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
For example, the Church had loaned to, or endorsed for, the Utah Sugar
Company to the amount of $325,000; and my father had personally endorsed
the general obligations for this and other sums, although he owned
only $5,000 of the company's stock. He supported the factory with his
personal credit and assumed the risk of loss (without any corresponding
possibility of gain) in order to benefit the whole people by encouraging
the beet sugar industry. A vain attempt had been made to sell the bonds
in New York. Finally, the Church bought all the bonds of the company
for $325,000 (of a face value of $400,000), and we sold them, for the
Church, to Mr. Joseph Bannigan, the "rubber king," of Providence, Rhode
Island, for $360,000, with the guarantee of the First Presidency, the
trustee of the Church, and myself.
Similarly, the First Presidency led in building an electric power plant
in Ogden, after Chas. K. Bannister, a great engineer, and myself had
persuaded the members of the Presidency that the work would benefit the
community. The bonds of this company, too, were bought by Mr. Bannigan,
with the guarantee of the trustee of the Church, the Presidency and
myself. Both the power plant and the sugar factory were financially
successful. They performed a large public service beneficently. The fact
that Mr. Bannigan held their bonds was no detriment to their work and
wrought no injury to the people.
I single out these two enterprises because Joseph F. Smith has since
sold the power plant to the "Harriman interests," and the control of the
sugar factory to the sugar trust; and he has explained that in making
the sales he merely followed my father's example and mine in selling
the bonds to Mr. Bannigan. The power plant is now a part of the merger
called the Utah Light and Railway Company, which has a monopoly right
in all the streets of Salt Lake City and its suburbs, besides owning
the electric power and light plants of Salt Lake City and Ogden, the gas
plants of both these cities, and the natural gas wells and pipe
lines supplying them. The Mormon people whose tithes aided these
properties--whose good-will maintained them--whose leaders designed them
as a community work for a community benefit--these people are now being
mercilessly exploited by the Eastern "interests" to whom the Prophet
of the Church has sold them bodily. The difference between selling
the bonds of the sugar company to Bannigan, in order to raise money to
support the factory, and selling half the stock to the sugar trust, in
order to make a monopoly profit out of the Mormon consumers of sugar,
has either not occurred to Smith or has been divinely waived by him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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