Under the Prophet in Utah; the National Menace of a Political PriestcraftCannon, Frank J.
History
Under the Prophet in Utah; the National Menace of a Political Priestcraft
Cannon, Frank J.
Latter Day Saint churches; Latter Day Saints; Utah -- Politics and government
With the entry of these leaders into prison, the Mormons felt for them
a warmer admiration, a deeper reverence; but it was mingled with a
gratitude to the nation for the leniency of the court and an awed sense,
too, of the power of the civil law. President Woodruff secretly and
tentatively withdrew his necessary permission, as head of the Church,
to the solemnization of any more plural marriages; and he ordered the
demolition of the Endowment House in which such marriages had been
chiefly celebrated. Many of the non-Mormons, who had despaired of any
solution of the troubles in Utah, now began to hope. The country had
been impoverished; the Mormons had been deprived of much of their
substance and financial vigor; and reasons of business prudence among
the Gentiles weighed against a continuance of proscription. Some of
them distrusted the motives of their own leaders more than they did the
Mormon people. Some were weary of the quarrel. For humane reasons, for
business reasons, for the sake of young Utah, it was argued that the
persecution should end.
But in the years 1888 and 1889, thousands of newcomers arrived in Utah
with a strong antagonism to the religion and the political authority
of the Mormon Church; and, with the growth of Gentile population, there
came a natural determination on their part to obtain control of the
local governments of cities and counties. In opposing this movement,
the power of the Church was again solidified. By 1889, the Gentiles
had taken the city governments of Ogden and Salt Lake City, had elected
members of the legislature in Salt Lake County, and had carried the
passage of a Public School Bill, against the timid and secret opposition
of the Church. President Cleveland had been defeated and succeeded by
President Harrison; and Chief Justice Sandford had been removed and
Chief Justice Zane reinstated. (He did not adjudicate with his previous
rigor, however, because of the success of Justice Sandford's policy of
leniency.) The Church made no move publicly to repudiate polygamy, and
its silent attitude of defiance, in this regard, gave a battle cry to
all its enemies.
The crisis was precipitated by a movement that had begun in the
territory of Idaho, where the Mormons had been disfranchised by means
of a test oath--(a provision still remaining in the Idaho state
constitution, but now nullified by the political power of the Mormon
leaders in Salt Lake City.) A bill, known as the Cullom-Struble bill,
was introduced at Washington, to do in Utah what had been done in Idaho.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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