ten
its duty to the people of the nation. I argued, to the President, that
of all people in the world we, who had suffered so much ourselves,
were most bound to bow to no unfairness ourselves and to oppose the
imposition of unfairness upon others. And I talked in this strain to him
not because I wished his approval of my action but because I wished
to fortify him against the approach of the emissaries of the new
Republicanism, who were sure to come to him to seek the support of the
Church in the campaign.

Some days later, while I was talking with my father in the offices of
the Presidency, the secretary ushered in Senator Redfield Proctor of
Vermont. I withdrew, understanding that he wished to speak in private
with President Woodruff and his councillors. But I learned subsequently
that he had come to Salt Lake to persuade the leaders of the Church
to use their power in favor of the Republican party throughout the
intermountain states.

Senator Proctor asked me personally what chance I thought the party
had in the West. I pointed out that the Republican platform of 1892
had reproached Grover Cleveland for his antagonism to bimetallism--"a
doctrine favored by the American people from tradition and interest,"
to quote the language of that platform--and the Republicans of the
intermountain states still held true to the doctrine. It had
been repudiated by the St. Louis platform of June, 1896, and the
intermountain states would probably refuse their electoral votes to the
Republican party because of the repudiation.

Senator Proctor thought that the leaders of the Church were powerful
enough to control the votes of their followers; and he argued that
gratitude to the Republican party for freeing Utah ought to be stronger
than the opinions of the people in a merely economic question.

I reminded him that one of our covenants had been that the Church was
to refrain from dictating to its followers in politics; that we had been
steadily growing away from the absolutism of earlier times; and that
for the sake of the peace and progress of Utah I hoped that the leaders
would keep their hands off. I did not, of course, convince him. Nor was
it necessary. I was sure that no power that the Church would dare to use
would be sufficient at this time to influence the people against their
convictions.

Joseph F. Smith, soon afterward, notified me that there was to be a
meeting of the Church authorities in the Temple, and he asked me