on was ever made of one of the innumerable
incidents or accusations that it contains. It is here published in book
form at somewhat greater length than the magazine could print it. It
is a joint work, but the autobiographic "I" has been used throughout,
because it is Mr. Cannon's personal narrative of his personal
experience.

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 and the surrounding states as cruelly
as a Sultan and more securely than any Czar.

To him the Mormon people pay a yearly tribute of more than two million
dollars in tithes; and he uses that income, to his own ends, without an
accounting. He is president of the Utah branch of the sugar trust, and
of the local incorporation's of the salt trust; and he supports the
exaction's of monopoly by his financial absolutism, while he defends
them from competition by his religious power of interdict and
excommunication. He is president of a system of "company stores," from
which the faithful buy their merchandise; of a wagon and machine company
from which the Mormon farmers purchase their vehicles and implements; of
life-insurance and fire-insurance companies, of banking institutions,
of a railroad, of a knitting company, of newspapers, which the Mormon
people are required by their Church to patronize, and through which they
are exploited, commercially and financially, for the sole profit of the
sovereign of Utah and his religious court.

He is the political Boss of the state, delivering the votes of his
people by revelation of the Will of God, practically appointing the
United States Senators from Utah--as he practically appoints the
marshals, district attorneys, judges, legislators, officers and
administrators of law throughout his "Kingdom of God on Earth"--and
ruling the non-Mormons of Utah, as he rules his own people, by virtue
of his political and financial partnership with the great "business
interests" that govern and exploit this nation, and his Kingdom, for
their own gain, and