Under the Prophet in Utah; the National Menace of a Political Priestcraft Part 10

Chapter VIII. The Church and the Interests

Meanwhile, I had been taking part in the Presidential campaign of 1896, and I had been one of the four "insurgent" Republican Senators (Teller of Colorado, Dubois of Idaho, Pettigrew of South Dakota and myself) who withdrew from the national Republican convention at St. Louis, in fulfillment of our obligations to our const.i.tuents, when we found that the convention was dominated by that confederation of finance in politics which has since come to be called "the System." I was a member of the committee on resolutions, and our actions in the committee had indicated that we would probably withdraw from the convention if it adopted the single gold platform as dictated by Senator Lodge of Ma.s.sachusetts acting for a group of Republican leaders headed by Platt of New York, and Aldrich of Rhode Island. At the most critical point of our controversy I received a message from Church headquarters warning me that "we" had made powerful friends among the leading men of the nation and that we ought not to jeopardize their friends.h.i.+p by an inconsiderate insurgency. Accordingly, in bolting the convention, I was guilty of a new defiance of ecclesiastical authority and a new provocation of ecclesiastical vengeance.

President Woodruff spoke to me of the matter after I returned to Utah, and I explained to him that I thought the Republican party, under the leaders.h.i.+p of Mark Hanna and the flag of the "interests," had forgotten its duty to the people of the nation. I argued, to the President, that of all people in the world we, who had suffered so much ourselves, were most bound to bow to no unfairness ourselves and to oppose the imposition of unfairness upon others. And I talked in this strain to him not because I wished his approval of my action but because I wished to fortify him against the approach of the emissaries of the new Republicanism, who were sure to come to him to seek the support of the Church in the campaign.

Some days later, while I was talking with my father in the offices of the Presidency, the secretary ushered in Senator Redfield Proctor of Vermont. I withdrew, understanding that he wished to speak in private with President Woodruff and his councillors. But I learned subsequently that he had come to Salt Lake to persuade the leaders of the Church to use their power in favor of the Republican party throughout the intermountain states.

Senator Proctor asked me personally what chance I thought the party had in the West. I pointed out that the Republican platform of 1892 had reproached Grover Cleveland for his antagonism to bimetallism--"a doctrine favored by the American people from tradition and interest,"

to quote the language of that platform--and the Republicans of the intermountain states still held true to the doctrine. It had been repudiated by the St. Louis platform of June, 1896, and the intermountain states would probably refuse their electoral votes to the Republican party because of the repudiation.

Senator Proctor thought that the leaders of the Church were powerful enough to control the votes of their followers; and he argued that grat.i.tude to the Republican party for freeing Utah ought to be stronger than the opinions of the people in a merely economic question.

I reminded him that one of our covenants had been that the Church was to refrain from dictating to its followers in politics; that we had been steadily growing away from the absolutism of earlier times; and that for the sake of the peace and progress of Utah I hoped that the leaders would keep their hands off. I did not, of course, convince him. Nor was it necessary. I was sure that no power that the Church would dare to use would be sufficient at this time to influence the people against their convictions.

Joseph F. Smith, soon afterward, notified me that there was to be a meeting of the Church authorities in the Temple, and he asked me to attend it. Since I had never before been invited to one of these conferences in the "holy of holies," I inquired the purposes of the conclave. He replied that they desired to consider the situation in which our people had been placed by my action in the St. Louis convention, and to discuss the perceptible trend of public opinion in the state. I saw, then, that Senator Proctor's visit had not been without avail.

On the appointed afternoon, I went to the sacred inner room of the temple, where the members of the Presidency and several of the apostles were waiting. I shall not describe the room or any of the religious ceremonies with which the conference was opened. I shall confine myself to the discussion--which was begun mildly by President Woodruff and Lorenzo Snow, then president of the quorum of apostles.

To my great surprise, Joseph F. Smith made a violent Republican speech, declaring that I had humiliated the Church and alienated its political friends by withdrawing from the St. Louis convention. He was followed by Heber J. Grant, an apostle, who had always posed as a Democrat; and he was as Republican and denunciatory as Smith had been. He declaimed against our alienation of the great business interests of the country, whose friends.h.i.+p he and other prominent Mormons had done so much to cultivate, and from whom we might now procure such advantageous co-operation if we stood by them in politics.

President Woodruff tried to defend me by saying that he was sure I had acted conscientiously; but by this time I desired no intervention of prophetic mercy and no mitigation of judgment that might come of such intervention. As soon as the President announced that they were prepared to hear from me, I rose and walked to the farther side of the solemn chamber, withdrawn from the a.s.sembled prophets and confronting them. Having first disavowed any recognition of their right as an ecclesiastical body to direct me in my political actions, I rehea.r.s.ed the events of the two campaigns in which I had been elected on pledges that I had fulfilled by my course in Congress, in the Senate, and finally in the St. Louis convention. That course had been approved by the people. They had trusted me to carry out the policies on which they had elected me to Congress. They had reiterated the trust by electing me to the Senate after I had revolted against the Republican bond and tariff measures in the lower House. I could not and would not violate their trust now. And there was no authority on earth which I would recognize as empowered to come between the people's will and the people's elected servants.

The prophets received this defiance in silence. Their expressions implied condemnation, but none was spoken--at least not while I was there. President Woodruff indicated that the conference was at an end, so far as I was concerned; and I withdrew. Some attempts were subsequently made to influence the people during the campaign, but in a half-hearted way and vainly. The Democrats carried Utah overwhelmingly; only three Republican members of the legislature were elected out of sixty-three.

It was this conference in the Temple which gave me my first realization that most of the Prophets had not, and never would have, any feeling of citizens.h.i.+p in state or nation; that they considered, and would continue to consider, every public issue solely in its possible effect upon the fortunes of their Church. My father alone seemed to have a larger view; but he was a statesman of full worldly knowledge; and his experience in Congress, during a part of the "reconstruction period," and throughout the Tilden-Hayes controversy, had taught him how effectively the national power could a.s.sert itself. The others, blind to such dangers, seemed to feel that under Utah's sovereignty the literal "kingdom of G.o.d" (as they regard their Church) was to exercise an undisputed authority. Unable, myself, to take their viewpoint, I was conscious of a sense of transgression against the orthodoxy of their religion. I was aware, for the first time, that in gaining the fraternity of American citizens.h.i.+p I had in some way lost the fraternity of the faith in which I had been reared. I accepted this as a necessary consequence of our new freedom--a freedom that left us less close and unyielding in our religious loyalty by withdrawing the pressure that had produced our compactness. And I hoped that, in time, the Prophets themselves--or, at least, their successors--would grow into a more liberal sense of citizens.h.i.+p as their people grew. I knew that our progress must be a process of evolution. I was content to wait upon the slow amendments of time.

My hope carried me through the disheartening incidents of the Senatorial campaign that followed upon the election of the legislature--a campaign in which the power of the hierarchy was used publicly to defeat the deposed apostle, Moses Thatcher, in his second candidacy for the United States Senate. But the Church only succeeded in defeating him by throwing its influence to Joseph L. Rawlins, whom the Prophets loved as little as they loved Thatcher; and I felt that in Rawlins' election the state at least gained a representative who was worthy of it.

What was quite as sinister a use of Church influence occurred among the Mormons of Idaho, where I went to help Senator Fred. T. Dubois in his campaign for re-election. He had aided us in obtaining Utah's statehood as much as any man in Was.h.i.+ngton. He had accepted all the promises of the Mormon leaders in good faith--particularly their promise that no Church influence should intrude upon the politics of Idaho. Yet in his campaign I was followed through the Mormon settlements by Charles W.

Penrose, a polygamist, since an apostle of the Church, and at that time editor of the Church's official organ, the Deseret News.

I supposed that he was lying in his claim to represent the Presidency; and as soon as I returned to Salt Lake, I went to Church headquarters and asked whether Penrose had been authorized to say (as he had been saying) that he was sent out to prevent my making any misrepresentations of the political att.i.tude of the Presidency.

Joseph F. Smith replied, "Yes,"--speaking for himself and apparently for President Woodruff.

"And when"--I demanded--"when did I ever claim to represent or misrepresent you in politics? Haven't I always said that I don't recognize you as politicians--and always denied that you have any right to dictate the politics of our people?"

President Woodruff interposed gently:

"Well, you know, Frank, we have no criticism to pa.s.s on you, but we were advised that you might tell the voters of Idaho we were friendly to Senator Dubois, and so we sent Brother Penrose, at the request of President Budge" (a Mormon stake president in Idaho) "to counsel our people. And Brother Penrose says you attacked him in one of your meetings, and said he was not a trustworthy political guide."

President Woodruff's mildness was always irresistible. "If that's all he told you I said about him," I replied, "he didn't do justice to my remarks." And I explained that I had described Penrose as "a lying, oily hypocrite," come to advise the Idaho Mormons that the Presidency wished them to vote a certain political ticket although the Presidency had no interest in the question and although I myself had taken to Was.h.i.+ngton the Presidency's covenant of honor that the Church would never attempt to interfere in Idaho's political affairs.

Smith sprang to his feet angrily. "I don't care what has been promised to Dubois or anyone else," he said. "He was the bitterest enemy our people had in the old days, and I'll never give my countenance to him in politics while the world stands. He sent many a one of our brethren to prison when he was marshal of the territory, and I can't forget his devilish persecutions--even if you can."

I closed the conversation by remarking that not one among us would have had a vote as a citizen either of Utah or of Idaho if Dubois and men of his kind had not accepted our pledges of honor; and if we were determined to remember the persecutions and not the mercy, we ought to go back to the conditions from which mercy had rescued us.

I left for Was.h.i.+ngton, soon after, with an unhappy apprehension that there were evil influences at work in Utah which might prove powerful enough to involve the whole community in the worst miseries of reaction.

I saw those influences embodied in Joseph F. Smith; and because he was explosive where others were reflective, he had now more influence than previously--there being no longer any set resistance to him. The reverence of the Mormon people for the name of Smith was (as it had always been) his chief a.s.set of popularity. He had a superlative physical impressiveness and a pa.s.sion that seemed to take the place of magnetism in public address. But he never said anything memorable; he never showed any compelling ability of mind; he had a personal cunning without any large intelligence, and he was so many removes from the First Presidency that it seemed unlikely he would soon attain to that position of which the power is so great that it only makes the blundering more dangerous than the astute.

I was going to Was.h.i.+ngton, before Congress reconvened, to confer with Senator Redfield Proctor. He wished to see me about the new protective tariff bill that was proposed by the Republican leaders. I wished to ask him not to use his political influence in Idaho against Senator Fred.

T. Dubois, who had been Senator Proctor's political protege. I knew that Senator Proctor had once been given a semi-official promise that the Mormon Church leaders would not interfere in Idaho against Dubois. I wished to tell Proctor that this promise was not being kept, and to plead with him to give Dubois fair play--although I knew that Senator Dubois' "insurgency" had offended Senator Proctor.

He received me, in his home in Was.h.i.+ngton, with an almost paternal kindliness that became sometimes more dictatorial than persuasive--as the manner of an older Senator is so apt to be when he wishes to correct the independence of a younger colleague. He explained that the House was Republican by a considerable majority; a good protective tariff bill would come from that body; and a careful canva.s.s of the Senate had proved that the bill would pa.s.s there, if I would vote for it. "We have within one vote of a majority," he said. "As you're a devoted protectionist in your views--as your state is for protection--as your father and your people feel grateful to the Republican party for leading you out of the wilderness--I have felt that it was proper to appeal to you and learn your views definitely. If you'll pledge your support to the bill, we shall not look elsewhere for a vote--but it's essential that we should be secure of a majority."

I replied that I could not promise to vote for the measure until I should see it. It was true that I had been a devoted advocate of protection and still believed in the principle; but I had learned something of the way in which tariff bills were framed, and something of the influences that controlled the party councils in support of them. I could not be sure that the new measure would be any more just than the original Dingley bill, which I had helped to defeat in the Senate; and the way in which this bill had been driven through the House was a sufficient warning to me not to harness myself in a pledge that might be misused in legislation.

Senator Proctor did me the honor to say that he did not suppose any improper suggestion of personal advantage could influence me, and he hoped I knew him too well to suppose that he would use such an argument; "but," he added, "anything that it's within the 'political' power of the party to bestow, you may expect; I'm authorized to say that we will take care of you."

As I still refused to bind myself blindly, he said, with regret: "We had great hopes of you. It seems that we must look elsewhere. I will leave the question open. If you conclude to a.s.sure us of your vote for the bill, I shall see that you are restored to a place in Republican councils. If I do not hear anything from you, it will be necessary to address ourselves to one or two other Senators who are probably available."

It is, of course, a doctrine of present-day Republicanism that the will of the majority must rule within the party. An insurgent is therefore an apostate. The decision of the caucus is the infallible declaration of the creed. In setting myself up as a judge of what it was right for me to do, as the sworn representative of the people who had elected me, I was offending against party orthodoxy, as that orthodoxy was then, and is now, enforced in Was.h.i.+ngton.

I was given an opportunity to return to conformity. I was sent a written invitation to attend the caucus of Republican Senators after the a.s.sembling of Congress; and, with the other "insurgents," I ignored the invitation. It was finally decided by the party leaders to let the tariff bill rest until after the inauguration of the President-elect, William McKinley, with the understanding that he would call a special session to consider it; and, in the interval, the Republican machine, under Mark Hanna, was set to work to produce a Republican majority in the Senate.

Hanna was elected Senator, at this time, to succeed John Sherman, who had been removed to the office of Secretary of State, in order to make a seat for Hanna. The Republican majority was produced. (Senator Dubois had been defeated). And when the special session was called, in the spring of 1897, my vote was no longer so urgently needed. I was invited to a Republican caucus, but I was unwilling to return to political affiliations which I might have to renounce again; for I saw the power of the business interests in dictating the policy of the party and I did not propose to bow to that dictation.

When the tariff bill came before the Senate, I could not in conscience support it. The beneficiaries of the bill seemed to be dictating their own schedules, and this was notably the case with the sugar trust, which had obtained a differential between raw and refined sugar several times greater than the entire cost of refining. I denounced the injustice of the sugar schedule particularly. A Mr. Oxnard came to remonstrate with me on behalf of the beet sugar industry of the West. "You know," he said, "what a hard time we're having with our sugar companies. Unless this schedule's adopted I greatly fear for our future."

I replied that I was not opposing any protection of the struggling industries of the country, or of the sugar growers, but I was set against the extortionate differential that the sugar trust was demanding. Everybody knew that the trust had built its tremendous industrial power upon such criminally high protection as this differential afforded, and that its power now affected public councils, obtained improper favors, and terrorized the small competing beet sugar companies of the West. I argued that it was time to rally for the protection of the people as well as of the beet sugar industry.

He predicted that if the differential was reduced the protection on beet sugar would fail. I laughed at him. "You don't know the temper of the Senate," I said. "Why, even some of the Democrats are in favor of protecting the beet sugar industry. That part of the bill is safe, whatever happens to the rest."

"Senator Cannon," he replied, with all the scorn of superior knowledge, "you're somewhat new to this matter. Permit me to inform you that if we don't do our part in supporting the sugar schedule, including the differential, the friends of the schedule in the Senate will prevent us from obtaining our protection."

"That," I retorted angrily, "is equivalent to saying that the sugar trust is writing the sugar schedule. I can't listen with patience to any such insult. The Senate of the United States cannot be dictated to, in a matter of such importance, by the trust. I will not vote for the differential. I will continue to oppose it to the end. If you're right--if the trust has such power--better that our struggling sugar industry should perish, so that we may arouse the people to the iniquitous manipulation that destroyed it."

I continued to oppose the schedule. Soon after, I received a message from the Church authorities asking me to go to New York to attend to some of their financial affairs. I entered the lobby of the Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue about nine o'clock at night; I was met, unexpectedly, by Thomas R. Cutler, manager of the Utah Sugar Company, who was a Bishop of the Mormon Church; and he asked, almost at once, how the tariff bill was progressing at Was.h.i.+ngton.

I had known Bishop Cutler for years. I knew that he had labored with extraordinary zeal and intelligence to establish the sugar industry in Utah. I understood that he had risked his own property, unselfishly, to save the enterprise when it was in peril. And I had every reason to expect that he would be as indignant as I was, at the proposal to use the support of the beet sugar states in behalf of their old tyrant.

I told him of my conversation with Oxnard. "I'm glad," I said, "that we're independent enough to refuse such an alliance with the men who are robbing the country."

A peculiar, pale smile curled Bishop Cutler's thin lips. "Well, Frank,"

he replied, "that's just what I want to see you about. We"--with the intonation that is used among prominent Mormons when the "we" are voicing the conclusions of the hierarchy--"wouldn't like to do anything to hurt the sugar interests of the country. I've looked into this differential, and I don't see that it is particularly exorbitant. As a matter of fact, the American Sugar Refining Company is doing all it can to help us get our needed protection, and we have promised to do what we can for it, in return. I hope you can see your way clear to vote for the bill. I know that the brethren"--meaning the Church authorities--"will not approve of your opposition to it."

I understand what his quiet warning meant, and when we had parted I went to my room to face the situation. Already I had been told, by a representative of the Union Pacific Railway, that the company intended to make Utah the legal home of the corporation, and to enter into a close affiliation with the prominent men of the Church. I had been asked to partic.i.p.ate, and I had refused because I did not feel free, as a Senator, to become interested in a company whose relations with the government were of such a character. But I had not foreseen what this affiliation meant. Bishop Cutler's warning opened my eyes. The Church was protecting itself, in its commercial undertakings, by an alliance with the strongest and most unscrupulous of the national enemies.

I saw that this was natural. The Mormon leaders had been for years struggling to save their community from poverty. Proscribed by the Federal laws, their home industries suffering for want of finances, fighting against the allied influences of business in politics, these leaders had been taught to feel a fearful respect for the power that had oppressed them. They were now being offered the aid and countenance of their old opponents. Our community, so long the object of the world's disdain, was to advance to favor and prosperity along the easy road of a.s.sociation with the most influential interests of the country.

I remembered the long hard struggle of our people. I remembered the days and nights of anxiety that I myself had known when we were friendless and proscribed. Here was an open door for us, now, to power and wealth and all the comfort and consideration that would come of these. Other men better than I in personal character, more experienced in legislation than I, and wiser by natural gift, were willing to vote for the bill; and Bishop Cutler, a man whom I had always esteemed, the representative of the men whom I most revered, had urged me, for them, to support the bill, under suggestion of their anger if I refused to be guided by their leaders.h.i.+p.

I saw why the "interests" were eager to have our friends.h.i.+p; we could give them more than any other community of our size in the whole country. In the final a.n.a.lysis, the laws of our state and the administration of its government would be in the hands of the church authorities. Moses Thatcher might lead a rebellion for a time, but it would be brief. Brigham H. Roberts might avow his independence in some wonderful burst of campaign oratory, but he would be forced to fast and pray and see visions until he yielded. I might rebel and be successful for a moment, but the inexorable power of church control would crush me at last. Yet, if I surrendered in this matter of the tariff, I should be doing exactly what I had criticized so many of my colleagues for doing--for more than one man in the House and the Senate had given me the specious excuse that it was necessary to go against his conscience, here, in order to hold his influence and his power to do good in other instances.