On the night of April 18, 1905, Joseph F. Smith and some eight of his sons sat in his official box at the Salt Lake theatre to watch a prize fight that lasted for twenty gory rounds. The Salt Lake Tribune published the fact that the Prophet of God, and vicegerent of Christ, had given the approval of his "holy presence" to this clumsy barbarity. A devout old lady, who had been with the Church since the days of Nauvoo, rebuked us bitterly for publishing such a falsehood about President Smith. "How dare you tell such wicked lies about God's servants?" she scolded. "President Smith wouldn't do such a wicked thing as attend a prize fight. And you know that no man with any sense of decency would take his young sons to look at such a dreadful thing!" Some time later, when the facts in the case had come to her, in her retirement, from her friends, the editor called upon her to quiz her about the incident. She said: "I'm sure I don't see what business it is of the outside world anyhow what President Smith does. He has a right to go to the theatre if he wants to. I don't believe they would have anything but what's good in the Salt Lake theatre. It was built by our people and they own it. And if it wasn't good, President Smith wouldn't have taken his boys there." And this was not merely the absurdity of an old woman. It is the logic of all the faithful. The leaders cannot do wrong--because it is not wrong, if they do it. No criticism of them can be effective. No act of theirs can be proven an error. If they do not do a thing, it was right not to do it; and it would have been a sin if it had been done. But if they do that thing, then it was right to do it; and it would have been a sin if it had not been done. This reliance upon the almighty power and prophetic infallibility of the leaders prevents the Mormon people from truly appreciating the dangers that threaten them. It keeps them ignorant of outside sentiment. It makes them despise even a national hostility. And it has left them without gratitude, too, for a national grace. Before these people can be roused to any independence of responsible thought, it will be necessary to break their trust in the ability of their leaders to make bargains of protection with the world; and then it will still be necessary to force the eyes of their self-complacency to turn from the satisfied contemplation of their own virtues. "You will never be able to reach the conscience of the Mormons," a man who knows them has declared. "I have had my experiences with both leaders and people. If you tell them 'You're ninety-nine-and-one-half per cent. pure gold,' they will ask, surprised and indignant: 'What? Why, what's the matter with the other half per cent?'" Chapter XX Conclusion