that if the Church leaders would only
keep their hands off, there was ample strength in either party to make
a presentation of national issues of sufficient appeal to divide the
people on party lines; and it was evident that the people would choose
the party that made the best showing of principles and candidates.
"Nuggets of Truth" left us with a nasty sense that at no hour were we
assured of safety from ecclesiastical interference--or the nefarious
attempt to make an appearance of such interference--in our political
affairs. But the disaster that followed, in this instance, was so prompt
that we could hope it would prove a lesson.

Most important of all, the campaign had made it evident that there
was now no political mission in Utah for the Liberal (the Gentile)
party--assuming that the retirement of the Mormon priests from politics
was sincere and permanent. Accordingly, the organization formally met
some months later, and formally dissolved; and, by that act, the
last great obstacle to united progress was removed from our road to
statehood, and the men who removed it acted with a generosity that
makes one of the noblest records of self-sacrifice in the history of the
state.

They could foresee that their dissolution as a separate force meant
statehood for Utah--a sovereignty in itself that would leave the
Gentiles in the minority and without any appeal to the nation. Under
territorial conditions, although the non-Mormons were less than
one-third of the population, they had two-thirds of the political power.
They held all the Federal offices, including executive and judicial
positions. They had the Governor, with an absolute veto over the acts
of the Mormon legislature. They had the President and Congress who could
annul any statute of the territory; and they had with them almost the
entire sentiment of the nation. It was in their power to have protracted
the Mormon controversy, and to have withstood the appeal for statehood,
to this day.

They yielded everything; they accepted, in return, only the good faith
of the Mormons. Was it within the capacity of any human mind to foresee
that in return for such generosity the Church would ever give over its
tabernacles to teaching its people to hold in detestation the very,
names of these men who saved us? Was it to be suspected that the
political power surrendered by them would ever be used as a persecution
upon them?--that the liberty, given by them to us, would ever