24 chapters
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Selected Chapters
24 chapters
Harvey J. O'Higgins
Harvey J. O'Higgins
CONTENTS Note Introduction Forward Chapter I. In the Days of the Raid Chapter II. On A Mission to Washington Chapter III. Without A Country Chapter IV. The Manifesto Chapter V. On the Road to Freedom Chapter VI. The Goal—And After Chapter VII. The First Betrayals Chapter VIII. The Church and the Interests Chapter IX. At the Crossways Chapter X. On the Downward Path Chapter XI. The Will of the Lord Chapter XII. The Conspiracy Completed Chapter XIII. The Smoot Exposure Ch
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Note
Note
When Harvey J. O'Higgins was in Denver, in the spring of 1910, working with Judge Ben B. Lindsey on the manuscript of "The Beast and the Jungle," for Everybody's Magazine, he met the Hon. Frank J. Cannon, formerly United States Senator from Utah, and heard from him the story of the betrayal of Utah by the present leaders of the Mormon Church. This story the editor of Everybody's Magazine commissioned Messrs. Cannon and O'Higgins to write. They worked on it for a year, verifying every detail of i
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Introduction
Introduction
This is the story of what has been called "the great American despotism." It is the story of the establishment of an absolute throne and dynasty by one American citizen over a half-million others. And it is the story of the amazing reign of this one man, Joseph F. Smith, the Mormon Prophet, a religious fanatic of bitter mind, who claims that he has been divinely ordained to exercise the awful authority of God on earth over all the affairs of all mankind, and who plays the anointed despot in Utah
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Forward
Forward
On the fourth day of January, 1896, the territory of Utah was admitted to statehood, and the proscribed among its people were freed to the liberties of American citizenship, upon the solemn covenant of the leaders of the Mormon Church that they and their followers would live, thereafter, according to the laws and institutions of the nation of which they were allowed to become a part. And that gracious settlement of upwards of forty years of conflict was negotiated through responsible mediators,
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Chapter I. In the Days of the Raid
Chapter I. In the Days of the Raid
About ten o'clock one night in the spring of 1888, I set out secretly, from Salt Lake City, on a nine-mile drive to Bountiful, to meet my father, who was concealed "on the underground," among friends; and that night drive, with its haste and its apprehension, was so of a piece with the times, that I can hardly separate it from them in my memory. We were all being carried along in an uncontrollable sweep of tragic events. In a sort of blindness, like the night, unable to see the nearest fork of t
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Chapter II. On A Mission to Washington
Chapter II. On A Mission to Washington
I went discredited, as an envoy, by an incident of personal conflict with the Federal authorities; and I wish to relate that incident before I proceed any farther. I must relate it soon, because it came up for explanation in one of my first interviews with President Cleveland; and I wish to relate it now, because it was so typical of the day and the condition from which we had to save ourselves. In the winter of 1885-6, the United States Marshals had been pursuing my father from place to place w
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Chapter III. Without A Country
Chapter III. Without A Country
So I came to Washington. So I entered the capital of the government that commanded my allegiance and inspired my fear. I wonder whether another American ever saw that city with such eyes of envy, of aspiration, of wistful pride, of daunted admiration. Here were all the consecrations of a nation's memories, and they thrilled me, even while they pierced me with the sense that I was not, and might well despair of ever being, a citizen of their glory. Here were the monuments of patriotism in Statuar
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Chapter IV. The Manifesto
Chapter IV. The Manifesto
I found him in the office of the Presidency—in the little one-story house that I have described in my early interview with Joseph F Smith—and he received me with the gracious affectionateness of a fatherly old man. He asked me, almost at once: "What are they going to do to us in Washington?" "President Woodruff," I replied, "we've been spared—temporarily. The axe will not fall for a few moments. It depends on ourselves, now, whether it shall fall or not." "Come into the other room," he said, und
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Chapter V. On the Road to Freedom
Chapter V. On the Road to Freedom
In any discussion of the public affairs that make the subject matter of this narrative, a line of discrimination must be drawn at the year 1890. In that year the Church began a progressive course of submission to the civil law, and the nation received each act of surrender with forgiveness. The previous defiance's of the Mormon people ceased to give grounds for a complaint against them. The old harshnesses of the Federal government were canceled by the new generosity of a placated nation. And ne
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Chapter VI. The Goal—And After
Chapter VI. The Goal—And After
Here we were then (as I saw the situation) assured of our statehood, rid of polygamy, relieved of religious control in politics, and free to devote our energies to the development of the land and the industries and the business of the community. The persecutions that our people had borne had schooled them to co-operation. They were ready, helping one another, to advance together to a common prosperity. They were under the leadership chiefly of the man who had guided them out of a most desperate
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Chapter VII. The First Betrayals
Chapter VII. The First Betrayals
Before I reached Utah, my friends, Ben Rich and James Devine, met me, on the train. The news of President Woodruff's "revelation" had percolated through the whole community. The Gentiles were alarmed for themselves. My friends were anxious for me. All the old enmities that had so long divided Utah were arranging themselves for a new conflict. And Rich and Devine had come to urge me to remember my promise that I would hold to my candidacy no matter who should appear in the field against me. Of my
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Chapter VIII. The Church and the Interests
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 constituents, 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 comm
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Chapter IX. At the Crossways
Chapter IX. At the Crossways
In 1897, the Church, freed of proscription, with its people enjoying the sovereignty of their state rights, had—as I have already said—only one further enfranchisement to desire: and that was its freedom from debt. The informal "finance committee" of which I was a member, had succeeded in concentrating the bulk of the indebtedness in the East, on short term loans, and had brought a certain order out of the confusion of the older methods of administration. But, in 1897, my father proposed a compr
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Chapter X. On the Downward Path
Chapter X. On the Downward Path
During the last years of President Woodruff's life there had been a slow decline of the feeling that it was necessary for self-protection that the hierarchy should preserve a political control over the people. I cannot say that the feeling had wholly passed. It had continued to show itself, here and there, whenever a candidate was so pertinacious in his independence that words of disfavor were sent out from Church headquarters in one of those whispers that carry to the confines of the kingdom of
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Chapter XI. The Will of the Lord
Chapter XI. The Will of the Lord
The Mormon leaders were now hurried down their chosen path of dishonor with a fateful rapidity. A reform movement was demanding of Washington the adoption of a constitutional amendment that should give Congress power to regulate the marriage and divorce laws of all the states in the Union. And this proposed amendment—partly inspired by a growing doubt of the good faith of the Mormon leaders—gave the politicians in Washington something to trade for Mormon votes, in the presidential campaign of 19
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Chapter XII. The Conspiracy Completed
Chapter XII. The Conspiracy Completed
The Smiths were no sooner firm in power than rumors began to circulate of a recrudescence of plural marriage, and I heard reports of political plots by which the Prophets were to reestablish their autocracy in worldly affairs in the name of God. I sought to close my mind against such accusations, for I remembered how often my father had been misjudged, and I felt that nothing but the most direct evidence should be permitted to convince me of a recession by the Church authorities from the miracul
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Chapter XIII. The Smoot Exposure
Chapter XIII. The Smoot Exposure
Just before the subpoenas were issued in the Smoot investigation, I met John R. Winder (then First Councillor to President Smith) on the street in Salt Lake City, and he expressed the hope that when I went "to Washington on the Smoot case," I would not "betray" my "brethren." I assured him that I was not going to Washington as a witness in the Smoot case; that the men whom he should warn, were at Church headquarters. He replied, with indignant alarm, "I don't see what 'the brethren' have to do w
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Chapter XIV. Treason Triumphant
Chapter XIV. Treason Triumphant
While these disclosures of the Smoot investigation were shocking the sentiment of the whole nation, the Prophets carried on the conspiracy of their defense with all the boldness of defiant guilt. In Salt Lake City, the office of the United States Marshal and even the post-office were watched for the arrival of subpoenas from Washington; men were posted in the streets to give the alarm whenever the Marshal should attempt to serve papers; and before he entered the front door of a Mormon's house, t
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Chapter XV. The Struggle For Liberty
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
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Chapter XVI. The Price of Protest
Chapter XVI. The Price of Protest
The members of the Mormon hierarchy continually boast that they are sustained in their power—and in their abuses of that power—"by the free vote of the freest people under the sun." By an amazing self deception the Mormon people assume that their government is one of "common consent;" and nothing angers them more than the expression of any suspicion that they are not the freest community in the world. They live under an absolutism. They have no more right of judgment than a dead body. Yet the di
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Chapter XVII. The New Polygamy
Chapter XVII. The New Polygamy
In the old days of Mormonism—and as late as the anti-polygamous manifesto of 1890—the whole aim and effort of the Church was to exalt and sanctify and make pure the practice of plural marriage by means of the community's respect and the reverences of religion. The doctrine of polygamy was taught as a revealed mystery of faith. It was accepted as a sacrament ordained by God for the salvation of mankind. The most important families in the Church dignified it by their participation, and were in tur
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Chapter XVIII. The Prophet of Mammon
Chapter XVIII. The Prophet of Mammon
In an earlier day among the Mormons, the ecclesiastical authorities collected one-tenth of the "annual increase" of the faithful into "the storehouse of the Lord;" and this was practically the entire assessment made by the Church; although, by the same law of tithing, every Mormon was held obliged to consecrate all his earthly possessions to "God's work" on the demand of the Prophet. The common fund was used, then, to promote community enterprises and to relieve the poor. The tithe-payer saw the
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Chapter XIX. The Subjects of the Kingdom
Chapter XIX. The Subjects of the Kingdom
But what of the Mormon people? How can such leaders, directing the Church to purposes that have become so cruel, so selfish, so dangerous and so disloyal—how can they maintain their power over followers who are themselves neither criminal nor degraded? That is a question which has given the pause of doubt to many criticisms of the Mormon communism of our day. That is the consideration which has obtained from the nation the protection of tolerance under which the Prophets flourish. For not only a
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Conclusion
Conclusion
Of the men who could have written this narrative, some are dead; some are prudent; some are superstitious; and some are personally foresworn. It appeared to me that the welfare of Utah and the common good of the whole United States required the publication of the facts that I have tried to demonstrate. Since there was apparently no one else who felt the duty and also had the information or the wish to write, it seemed my place to undertake it. And I have done it gladly. For when I was subscribin
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