sustained as a ward of
the Church.

Apostles John W. Taylor and Mathias F. Cowley left the country, to
escape a summons to Washington; and President Smith pleaded that he
had no control over their movements, and promised that he would, if
possible, bring them back to comply with the Senate subpoenas. He knew,
as every Mormon and every well-informed Gentile knew, that the slightest
expression of a wish from him would be the word of God to those two men.
They would have gloried in going to Washington to show the courage
of their fanaticism. They would never have left the country without
instructions from their President. But they could not have married
plural wives after the manifesto, and solemnized plural marriages
for other polygamists, without Smith's knowledge and consent; their
testimony would have placed the responsibility for these unlawful
practices upon the Prophet; and the penalty would have fallen on the
Prophet's Senator.

They not only fled, but they allowed themselves in their absence to be
made the scapegoats of the hierarchy. They were proven guilty of "new
polygamy" before the Senate committee; and, for the sake of the effect
upon the country, they were ostensibly deposed from the apostolate
by order of the President, who, by their dismissal from the quorum,
advanced his son Hyrum in seniority. But their apparent degradation
involved none of the consequences that Moses Thatcher had suffered. They
continued their ministrations in the Church. They remained high in favor
with the hierarchy. They claimed and received from the faithful the
right to be regarded as holily "the Lord's' anointed" as they had
ever been. They still held their Melchisedec priesthood. One of them
afterward took a new plural wife. It seems to be well authenticated that
the other continued to perform plural marriages; and every Mormon
looked upon them both--and still looks upon them--as zealous priests who
endured the appearance of shame in order to preserve the power of the
Prophet in governing the nation.

Another crucial point in President Smith's responsibility was his
solemnization of the plural marriage between Apostle Abraham H. Cannon
and Lillian Hamlin, of which I have already written. One of the women
of the dead apostle's family was subpoenaed to give her testimony in the
matter. She thrice telephoned to me that she wished to consult me; but
she was surrounded by such a system of espionage that again and again
she failed