been a suitor for the
hand of L----, a teacher at the Logan College. He had been away from
Utah for some time, and he had returned hoping to make her his wife.
Stopping over night in Salt Lake, on his way home, he saw Tanner and
L---- enter the lobby of the hotel in which he sat. They registered as
man and wife and went upstairs together. He followed--to walk the floor
of his room all night, struggling against the impulse to break in, and
kill Tanner, and damn his own soul by meddling with the man who had been
ordained by the Prophets to a wholesale polygamous prerogative.

He had kept his hands clean of blood, but he had been living ever since
with murder in his heart. Could these two sons of the Church do more to
remedy such horrors by using their influence to have Tanner deposed, or
by sacrificing that influence in an open revolt against the conditions
that made Tanner possible? I could only advise them to act according to
their own best sense of what was right. They did use their influence to
help force Tanner's deposition, but we lost the public example of their
opposition to the crimes of the hierarchy.

I relate these incidents as typical of the different kinds of pressure
that were brought to bear upon the independent Mormons who wished to
aid us, and of the local difficulties against which we had to contend.
Washington, of course, gave us no recognition. And we did not succeed
in reaching the ear of the nation. Here and there a newspaper noted our
effort and paid some small heed to our protest, but the overwhelming
success of the Republican party--and the dumb-driven acquiescence of
the Democracy--in Utah and the neighboring Church-ruled states, left the
agitation with little of political interest for the country at large.

And yet the struggle went on. Animated by the spirit of the Salt Lake
Tribune, the leading newspaper of the community, the American party
entered the city elections in the fall of 1905 and carried them against
the hierarchy's Democratic ticket, with the help of the independent
Mormons, under cover of the secret ballot. Emboldened by this success
we proposed to move on the state and county offices, with the hope of
gaining some members of the legislature and some of the judicial and
executive offices, through which to enforce the laws that the Church
leaders were defying. But here we failed. Outside of Salt Lake the rule
of the Prophets was still absolute and unquestioned. The people bowed