But when Joseph F. Smith, before the Senate committee, admitted that he was violating "the laws of God and man" and tried to extenuate his guilt with the plea that the Gentiles of Utah condoned it, he issued a challenge that no American citizen could ignore. The Gentiles of Utah had been silent, theretofore, partly because they were ignorant of the extent of the polygamous offenses of the hierarchy, and partly because they were hoping for better things. Smith's boast made their silence the acquiescence of sympathy. A meeting was called in Salt Lake City, in May, 1904, and under the direction of Colonel William Nelson, editor of the Salt Lake Tribune, the principles of the present "American party" were enunciated as a protest against the lawbreaking tyranny of the Church leaders. Later, as it became clear that the opponents of the Smith misrule must organize their own party of progress, committees were formed and a convention was held (in September, 1904) at which a full state and county ticket was put in the field, in the name of the American Party of Utah. We agreed that no war should be made on the Mormon religion as such; that no war should be made on the Mormon people because of their being Mormons; that we would draw a deadline at the year 1890, when the Church had effected a composition of its differences with the national government, and all the citizens of Utah, Mormon and Gentile alike, had accepted the conditions of settlement; that we would find our cause of quarrel in the hierarchy's violation of the statehood pledges; and that when we had corrected these evil practices we should dissolve, because (to quote the language used at the time) we did not wish "to raise a tyrant merely to slay a tyrant." In the idea that we would fight upon living issues--that we would not open the graves of the past to dig up a dead quarrel and parade it in its cerements--the American party movement began. Its first enlistment included practically all the Gentiles in Salt Lake City who resented the claim of the Prophet that they acquiesced in his crimes and his treasons. But the most promising sign for the party was its attraction of hundreds of independent Mormons of the younger generation. As one Mormon of that hopeful time expressed it: "The flag represents the political power. The golden angel Moroni, at the top of the Temple, represents the ecclesiastical authority. I will not pay to either one a deference which belongs to the other. I know how to keep them apart in my personal devotion." This was exactly what the Church authorities would not permit. It would have destroyed all the special and selfish prerogatives of the Mormon hierarchs. It would have subverted their claim of absolute temporal power. It would have set up the nation and the state as the objects of civic devotion--instead of the Kingdom of God.