ng
man--you shall not be harmed, this time."

I parted from him with an almost speechless relief and gratitude, and
hurried to my father with the news of hope. I had not told Mr. Blaine
that he was in Washington; for, without feeling that he saw himself
marked by his imprisonment, I was aware that his friends might pity him
for it, if they did not condemn him; and neither sentiment (I knew) was
he of the personal temper to encounter.

I told him every detail of my talk with the Secretary of State; he heard
me, silently, meditatively. When I concluded with Mr. Blaine's assurance
that we should not be harmed "this time," but must "get into line,"
he looked up at me with a significant steadiness of eye. "President
Woodruff," he said, "has been praying.... He thinks he sees some
light.... You are authorized to say that something will be done."

I asked no question. His gaze conveyed assurance, but forbade inquiry. I
had to understand, without being told, that the Church was preparing to
concede a recession from the doctrine of polygamy.

With this assurance to aid me, I began the work of reaching the
committees--warm work in a Washington summer, but hopeful in the new
prospect of a lasting success. The bill for disfranchisement had been
reported out by the committees and was on the calendar for passage. It
was necessary to have the question reopened before the committees
for argument. In soliciting the opportunity of a re-hearing, from
the Chairman of the Senate Committee, Senator Orville H. Platt, of
Connecticut, I made my argument in a private conversation with him in
his rooms in the Arlington Hotel. When I had done, he chewed his cigar
a moment, looked at me quizzically, and asked: "Do you know Abbot R.
Heywood, of Ogden?"--and, as he asked it, he drew a letter from his
pocket.

I replied that I knew Mr. Heywood well.

"I have a letter here from him, on this same subject," he said. "Tell
me. What kind of man is he? And to what extent do you think I ought to
depend on his views?"

I was never more tempted in my life to tell a lie. I knew Mr. Heywood
to be a man of truth and high ideals; but he had been Chairman of the
Anti-Church party in Weber County, and he had been one of the Gentile
leaders for several years. I knew the intensity of his feelings against
the rule of the Church in politics and the Mormon attitude of defiance
to the law. I was sure that he would be strong in his demand for the
passage of the di