d by the General Conference; but this
ratification is a mere form, because the conference must either accept
the choice of the apostles or rebel against "the revelation of God."

Apostle Lorenzo Snow was president of the quorum of apostles, and
therefore in line for the Presidency. But usually, after the death of
a President, a considerable period was allowed to elapse before the
selection of his successor, with the government resting in the quorum
of apostles meanwhile, even for a term of years. As soon as I arrived
in Salt Lake, Apostle Snow asked me to a private interview (in the
same small back room of the President's offices), inquired about the
financial negotiations that I had been conducting, and asked me whether
it was not essential to the success of our business affairs that as soon
as possible the Church should elect a President, empowered as "trustee
in trust." I replied that it was. He invited me to attend a conference
of the apostles and give my views upon the situation to them.

This seemed to me an act of rather shallow cunning, for I knew I was
too unimportant a person to be so consulted unless he thought my report
would aid his intrigue. Such intriguing was offensive to the religious
traditions of the Church; and it outraged my feeling for President
Woodruff, who was hardly cold in death before this personal and worldly
ambition caught at the reins of his office. Snow had been a man of
small weight in the government of the Church. He had known none of the
responsibilities of great leadership. He was eighty-four years old.

However, it was impossible for us to maintain the Church's credit in
the East unless our community were represented by some choate authority,
since our credit rested on the belief that the Mormon people were ready
to consecrate all their possessions at any time to the service of the
Church at the command of the President. I advised the apostles of this
fact. Snow was elected President on September 13, 1898, eleven days
after Woodruff's death. He followed the usual precedent in choosing my
father and Joseph F. Smith as his Councillor's.

But he took possession of his new authority with the manner of an heir
entering upon the ownership of a personal estate for which he had long
waited--and which he proposed to enjoy to the full for his remaining
years. In a most literal sense he held that all the property of the
people of the Church was subject to his direction, as chief earthly
ste