The answer to that was obvious: The Mormon Church is so constructed that the apostle carries with him the power of the Church wherever he appears. The whole people recognize in him the personified authority of the Church; and if an apostle were allowed to make a political campaign without a denunciation from the other Church authorities, it would be known that he had been selected for political office by "the mouthpiece of the Almighty." I cited the case of Apostle Moses Thatcher as proof that the Church did exercise power openly to negative an apostle's ambition. If it failed now to rebuke Smoot, this very failure would be an affirmative use of its power in his behalf; all Mormons who did not wish to raise their hands "against the Lord's anointed," would have to support Smoot's legislative ticket, regardless of their political convictions; and all Gentiles and independent Mormons would have to fight the intrusion of the Church into open political activities. Cowley replied that "the brethren"--meaning the hierarchy--believed that a Mormon should have as many political rights, as a Catholic; and he asked me if I would object to seeing a Catholic in the Senate. Of course not. There are, and have been, many such. "But suppose," I argued, "that the Pope were to select one of his Italian cardinals to come to this country and be naturalized in some state of this Union that was under the sole rule of the Roman Catholic Church; and suppose that still holding his princedom in the Catholic Church and exercising the plenary authority conferred on him by the Pope--suppose he were to appear before the Senate in his robes of office, with his credentials as a Senator from his Church-ruled state--all of this being a matter of public knowledge--do you think the Senate would seat him? Certainly not. Yet the cases are exactly analogous. We were but lately alien and proscribed. We were admitted into the Union on a covenant that forbade Church interference in politics. It is the whole teaching of the Church that a Prophet wears his prophetic authority constantly as a robe of office. The case of Moses Thatcher is proof to the world that the Church appoints and disappoints at its pleasure. I don't believe that Smoot, if elected, will be allowed to hold his seat, and--if he is allowed to hold it--a greater trouble than his exclusion will surely follow. For, with the princes of the Mormon Church holding high place in the national councils--and using the power of the Church to maintain themselves there--we are assuring for ourselves an indefinite future of the most bitter controversy."