use Smoot was such an able defender of those
"interests"! Not because his constituents would uphold his course! But
because he has no constituents, and is responsible to no one but the
hierarchical partners of those "interests.")

Every pledge of the Mormon leaders that the Church would not interfere
in politics has been broken at every election in Utah since President
Snow that night pleaded to me that he had had many business anxieties
for the Church and that if we elected the Church candidate "aid" would
come to him. The covenants by which Utah obtained its statehood have
been violated again and again. The provisions of the state constitution
have been nullified. The trust of the Mormon people has been abused;
their political liberties have been denied them; their Gentile brethren
have been betrayed. And all this has been done not for the protection
of the people, who were threatened with no proscription--and not for
the advancement of the faith, which has been free to work out its
own future. It has been done as a part of the alliance between the
"financial" prophets of the Church and the financial "interests" of
the country--which have been exploiting the people of Utah as they
have exploited the whole nation with the aid of the ecclesiastical
authorities in Utah.

Chapter XI. The Will of the Lord

The Mormon leaders were now hurried down their chosen path of dishonor
with a fateful rapidity. A reform movement was demanding of Washington
the adoption of a constitutional amendment that should give Congress
power to regulate the marriage and divorce laws of all the states in the
Union. And this proposed amendment--partly inspired by a growing
doubt of the good faith of the Mormon leaders--gave the politicians
in Washington something to trade for Mormon votes, in the presidential
campaign of 1900.

The Republicans had lost the electoral votes of Utah and the surrounding
states, in 1896.

Utah was now Democratic, and its one United States Senator (who was
still in office) was a Democrat. Senator Hanna's lieutenant, Perry S.
Heath, came to Salt Lake City in the summer of 1900, to confer with
the heads of the Mormon Church. His authority (as representative of the
ruler of the Republican party) had been authenticated by correspondence;
and he was received by President Snow as royalty receives the envoy of
royalty.

Heath negotiated with his usual directness. In the phrase of the time,
"he laid down his car