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 friendship 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chamber, withdrawn from the assembled prophets and confronting
them. Having first disavowed any recognition of their right as an
ecclesiastical body to direct me in my political actions, I rehearsed
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 v