y following
where these men led. I saw no slightest indication that any reactionary
policy was likely to be entered upon in Utah, or that our people would
accept it if it were.

The Church's personal property was restored by an Act of Congress
approved October 25, 1893, but it was stipulated in the Act that the
money was not to be used for the support of any church buildings in
which "the rightfulness of the practice of polygamy" should be taught.
Similarly, when the Enabling Act was approved, in July 16, 1894,
it, too, provided that "polygamous or plural marriage" was forever
prohibited. A constitutional convention was held at Salt Lake City under
the provisions of that act, and a constitution was adopted in which
it was provided that "polygamous or plural marriages" were forever
prohibited, that the territorial laws against polygamy were to be
continued in force, that there should be "no union of church and state,"
and that no church should "dominate the state or interfere with its
functions." Upon no other basis would the nation have granted us our
statehood; and we accepted the grant, knowing the expressed condition
involved in that acceptance.

But there was one other gift that came to us from the nation--by
Congressional enactment and later by Utah statute as a consequence of
statehood; and that gift was the legitimizing of every child born
of plural marriage before January, 1896. The solemn benignity of the
concession touched me, as it must have touched many, to the very heart
of gratitude. By it, ten thousand children were taken from the outer
darkness of this world's conventional exclusion and placed within
the honored relations of mankind. It was a tribute to the purity
and sincerity of the Mormon women who had borne the cross of plural
marriage, believing that God had commanded their suffering. It
recognized the holy nature and honorable intent of the marriages
of these women, by according their children every right of legal
inheritance from their fathers. If all other covenants could be
forgotten and their proof obliterated, this should remain as Utah's
pledge of honor--sacred for the sake of the Mormon mothers, holy in the
name of the uplifted child.

Chapter VI. The Goal--And After

Here we were then (as I saw the situation) assured of our statehood,
rid of polygamy, relieved of religious control in politics, and free to
devote our energies to the development of the land and the industri