Chapter 2

SALT LAKE CITY, _October 31, 1904_.

AWAY WITH THE NUISANCE.

The people of Salt Lake City are waking up to the realization of the trouble of which our cousins out in the country are complaining. The sulphurous fumes which have been tasted by many folks here, particularly late at night, are not only those of a partisan nature emanating from the smokestacks of the slanderers and maligners, but are treats bestowed upon our citizens by the smelters, and are samples of the goods, or rather evils, which farmers and horticulturists have been burdened with so long. Complaints have come to us from some of the best people of the city, of different faiths and parties, that the air has been laden with sulphurous fumes that can net only be felt in the throat, but tasted in the mouth, and they rest upon the city at night, appearing like a thin fog.

The fact is this smelter smoke will have to go; there is no mistake about that. If the smelters can not consume it, they will have to close up. This fair county must not be devastated and this city must not be rendered unhealthful by any such a nuisance as that which has been borne with now for a long time. The evasive policy that has been pursued, the tantalizing treatment toward the farmers who have vainly sought for redress, the destruction that has come upon vegetation and upon live stock, and now the choking fumes that reach this city all demand some practical remedy in place of the shilly-shally of the past.

The Deseret News has counseled peace, consideration for the smelter people in the difficulties that they have to meet, favor toward a valuable industry that should be encouraged on proper lines, and arbitration instead of litigation. But it really seems now as though an aggressive policy will have to be pursued, or ruin will come to the agricultural pursuits of Salt Lake County, while the city will not escape from the ravages of the smelter fiend. If the companies that control those works will not or can not dispose of the poisonous metallic fumes that pour out of their smokestacks, the fires will have to he banked and the nuisance suppressed. We do not believe the latter is the necessary alternative. We are of opinion that the evil can be disposed of, and we are sure that efforts ought to be made to effect it without further delay.

It looks as if the courts will have to be appealed to to obtain compensation for damages already inflicted. Also that they will have to be applied to for injunctions against the continuance of the cause of the trouble. We think there is law enough now to proceed under. But if that is not the case, then legislation must be had to fully cover the ground. Litigation will have to come first, legislation afterwards. However that may be, temporizing with the evil will not do. Patience has ceased to be a virtue in this matter. The conviction is fastening itself upon the public mind that no active steps are intended by the responsible parties, but simply a policy of delay. They must be taught that this will not answer the purpose, and that the injured people will not be fooled in that way. The smelter smoke must go. And it must not go in the old way.

The proposition to put the matter in the hands of experts chosen by the complainants is not to be seriously considered. The onus is upon the smelter men; they are the offenders, and they must take the steps necessary to remove the cause of complaint, and also reimburse those who have been injured. We do not ask anything unreasonable. We join with those of our citizens who Intend that this beautiful part of our lovely State shall not be laid waste, even if the only cure is the suppression of the destroying cause. This may as well be understood first as last. Useless practical measures are adopted to abate the evil, active proceedings will have to be taken and pushed to the utmost to remove entirely the root and branch and trunk and body of this tree of destruction. The people affected are deeply in earnest, and they certainly mean business.

Mr. KEARNS. Mr. President, I must not burden you with too many details, but in order for you to see how complete is the business power of this man I will cite you to one case. The Great Salt Lake is estimated to contain 14,000,000,000 tons of salt. Probably salt can be made cheaper on the shores of this lake than anywhere else in the world. Nearly all its shore line is adaptable for salt gardens. The president of the church is interested in a large salt monopoly which has gathered in the various smaller enterprises. He is president of a railroad which runs from the salt gardens to Salt Lake City, connecting there with trunk lines. It costs to manufacture the salt and place it on board the cars 75 cents per ton. He receives for it $5 and $6 per ton. His company and its subsidiary corporation are probably capitalized at three-quarters of a million dollars, and upon this large sum he is able to pay dividends of 8 or 10 per cent.

Not long since two men, who for many years had been tithe payers and loyal members of the church, undertook to establish a salt garden along the line of a trunk railway. One of them was a large dealer in salt, and proposed to extend his trade by making the salt and reaching territory prohibited to him by the church price of salt; the other was the owner of the land upon which it was proposed to establish the salt garden. These men formed a corporation, put in pumping stations and flumes, and the corporation became indebted to one of the financial institutions over which the church exercised considerable influence. Then the president of the church sent for them. There is scarcely an instance on record where a message of this kind failed of its purpose. These men went to meet the prophet, seer, and revelator of God, as they supposed, but he had laid aside his robes of sanctity for the moment and he was a plain, unadorned, aggressive, if not an able, business man. He first denounced them for interfering with a business which he had made peculiarly his own; and, when they protested that they had no intention to interfere with his trade, but were seeking new markets, he declared in a voice of thunderous passion that if they did not cease with their projected enterprise, he would crush them. They escaped from his presence feeling like courtiers repulsed from the foot of a king's throne, and then surveyed their enterprise. If they stopped, they would lose all the money invested and their enterprise would possibly be sold out to their creditors; if they went on and invested more money, the president had the power, as he had threatened, to crush them. Not only could he ruin their enterprise, but he could ostracise them socially and could make of them marked and shunned men in the community where they had always been respected.

Is there menace in this system? To me it seems like a great danger to all the people who are now affected, and therefore of great danger to the people of the United States, because the power of this monarchy within the Republic is constantly extending. If it be an evil, every apostle is in part responsible for this tyrannical course. He helped to elect the president; he does the president's bidding, and shares in the advantages of that tyranny.

I did not call the social system a violation of the pledges to the country, but I do affirm that the business tyranny of Mormon leaders is an express violation of the covenant made, for they do not leave their followers free in secular affairs. They tyrannize over them, and their tyranny spreads even to the Gentiles. In all this I charge that every apostle is a party to the wrong and to the violation. Although I speak of the president of the church as the leader, the monarch in fact, every apostle is one of his ministers, one of his creators, and also one of his creatures, and possibly his successor; and the whole system depends upon the manner in which the apostles and the other leaders shall support the chief leader. As no apostle has ever protested against this system, but has, by every means in his power, encouraged it, he can not escape his share of the responsibility for it. It is an evil; they aid it. It is a violation of the pledge upon which statehood was granted; they profit by it.

THE POLITICAL AUTOCRACY.

I pass now to the political aspect of this hierarchy, as some call it, but this monarchy as I choose to term it.

I have previously called your attention to the social and business powers, monopolies, autocracies, exercised by the leaders. Through these channels of social and business relations they can spread the knowledge of their political desires without appearing obtrusively in politics. When the end of their desire is accomplished, they affect to wash their hands of all responsibility by denying that they engaged in political activities. Superficial persons, and those desiring to accept this argument, are convinced by it. But never, in the palmy days of Brigham Young, was there a more complete political tyranny than is exercised by the present president of the Mormon Church and his apostles, who are merely awaiting the time when by the death of their seniors in rank they may become president, and select some other man to hold the apostleship in their place--as they now hold it in behalf of the ruling monarch.

In this statement I merely call your attention to what a perfect system of ecclesiastical government is maintained by these presidents and apostles; and I do not need to more than indicate to you what a wonderous aid their ecclesiastical government can be, and is, in accomplishing their political purposes.

Parties are nothing to these leaders, except as parties may be used by them. So long as there is Republican administration and Congress, they will lead their followers to support Republican tickets; but if, by any chance, the Democratic party should control this Government, with a prospect of continuance in power, you would see a gradual veering around under the direction of the Mormon leaders. When Republicans are in power the Republican leaders of the Mormon people are in evidence and the Democratic leaders are in retirement. If the Democracy were in power, the Republican leaders of the Mormon people would go into retirement and Democrats would appear in their places. No man can be elected to either House of Congress against their wish. I will not trespass upon your patience long enough to recite the innumerable circumstances that prove this assertion, but will merely refer to enough instances to illustrate the method. In 1897, at the session of the legislature which was to elect a Senator, and which was composed of sixty Democrats and three Republicans, Moses Thacher was the favored candidate of the Democracy in the State. He had been an apostle of the Mormon Church, but had been deposed because he was out of harmony with the leaders. The Hon. Jos. L. Rawlins was a rival candidate, but not strongly so at first. He was encouraged by the church leaders in every way; and finally, when his strength had been advanced sufficiently to need but one vote, a Mormon Republican was promptly moved over into the Democratic column and he was elected by the joint assembly. I do not charge that Hon. Joseph L. Rawlins, who occupied a seat with distinguished honor in this great body for six years, had any improper bargain with the church, or any knowledge of the secret methods by which his election was being compassed; but he was elected under the direction of the leaders of the church because they desired to defeat and further humiliate a deposed apostle.

I will not ignore my own case. During nearly three years I have waited this great hour of justice in which I could answer the malignant falsehood and abuse which has been heaped upon a man who is dead and can not answer, and upon myself, a living man willing to wait the time for answer. Lorenzo Snow, a very aged man, was president of the church when I was elected to the Senate. He had reached that advanced time of life, being over eighty, when men abide largely in the thoughts of their youth. He was my friend in that distant way which sometimes exists without close acquaintanceship, our friendship (if I may term it such) having arisen from the events attendant upon Utah's struggle for statehood. For some reason he did not oppose my election to the Senate. Every other candidate for the place had sought his favor; it came to me without price or solicitation on my part. The friends and mouthpieces of some of the present leaders have been base enough to charge that I bought the Senatorship from Lorenzo Snow, president of their own church. Here and now I denounce the calumny against that old man, whose unsought and unbought favor came to me in that contest. That I ever paid him one dollar of money, or asked him to influence legislators of his faith, is as cruel a falsehood as ever came from human lips. So far as I am concerned he held his power with clean hands, and I would protect the memory of this dead man against all the abuse and misrepresentation which might be heaped upon him by those who were his adherents during life, but who now attack his fame in order that they may pay the greater deference to the present king.

You must know that in that day we were but five years old as a State. Our political conditions were and had been greatly unsettled. The purpose of the church to rule in politics had not yet been made so manifest and determined. Lorenzo Snow held his office for a brief time--about two years. What he did in that office pertaining to my election I here and now distinctly assume as my burden, for no man shall with impunity use his hatred of me to defame Lorenzo Snow and dishonor his memory to his living and loving descendants.

As for myself, I am willing to take the Senate and the country into my confidence, and make a part of the eternal records of the Senate, for such of my friends as may care to read, the vindication of my course to my posterity. I had an ambition, and not an improper one, to sit in the Senate of the United States. My competitors had longer experience in polities and may have understood more of the peculiar situation in the State. They sought what is known as church influence. I sought to obtain this place by purely political means. I was elected. After all their trickery my opponents were defeated, and to some extent by the very means which they had basely invoked. I have served with you four years, and have sought in a modest way to make a creditable record here. I have learned something of the grandeur and dignity of the Senate, something of its ideals, which I could not know before coming here. I say to you, my fellow Senators, that this place of power is infinitely more magnificent than I dreamed when I first thought of occupying a seat here. But were it thrice as great as I now know it to be, and were I back in that old time of struggle in Utah, when I was seeking for this honor, I would not permit the volunteered friendship of President Snow to bestow upon me, even as an innocent recipient, one atom of the church monarch's favor. My ideals have grown with my term of service in this body, and I believe that the man who would render here the highest service to his country must be careful to attain to this place by the purest civic path that mortal feet can tread.

I have said enough to indicate that for my own part I never countenanced, nor knowingly condoned, the intrusion of the church monarchy into secular affairs. And I have said enough to those who know me to prove for all time that, so far as I am concerned, my election here was as honorable as that of any man who sits in this chamber; and yet I have said enough that all men may know that rather than have a dead man's memory defamed on my account, I will make his cause my own and will fight for the honor which he is not on earth to defend. This will not suit the friends and mouthpieces of the present rulers, but I have no desire to satisfy or conciliate them; and in leaving this part of the question, I avenge President Snow sufficiently by saying that these men did not dare to offend his desire nor dispute his will while he was living, and only grew brave when they could cry: "Lorenzo, the king, is dead! Long live Joseph, the king!"

As a Senator I have sought to fulfill my duty to the people of this country. I am about to retire from this place of dignity. No man can retain this seat from Utah and retain his self-respect after he discovers the methods by which his election is procured and the objects which the church monarchy intends to achieve. Some of my critics will say that I relinquished that which I could not hold. I will not pause to discuss that point further than to say that if I had chosen to adopt the policy with the present monarch of the church, which his friends and mouthpieces say I did adopt with the king who is dead, it might have been possible to retain this place of honor with dishonor.

Every apostle is a part of this terrible power, which can make and unmake at its mysterious will and pleasure. Early in 1902 warning had been publicly uttered in the State against the continued manifestation of church power in politics. The period of unsettled conditions during which I was elected had ended and we had opportunity to see the manner in which the church monarch was resuming his forbidden sway; and we had occasion to know the indignant feelings entertained by the people of the United States when they contemplated the flagrant breaking of the pledge given to the country to secure the admission of Utah. I myself, after conference with distinguished men at Washington, journeyed to Utah and presented a solemn protest and warning to the leaders of the church against the dangerous exercise of their political power. I did it to repay a debt which I owed to Utah, and not for any selfish reason. I knew that from the day I uttered that warning the leaders of the Mormon Church would hate and pursue me for the purpose of wreaking their vengeance. But as the consequences of their misconduct, their pledge breaking would fall upon all of the people of the State, upon the innocent more severely than upon the guilty, I felt that I must assert my love and gratitude to the State, even though my warning should lead to my own destruction by these autocrats. If there had been one desire in my heart to effect a conjunction with this church monarchy, if I had been willing to retain office as its gift, I would not have taken this step, for I knew its consequences. I began in that hour my effort to restore to the people of Utah the safety and the political freedom which are their right, and I shall continue it while I live until the fight is won.

The disdain with which that message was received was final proof of the contempt in which that church monarchy holds the Senate and the people of the United States, and of the disregard in which the church monarchy holds the pledges which it made in order to obtain the power of statehood.

They do not need to utter explicit instructions in order to assert their demand. The methods of conveying information of their desire are numerous and sufficiently effective, as is proved by results. To show how completely all ordinary political conditions, as they obtain elsewhere in the United States, are without account in Utah, I have but to cite you to the fact that after the recent election, which gave 57 members out of 63 on joint ballot to the Republican party, and when the question of my successor became a matter of great anxiety to numerous aspirants for this place, the discussion was not concerning the fitness of candidates, nor the political popularity of the various gentlemen who composed that waiting list, nor the pledges of the legislators, but was limited to the question as to who could stand best with the church monarchy; as to whom it would like to use in this position; as to who would make for the extension of its ambitions and power in the United States.

THE MORMON MARRIAGE RELATION.

And now I come to a subject concerning which the people of the United States are greatly aroused. It is known that there have been plural marriages among the Mormon people, by sanction of high authorities in this church monarchy, since the solemn promise was made to the country that plural marriages should end. It is well known that the plural marriage relations have been continued defiantly, according to the will and pleasure of those who had formerly violated the law, and for whose obedience to law the church monarchy pledged the faith and honor of its leaders and followers alike in order to obtain statehood. The pledge was made repeatedly, as stated in an earlier part of these remarks, that all of the Mormon people would come within the law. They have not done so. The church monarch is known to be living in defiance of the laws of God and man, and in defiance of the covenant made with the country, upon which amnesty by the President, and statehood by the President and the Congress, were granted.

I charge that every apostle is in large part responsible for this condition, so deplorable in its effects upon the people of Utah and so antagonistic to the institutions of this country. Every apostle is directed by the law-breaking church monarch. Every apostle teaches by example and precept to the Mormon people that this church monarch is a prophet of God, to offend or criticise whom is a sin in the sight of the Almighty. Every apostle helps to appoint to office and sustain the seven presidents of seventies, who are below them in dignity, and they are directly responsible for them and their method of life.

It is quite evident that the church monarchy is endeavoring to reestablish the rule of a polygamous class over the mass of the Mormon people. Of the apostles not practicing polygamy there is at most only three or four men constituting the quorum of which this could be truthfully said. Special reasons may exist in some particular case why a man in this class has not entered into such relation.

THE GENERAL SITUATION.

Briefly reviewing the matters which I have offered here, and the logical deductions therefrom, I maintain the following propositions:

We set aside the religion of the Mormon people as sacred from assault.

Outside of religion the Mormons as a community are ruled by a special privileged class, constituting what I call the church monarchy.

This monarchy pledged the country that there would be no more violations of law and no more defiance of the sentiment of the United States regarding polygamy and the plural marriage relation.

This monarchy pledged the United States that it would refrain from controlling its subjects in secular affairs.

Every member of this monarchy is responsible for the system of government and for the acts of the monarchy, since (as shown in the cases of the deposed apostle, Moses Thatcher, and others) the man who is not in accord with the system is dropped from the ruling class.

This monarchy sets up a regal social order within this Republic.

This monarchy monopolizes the business of one commonwealth and is rapidly reaching into others.

This monarchy takes practically all the surplus product of the toil of its subjects for its own purpose, and makes no account to anyone on earth of its immense secret fund.

This monarchy rules all politics in Utah, and is rapidly extending its dominion into other States and Territories.

This monarchy permits its favorites to enter into polygamy and to maintain polygamous relations, and it protects them from prosecution by its political power.