ward of "the Divine Monarch," and he proceeded to exercise his
assumed prerogatives with an autocracy that made even Joseph F. Smith
complain because the Councillor's were never asked for counsel. As
resident apostle of Box Elder County and president of the Box Elder
"stake of Zion," Snow had already shown his ambition as a financier,
disastrously; and it was as the financial head of the Church that he was
chiefly to rule during his term of absolutism.

Of all the Church leaders whom I had known he was the only man who
showed none of the robustness of the Western experience. Tall, stately,
white-bearded, elegant and courtly, he prided himself most obviously on
his manners and his culture. He rarely spoke in any but the most subdued
and silken tones of suavity. He walked with a step that was almost
affected in its gentility. If he had any passions, he held them in such
smooth concealment that the public credited him with neither force
nor unkindness. He had been a great traveler (as a missionary); he had
written his autobiography, somewhat egotistically; he was devoted to
the forms of his religion, like a mediaeval Prince of the Church and
an elegante. But under all the artificialities of personal vanity and
exterior grace, he proved to have a cold determination that seemed more
selfishly ambitious than religiously zealous.

At once, upon his accession to power, he notified us that he did
not intend to carry out any such plan as we had suggested for the
administration of the Church's finances. It meant a diffusion of
authority; and he held that the best results had been obtained by
keeping all power in the hands of the Prophet, Seer and Revelator, and
of those whom he might appoint to work with him. Joseph F. Smith, at
a meeting of the Presidency, was even more positive. No good, he said,
could come of publishing the affairs of the community to the people
of it; those affairs were purely the concern of the Prophets; the Lord
revealed His will to the Prophets and they were responsible only to Him.

My father necessarily bowed to the President's decision. "It is within
the authority of the Prophet of the Lord," he counselled me, "to
determine how he will conduct the business of the Church. President Snow
has his own ideas."

By that decision, as I see it now, an autocracy of financial power was
confirmed to the President of the Mormon Church at a time when a renewal
of prosperity among its people was about to make such