on. If you can get my supporters
away from me--very well. I shall have no personal regrets. But you
cannot get me away from my supporters."

This inclusion of my father in my refusal evidently disconcerted
President Woodruff; and, as evidently, it had its significance to Joseph
F. Smith.

I went on: "Before I was elected to the House of Representatives, I
asked my father if he intended to be a candidate for the Senate. I
knew that some prominent Gentiles, desiring to curry favor at Church
headquarters had solicited his candidacy. I had been told that General
Clarkson and others had assured him by letter that his election would be
accepted at Washington, and elsewhere. I discussed the matter with him
fully. He agreed with me that his election would be a violation of the
understanding had with the country; and he declared that he did not care
to become again the storm center of strife to his people, nor did he
feel that he could honorably break our covenant to the country. With
this clear understanding between us, I made my pledges to men who, in
supporting me, cast aside equally advantageous relations which they
might have established with another. I can't withdraw now without
dishonor."

My father said: "Don't let us have any misunderstandings. As President
Woodruff stated the matter to me, I understood that it would be pleasing
to the Lord, if the people desired my election to the Senate and it
wouldn't antagonize the country."

"Yes, yes," the President put in. "That's what I mean."

Smith said, rather sourly: "The people are always willing to do what the
Lord desires--if no one gives them bad counsel."

Both he and my father emphasized the fact that the business interests of
the East were making strong representations to the Presidency in support
of my father's election; and I suspected (what I afterwards found to be
the case) that both Joseph F. Smith and Apostle John Henry Smith, were
by this time, in close communication with Republican politicians. There
was a calm assumption, everywhere, that the Church had power to decide
the election, if it could be induced to act; and this assumption was
a deplorable evidence, to me, of the willingness of some of our former
allies to drag us swiftly to the shame of a broken covenant, if only
they could profit in purse or politics by our dishonor. I would not be
an agent in any such betrayal, but I had to refuse without offending
my father's trust in the divine inspirati