As to the first charge, the minority found that the testimony upon the point was "limited in amount, vague and indefinite in character and utterly unreliable, because of the disreputable character of the witnesses"--oddly overlooking the fact that one of these witnesses had been called for Apostle Smoot; that no attempt had been made to impeach the character of this witness; that the other witnesses had been denounced, by a Mormon bishop, named Daniel Connolly, as "traitors who had broken their oaths to the Church" by betraying the secrets of the "endowment oath;" and that all the Smoot witnesses who denied the anti-patriotic obligation of the oath refused, suspiciously enough, to tell what obligation was imposed on those who took part in the ceremony. The charge that Smoot, as an apostle of the Church, had been responsible for polygamous cohabitation was as easily disposed of, by the minority report. He had himself, on oath, "positively denied" that he had "ever advised any person to violate the law either against polygamy or against polygamous cohabitation," and no witness had been produced to testify that Apostle Smoot had ever given "any such advice" or defended "such acts." True, it was admitted that he had "silently acquiesced" in the continuance of polygamous cohabitation by polygamists who had married before 1890; but it was contended that to understand this acquiescence it was "necessary to recall some historical facts, among which are some that indicate that the United States government is not free from responsibility for these violations of the law." In short, although Reed Smoot was one of a confessed band of law-breaking traitors, he was of "irreproachable" private character. Although the band had been guilty of every treachery, none of the band had admitted that Smoot had encouraged them in their villainies. Smoot had only "silently acquiesced"--and in this he had been no guiltier than the intimidated bystanders and the gagged victims of the outrages. Although the gang had stolen the machinery of elections and used it to print a Senatorial certificate for Smoot, there was nothing to show that the form of the certificate was not correct. Moreover, the band operated in politics as a religious organization, and the constitution of the United States protects a man in his right of religious freedom! Chapter XIV. Treason Triumphant