Salt Lake City, even if the Church
authorities had wished to remonstrate. The fact was that the people of
Utah were with us in our insurgency, and when the financial interests
subsequently appealed to the hierarchy, they found the Church powerless
to aid them in support of a gold platform. But they obtained that aid,
at last, in support of a tariff that was as unjust to the people as it
was favorable to the trusts, and my continued "insurgency" led me again
into a revolt against Church interference.

The thread of connection that ran through these incidents is clear
enough to me now: they were all incidents in the progress of a
partnership between the Church and the predatory business interests that
have since so successfully exploited the country. But, at the time,
I saw no such connection clearly. I supposed that the partnership was
merely a political friendship between the Smith faction in the Church
and the Republican politicians who wished to use the Church; and I had
sufficient contempt for the political abilities of the Smiths to regard
their conspiracy rather lightly.

Believing still in the good faith of the Mormon people and their real
leaders in authority, I introduced a joint resolution in the Senate
restoring to the Church its escheated real estate, which was still in
the hands of a receiver, although its personal property had been
already restored. In conference with Senators Hoar and Allison,--of the
committee to which the resolution was referred--I urged an unconditional
restoration of the property, arguing that to place conditions upon the
restoration would be to insult the people who had given so many proofs
of their willingness to obey the law and keep their pledges. The
property was restored without conditions by a joint resolution that
passed the Senate on March 18, 1896, passed the House a week later, and
was approved by the President on March 26. The Church was now free of
the last measure of proscription. Its people were in the enjoyment of
every political liberty of American citizenship; and I joined in the
Presidential campaign of 1896 with no thought of any danger threatening
us that was not common to the other communities of the country.

But before I continue further with these political events, I must relate
a private incident in the secret betrayal of Utah--an incident that must
be related, if this narrative is to remain true to the ideals of public
duty that have thus far assumed to in