ds on the table, face up, and asked Snow to play
to that hand." If the Mormon Church would pledge its support to the
Republican party, the Republican leaders would avert the threatened
constitutional amendment that was to give Congress the power to
interfere in the domestic affairs of the Mormon people. But if the
Church denied its support to the Republican party, the constitutional
amendment would be carried, and the Mormons, in their marriage
relations, would be returned to the Federal jurisdiction from which they
had escaped when the territory was admitted to statehood.

The sentiment of the country was known to be in favor of giving Congress
such power. A strong body of reformers was urging the amendment, and
the Church leaders had sent Apostle John Henry Smith and Bishop H. B.
Clawson to lobby against it. After consulting with my father, I had
written to President Snow pointing out the danger to the Mormons of
having a lobby opposing such an amendment--for I was not then aware of
the secret return to the practice of polygamy, after 1896. President
Snow replied to me (in a message of guarded prudence) that although
the Church inhibited plural marriage and did not intend to allow the
practice, he was opposed to the interference of Congress in the domestic
concerns of the other states of the Union!

He made his "deal" with Perry Heath. Church messengers were sent out
secretly to the Mormons in Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, Montana,
Washington, Oregon, California and the territories, with the whispered
announcement that it was "the will of the Lord" that the Republicans
should be aided. Utah went Republican; the Mormons in the surrounding
states either openly supported, or secretly voted for McKinley; and the
constitutional amendment was "side tracked" and forgotten.

Utah elected a Republican legislature. Apostle Reed Smoot applied to
President Snow for permission to become a candidate for the United
States Senatorship, and obtained a promise that if he stood aside, for
the time, he should receive his reward later. President Snow had decided
that Thomas Kearns, already an active candidate, was the man whom the
Church would support--since Mr. Kearns' ability, his wealth and his
business connection promised greater advantages for the state and (under
cunning manipulation by the priests) greater advantages for the Church
than the election of any other candidate. And all this may be fairly
said without assuming that