"He's in there," he said, pointing to the darkened windows of the offices--toward which he led us. He unlocked the front door--having evidently locked it when he went to the gate--and he explained to a waiting attendant: "These brethren have an appointment. They wish to see Brother Mack." The attendant led us down a dimly-lighted hall, through the public offices of the President into a rear room, a sort of retiring room, carpeted, furnished with bookcases, chairs, a table. The window blinds had all been carefully drawn. Joseph F. Smith was waiting for us--a tall, lean, long-bearded man of a commanding figure standing as if our arrival had stopped him in some anxious pacing of the carpet. His overcoat and his hat had been thrown on a chair. He greeted us with the air of one who is hurried, and sat down tentatively; and as soon as we came to the question of my trip to Washington, he broke out: "These scoundrels here must be removed--if there's any way to do it. They're trying to repeat the persecutions of Missouri and Illinois. They want to despoil us of our heritage--of our families. I'm sick of being hunted like a wild beast. I've done no harm to them or theirs. Why can't they leave us alone to live our religion and obey the commandments of God and build up Zion?" He had begun to stride up and down the floor again, in a sort of driven and angry helplessness. "I thought Cleveland would stop this damnable raid and make them leave us in peace--but he's as bad as the rest. Can't they see that these carpet baggers are only trying to rob us? Make them see that. The hounds! Sometimes it seems to me that the Lord is letting these iniquities go on so that the nation may perish in its sins all the sooner!" He sneered at John W. Young who had gone to Washington for the Church. (I had met Smith himself there, earlier in the year.) "I thought he'd accomplish something," he said, "with his fashionable home and his--[**missing text?**] He's using money enough! He's down there, taking things easy, while the rest of us are driven from pillar to post." He attacked the Federal authorities, Governor West, the "whole gang." He cried: "I love my wives and my children--whom the Lord gave me. I love them more than my life--more than anything in the world--except my religion! And here I am, fleeing from place to place, from the wrath of the wicked--and they're left in sorrow and suffering." His face was pallid with emotion, and his voice came now hard with exasperation against his enemies and now husky with a passionate affection for his family--a man of fifty, graybearded, quivering in a nervous transport of excitement that jerked him up and down the room, gesticulating.