the acquiescence of sympathy. A meeting was called in Salt Lake City, in
May, 1904, and under the direction of Colonel William Nelson, editor of
the Salt Lake Tribune, the principles of the present "American party"
were enunciated as a protest against the lawbreaking tyranny of the
Church leaders. Later, as it became clear that the opponents of the
Smith misrule must organize their own party of progress, committees were
formed and a convention was held (in September, 1904) at which a
full state and county ticket was put in the field, in the name of the
American Party of Utah.

We agreed that no war should be made on the Mormon religion as such;
that no war should be made on the Mormon people because of their being
Mormons; that we would draw a deadline at the year 1890, when the
Church had effected a composition of its differences with the national
government, and all the citizens of Utah, Mormon and Gentile alike, had
accepted the conditions of settlement; that we would find our cause of
quarrel in the hierarchy's violation of the statehood pledges; and that
when we had corrected these evil practices we should dissolve, because
(to quote the language used at the time) we did not wish "to raise a
tyrant merely to slay a tyrant."

In the idea that we would fight upon living issues--that we would not
open the graves of the past to dig up a dead quarrel and parade it in
its cerements--the American party movement began. Its first enlistment
included practically all the Gentiles in Salt Lake City who resented
the claim of the Prophet that they acquiesced in his crimes and his
treasons. But the most promising sign for the party was its attraction
of hundreds of independent Mormons of the younger generation. As one
Mormon of that hopeful time expressed it: "The flag represents the
political power. The golden angel Moroni, at the top of the Temple,
represents the ecclesiastical authority. I will not pay to either one a
deference which belongs to the other. I know how to keep them apart in
my personal devotion."

This was exactly what the Church authorities would not permit. It would
have destroyed all the special and selfish prerogatives of the Mormon
hierarchs. It would have subverted their claim of absolute temporal
power. It would have set up the nation and the state as the objects of
civic devotion--instead of the Kingdom of God.

Although we of the American party disavowed and abstained from any
attack upon the Mormon