ion was Colonel Wm. Nelson, then managing editor
of the Salt Lake Tribune, a Gentile, a former leader of the Liberal
Party, an opponent of Mormonism as practiced, who had fought the Church
hierarchy for years. Here was a new evidence that we were now beyond
the old quarrels--a further guarantee that we were prepared to take
our place among the states of the Union, free of parochialism and its
sectarian enmities.

The campaign gave every proof of such political emancipation. The
people divided, on national party lines, as completely as any American
community in my experience. The Democrats, having nominated Joseph L.
Rawlins, had the prestige that he had gained in helping to pass the
Enabling Act; a Democratic administration was in power in Washington;
Apostle Moses Thatcher, Brigham H. Roberts, and other members of the
Church inspired the old loyalty of the Mormons for the Democracy. But
the Republicans had been re-enforced by the dissolution of the Liberal
Party, whose last preceding candidate (Mr. Clarence E. Allen) went
on the stump for us. The Smith jealousy of Moses Thatcher divided the
Church influence; and though charges of ecclesiastical interference were
made on both sides, such interference was personal rather than official.
Mr. Rawlins was defeated, and I was elected delegate in Congress from
the territory--with the United States Senatorship practically assured to
me.

In the spring of 1895 the constitutional convention at Salt Lake City
formulated a provisional constitution for the new Utah; and, in the Fall
of the year, a general election was held to adopt this constitution and
to elect officers who should enter upon their duties as soon as Utah
became a state. The election was marked by a most significant and
important incident.

The Democrats, in their convention, nominated for Congress, Brigham H.
Roberts, one of the first seven "presidents of the seventy," and for
the United States Senate, Joseph L. Rawlins and Apostle Moses Thatcher.
Immediately, at a priesthood meeting of the hierarchy, Joseph F. Smith
denounced the candidacies of Roberts and Thatcher; and the grounds for
the denunciation were subsequently stated in the "political manifesto"
of April, 1896, in which the First Presidency announced, as a rule of
the Church, that no official of the Church should accept a political
nomination until he had obtained the permission of the Church
authorities and had learned from them whether he could "cons