y--with sending me to
consult with President Woodruff and Joseph F. Smith.

To them, I argued that the political emancipation of the Mormon people
from ecclesiastical direction was as necessary as the recession from
polygamy had been. We must be set free to perform our duty to the
country solely as citizens of the country, before we could expect to be
given the right to perform it at all. And, for my part, the only action
I would consent to take as a member of the advisory committee of the
People's Party would be to vote for the dissolution of the party.

President Woodruff referred me to my father, and advised me to be guided
by him. Joseph F. Smith urged that a division of the Mormon people on
national party lines would enable the Liberal (the Gentile) party to
march in between. I argued in reply that we must divide at some time,
and the sooner the better, since every year was increasing the Gentile
population. They would never split as long as we remained solid. And if
we were ever to be permitted to nationalize ourselves, it would not be
until we had dissolved the party organizations whose very names were a
proof of the continued rule of the Church in politics.

When he had no more arguments to advance, he gave a reluctant assent to
mine. I reported back to my father and he approved of my plans. He asked
me humorously with whom I expected to affiliate, since he knew of no one
who was likely to go with me; but I could see that he was pleased with
my independence and hoped I might succeed in doing something to break
the deadlock-grapple of Mormon and Gentile that held Utah apart from the
rest of the country in politics.

His humorous idea of my undertaking gave its color to my beginnings.
It was rather a spirited adventure, as I look back upon it now. When we
organized a Republican Club at Ogden, my intimate friend, Ben E. Rich,
and another friend named Joseph Belnap, were the only Mormons, so far
as I know, who joined me in becoming members. Outside of us three, I did
not know of another Mormon Republican in the whole territory.

Indeed, the status of the Mormon people, in their fancied relation to
the two great parties of the country, was almost identical with that of
the people of the South after the Civil War. Practically every Mormon
believed himself to be a Democrat. Among the young men of the Church
there had been occasional attempts to form Democratic Clubs. Mr. John
T. Caine, delegate in Congress from the