were, bail for Mormon good behavior. In
the end Utah was made a State; the Mormons breathed the freer as
ones who had escaped that Edmunds statute which was like a sword
of Damocles above their polygamous heads. To be sure, as a State
Utah had her laws against plural marriages, and provided a
punishment for the bigamist; the general government would consent
to nothing less as the price of that statehood prayed for. But
the Mormon criminals, the Smiths, the Lymans, the Tanners, and
the Cluffs, were not afraid. They had gotten the reins of power
into their own fingers, and made sure of their careful ability to
drive ahead without an upset.

The Mormon Church, now when Utah was a State, went into politics
more openly and deeply than before. Practically there are three
parties in Utah - Republicans and Democrats and Mormons. The
Gentiles are Democrats or Republicans; the Mormons are never
anything but Mormons, voting on this side or on that, for one man
or another, as the Mormon interest dictates and the Mormon
President and the apostles direct. Every Mormon who has a vote
occupies a double position; he is a Mormon in religion and a
Mormon in political faith. In that way every office is filled
with a Mormon, or with a Gentile who can be blind to Mormon
iniquities. To-day a bigamist in Utah has no more to fear from
the law than has a gambling-house keeper in the city of New York.

That Mormon conspiracy, whereof Smoot in the Senate is one
expression, was not made yesterday. It had its birth in the year
of the Edmunds law and its drastic enforcement. In that day,
black for Mormons, it was resolved to secure such foothold, such
representation in the Congress at Washington, that, holding a
balance of power in the Senate or House, or both, the Congressional
Democrats or Republicans would grant the Mormons safety for their
pet tenet of polygamy as the price of Mormon support. The Mormons
in carrying out these plans decided upon an invasion and,
wherever possible, the political conquest of other States. They
already owned Utah; they would bring - politically - beneath
their thumb as many more as they might. With this thought they
planted colonies in Nevada, in Colorado, in Idaho, in Wyoming, in
Montana, in Oregon, in Arizona. As a refuge for polygamists,
should the unexpected happen and a storm of law befall, they also
planted colonies over the Mexico line in Chihuahua and Sonora.

Before going to the latter move they talked