About the middle of April President Woodruff, accompanied by his wife, Emma, and President Cannon, Charles H. Wilcken, H. B. Clawson and his daughter, and President Woodruff's daughter, left Salt Lake City on a trip to California. Their purpose was twofold. One, to look after the interest and welfare of the people, and the other to obtain recuperation after a long exile. Here the party met old-time friends who received them cordially and extended to them the hospitality of their homes. Senator Stanford had long been friendly to the Mormon people and their leaders. On this occasion they met a Doctor McDonald, formerly of Nauvoo and a friend to the Latter-day Saints.
They returned to Salt Lake City on the 26th of April, when President Woodruff took up his labors and began a visit to a number of stakes of Zion. At the October conference of that year Elder M. W. Merrill and A. H. Lund and Abraham H. Cannon were chosen to fill the vacancies created in the Quorum of the Twelve.
On the 12th of that month President Woodruff records an interesting interview which he had with Senator Morgan of Alabama. The Senator was passing through Utah and asked President Woodruff, who was then at Provo, to meet him at the station there. The invitation was complied with, and the Senator held the train for an hour while in conversation with Presidents Woodruff and Cannon. Mr. Morgan was very friendly. He was one of those who, in the United States Senate, had taken a strong stand against the Edmunds-Tucker Law. He was pronounced not only in his opposition to the law itself, but against the manner of its enforcement.
On the 21st of October that year President Woodruff again made a tour of the Pacific Coast and to Canada.
Notwithstanding the improved condition of the people with respect to the crusade which began in the most drastic manner in 1884, there were those who urged some compromise that would ensure, as they believed, the favor of the government and the complete cessation of hostilities by the enemies of the Church. Appeals were therefore made to President Woodruff to exercise the authority conferred upon him by revelation and suspend thereby the further extension of plural marriages.
In concluding his journal for the year 1889 he wrote: "This ends the year. The word of the Prophet, Joseph Smith, has been fulfilled wherein he declared that the whole nation would turn against Zion and make war upon the Saints. The nation has never been so full of lies against the Saints as it is today.
CHAPTER 52.
THE MANIFESTO AND EVENTS OF 1890-91.