, and I do not wish to present myself, in any record, as a martyr. It was not I who was ostracized from the Mormon Church by my excommunication; it was the right of free speech. The Mormon Church deprived me of nothing; it deprived itself of the helpful criticism of its members. No anathema of bigotry could take from me the affection of my family or the respect of any friends whose respect was worth the coveting. In that regard I suffered only in my pity for those of my neighbors who were so blindly servile to the decrees of religious tyranny that they turned their backs on the voice of their own liberty raised, in protest, for their own defense.

And it was not by the individual protestants but by the entire community that the heaviest price was paid in this whole conflict. It divided the state again into the old factions and involved it in the old war from which it had been rescued. The Mormons instituted a determined boycott against all Gentiles, and "Thou shalt not support God's enemies" became a renewed commandment of the Prophet. Wherever a Gentile was employed in any Mormon institution, he was discharged, almost without exception, whether or not he had been an active member of the American party. Teachers in the Church would exclaim with horror if they heard that a Mormon family was employing a Gentile physician; and more than one Mormon litigant was advised that he not only "sinned against the work of God," but endangered the success of his law suit, by retaining a Gentile lawyer. Politicians were told that if they aided the American party, they need never hope for advancement in this world, or expect anything but eternal condemnation in the world to come; and though few of them counted on the "spoils" of the hereafter, they understood and appreciated the power of the hierarchy to reward in the present day. The Gentiles did not attempt any boycott in retaliation; they had not the solidarity necessary to such an attempt; and many Gentile business men, in order to get any Mormon patronage whatever, were compelled to employ none but Mormon clerks.