The Case Decided
June 11, 1906, the committee made report to the senate. The majority report, which was adverse to Senator Smoot, was signed by Chairman J. C. Burrows, and supported by Senators J. P. Dolliver, Edmund W. Pettus, Fred T. Dubois, Joseph Bailey, Lee S. Overman, and William A. Clark. They stated that “the more deliberately and carefully the testimony taken in the investigation is considered, the more irresistibly it leads to the conclusion that the facts stated in the protest are true.”
The minority report, signed by Senators Joseph B. Foraker, Albert J. Beveridge, William P. Dillingham, Albert J. Hopkins and Philander C. Knox, held to the opposite view.
The case was called up in the senate, December 13, 1906, and continued before that body—a large number of the senators making speeches—until February 20, 1907, when the final vote was taken. The resolution was amended so that it required the concurrence of two thirds of the senators present. The vote stood yeas 28, nays 42, and 20 not voting; consequently the result of the vote was that the resolution was rejected, and Senator Smoot retained his seat.
The “American Party”
In January 1901, Thomas Kearns, a rich mining man, was elected by the legislature to the United States senate to fill a four-year term, which had been vacant for two years because the previous legislature failed to elect a senator. Mr. Kearns was very anxious to be returned to the senate, and sought the support of President Joseph F. Smith—in other words the support of the Church—which was not given, and he was informed that the Church was not in politics. Having obtained control of the Salt Lake Tribune he made it his personal organ of hate against the Church in general and President Joseph F. Smith in particular. He and others of like character, in the autumn of 1904, organized the “American Party.” The excuse offered for this political party was the investigation going on in the Reed Smoot case. This anti-“Mormon” political organization endured from 1904 until 1911, and during those years captured the machinery of Salt Lake City. A campaign of vindictive falsehood was conducted which was a disgrace and a foul blot on the state of Utah. During this time the Tribune maliciously cartooned, and wickedly vilified President Joseph F. Smith in its columns in a manner that would not have been tolerated anywhere outside of Utah. Finally, even anti-“Mormons” sickened of the condition, and the better element of the “American Party” joined with other citizens and put an end to the obnoxious condition.
President Smith’s Attitude
The only reply President Joseph F. Smith made to these vicious and daily attacks, was to express himself as follows:
“I feel in my heart to forgive all men in the broad sense that God requires of me to forgive all men, and I desire to love my neighbor as myself; and to this extent I bear no malice towards any of the children of my Father. But there are enemies to the work of the Lord, as there were enemies of the Son of God. There are those who speak only evil of the Latter-day Saints. There are those—and they abound largely in our midst—who will shut their eyes to every virtue and to every good thing connected with this latter-day work, and will pour out floods of falsehood and misrepresentation against the people of God. I forgive them for this. I leave them in the hand of the just Judge.”