Joseph F. Smith, of course, was already a director of Harriman's Union Pacific Railroad, a position to which he had been elected after his accession to the First Presidency. And he was so elected not because of his railroad holdings--for he came to the Presidency a poor man--and not because of his ability or experience as a financier or a railroad builder, for he had not had any such experience and he had not shown any such ability. He was elected because of the partnership between the Church leaders and the Union Pacific Railroad--a partnership that was doubtlessly used in defense of Apostle Smoot's seat in the Senate, just as the power of the Sugar Trust was used and the influence of the whole financial confederation in politics. Chapter XIII. The Smoot Exposure Just before the subpoenas were issued in the Smoot investigation, I met John R. Winder (then First Councillor to President Smith) on the street in Salt Lake City, and he expressed the hope that when I went "to Washington on the Smoot case," I would not "betray" my "brethren." I assured him that I was not going to Washington as a witness in the Smoot case; that the men whom he should warn, were at Church headquarters. He replied, with indignant alarm, "I don't see what 'the brethren' have to do with this!" But when the subpoenas arrived for Smith and the hierarchy, alarm and indignation assumed a new complexion. The authorities, for themselves, and through the mouths of such men as Brigham H. Roberts, began to boast of how they were about to "carry the gospel to the benighted nation" and preach it from the witness stand in Washington. The Mormon communities resounded with fervent praises to God that He had, through His servant, Apostle Smoot, given the opportunity to His living oracles to speak to an unrighteous people! And when the Senators decided that they would not summon polygamous wives and their children en bloc to Washington to testify (because it was not desired to "make war on women and children") some of Joseph F. Smith's several wives even complained feelingly that they "were not allowed to testify for Papa."