Under the Prophet in Utah

t before I proceed any farther. I must relate it soon, because it came up for explanation in one of my first interviews with Preside

rested and tried before Chief Justice Zane-with District Attorney Dickson and Assistant District Attorney Varian prosecuting-he would be convicted on so many counts that he would be held in prison indefinitely-that he migh

e kept my covenant in purity. I believed that no constitutional law of the country could forbid this practice of a religious faith. As the laws of Congress conflict with my sense of submission to the will of the Lord, I now offer myself, here, for whatever judgment the courts of my country may impose." He believed that such a course would vindicate the si

oseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum Smith; and Taylor had been wounded by the mob that broke into the jail and shot the Smiths to death. This, perhaps, had cured him of any faith in the protecting power of innocency. He decided against v

t Humboldt Wells, Nevada, and brought back to Utah. Near Promontory he fell from the steps of the moving car, at night, in the midst of an alkali desert, and hurt himself seriously. He was recaptured and brought to Salt Lake City on a stretcher, in a special car, guarded by a squad of soldiers from Fort Douglas, with loaded muskets, and a c

y was hearing testimony against him, one of the beloved women of his family was called for examination, and District Attorney Dickson asked her some questions that deeply wounded her. She retur

erous; that the feeling, on our side at least, was too warm for calm remonstrances. And I should not have taken with

lawn trees-and we found him in the lobby. I asked him to step out on the porch, where I might speak with him in pr

k him a smashing blow in the face. Dickson grappled with me, a little blinded, and I called to th

brother and myself, and against a cousin who happened to be in another part of the hotel at the time of the attack. Some weeks later, when the excitement had rather died down, I went to the District Attorney's office and arranged with his assistant, Mr. Varian,

. This, Justice Zane seemed prepared to do, but I objected. I was a newspaper writer (as I explained), and I felt that if I criticized the court thereafter for what I believed to be a harshness that amounted to pe

haracter, a Puritan, of a sincerity that was afterwards accepted and admired from end to end of Utah, he was determined to vindicate the essential supremacy of the civil law over the ecclesiastical domi

not aid me in my appeal to Washington, where I intended to argue-as the first wise concession needed of the Federal authorities-that Chief Justice Zane should no longer be retained on the bench in Utah, but should be succeeded by a man more gentle. He was the great figure am

icers. Utah's admiration for Judge Zane was shown, upon the composition of our differences with the nation, by the Mormon vote that placed him on the Supreme Court bench. Indeed, it is one of the strange psychologies of this reconciliation, that, as soon as peace was made, the strongest men of both parties came into the warmest friendship; our fear and hatred of our prosecutors changed to r

iness that they had left. My own mother had come that road, a little girl of eight; and my mind was full of pictures of her, at school in a wagon-box, singing hymns with her elders around the camp fires at night, or kneeling with the mourners beside the grave of an infant relative buried by the roadside. Our train crossed the Loup Fork of the Platte almost within sight of the place where my father, a lad of twenty, had led across the river at nightfall, had been lost to his party, and had nearly perished, naked to the cold, before he struggled back to the camp. I could see their little circle of wagons drawn up at sunset against the menace of the India

punishing them again for their law-breaking fidelity to their faith. Surely they had suffered enough! Surely it was evident that suffering only made them strong to resist!

of my father in Congress. He was not in favor with the administration at Washington. He was personally unfriendly to President Cleveland. I was a stranger to him. But I ha

ch him at his home, being aware that he might resent an intrusion of public matters upon his private leisure,

city's absorption in its own press and hurry of affairs, and seeing the troubles of Utah as distant as a foreign war. It was with a very keen sense of discouragement th

e been fifty men ahead of me, and they were the unemployed, as I remember it, besieging him for work. They came to his desk, spoke, and passed with a rapidity that was ominous. As I drew nearer,

" he greeted me,

ant a half hour

achful indignation, "I couldn't give it

I knew that if I could only hold them back long enough-"Mr. Hewitt," I said, "it's more

at the desperation of the moment sounded in my v

f Utah," I said. "My father's in exile. He and his people are t

interested. "Can you come to the Board of Health, in an hour?

nd flashed his attention on the man behind me. I went out with the heady assurance that my first move had succeeded; but

bers at the table, and-as the one small spot of light and interest to me-Mr. Hewitt's white-bearded face, as an atte

emote corner, and I began to tell him, as quickly as I could, the desperateness

ing; their history showed that no proscription, short of extermination outright, could overcome their resistance; but what force could not accomplish, a little sensible diplomacy might hope to effect. No first step could be made, by them, towards a composition of their differences with the law so long as the law was administered with a hostility that provoked hostili

checking off the items of my argument with a nod of acceptance that came, often, b

the President several tim

eland, and I wouldn't ask him for a favor if I were sinking. But tell me what

selected-or at least before he knew of his appointment-I wished to talk with him and convert him to the idea that he could begin the solution of "the Mormon question" by having the l

a referee of the Supreme Court of this state-a fine man, great legal ability, cou

e name of Elliot F. Sandford; and I had not th

ut the Mayor had communicated with him, and now gave me a l

le he did it. He was not on the surface. He was a tall, dignified man, his hair turning gray-thoughtful, judicial-evidently a man who was not quick to decide. He

ecuting them; that the District Attorney and his assistants were harsh to the point of heartlessness, and that Judge Zane (to us, then) acted like a religious fanatic in his judicial office; that ne

unt of the state of affairs, but I did not exaggera

l doctrine of "segregation," under which a man might be separately indicted for every day of his living in plural marriage-and the result of al

many years of failure on the part of the Federal authorities, he might have the distinction of calling into his court the Mormon leaders who had been most long a

of his professional career in New York. He would be putting himself entirely outside the progression of advanceme

t he should bring her in; and I gathered from his manner, that he expected her to pronounce against his acce

and unaffected. I took a somewhat distracted impression of her greeting, and heard him begin to explain my proposal to her, as one hears a "silent partner" formally consulted by a man who has already made up his mind. But when I glanced at her,

ely curious as to the domestic aspects o

he in polygamy." To which I had made the obvious reply: "Don't women's hearts ache all over the world?

pointedly whether I w

I wa

believ

t those did wh

't I pra

n authorized by a divine revelation. I had not

Mohammedan. I took advantage of her curiosity to lead up to an explanation of how the proscription of polygamy was driving young Mormons into the practice, instead of frightening them from it. And so I arrived at another recountal of the miserable condition of persecuti

d said unexpectedly "It seems to me that this is an opportunity-a

ence to his income and asked her if she would be willing to live o

was about $

ars a month," he said. "How

bill. If that's been the cause of your hesitation, I'll agr

President; and it is one of the curiosities of experience, as I look back upon it now, that a decision so momento

culiarly mixed satisfaction with which I regarded my work, as I walked the streets of New York after this interview. In all that city of millions, I knew, there were few if any men who were the equal of my father in the essentials of manhood; and yet, before he could enjoy the

fering. I saw that we were working out our human destiny; and if that destiny was not of God, but merely the issue of hu

big, slow one whose mental operations are stubbornly deliberate and leisurely. And he was obviously irritated by the President's continual assumption that he was better than his party. "He's honest," he said, "by right of original discovery of what honesty is. No one can question his honesty. Bu

tructing mankind that it's hard to get him to see he doesn't know all he ought to know about a public question. But he's honest and he's courageous. If you can convince him that your view

Washington, and asking him to obtain for me an interview with President Cleveland without using Mr. Hewitt's

feeling. The faith t