ed world!

It is "the will of the Lord!"

Chapter XII. The Conspiracy Completed

The Smiths were no sooner firm in power than rumors began to circulate
of a recrudescence of plural marriage, and I heard reports of political
plots by which the Prophets were to reestablish their autocracy in
worldly affairs in the name of God. I sought to close my mind against
such accusations, for I remembered how often my father had been
misjudged, and I felt that nothing but the most direct evidence should
be permitted to convince me of a recession by the Church authorities
from the miraculous opportunity of progress that was now open to their
leadership. Such direct evidence came, in part, in the state elections
of 1902.

The Utah Democrats re-nominated Wm. H. King for Congress; Senator Joseph
L. Rawlins was their candidate to succeed himself in the United States
Senate. The Republicans nominated President Smith's friend, Joseph
Howell, for Congress; and there began to spread a rumor that Apostle
Reed Smoot was to become a Republican candidate for the Senatorship
under an old promise given him by President Snow and now endorsed by
President Smith. I had been made state chairman of the Democratic party;
and with the growing report of Apostle Smoot's candidacy, I observed a
gradual cessation of political activity on the part of those prominent
Democrats who were close to the Church leaders.

Now, our party was not making war on the Church nor on any of its proper
missions in the world. Our candidates were capable and popular men
against whom no just ecclesiastical antagonism could be raised. We were
asking no favors from the Church. And we were determined to have no
opposition from the Church without a protest and an understanding.

For this reason--after consulting confidentially with the leaders of our
party--undertook to make a personal visit to President Smith's office
to demand that the Church authorities should keep their hands out of
politics. But even while I discussed the matter with our party leaders,
I was afraid that some of them might betray our concerted purpose to
Church headquarters. And my fear was well grounded. When I went to the
offices of the Presidency, the authorities--for the first, last and only
time--refused to see me; and the secretary betrayed a knowledge of my
mission by telling me that I should hear from some one of the hierarchy,
later.

Two or three days afterward, Apostle M. F. Cowley c