Meanwhile, I had been taking part in the Presidential campaign of 1896, and I had been one of the four "insurgent" Republican Senators (Teller of Colorado, Dubois of Idaho, Pettigrew of South Dakota and myself) who withdrew from the national Republican convention at St. Louis, in fulfillment of our obligations to our constituents, when we found that the convention was dominated by that confederation of finance in politics which has since come to be called "the System." I was a member of the committee on resolutions, and our actions in the committee had indicated that we would probably withdraw from the convention if it adopted the single gold platform as dictated by Senator Lodge of Massachusetts acting for a group of Republican leaders headed by Platt of New York, and Aldrich of Rhode Island. At the most critical point of our controversy I received a message from Church headquarters warning me that "we" had made powerful friends among the leading men of the nation and that we ought not to jeopardize their friendship by an inconsiderate insurgency. Accordingly, in bolting the convention, I was guilty of a new defiance of ecclesiastical authority and a new provocation of ecclesiastical vengeance. President Woodruff spoke to me of the matter after I returned to Utah, and I explained to him that I thought the Republican party, under the leadership of Mark Hanna and the flag of the "interests," had forgotten its duty to the people of the nation. I argued, to the President, that of all people in the world we, who had suffered so much ourselves, were most bound to bow to no unfairness ourselves and to oppose the imposition of unfairness upon others. And I talked in this strain to him not because I wished his approval of my action but because I wished to fortify him against the approach of the emissaries of the new Republicanism, who were sure to come to him to seek the support of the Church in the campaign. Some days later, while I was talking with my father in the offices of the Presidency, the secretary ushered in Senator Redfield Proctor of Vermont. I withdrew, understanding that he wished to speak in private with President Woodruff and his councillors. But I learned subsequently that he had come to Salt Lake to persuade the leaders of the Church to use their power in favor of the Republican party throughout the intermountain states. Senator Proctor asked me personally what chance I thought the party had in the West. I pointed out that the Republican platform of 1892 had reproached Grover Cleveland for his antagonism to bimetallism--"a doctrine favored by the American people from tradition and interest," to quote the language of that platform--and the Republicans of the intermountain states still held true to the doctrine. It had been repudiated by the St. Louis platform of June, 1896, and the intermountain states would probably refuse their electoral votes to the Republican party because of the repudiation.