ame to me with word
that my call had been considered and that he had been deputed to talk
with me. We appointed a time for conference in my rooms at Democratic
headquarters, where we spent the large part of a day in consultation.
And since the argument between us covered the whole ground of Apostle
Smoot's candidacy, I wish to give an account of that interview, as a
brief exposition of some of the present-day aspects of the Church's
interference in politics.

Apostle Cowley and I had been boyhood friends. He had been one of the
older students at the school that I had attended as a child; and I knew
the integrity and directness of his character. He was a stocky, strong
man, with a wholesome sort of face, brown with the sunburn of his
missionary travels in Canada and in Mexico. (He had been, in fact,
solemnizing plural marriages in these polygamous refuges--as we found
out later.)

As soon as it was clearly understood between us that I represented the
Democratic state committee and he represented the Church authorities, I
asked for an explanation of Apostle Smoot's candidacy.

Cowley began by admitting the candidacy, which President Smith had
endorsed (he said) in spite of the opposition of some of the apostles.
He argued that Apostle Smoot was only exercising his right of American
citizenship in aspiring to the Senatorship; and he explained that the
Church authorities did not see why the Church should be drawn into the
campaign.

But, as I pointed out to him, the Church had already drawn itself in.
It had held a solemn conclave of its hierarchy to authorize an apostle's
candidacy. The opponents of Church rule would circulate the fact; in
any close campaign, the apostle's friends would use the fact upon the
faithful; and the Church would be compelled to support its apostle in an
assumed necessity of defending itself.

Perhaps I was objectionably forceful in my reply to him. With his
characteristic gentleness, he rebuked me by recalling that President
Woodruff had once taken him into "sacred places," assured him that
"Frank Cannon, like David, was a man after God's own heart," and asked
him to "labor" for me in politics. If it had been right for the Prophet
of God to favor me, why was it not right for the Prophet now to favor
some one else?

My personal regard for Apostle Cowley kept me from showing the amusement
I felt at finding myself in this new scriptural role remembering how
President Woodruff had once devote