Beehive History, Volume 21, 1995

Max J. Evans, Director Stanford J. Layton, Coordinator of Publications Miriam B. Murphy, Beehive History Editor

NO. 290.

THE E1ECTO I NI.

O Copyright 1995 Utah State Historical Society 300 Rio Grande Salt Lake City, UT 84101-1182

'BEEHIVE2 HISTORY

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A Fall Vote Throligbo~~t Contents

tbe Territory.

November 5, 1895-the Most Important Election Day in Utah History Jean Bickmore White 3 The Making of the Statehood Flag Margaret Glade Derrick 8 Gov. Heber M. Wells and the First State Legislature Edward Leo Lyman 10

Deseret Evening News, November 5, 1896, above, and Salt Lake Tribune, November 6, 1896, below, covered Utah's most important election rather routinely.

A State Is Born Richard D. Poll 18 Charles C. Richards Played a Major Role In Utah's Statehood Drive 23 A Glorious Harbinger! Utah Reaches Statehood 26 A Chronology of Utah Statehood compiled by Linda Thatcher 28 Cover: Dinwoodey Building decorated for statehood in 1896. Painting by Cherie Hale.

This publication has been funded with the assistance of a matching grant-in-aid from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, under provisions of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 as amended.

This program receives financial assistance for identification and preservation of historic properties under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 The U.S. Department of the Interior prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, or handicap in its federally assisted programs. If you believe you have been discriminated against in any program, activity, or facility as described above, or if you desire further information please write to: Office of Equal Opportunity, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C. 20240.

Rut All Indications Point to Hls Safety.

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November 5, 1895-The Most Important Election Day in Utah History

BY JEAN BICKMORE WHITE

In American campaign oratory every election is the most important in history. The state is always in a crisis; the voters have momentous decisions to make; the results will stand in the record books forever as turning points in the history of manlund.

In fact, this is seldom so. Most elections slip noiselessly into the stream of history and are soon forgotten. A few elections, although they produce no startling results, are remembered as historical events by those who participated in them. The voters who help to bring statehood to a territory are entitled to tell about it the rest of their lives. The fortunate candidate who wins a state office as soon as it is created can remind everyone that he was the very first governor of the state.

So it was with the voters of Utah Territory when they went to the polls on November 5, 1895. They were participating in an election that did make history, for it brought statehood one vital step closer to reality.

The voters had two major decisions to make: whether to accept or reject the Constitution that had been drafted at a convention earlier in the year and who should fill the state offices provided in the Constitution, including the state's supreme court justices, a representative in the Fifty-fourth Congress, and members of the Utah State Legislature. The first legislators would carry an extra measure of importance and responsibility, for they would not only make the laws but would also elect two new United States senators from Utah.

When the ballots were counted, it was clear that a majority of Utahns favored statehood; the Constitution was accepted by a vote of 31,305 to 7,687.

The other major decision brought joy to Republicans. They scored an overwhelming victory over Democrats and Populists. All of their candidates for state offices, for the state supreme court, and for Congress won. In addition, the GOP acquired a two-thirds majority in both houses of the legislature, virtually assuring the election of two Republican U.S. senators. Democrats could take some comfort in the fact that they had elected six of the nine judges in Utah's seven judicial districts and that the Republican margins of victory had not been so wide that the election could be considered a rout.

The Vote for the Constitution With Utah's leading newspapers, the Mormon church, and virtually all of the prominent politicians in both parties strongly in favor of statehood, there was little fear that the new Constitution would not be approved. Yet some Utahns still voiced strong opposition to statehood. The Constitution was approved by a plurality of 23,618 votes. However, nearly onefifth of those voting cast their ballots against the Constitution. In Weber County nearly 33 percent voted "no." In Salt Lake County 29 percent voted "no."

The opposition to, or perhaps lack of enthusiasm for, the new Constitution cannot be measured entirely in terms of the "no" votes. Many eligible voters simply stayed home on election day. More than one-sixth of the voters, 8,055 out of the 49,717 who were registered, did not vote. Perhaps lack of interest in the candidates had as much to do with this as lack of interest in the Constitution. The non-voting registered citizens could not have defeated the Constitution, but they could have changed the outcome of all the statewide contests for office-an unhappy realization for the losers.

The Salt Lake City newspapers paid little attention to arguments against the Constitution, except to try to refute them. Interviews by a Deseret Evening News writer with the chairmen of the Republican and Democratic parties a few days before the election showed their efforts to allay fears of increased taxation with statehood and the old bugaboo of religious control. Judge Orlando W. Powers, Democratic state chairman, who had been strongly opposed to statehood as recently as two years earlier, said he could not see how taxes would increase with statehood. As for the fear of religious controlthe basis of his previous objections-the people could throw this off under statehood as well as under the territorial form of government.

Apparently many of his fellow non-Mormons in the urban and mining centers of the state could not dismiss their fears as easily as Judge Powers.

Republican state chairman George M. Cannon predicted, a bit over-optimistically,that the Constitution would win by a majority of at least 35,000 votes. He felt the voters would approve statehood because of the opportunity to add two western men to the U.S. Senate and improve the prospects for unlimited coinage of silver. Cannon put forth another dollars-and-

cents argument in a last-minute appeal for votes: "...We shall be able to get appropriations for public buildings and for other purposes from the national treasury that we cannot obtain under a territorial form of government."

The Vote for State Offices The honor of being the first governor of Utah was bestowed on a native son, Heber M. Wells, a bank cashier, amateur actor, and local politician, having been city recorder and an unsuccessful candidate for mayor. He defeated a popular Democrat, five-time delegate to Congress John T. Caine, by polling slightly more than half the votes cast, 20,883, with 18,519 for Caine and 2,051 for the Populist candidate Henry W. Lawrence.

Other Republicans elected to statewide office included James T. Hammond, secretary of state, who defeated Fisher S. Harris (Democrat) and T. C. Bailey (Populist) by a plurality of 1,770; Morgan Richards, Jr., state auditor, who defeated G. C. Wilson (Democrat) and H. 0. Young (Populist) by a plurality of 2,365; James Chipman, treasurer, who defeated Alma Greenwood (Democrat) and T. L. Jones (Populist) by a plurality of 2,445; A. C. Bishop, attorney general, who defeated A. J. Weber (Democrat) and J. S. Weaver (Populist) by a plurality of 2,281; Dr. John R. Park, superintendent of public instruction, who defeated Dr. Karl G. Maeser (Democrat) and I. T. Alvord (Populist) by a plurality of 2,361.

The three Republican candidates for the State Supreme Court, Charles S. Zane, J. A. Miner, and G. W. Bartch (all non-Mormons), won over their three Democratic opponents, R. W. Young, S. R. Thurman, and Thomas Maloney, by pluralities of more than 2,000 votes. Two of the Democratic candidates were Mormons; party affiliation seems to have been more important than religious affiliation.

The closest contest was for representative to Congress. The popular Mormon orator B. H. Roberts came within 897 votes of the winner, Clarence E. Allen, a non-Mormon. Had the 1,150 votes cast for Populist James Hogan been cast for Roberts, he would have won.

The First State Legislature The vote for the Utah State Legislature completed the Republican triumph in 1895. In the Senate there were 12 Republicans elected and 6 Democrats, making two-thirds of the upper house Republican. In Summit County, Democrat Robert C. Chambers defeated future U.S. Senator Thomas Kearns, and in Cache County Democrat Noble Warrum, Jr., a newspaperman, won a seat. Democrats were also elected from the Third District (Rich, Morgan,

and Davis), the Seventh (Utah County), and Eleventh (Beaver, Iron, Washington, and Kane).

In the House of Representatives the Republicans elected 3 1 of the 45 members, giving them slightly more than a two-thirds majority. For the most part, the same counties that went Democratic for state officials voted for Democratic House members: Cache, Rich, Davis, Emery, San Juan, Uintah, Wasatch, Washington, and Wayne. In addition, three of

I Secretary of Stat@ James T. Hammond was born December 11, 1856, in Farrnington, Davis County, to Milton D. and Lovisa Miller Hammond. The family moved to Cache County when he was eight. He attended school in Providence and at the Cache Valley Academy in Logan.

Later he studied law. He married Leonora Blair in 1884, and they had three sons.

He began his public service career in 1876 when he was appointed Cache County clerk and recorder. He served in the territorial legislature as a senator during the 1884 and 1886 sessions and as a representative in 1890. As a member of the 1895 Constitutional Convention he helped frame Utah's Constitution.

In 1893 he began his law practice in Logan with Willard Maughan and Charles W. Nibley. Later he practiced law in Salt Lake City until shortly before his death.

Elected secretary of state on the Republican ticket in November 1895, he was reelected to that post in 1900. The duties of this office included keeping a record of the official acts of the legislature and of the executive branch, serving on certain boards, and keeping the state seal. In the event of the governor's death or disability the secretary of state would take over that office. The salary was $2,000 a year, the same as the governor's, and paid quarterly.

Hammond's later public service centered on education. He was a member of the Salt Lake City Board of Education for eight years and its president for four years. He was also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Utah State Agricultural College in Logan.

Hammond died on October 9, 1942, of pneumonia.

the four members of Utah County's delegation were Democrats.

Populist candidates ran in 6 Senate and 12 House races, but none came close to being elected. The largest vote for Populist candidates

Alexander C. Bishop, Aftomey General A native of Iowa, Alexander C. Bishop wa: born in a rural area south and west of D ~ L Moines. He worked on the family farm and, like many farm children of his time, wa: able to attend school only during the winte~ months. Determined to continue his education, he earned enough money to entei Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa. Later, he read law for three years. He was admittec' to the bar in 1877 and set up practice ir Indianola. Seeking greater opportunities, hc moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where hc lived for three years.

In 1889, attracted by news of the develop. ing West, he moved to Ogden where hc became the editor of the Ogder Commercial, a newspaper published daily except Monday. It supported the antiMormon Liberal party. The enterprise wa! short lived; following a foreclosure notice in December 1891 there is no further mention of the Commercial. Since the newspaper had'] endorsed the Liberal party candidacy of C C. Goodwin for delegate to Congress ir 1890 (he lost to incumbent John T. Caine), one may suppose that Bishop and Goodwin became acquainted at that time. Goodwin, an outspoken and powerful figure in territorial affairs as editor of the Salt Lake Tribune, may have helped to further Bishop's political ambitions.

In 1891 Bishop was appointed probate judge of Weber County by President Benjamin Hanison. He was also grand master workman of the AOUW (American Order of United Workers), a fraternal lodge.

In 1895 The Republican party nominated Bishop for attorney general as part of its strategy to balance the ticket geographicallq and with both Mormon and non-Mormon candidates. He defeated Democrat A. J. Weber and Populist J. S. Weaver. Bishop served as attorney general through 1900 and returned to the practice of law in Salt Lake City. After 1902 he is no longer - listed in the city directory.

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was recorded in Salt Lake County, concentrated largely in Salt Lake City precincts, and in Weber County where Populist strength lay largely in Ogden precincts. The strongest showing in relation to votes cast was in Uintah County where 22 percent of the county's 553 votes for representative were cast for the Populist candidate.

Of the four most populous counties, Salt Lake County went Republican in all the statewide races and chose a Republican legislative delegation. Utah County voted strongly Democratic for most offices and for all but one member of the county's legislative delegation.

Weber County went Republican, while Cache County remained true to its Democratic tradition.

Utah's swing into the Republican fold in 1895 seems surprising in view of the Democratic orientation of so many prominent Mormons and the generally more vigorous prosecutions of antipolygamy law violators under Republican presidents. Historian Richard D. Poll suggested that during the territorial period each party was trying to win the future political support of U t a h w h i c h was bound to become a state eventually-by a different method. "Developments in the 1880's suggest," Poll said, "that the Republican strategy was to smash the temporal authority of the LDS church so completely that power would pass into the hands of gentiles and lukewarm Mormons, while the Democrats tried to hold the support of rank-and-file Saints by a milder policy of law enforcement." If so, neither party was notably successful in carrying out its strategy. The fact that so many Mormons willingly joined their erstwhile political enemies, the Liberals, in the Republican party suggests that loyalty toward Democrats for past leniency did not run deep with them.

Moreover, in 1894 the country as a whole had shifted toward the Republicans in a typical "off-year" reaction against the party in power in the face of a depression following the Panic of 1893. Nor was Utah at odds politically with its neighbors. In 1895 there was one lone Democratic senator from California in eight western states. Nevada had sent two Populists, while Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming had solid Republican senatorial delegations. Among these men were some of the strongest supporters of unlimited coinage of silver, including Senator Henry M. Teller of Colorado. In the House of Representatives the lone Democrat from the West was one of California's sevenman delegation.

Utah as a territory is often considered to be so unique and provincial that it would not be affected by the same issues and interests that influenced voters elsewhere in the nation. The fact is that Utah newspapers carried a great deal of national and international news, and voters in the territory took a lively interest in national

James Chipman, State Treasurer James Chipman was born in Carroll County, Missouri, in 1839. He came to Utah in 1847 with his parents, Stephen and Amanda Washburn Chipman, both of whom were natives of Canada. After a few years in the Mill Creek area the family moved to American Fork. Young Chipman worked as a farmer and later hauled freight from California to Utah and Montana. He did contract work for the railroads during the ,, building of the Union Pacific and the Rio Grande Western. In 1859 he married Sarah A. Green and, after her death, Selina Huntsman. He had 14 children.

In 1872 he opened a store, eventually I known as the Chipman Mercantile Company, in American Fork. He was president of banks in American Fork, Pleasant Grove, and Lehi. Later, he was a director of the Utah National Bank, Beneficial Life Insurance, and Utah-Idaho Sugar. He also I had a financial interest in several mines. A self-made man with little formal education, Chipman was widely respected as a businessman and regarded by some as "one of I the ablest financiers of the West."

Chipman held several civic positions in American Fork, including school board member, city councilman (three terms), and mayor. One of the organizers of the Republican party in American Fork, he was elected state treasurer on the GOP ticket in 1895 and served a single term. The State Constitution originally barred the state treasurer and the state auditor from serving consecutive terms.

Upon his election Chipman made Salt Lake City his permanent home. For a man involved in many businesses, including several large companies, the capital city no doubt proved a more convenient place to live following his term as treasurer.

He died on October 13, 1922, in a Salt Lake City hospital.

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issues of all kinds. Small wonder that when Utah's first state officials and congressional delegation were chosen in 1895 they would reflect both national and regional trends as well as the steady trend toward Republicanism during Utah's last years as a territory.

The Election Campaign The election of 1895 was unique in many ways. It was the first election for state officers, with every expectation that the territory would finally be accepted as a state. It was the last election conducted by the controversial Utah Commission, the last in which women could not vote, and the last in which individual ballots were provided by the parties rather than Australian (secret) ballots provided by the counties.

The laws governing registration and voting were so complex that the newspapers regularly printed instructions in an effort to enlighten the voters. In July the Utah Commission ordered the registrars it had appointed throughout the territory to visit every dwelling in their precinct before the first Monday in September and register all persons entitled to vote.

It seemed clear that women were not to vote on the ratification or rejection of the Constitution, for this part of the election was governed by the Enabling Act which defined eligible voters as "All male citizens of the United States over the age of twenty-one years who have resided in said Territory for one year...prior to said election...." However, some thought that women could vote for state officers since the new Constitution-after considerable controversy and oratory on the subject-provided for woman suffrage. To be ready for this possibility the Utah Commission suggested that all female electors be registered separately in alphabetical order on separate pages so as to be readily distinguished.

The registrars had to prepare three lists. In addition to the list for women, there was to be a list of those who could vote for municipal, county, or territorial offices, and a list of those who were eligible to vote for the new state offices. The qualifications of the EdmundsTucker Act, primarily the antipolygamy oath and the disfranchisement of women, were to apply to those voting for municipal, county, or territorial offices, not to those voting for state offices-and this raised the question of whether women could vote for the new state officers.

The Utah Commission was relieved of the burden of making the decision on women voting-one that was bound to be unpopular in some quarters no matter how it was made. A test case was entered in Ogden early in August

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by Sarah E. Anderson, seeking a writ to compel Charles Tyree, a deputy registrar from the Second Precinct of Ogden, to place her name on the voting list. Judge H. W. Smith of the First District Court in Ogden ruled on August 10 that women were qualified not only to vote for state officers but on adoption or rejection of the Constitution as well, and he ordered Tyree to register Anderson. The battery of prominent non-Mormon lawyers who had defended Tyree promptly took the case to the Utah Supreme Court, arguing that the authority for women to vote could only come through the Constitution, which was not yet ratified. A majority of the court agreed, contending that the prohibitions of the Edmunds-Tucker Act must continue in force until the new Constitution could be ratified. Thus, both Mormons and non-Mormons who disliked the idea of women voting (possibly for different reasons) could rest assured that the election of 1895 would be strictly an allmale affair.

As election day neared the newspapers pointed out how easy it would be to overlook the vote for the Constitution and to assume that a vote for state officers would mean ratification of the document. The Deseret News pointed out that the words "yes" and "no" would appear at the bottom of each ballot. Those who wanted to ratify the Constitution and vote for statehood had to scratch out the word "no," and those who desired to defeat the Constitution were to scratch out the word "yes." Ballots not clearly marked would not be counted for or against statehood.

Although it soon became clear that the Constitution had been ratified and that a large majority of successful candidates were Republican, the final result of the 1895 election had to wait until January 21, 1896, when the new state senators and representatives met separately, with galleries filled to capacity, to elect the new state's first U.S. senators. In the Senate the election was completed in just seven minutes with a roll call vote that gave Republican candidates Frank J. Cannon and Arthur Brown 12 votes and Democrats Joseph L. Rawlins and Moses Thatcher 5, with 1 absent. In the House, Cannon and Brown captured 29 votes with 2 other Republicans voting for Cannon but not Brown and with 14 Democrats voting for the Rawlins and Thatcher ticket.

Utah was in the Union with its full slate of state officers, legislators, judges, and members of the Fifty-fourth Congress-all elected on partisan tickets. Utahns were still unique in many ways, but in politics they were becoming a little more like other Americans.

Dr. White is professor emeritus of political science, Weber State University. This article was extracted from her "Utah State Elections, 1895-1899" (Ph.D. diss., Un~versityof Utah, 1968).

tended livestock. At age 19 he began to t school in Parowan and two years later

Adams, and they had 10 children. Fr

Active in civic affairs, Richards served in number of local offices, including selec man, clerk, and superintendent of schoo for Iron County. A Republican, he was elec ed state auditor in 1895. Barred by the Uta Constitution from seeking reelection to consecutive term, Richards returned t

choir for 25 years.

Richards died in a Salt Lake City hospital

Huge statehood flag on Tabernacle ceiling. USHS collections.

The Making of the Statehood Flag

BY MARGARET GLADE DERRICK Editor's note: The author was born May 23, 1876, in Salt Lake City, a daughter of James and Isabelle Love Glade. On January 23, 1901, she married Hyrum H. Derrick, and the couple had five sons and a daughter.

Widowed in 1944, she lived to age 90, dying on January 31, 1967. She wrote this reminiscence in April 1956 for her children and grandchildren. A typescript copy is in the Utah State Historical Society Library, manuscript A131.

Many people now living have probably never heard this little bit of history when Utah became a State. I was then 20 years of age and took a small part in the making of this historical event.

The people of Utah had waited long and patiently to enter the Union. Now the time had arrived. On January 6, 1896, Utah was to become a State.* There was a great excitement in anticipating the coming of this event. Everyone seemed making for the big celebration that was to take place in the famous Tabernacle in Salt Lake City on Temple Square. *Statehood was granted on January 4. The inauguration of state officials and the official statehood ceremonies occurred on January 6.

People traveled two or more days from all parts of Utah to attend. Some came in surries; some came in wagon boxes; some came on hay-racks partly filled with hay to feed their horses.

They parked their teams back of what was then the tithing office which stood where the Hotel Utah now stands.

Committees were appointed to prepare for this long awaited event. One committee was headed by Hyrum B. Clawson, a Bishop of one of the Wards. He said, "We will make an ~~~~i~~~ ~l~~ so the people of utah will see for the first time the 45th star, the Utah star, placed on the blue ground of our beloved American flag." This flag was marked and cut out by my brother David Glade and made on the high powered machines in the Z. C. M. 1.

Clothing Factory. The flag was 160 feet long and 78 feet wide. The stripes were six feet in width. The stars were six feet from tip to tip.

These dimensions were handed me by my brother on a little card that is now yellow with age.

Six women were asked to make this flag. I was the youngest of the group. The other five were considerably older than I. The flag was made of good bunting and every seam was

felled to give it strength. Placing the stars on the blue ground was the hardest and most tedious work. The blue ground was cut in blocks. Each block was large enough to place on it a star; then the blocks were joined together. By this method we were able to do a better job of placing the stars. It took one week for us worhng eight to ten hours a day to make the flag. When it was finished it took eight strong men to lift it.

We who worked on the flag were not told where it was to be placed. We knew it could not be placed on a flag pole. We were soon to find out that it was to be placed in the Tabernacle forming a ceiling. The blue ground was placed near the large organ, that is, in the Northwest part of the Tabernacle. There was nine feet of space between the dome of the Tabernacle and the flag. When the air circulated through this space it caused the flag to ripple across the ceiling. WHAT A BEAUTIFUL SIGHT! As I watched the flag as it rippled across the ceiling tears filled my eyes and a lump came in my throat. I felt this flag was saying, "Proudly I wave over you, home of the brave and land of the free." Utah was certainly a home of the brave. Our brave pioneers suffered and came here to have freedom to worship.

It was now time for the ceremonies to begin.

A large electric light had been placed back of the Utah Star. The audience was seated and attention given to the speaker. Now the light was turned on and the Utah Star shone out bright and beautiful. The people wept with joy and were filled with humility as they saw it take its place with the other 44 states of the Union.

The dream of the people of Utah had come true.

For the first time the Utah star took its place on the blue ground of o w beloved flag. Patience and hard work had been rewarded.

For many years this flag had the distinct honor of being the largest flag ever made. Not until recent years have we heard of one larger.

This flag stayed on the ceiling of the Tabernacle for one and one-half years. It was then taken down and placed on the South outside wall of the Temple. It covered the entire South wall. This was July 24th, 1897-celebrating 50 years since the coming of the first pioneers. We last saw the flag adorning the Temple. Many prominent people have tried to trace it but have not succeeded.

Sixty years ago there was no place to store such an immense thing. Families of five and six members were living in three small rooms.

Wherever it could have been placed it would have deteriorated.

Margaret Elizabeth Glade Derrick.

We can always say this beautiful flag served well the purpose for which it was made. Many hearts were filled with joy and happiness as they looked upon it.

As I write this I am the only one living today who helped to make this flag that was the first to carry the 45th star, the Utah Star. I hope my [grandlchildren will remember their grandmother sewed love into this famous flag.

Let us all remember as American citizens we are all makers of our beloved flag for it is the symbol of faith, courage, and the love of God and our Country in the hearts of each individual. May we always live up to these ideals.

Postscript: Margaret Derrick Lester, former photograph librarian at the Historical Society and daughter of Margaret Glade Derrick, recalled that in July 1972 Gwennie Starley Matheson of Salt Lake City provided additional information about the flag. Her father was the Temple block custodian. He helped hang the flag, both when it was on the ceiling of the Tabernacle and when it was hung on the south side of the Temple. Rings were sewed onto the back of the flag and spaced to coincide with the holes in the ceiling. Cords were dropped through the holes and tied to the rings to hold the flag in place.

Because of the rings on the back of the flag, Matheson said, it had to hang on the Temple wall with the blue field in the incorrect position. By 1903 the flag had become so fragile it was ordered destroyed, so it was taken to a corner of the Temple grounds and burned, according to Matheson

Oov, Heber MaWeIls and h e First SStte legislature

BY EDWARD LEO LYMAN

Heber Manning Wells was born in Salt Lake City on August 11, 1859. His mother was Martha Harris Wells, one of the seven wives of Daniel Hanmer Wells. His father served in several important civic and church positions, including mayor of Salt Lake City, member of the legislature, general of the Nauvoo Legion, and second counselor to Brigham Young in the First Presidency of the LDS church. Politically, Wells had been a staunch Whig, and when the Republican party was established in Utah he merged into it. Heber, undoubtedly influenced by his illustrious father, was also among the first in Utah to embrace the Republican cause.

Heber was educated in the public schools, and at age sixteen he graduated from what later became the University of Utah. From that early age he was continually employed in positions of trust and responsibility, first in the office of the city tax collector where he remained for five years. Then, after two years as deputy city recorder he was elevated to city recorder to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of John T. Caine. He was elected to that office three times on his own, holding it until 1890. He was also a member of the Board of Public Works for two terms. His familiarity with city affairs made him the first Republican candidate for mayor of Salt Lake City in 1892; however, he was defeated along with others of his party.

In May 1890 Wells became cashier and later director of the State Bank of Utah, and still later he became a director of the bank and several other companies. He further showed his versatility by filling the office of secretary of the Constitutional Convention of 1887. And later, representing the fourth precinct of Salt Lake City, he was a delegate to the convention that framed the Utah State Constitution in 1895.

Wells had been a public official almost from boyhood. His wide experience, varied responsibilities, and the natural qualities of honesty, good judgment, and ambition all prepared him to be a successful executive. Through the turn of political events in the autumn of 1895shortly after his thirty-sixth birthday-he was to become the state's first chief executive.

Early in the summer of 1895 Utah Republicans announced their intention of calling some 550 delegates to a state convention on

Heber M. Wells. USHS collections.

August 28 in the Salt Lake Theatre. Prior to the convention two men had emerged as the leading contenders for nomination as governor: former chairman of the Republican territorial committee Charles L. Crane and former territorial governor Arthur L. Thomas. Both men had worked diligently to build and strengthen the party and either was probably deserving of the nomination, but a split developed within Republican ranks on the question of which man was the proper choice.

Wells was one of the alternative candidates some began to advocate. Although he had done no preliminary canvassing and had no formal headquarters, he sprang into the contention for the nomination. Elmer B. Jones of Salt Lake City took the floor and pointed out: "A bitter war has been raging in our party that it is unwise to concede to either faction. Therefore, it is my pleasant duty to nominate one under whose banner all factions can work together, namely Heber M. Wells."

Wells garnered enough votes on the second ballot to win the nomination. A motion carried making the third ballot unanimous in his favor.

Candidate Wells was a Mormon, native born, and of a prominent family. He was young, of good character, and had a clean record.

A week later the Democrats convened at Ogden and nominated John T. Caine to run for

governor. Caine had come to Utah in 1852 and had been prominent in the affairs of the territory ever since. He had held many political positions, including service as Utah's delegate to Congress, and was well known and well liked.

On November 5 Wells ran somewhat behind the rest of the ticket in such places as Salt Lake City and Bingham. But when all returns were counted, he had 20,833 votes to 18,519 for Caine and 2,051 for Populist Henry W. Lawrence.

Congratulatory telegrams and letters flooded in upon Wells from Utah and beyond, the most distant being the Society Islands. In it LDS church historian Andrew Jenson, touring the South Pacific at the time, affirmed: "And as the name of George Washington is honored above all other historical names which now constitute the long list of Presidents of the United States so may the name of Heber M. Wells, at the head of the future long list of Governors of the State of Utah always be entitled to special mention and honor.. .."

Because the new Constitution did not fix the time for commencement of the first regular session of the state legislature, Wells's first official act was to call a special session of the legislature following the inauguration ceremonies on January 6, 1896. It met in the City and County Building. This almost-new "joint building" had been volunteered for the use of the first state legislature. The senators were to occupy the city council chamber. and the House

of Representatives was to be seated in a spacious third floor room.

The legislators gathered in their respective places and after some puzzlement as to the proper manner of getting started, they were called to order, took their oaths of office, and were duly organized. When Wells arrived he explained that the purpose of the special session was to fix the time for the regular session to convene. A committee framed a bill to that effect, it was passed, and the joint session dissolved. When the bill was presented for the governor's signature, Wells dramatized the occasion by saying: "I am about to sign the first bill passed by the State Legislature.... What time shall we say it is-3:50?" And that was placed upon the bill and became the "historical minute."

The Constitution had provided that the governor should "communicate by message the condition of the State to the Legislature at every regular session, and recommend such measures as he may deem expedient." As conditions then existed the legislature depended on the governor for leadership and for suggesting legislation. Wells realized this and devoted a great deal of time to preparing his message which took nearly an hour to deliver. He turned first to the state's finances-probably the most pressing problem facing the infant state because of the salaries of state officers and the expense of state institutions, the courts, and the legislature, previously supported at least par-

Members of the first Utah House of Representatives. Woman with It~ycleand wurrlen crr Senate phucu on p. likely legislative employees. USHS collections.

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Members uf the first Utah State Senate. USHS collections.

tially by the federal government. Also, the Enabling Act and the Constitution stipulated that the state would assume all territorial debts.

Since there were no funds with which to conduct state government until the year's taxes were collected, provisions would have to be made to meet immediate expenses. Fortunately for Utah, she had elected a governor with a financial background to lead her in meeting the situation.

Pointing out that a total of $206,721 in territorial obligations would become due within six months, the former banker recommended that an issue of $200,000 in bonds be authorized.

His proposal was enacted into a law. Estimating the probable expense of state government and institutions for the year, Wells recommended that the tax rate be increased a small amount over the previous year.

The Constitution had provided that all territorial properties would become possessions of the state and should be supported and controlled by the state as prescribed by law. The Constitution also specified the general location of each establishment, placing the prison in Salt Lake County; the insane asylum in Provo, Utah County; and the reform school, along with the school for the deaf, dumb, and blind, in Ogden, Weber County. Wells made several recommendations concerning these institutions that the legislature enacted into law, establishing them on a more secure footing while saving the state some expense.

Wells also called attention to electoral mat-

ters, saying that Utah had fallen behind during the 14 years elections were run by the Utah Commission. The legislature responded by passing an elaborate election law including provisions for the Australian ballot system.

They also provided for presidential electors for Utah.

One of the new chief executive's most important proposals was that the commencement of statehood was a good time to revise existing laws and eliminate obsolete and incongruous ones rather than compile and repeat them. He recommended the appointment of a competent committee to perform that task and submit their work to the legislature the following year. Such a law was enacted, authorizing the governor to appoint qualified persons to constitute a commission to revise, codify, and annotate the state's laws.

The Constitution had placed the governor and other officers on so many state boards that one newspaper writer commented that "there is no telling what the governor and the secretary of state will be compelled to do ere the legislature adjourns. At the present they are ex-officio members of nearly every board in the state."

The legislature helped to alleviate this situation by providing that some of the boards would consist of persons other than elected officials.

But this too led to further work for the governor. Invariably he had to select the board members, sometimes with the advice and consent of (continued on page 15)

in 1895, serving as territoriallstate committee chairman. From there it was an easy step to the Constitutional Convention where he was assigned to the Committee on Revenue and Taxation.

George M. emerged from the convention ready to seek office in the new state government. He was was one of five state senators elected from Salt Lake County in the fall of 1895-the same election that ratified the new Constitution. All five were Republicans, each running ahead of such well-known Democrats as Joseph Rawlins and C. R. Savage.

After a three-month session, in which he faithfully performed his duties with the gavel, George M. returned to the business world. He seemed content to leave two other family members to vie for the senate in the election that fall. The Democrats fared much better this time; Martha Hughes Cannon, a plural wife of George's father, Angus M., defeated her husband in that race and registered another first for the family. She became the first woman state senator in the U.S. George M. devoted the rest of his life to banking and real estate. He was the priillary developer of Forest Dale and other properties in southeast Salt Lake, served as a member of the Salt Lake Real Estate Board, and, at the time of his death in 1937 was sitting as a bank president. Horticulture, reading, writing occasional editorials for the Deseret News, and taking on a number of church assignments filled his spare hours and further define him as a man of breadth, energy, and talent.

-Stanford J. Lavton

George M. Cannon, First State Senate President Immediately after taking their oaths of office, the newly elected state senators, meeting in Salt Lake City on January 6, 1896, turned to the task of electing officers.

Their decisive choice for president was a handsome, thirty-five-year-old businessman, George M. Cannon. He was eminently suited by experience and temperament for the job.

Born on Christmas Day in 1861 to Angus M. and Sarah Cannon, George M. must have been a big hit with the small community of Mormons still living in their wagons. They had been called as part of the Dixie Mission to southern Utah. Having arrived at their chosen site just two weeks earlier, the settlers had not yet fixed the name St. George to it. George was always proud to say he was the first white child born there.

After seven years the Cannon family returned to Salt Lake City where young George attended school for five years. He then worked full-time for over two years, though still just a lad, keeping books and weighing loads for a coal company. Even at that tender age he demonstrated a remarkable aptitude for business.

Eager for more education, George returned to school in 1875 and within two years was ready for higher education. He spent the next four years at the University of Utah. Upon leaving there he taught school for the next two years but was soon drawn to government service and business. He first took a job in the Salt Lake County Recorder's Office, then won election and reelection to the position of county recorder. In the early 1890s he worked in real estate for a time, then accepted the position of cashier with Zion's Savings Bank and Trust which he still held upon being elected to the senate.

During those busy times George M. found time to become a family man. He married Addie Morris in 1884. Their wedding must have been a festive occasion indeed, occurring on Christmas Day and George's birthday.

For his next foray into politics, Cannon turned to the grass-roots level. He was one of the original organizers of the territory's new Republican party and served two terms as secretary for the Salt Lake County central committee. He then moved to the next level

George M. Cannon. USHS collections.

13

First Speaker of the House The first Speaker of the Utah House of Representatives was Presley Denny, a native of Ohio, about whom relatively little is known. His family moved to Oregon in 1852, according to Drunzm's Manual of Utah, and he graduated from Willamette University in Salem in 1865 and began teaching. Meanwhile, he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1868. He established a legal practice in Portland, but by 1874 news of Utah's development and growth led him to move to Beaver County where he established his home and law office. Mining had begun in the county in the late 1850s, and by the time Denny moved there Beaver was in the midst of a mining boom. His practice thrived. and he was considered "conspicuously successful" in the area of criminal law, Drumm's Manual states. He married a local woman-a daughter of James Low, a prominent citizen of Beaver who served as a county selectman for 18 years and as mayor of Beaver City during 1885-86.

As deputy U.S. attorney Denny was part of the prosecution team at John D. Lee's second trial for murder in connection with the notorious Mountain Meadows Massacre.

The trial took place in the Second District Court at Beaver in September 1876. Lee, whose 1875 trial had ended with a hung jury, was found guilty this time.

By 1880 Denny had apparently achieved some political prominence and was included in the official party that inaugurated passenger train service on the Utah Southern extension to Milford in May 1880. He traveled with Gov. Eli H. Murray and others and participated in a public reception in Milford and events in the mining town of Frisco.

In 1895, at about age 50, according to Drumm's Manual, Denny won election to the House of Representatives as a Republican, defeating Democrat S. N. Slaughter by a vote of 393 to 310. When Gov. Heber M. Wells called a special session of the Legislature to convene following the inaugural ceremonies on January 6, 1896, Denny was elected temporary chairman of the House on a motion by James M. Bolitho, the representative from Sevier County.

Shortly thereafter, Rep. E. B. Critchlow of Salt Lake City presented House Resolution

No. 1 which listed the Republican majority's slate of permanent officers of the House with Presley Denny as Speaker topping the list.

Democrat Joseph Monson of Richmond, Cache County, offered a substitute list of officers with Democrat Aquila Nebeker of Rich County as Speaker. The Republican majority prevailed, of course, and their slate was elected by a 30 to 14 vote.

Denny worked hard to have the Legislature designate the Fort Cameron site in Beaver as the location of a branch normal school.

Representatives from other southern Utah communities succeeded in modifying the bill to leave the site selection to a committee of leading educators who ultimately chose Cedar City for the school, a branch of the University of Utah.

The Beaver representative must have fulfilled his role as Speaker satisfactorily for on the last day of the session his Republican colleagues gave him a gold watch and the Democrats presented him with a gold-headed cane.

-Miriam B. Murphy

,i Uncle smiling, and, if she will kindly remember t Sam is prejudiced in favor of mono for his girls, there is no reason why the f

(continued from page 12)

the Senate.

With a large number of responsible positions to be filled as soon as possible by executive appointment or nomination, hopefuls began lining up to see the governor. By the first of February the Salt Lake Herald was describing a familiar scene: "The governor's office, as usual, was besieged from early morning until sundown by a hungry mob of would be officials and their friends." A high percentage of the governor's mail during: his first months in office u u consisted of applications for some appointive position or recommendations of others for such positions. The governor courteously acknowledged much of this mail, a typical reply being: "am giving [your application] consideration in connection with about seventy-five or eighty others, all of whom are good men." By late spring the many positions had been filled.

During the first legislative session, Wells vetoed or returned for changes no less than a dozen bills. In most cases his actions pointed to real faults in the bills. The newspapers sided with him in this matter, with one saying that "as long as the law-builders perform imperfect work, it is a good thing that the veto power exists and is in the hands of a man who knows how and when to use it." Another paper, speaking of a veto, added that "he is right in the position he takes and the legislature will do wisely to heed his objections .... The trouble was that [the bill] was hastily prepared and as hastily passed." Public opinion was with the governor in these instances, and his suggested changes were carried out by the legislature on almost all occasions.

There were exceptions, however, the first coming during the latter part of January. The House, after a spirited debate, passed over his veto a bill concerning collection of fees by state and county officers. The governor had returned the bill, saying it did not cover the intended subjects as such a law should. The representatives concluded that it was an usurpation of their prerogatives to decide what "did or did not cover the object ground of the measure." The next day, when the bill came before the Senate, George Sutherland immediately moved that the bill be passed in spite of the governor's veto.

Some senators defended Wells, arguing that "if the governor finds a defect in a law it is his duty to veto it." Senator Sutherland, a future justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, replied that there was no sanctity in an executive's veto which was a relatively modern invention. He then

detailed the real principles of government as entailing the legislators making the laws, the judiciary interpreting them, and the executive carrying them into effect. Most senators, though, agreed with the governor's objection and the motion to override the veto failed.

No veto was actually overridden by both houses until the close of the session when, with Sutherland reiterating his former arguments, an act providing for the employment of stenographers in courts, which Wells thought to be unconstitutional, was passed over his objec-

George Sutherland. USHS collections.

tions. In spite of their occasional differences, the governor and legislature usually worked harmoniously, following each other's suggestions and working out problems.

Besides the immediate needs of the transition to state government, Wells also mentioned some other subjects he felt the legislature should tackle: railroad regulation, fire and police commissions, and an eight-hour work day.

Wells, assuming the role of a progressive reformer, recommended the creation of a commission to control transportation so that no "discrimination in charge or facilities could be made by any railroad between persons or place, and unjust and unreasonable rates for passengers and freight should be prohibited."

Legislators soon introduced a bill to that effect, at which time the Salt Lake Herald predicted: "it will be one of the most fruitful sources of discussion the session will afford, and will

receive more opposition than any bill considered." Even before the bill was published, some railway officials were claiming that if it passed all railroad construction in the state would cease. Public meetings brought admissions from railroad men of the existence in Utah of such evils as pooling, division of receipts, and discrimination in freight rates. But organizations such as the Chambers of Commerce in Logan and in Ogden feared that restrictive legislation would halt railroad construction in the state and hamper commercial development.

Lawmakers favoring railroad regulation fought persistently throughout the session.

Many bills were introduced on the subject, and just as many were killed. Utah would have to wait until after the turn of the century for any effective regulation of railroads.

Another major reform effort stemming in part from the governor's message was more successful. Wells had reminded the legislators that territorial law placed the fire and police departments of the largest cities under the management and control of nonpartisan boards.

Though not completely satisfactory, "the law was a step forward in municipal government, and...with certain amendments.. .should be retained." A bill was soon introduced that followed the governor's general outline. It provided for the appointment and function of nonpartisan boards of police and fire commissioners for each city of 12,000 or more inhabitants.

This was an era of much nationwide support for nonpartisanship in municipal government, especially in connection with public safety.

There was, however, some loud and well-organized opposition to such measures. And though in Utah only Salt Lake City and Ogden were directly affected, this matter occupied more legislative time and stimulated more debate than any other subject brought before the first session.

Opponents of the "fire and police bill" argued that the department chiefs were too far removed from direct accountability to the people. One of the champions of nonpartisan fire and police administration argued that "if we defeat this bill we are taking a step backward; if we pass it, although it may not be all we want, we are advancing." He then proceeded to read a magazine article by Theodore Roosevelt, then a member of New York's newly instituted nonpartisan police commission. One of his most powerful arguments for nonpartisanship stated: "We all recognize the obvious truth that it is absurd to manage the police department of a great city with reference to national par-

ties ...." Salt Lake City's daily newspapers carried similar arguments. After a hard-fought struggle the bill passed.

Another extremely important bill was introduced early in the state's first legislative session. And though Wells was not instrumental in initiating it, he played a crucial role in its becoming a law. The bill, introduced by Representative Furguson of Carbon County, made eight hours the legal day's work in the underground mines and in smelting and ore reduction works. After several amendments and a long discussion as to its constitutionality, it passed in the House by a 26 to 10 vote and passed in the Senate a few days later.

On March 24 a group of mine and smelter operators met in Salt Lake City at the offices of a prominent law firm "for the purpose of formulating a plan of action against the signing by the governor of the bill known as the eight hour law." The group retained seven prominent law firms to attack the constitutionality of the bill, and the governor heard their opinions delivered shortly after the legislature placed the fate of the measure in his hands.

Labor also rallied its forces. Petitions, soiled with the fingerprints of thousands of workers, were carried to the governor's office from most of the mining and industrial areas of the state.

Each of them asked the governor to consider the bill favorably, calling it "a most just law and [it] will be most beneficial to the working men in general." Labor, too, had prominent legal advisors. Judge Orlando W. Powers and

Coal miners in Scofield area of Carbon County. USHS collections.

Attorney Charles S. Varian had helped revise the bill and now gave the governor their views on its constitutionality.

After taking the full allotted time to weigh his decision, the governor approved and signed the bill. He reasoned that the law would not result in greater expense to mine and smelter owners as many feared. In addition, he observed that "the laboring men distinctly represented that it was shorter hours and not more pay which they desired." His main reason for approving the law, however, was that he was convinced of its constitutionality. And since it had received favorable action from the legislature, he deemed it his duty to give it executive approval.

The three largest Salt Lake newspapers had been against the law. The Deseret News, while acknowledging that Wells had "acted conscientiously," believed the courts would overturn the law. They did not. Cases based upon this Utah law were taken all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and upheld.

As the first state legislature drew toward its final day, the tempo of activity increased. At the end of the allotted 90 days lawmakers found it necessary to "stop the clock" in order that further legislation could be enacted. Added responsibility fell upon the governor, as

described by the Deseret News: "The office of the executive presented a busy scene, and Governor Wells was taxed to the utmost of time and attention in scrutinizing measures brought to his attention .... The Governor went through the bills himself, discovering a number of particulars in which corrections were necessary, and some instances where important omissions were made. These were referred back to the legislators who got together as occasion required and fixed them."

The hectic first session finally ended and the lawmakers departed. Their final enactments had been placed in the governor's hands. When a newsman inquired as to his action on these bills, Wells remarked: "I have been catching up on the question of sleep...and have given consideration to nothing else in the last twentyfour hours. I was nearly worn out and needed a rest and took it too."

The governor and the first state legislature had been faced with a great challenge in making all the adjustments and laws needed by a new state. They fulfilled their duties more than adequately, although they left plenty of work for the following year.

Dr. Lyman is an instructor of history at Victor Valley College in Victo~ille,California.

I

J. T Hammond Secretary of State

James Chipman Treasurer

A. C. Bishop ttorney Geneml

First

Elected state Officials Morgan Richards, Jr Auditor

John R. Park School Superintendent (then an elective ofice)

ZCMI's Main Street facade decorated for statehood. USHS collections.

A State Is Born

BY RICHARD D. POLL

It was January 4, 1896. On joining the Union, Utah was already more populous than five of her sister states. Of her people, 8 out of 10 were American-born and nearly 9 out of 10 were Latter-day Saints. Apart from approximately 3,000 Indians, mostly on reservations, the 571 blacks and 768 Chinese counted in the 1895 territorial census were the largest racial minorities. Perhaps 2,000 polygamous families remained, but a considerable number of single men in the mining communities produced a small male preponderance in the total population of 247,324.

Few of Utah's citizens lived in cities, although the inaugural festivities demonstrated that the capital's 50,000 people enjoyed many of the amenities of urban life. A maze of power and telephone lines in the downtown area; a university and eight academies; a limited distribution of natural and manufactured gas; 68

miles of street railway; three daily newspapers; three theaters and two businessmen's clubs; a just-finished gravity sewage system with seven miles of mains; and a three-year-old fun spot, Saltair, perched on piles in Great Salt Lake were further evidences of the march of progress. But progress marched on unpaved streets if it moved very far from the heart of town.

Twenty-seven years as a railroad center had brought Ogden 15,000 inhabitants, 10 miles of street railway, two academies, one of the first hydro-electric projects in the United States (nearing completion), and some of the most eventful Saturday nights to be found outside the mining camps. Provo, with only 400 students in its Brigham Young Academy and the Geneva steel plant not even dreamed of, was a quiet county seat with 6,000 people; its street railway was only six miles long, but it was steam powered. Logan, with 5,000 inhabitants, was beginning to orient its life around its eight-year-old land-grant college. As for the rest, the towns of Utah were either unpaved and unexciting farm-

ing centers, whose chief buildings revealed the industriousness and occasionally the artistic imagination of the pioneers, or unpaved and uninhibited mining camps, which might be gone tomorrow but were notoriously here today.

Farming and mining were the main businesses of the new state, and neither was doing well as 1896 began. The 30-year decline in prices which brought Populism to the farm belt had one more year to go, and the Panic of 1893 had added mining distress to agricultural depression. Property values aggregated approximately $100 million in the state, but if absentee-owned railroads and mines were deducted, the accumulation of a half-century's effort averaged out at less than $300 per capita and at least half of that was in real estate. For Utah the affluent society was still two world wars in the future.

Approximately one-third of Utah's total employed population was engaged in agriculture.

All but 2,232 of the 19,916 farms were declared

by Governor Wells to be free from encumbrances, but with wheat 46$, corn 58$, potatoes 32$, and apples 40$ per bushel; sugar beets and lucerne about $4.00 per ton; wool 7$ per pound; and sheep $1.50 per head, few mortgages were being lifted during the winter of 1895-96. The New Year edition of the Tribune estimated that the value of all farm crops had declined by almost one-third between 1890 and

Uinta Basin harvest. USHS collections.

1894, and there had been little recovery since.

Reminiscent of the pioneer quest for selfsufficiency are 40,000 pounds of cotton and almost 3,000 gallons of wine produced in the Virgin River country in 1895 and 10,000 pounds of silk cocoons reported a year later.

Recalling another dream, which failed in the 1850s but was now becoming a reality under LDS church sponsorship, are the 40,000 tons of beets processed by the Utah Sugar Company in the year before statehood. Although dry farming had begun in the 1870s, 89 percent of the 467,162 cultivated acres (1894) was irrigated by methods largely developed in the founding generation. And although the church was moving toward the abolition of tithing in kind, some produce still moved into the market through the tithing offices and scrip-using cooperatives like the cotton factory at Washington and the Provo Woolen Mills. Mormon Utah's bumper crop was children, and the declining support capability of agriculture was beginning to produce that export of young manpower which would characterize the first four decades of the twentieth century.

The state of mining in Utah can be inferred from Governor Wells's appeal for silver legislation and the endorsement of bimetallism by both Republican and Democratic platforms in the pre-statehood election. At approximately 65$ per ounce, Utah's mines had produced only $4,854,300 in silver in 1895, and that largely

from a few spectacular enterprises like the Centennial-Eureka and Bullion-Beck in the Tintic District and the Silver King and almostexhausted Ontario at Park City. The total value of nonferrous metal production for the year was $8,464,500, down almost $4 million from 1890. Gold discoveries in the Camp Floyd District of the Oquirrh Mountains and the resulting rush which led boomers to speak of a "New Johannesburg" when they incorporated Mercur two weeks before Inauguration Day did

Tmy Laundry in Salt Lake City and delivery wagons, 1904. Shipler photograph in USHS collections.

not disguise the facts that many mines were closed in 1895 and 1896 and that extensive unemployment was avoided largely because of the disposition of miners to move on when jobs disappeared.

Too insubstantial yet to cast a shadow, the mining undertaking with the greatest long-run potential was going on at Bingham. While the operating mines there were still concentrating largely on precious metals and the townspeople were rebuilding from a series of disastrous fires, "Colonel" Enos A. Wall and Samuel Newhouse were piecing together the claims which would become the foundation for Utah's greatest single productive enterprise, the Bingham copper mines. Except for Carbon County and Emery County coal, Great Salt Lake salt, and a very limited production of Gilsonite, sulphur, and building materials, the other nonmetallic minerals which would eventually justify Lincoln's description of Utah as "the nation's treasure house" were either undiscovered or unappreciated.

The railroad network in January 1896 was substantially what it had become in 1880 with the completion of the Utah Southern Railroad extension to Milford and Frisco and the Horn Silver Mine. The Union Pacific now owned 543, the Denver and Rio Grande 485, and the

Central Pacific 157 of Utah's 1,225 miles of standard-gauge road; 150 miles of narrowgauge track wound into the mines. Local stage lines still served parts of the state, and a gun battle between a sheriff's posse and two young horse thieves in City Creek Canyon in August 1895 was additional evidence that the frontier had not yet fully passed. Telephone poles had started sprouting in 1879, and communities from Logan to Eureka were linked together by the Rocky Mountain Bell Telephone Company, but there were yet no rural phones. Western Union, which joined Utah with the two coasts, would wait four more years before buying the Deseret Telegraph Company, the locally built enterprise which had spread the warning through southern Utah when the United States marshals were coming during the days of the "Underground." Salt Lake City had enjoyed house-to-house mail delivery for a decade, but such novelties as airmail and zip codes were hardly in the science fiction.

Other sectors of the Utah economy did not escape the impact of the nationwide depression.

On the contrary, hard times accelerated certain profoundly significant changes in the quality and direction of Utah's business enterprises.

Like agriculture during the territorial period, industry, with the exception of mining and transcontinental transportation, had been largely in Mormon hands and devoted to the selfsufficiency of what Leonard Arrington has aptly titled "The Great Basin Kingdom.'' The larger cooperative projects, like iron, sugar, and cotton, had fallen short of expectations, and most of the local manufacturing was in shops employing only a few hands. The 880 industrial concerns reported in 1894 had an average capital investment of about $6,000, product

Utah Loan & Trust Company of Ogden, 1896, with star and bunting remaining from statehood decorations.

USHS collections.

valw averaging approximately $8,000, a d a total employment of 5,054 people; the P m W001e33 M i b , with 150 employees, was the largeat rc-g example of pioeer indusw.

W a d a&c:d-, industry was reflecting the m03:utionin economic pol;i~ytaking pbce in the LBS church as h t orgilaizati~aatruggled out from under a great bunden of debt ~unaulaM during the Echwds-Tuckcr perisd and came to tam with l& nin~&enth-century Amerean capitalism. The concern for the miterid develops of the region ~ r n d e d , but the isalatinist goals and comUZlImethods largely disappearedd Numbers of existing churcb concerns, Iike the Salt Lake Street l t d h a d Company*Salt Lake City Gas Company,and Provo Woalen Mills, were sold or secu3&d. And the new church-suppod projects mrdted outside capital amd functioned incmventiond, even coamative, business fashion. The Utah Sugar a d h l m d Crystal Sah companies, the hydro-el@c?rsic devc1~prnaton the Weber River and the electric and gas utilities in norehem Utah, the Saltair resort aed the i%aih senring d it w e n a l l products of this expedient rehtmpxetatio~of the strictuses against mingling Zioa and Babylon. In the new state of Utah,lilissez ffaire was a nmmxtkan slogan, with llonsectiwian msewadons far the protdve tarB, of coxme:.

At the counters and in the corntine; houses of Salt Labe and Og$dm some of the earliest overtures t.wrd Momon-gentile peace had been madeP and by 1896 the Chanzkrs of ~ Q = ~ F = a d thr;4u u b& hW3 replaced the Schools of the Prophet and Zion's Board of

Trade as centers of businas planning. Likt the manufactories, mast comrnerciaZ establi~hmena were mall; the 1974 stares rqmted in 1894 emplow 5,023 p p l e and had an average capid investment of over $7,000and average sales of $17,000.

Many Mcmn~n-ownedstores thr~ughoutthe state $till caIled tlilernselvm 720-ops" and did much of their purchasing through ZCMI Whole~ala,but the s e j c ~ l ~ process ng h d y referred to in industry was also taking place in trade. The rein!colporation of Zion's Cooperative Me~cantilcInstitution as a dIUaa-dok carporation on September 30, 1895, Is a m~tableexmp1e. Chiginally fomded in 1868 as the ccrmrstane. far a self-c~ntainedMomon commercisrl structure?, it hdla been ~onsiderahly more prafitable than its industdd coum@rpW; on a;n initial inve&mmt of $220,1MC19 not all cash, and ah38 of $'76,352+686,it had generated $1,990,943.55 in cash dividends and $4114,944.77 in stmk dividends in 25 yem. In 1891 it had discontinued tithing its earnings and opened stock om~mhigto m-Momms., and the new cornpay hnetioaed substm~dly as its gentile ~umpedtomin the merchandise field.

"All Ow Underwear at Om-'l'Md O ~ ~ u s t have drawa crowds to Siegd Gluthing Company, whem thc finest full 1mgt.b mion sui& in '$SwitzCode" C Q I ~$2.75 h t "natural ~ ~ ~ s ' ~ c Nbel had l d for . $.herban;:h9s &I. was clearing itdies' tailor-rnde suits at $3.85, fwtwarmers at $50 a pair, childrlen's shoes at $1.00 a pair, and ostrich f e a h r boas from $1.75 to $10.00. Lipman, Nadel and Son

F

offered "Your choice of any suit or overcoat in the store for $10.00," while ZCMI was featuring the Charter Oak ranges and stoves in which were baked many of the pies and cakes that our grandmothers used to make. There were no supermarkets, and the corner grocers usually relied on handbills rather than newspapers to call attention to their lo$ beefsteak, 15$ butter, and assorted penny candy.

It should be remembered, however, that those were the days when $2.00 was a good day's wages, and the youngsters in a workingman's family did not always have pennies to spend on luxuries.

Unlike their parents, children could go to school without tuition, the free school system having been established on a territory-wide basis in 1890. Almost 90 percent of the 74,551 school-age children attended at some time in 1895, and the pattern of available education was changing rapidly from year to year. The non-Mormon denominational elementary and secondary schools, which had numbered more than 50 and rendered invaluable service in upgrading the quality of the territorial educational effort, were now suspending operations, leaving only a handful of secondary schools and colleges like Rowland Hall, St. Mary's of the Wasatch, and Wasatch Academy to carry on in the twentieth century. The Mormon academies at Provo, Logan, Ephraim, Vernal, Ogden, Castle Dale, and Salt Lake City were, on the other hand, vigorously expanding in secondary education and the normal course training of teachers, fields in which they matched public school enrollment until the First World War. The big growth, however, was in public elementary schools, where nearly 60,000 children were enrolled and almost 35,000 were in aver-

Back view of University of Utah's main building on its westside location. USHS collections.

age daily attendance. Superintendent John R. Park would shortly call for the consolidation of districts and a far greater financial outlay than the $500,000 which had been the annual educational outlay during the depression years.

Most aspirants for university degrees and professional training still left Utah, but in Salt Lake City, Logan, and Provo, institutions of

Faifield, Sanpete County, district school was built two years after statehood. USHS collections.

higher education were taking shape. The University of Utah, started with high hopes in 1850 as the University of Deseret, was still largely concerned with secondary and normal courses and adult education, and it had not yet begun to move from its buildings at First North and Second West to Fort Douglas. But 500 students were now in attendance, the 1895 graduation exercises had seen nine baccalaureate degrees awarded, and President James E. Talmage and faculty, whose names now identify many campus facilities, were trying to build a university on an annual budget of $35,000.

The faculty and 400 students of the Agricultural College of Utah at Logan might have complained at their $22,000 appropriation in 1896 if they had not also received a federal grant of $25,000, which raised their total budget from the level of the Reform School in Ogden and the School for Deaf, Dumb, and Blind almost to a par with the Insane Asylum in Provo, whose $50,000 appropriation the first statehood year was the largest to any public institution. The Asylum augmented its income by boarding "idiots and morons" at $4.00 per week. Governor Wells's first message to the legislature, incidentally, raised the possibility of closing the Reform School since recent experience had shown that only one out of four of its inmates was rehabilitated. Instead the institution was relocated and named the State Industrial School a year later, and the institution for the deaf, dumb, and blind was moved

Charles C. Richards Played a Major Role in Utah's Statehood Drive

..

Charles Comstock Richards devoted his energy to Utah's final drive toward statehood in the 1890s. Despite playing an important role in that process, he has been largely forgotten. A son of LDS apostle Franklin D. Richards and Jane Snyder, Charles was born in Salt Lake City on September 16, 1859.

The family moved to Ogden where he attended school. Later, he studied law in his brother's law office. Charles married Louisa Letitia Peery, and they had eight children.

During his long career Richards held many civic positions, including Weber County recorder, attorney, and clerk; member of the territorial legislature; delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1887; Speaker of the Utah House of Representatives in 1919; regent of the University of Utah; and assistant U.S. attorney general during the Wilson administration. AS one of the organizers of the Democratic party in Utah, Richards won recognition from President Grover Cleveland who appointed him secretary of Utah Territory, a position he held from 1893 until statehood in 1896. In that office he played a key part in the statehood process.

Richards died August 10, 1953, at age 93.

The following account has been excerpted from an address Richards presented to the Sagebrush Democratic Club on October 23, 1942, at Moose Hall in Salt Lake City. The club published his talk in pamphlet form. A copy is in the Utah State Historical Society Library.

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Drugstore in Salina, Sevier County, 1896. USHS collections.

from Salt Lake into the abandoned quarters in Ogden.

If the churches were giving up some of their economic and political activities and transferring many of their educational functions to the state, they were by no means inactive. Most of the major Christian communions were represented in the church notices in the Salt Lake papers, and St. Mark's and Holy Cross hospitals were already important examples of the testimony of the deed. That Mormon-watching was still a mission of some of the gentile ministry had been apparent in the recent election and would become even more conspicuous when B. H. Roberts finally won a congressional election two years later. But the effort to rescue the Saints from their religious "delusions" had lost its thrust, and the new policy of peaceful coexistence was symbolized by the prayers which opened and closed the inauguration ceremonies.

January 4, 1896, was more than the birthday of a state. It was the wedding of Utah and the nation.

Editors note: This is an excerpt from a larger article, published under the same title, in the winter 1964 issue of Utah Historical Quarterly by the late Dr. Poll.

1

I have been given to understand that our meeting this evening is to be in the nature of a reunion of what some people are pleased to call "0ldtimers"-but, in my opinion, that is a misnomer for the men who sit before me in the front row as our guests of honor this evening. A man's age is not determined by the number of years he has lived, but by how he has lived; whether he has kept pace with the times in which he lived, or is living in times that have passed. Men and women who were fighting vigorously to make Utah a citadel of democracy more than fifty years ago and who have been carrying the torch of democracy enthusiastically ever since, never

grow old. They are always young because they are democratic in their thinking, democratic in their speech, and democratic in their actions throughout their lives.. ..

I remember, very well, how one morning after I had been out in the country, several miles from Ogden, until a late hour the evening before, attending one of our numerous Democratic meetings, I was very tired and my father noticing my fatigue very kindly suggested that I was driving too hard and taxing myself too near the limit of endurance-but I was so interested in the cause that my reply was that if by devoting all of my time for the ensuing five years in urging the alignment of the people of the Territory upon national party lines I could assist in procuring Statehood of the Territory, so that he and my mother could vote for the President of the United States, I would gladly devote my time and energy in that way; and it so happened that I devoted the five years to that service and that my father and I voted together at the same poll, as was our custom, for the President at the November election in the fall of 1896. That was the one and only vote my father had the opportunity of casting for the President after he and my mother were driven out of Nauvoo in the summer of 1846-just fifty years before-as he passed to his heavenly rest nearly a year before the next Presidential election was held.

The leaders of the People's party throughout the Territory became so deeply interested and enthusiastic over the prospect of terminating the bitterness that was being fanned constantly by the campaigns of the People's and Liberal parties, that they formally disbanded their party organizations and substituted ...[national party] organizations throughout the Territory. The creation of the Democratic Club at Ogden on February 2 lst, 1891, effectively abandoned the People's party organization in Ogden City and Weber County, as the leaders of the party there had given their allegiance and untiring service to the Democratic party, and to the recruitment for converts to that party.

On May 29th, less than three months after the launching of the club at Ogden, the People's party of Salt Lake County formally resolved to disband; and on June 10th... the Territorial Committee of the People's party resolved to disband and advised the voters to join either party their preferences might suggest.

Charles C. Richards. USHS collections.

We then began to consider what might be done to further Statehood for the Territory and, in the meantime, secure the appointment of actual and bona fide residents of the Territory to the offices to be filled by appointments of the President....

There had been a radical change in the feelings of the Congress towards the people of Utah, and the Mormons in particular, in the three and one-half years between February 1891...and the mid-summer of 1894.

It was at the next Presidential election (in November 1892) that Grover Cleveland and a Democratic Congress were elected, and soon thereafter they entered upon their official duties; and the political atmosphere affecting the people of Utah was noticeably changed to a more friendly attitude.. ..

President Cleveland ...began making appointments of Utah resident Democrats ..., among them ...Mormons, to the offices in Utah that were subject to Presidential appointment.... ...Congress ...passed the Enabling Act, which was approved by President Cleveland and became law on July 16th, 1894....In conformity with its provisions, the Governor of the Territory, on the 1st day of 14ugust 1894, issued his Proclamation ordering that an election be held on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November 1894 to elect 107 delegates, as apportioned by the act

among the several counties or the Territory, to form a convention to meet on the first Monday in March 1895 and form a Constitution and State government for our proposed State.

Because of the absence from the Territory of Governor Caleb W. West, it became my pleasing duty, as Acting Governor, to issue the proclamation calling for the election of the delegates to form the Constitutional Convention and prepare for the organizations of the new State. And, to show the changing political conditions in the Territory, it may not be amiss to mention, as an historical event, that my appointment as Secretary of the Tenitory was the first appointment made by the President of a Mormon to a position of such prominence in the Territory, since the retirement from office of President Brigham Young, the Territory's first Governor, in the year 1858; some thirtyfive years previous.

The election was held, the del elected, and they convened...as

me ACI. b e y then proceeaea to draft and adopt a proposed Constitution for the State and provided for the submission of the same to the people of the Territory for its ratification or rejection; and for the election to be held on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November 1895.

The election was held at the time appoint ed, the Constitution was adopted by an overwhelming majority vote, and the State Officers were also elected. After the votes were canvassed by the Utah Commission, the results were certified by the Commission to the President, as required by the Enabling Act; and on Saturday, the 4th day of January 1896, at exactly 12 o'clock noon in Washington, and ten o'clock a.m., in Salt Lake City the President of the United States signed the Proclamation declaring that Utah was a Sovereign State of the Union. This fact, so important to the people of Utah, was flashed over the wires and was the signal for of deafening blasts from steam ringing of the bells, the gener-

Crowd in downtown Salt Lake Cityfor statehood celebration. USHS collections.

ous display of the national colors and the release of pent up enthusiasm by the people generally at our being admitted into the Union of States.

As the powers of the Territorial Officers terminated with the passing out of the existence of the Territory itself, public service by them was at an end; and until the inauguration and induction into office of the Governor, Secretary, Judges, and other State officers, on Monday, January 6th, 1896 (some 48 hours after the issuance of the Presidential Proclamation), we had a Sovereign State with a full set of State Officers, duly elected but not authorized to serve.

An elaborate program was prepared and carried out for the inauguration of the State Officials, consisting of a spectacular civil and military parade, starting from the Executive Offices then occupying the government building on the east side of Fifth East Street between First and Second South Streets in this city...and terminating at the Mormon Tabernacle on Temple Square. The Tabernacle was crowded to its utmost capacity and overflowing with enthusiastic and thankful residents and citizens of the State, many of whom were pioneers of 1847 who had been hoping, praying and working for nearly half a century to see and participate in that eventful happening. Among the multitude were the retiring Territorial Officers, the Officers-elect of the new State, the First Presidency, Twelve Apostles and general authorities of the Mormon Church, leading ministers of the various churches, military and civic leaders and people from all nationalities and walks in life. It was a gala day for everybody, and they treated it as such.

As Acting Governor of the late Territory, I was selected by the committee arranging for the celebration to act as the presiding officer at the services. The newly elected State Officers were sworn in, addresses were delivered by them and by other prominent citizens, music was rendered by the numerous bands in attendance, by the great Organ in the Tabernacle, and singing by the wonderful Tabernacle Choir interspersed the proceedings of the great patriotic assembly, and the services were brought to a close amidst shouts of real thanksgiving and praise for that blessed day. Fervent invocations and benedictions were offered while the vast assemblage bowed their heads in silent reverence to Almighty God.

A Glorious Harbinger!

Utah Reaches ~takhood Editor's note: This delightful view of statehood was published in History of the Bench and Bar of Utah (Salt Lake City, 1913). Scipio Africanus Kenner was born in Missouri on May 14, 1852. His family moved to Utah where he learned telegraphy and was the station operator in Beaver, Utah, and later in Pioche, Nevada, and Salt Lake City. He also worked as a printer and journalist with the Deseret News and was connected at various times with the Salt Lake Herald, the Ogden Junction, and Provo Times. He was admitted to the Utah Bar and practiced law in Salt Lake City and southern Utah and served as assistant U.S. attorney. He died on March 15, 1913.

Probably the most interesting bit of news, d the most welcome as well, ever discussed y the members of the Bench and Bar of Utah er the wires from Washington to on the ...[fourth] day of January ng that at last Utah had attained atehood....We will return to Africanus] Kenner and borrow f the reception of the glad tids by the residents of the capital of the new "Like the launching of a great ship, which ows no signs of moving until it is on the ways d then reaches its element so swiftly that the

was promulgated the ...[fourth] day of "It was proposed for some time that the day made a legal holiday, but as Utah has more such than enough, the suggestion failed to s a more consequential date n are some of the red-letter days. The occast propitious. Although at a e when the weather is usually forbidding, air was still and the temperature quite modte. There was not a cloud in the sky and the n shone with a brilliancy that made it appear if he too were all smiles and rejoicing cause the period of travail for Utah, which he d marked from the beginning, was no more. en! What a delightful introction! What a glorious harbinger! And what gratifying, promising state of things pre"The once discordant elements got along jarring or jostling; there were seldom es to past conflicts and animosities, the 26

Scipio Africanus Kenner from his book Utah As It Is (1904).

elements blended in social and political affairs without a suggestion of former differences, and 'all went merry as a marriage bell.'

"In Salt Lake City the proceedings were very hilarious. The manager of the Western Union Telegraph office had obtained permission from the Mayor to fire off a gun in the street when the news came, and about 10 A.M. he rushed from his office, through the front door with a double-barreled shotgun in his hand, and reaching the edge of the sidewalk he turned loose both barrels.

"This was the signal that the President's proclamation announcing the new membership in the great household had been signed and Statehood-the great boon so long wanted, so frequently asked for and so persistently denied-was an accomplished fact. At once whistles everywhere were screeching, firearms were discharged with utter disregard of the ordinances or anything else, all kinds of noises, mechanical and vocal, rent the air, and made the town a regular bedlam for a while. Bands played, flags were displayed in every direction, everybody in the crowd was hilarious, and the time was made memorable by unrestrained joyousness. It was a great time.

"Doubtless many people there were who, while feeling exuberant enough, succeeded in keeping within the boundaries of reasonable restraint, but the majority were otherwise. A prominent churchman and a personal friend of the writer's, met him immediately after the signal was fired and threw his arms around the scribe's neck with as much impetuosity, exu-

berance and affection as though the latter were a winsome woman (nearly enough related to justify such performance, of course), instead of being a plain-looking masculine, whose chief attraction was a new suit of clothes bought the day before. The churchman felt like many others, and could hardly find words to give his feelings expression, which may in some manner account for his acts in that connection. "'I can hardly realize it,' he said; 'I have waited for this day a long time, and now it is here I can't grasp the full import of it (which is probably the reason he grasped me so fervently). Don't you think it a great, grand day?' "'Yes, indeed,' I replied, 'we have got our white elephant at last.'

"He looked half shocked and half incredulously at this. That anyone could be so lost to the sublimity of the occasion as to give even a thought to its responsibilities must have seemed well-nigh sacrilegious. But all hands and the cook have thought of them since, and those who now look upon the really proud and altogether desirable boon of Statehood as a condition of things not wholly beautific or even free from rasping circumstances are, it is painfully apparent, neither few in number nor far apart.

That is, the glamour has disappeared and the stern realities being something that were not seriously considered beforehand seem a little harder than they really are in consequence.

"It is putting it a little too severely to say that the situation is another case of Sinbad the Sailor and the lonely man of the ocean-that having taken Statehood upon our shoulders we cannot get rid of it and will have to wear it whether or no, but a good many who were most exuberant seem to feel that way. (This doesn't include the churchman spoken of, by any means.) With these getting accustomed-or seasoned-to the situation and learning to appreciate conditions because of their real instead of their fancied worth, the number of malcontents has rapidly dwindled and will finally disappear altogether.

"It is not so very long ago, not more than a decade, that U. S. Marshal Frank Dyer (since deceased), Judge J. W. Judd and several others engaged in a movement looking to the granting to Utah by the Government of a form of home rule which would amount to modified Statehood, this being considered a palliative for some of the evils inseparable from Territorial rule. This was as near to a demand for independence for Utah as any Gentile dared go at that time, and even it brought down the wrath of the leaders and the unsparing scorn and ridicule of

A Chronology of Utah Statehood COMPILED BY LINDA THATCHER

1847 In July 1847 the Mormon pioneers began entering the Salt Lake Valley. After years of persecution in the Midwest they realized the advantages of self-government, but the land they had come to belonged to Mexico.

1848 Victorious in the Mexican War, the United States set the terms of peace. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on February 2, 1848, ceded a vast territory claimed by Mexico to the United States, including the land settled by the Mormons. LDS leaders began to plan their first statehood attempt.

1849 Hoping to obtain statehood as soon as possible, leaders in Salt Lake City sent a message to "all the citizens of that portion of Upper California lying east of the Sierra Nevada mountains" to attend a constitutional convention beginning March 8, 1849, in Salt Lake City "to consider the political needs of the community." The convention created a

r the Salt Lake Tribune, the Gentile and Liberal organ.

"The movement came to naught, but following closely upon its heels was the establishment of national party lines, and upon the disappearance of the Liberal party the movement for Statehood became spontaneous. The last vestige of Federal authority was at last gone, we received what we had demanded and craved so long, and because it has not proved to be all 'sluttles and beer' is no reason why it is not all that it ever promised to be.

"The more judicious and less penurious are thankful beyond expression that Utah controls herself in her own way, and hopeful that wherein the way may be imperfect or even bad, the agencies of improvement are at work and will not cease until our commonwealth is inferior to none in all that goes to make States proud and enduring and their people prosperous and upright."

I

proposed state of Deseret that encompassed the entire Great Basin and east to the Continental Divide, including, besides the present state of Utah, most of present Nevada and Arizona and parts of southern California (with the port of San Diego), Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon, and Idaho. On March 10 the constitution for Deseret was completed, and on March 12 officers for the proposed state were elected: Brigham Young, governor; Willard Richards, secretary; Newel1 K. Whitney, treasurer; and Heber Kimball, chief justice. Almon W. Babbitt was selected to represent the provisional state in Congress. Traveling to Washington, D.C., Babbitt procured the services of Sen. Stephen A. Douglas to present the documents to the Senate on December 27. The House of Representatives declined to seat Babbitt, and the Committee on Elections reported: "The admission of Mr. Babbitt would be a quasi recognition of the legal existence of the State of Deseret; and no act should be done by the House, which, even by implication, may give force and vitality to a political organization extraconstitutional and independent of the laws of the United States." The committee recommended the adoption of a resolution stating that it was "inexpedient to admit Mr. Babbitt to a seat in the House as a Delegate from the 'alleged State of Deseret."'

One reason for the refusal of Congress to grant statehood to Deseret was the lack of 60,000 eligible voters required for admission as a state. Moreover, Congress objected to the huge size of the proposed state. On September 7, 1850, the Senate passed a bill providing for the organization of a Utah Territory (rejecting even the name Deseret and shrinking its presumptuous borders), and two days later the bill passed the House and was signed by Millard Fillmore on September 9. The Organic Act creating the territory formed the basis of government in Utah until statehood. On September 20 President Fillmore announced his list of territorial appointments, and the Senate confirmed them on September 30: Brigham Young, governor; Broughton D. Harris (Vermont), secretary; Seth M. Blair (Utah),

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Smith and John Taylor traveled to Washington to present it and a memorial to Congress. They met with Utah's delegate to Congress, John M. Bernhisel, who told them that a statehood attempt would be futile at that time and might create obstacles in the future. Stephen A. Douglas advised them to wait until his popular sovereignty principles were more fully implemented. Later that year the Republican National Platform Committee paired polygamy with slavery when it declared it the "duty of Congress to prohibit in the territories those twin relics of barbarism-polygamy and slavery."

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Soon after taking office in 1857 President Buchanan removed Brigham Young as governor of Utah Territory and sent a 2,500-man military force to accompany the new governor, Alfred Cumming, thus precipitating the so-called Utah War. The troops wintered at Camp Scott, Wyoming. When they finally marched through Salt Lake City on June 26, 1858, they found it abandoned by the Mormons. The army proceeded to a site 40 miles southwest of the capital where they built Camp Floyd. Cumming assumed office unchallenged and made peace with the Mormons.

Brigham Young, ca. 1850. USHS collections.

U.S. attorney; Joseph L. Heywood (Utah), U.S. marshal; Joseph Buffington (Pennsylvania), chief justice, replaced by Lemuel G. Brandebury (Pennsylvania) when Buffington refused the honor; Perry E. Brocchus (Alabama), associate justice; Zerubbabel Snow (Ohio), associate justice.

LDS church authorities publicly acknowledged that the doctrine of plural marriage had been accepted as a divinely instituted obligation among some of the most faithful adherents of the Latter-day Saint religion.

During the next 38 years, polygamy would prove to be the major stumbling block in attempts to gain statehood.

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The third movement for statehood began in December 1861 when the territorial legisla-

Encouraged by President Pierce's willingness to allow Brigham Young to continue as the territorial governor, the Mormons began a second effort to achieve statehood. When the fifth territorial legislature convened in Fillmore (briefly the territorial capital) on December 10, 1855, it passed an act authorizing the election of delegates to a constitutional convention.

The constitutional convention assembled in Salt Lake City on March 17, 1856, and ten days later adopted a constitution. George A.

Alfred Cumming. USHS collections.

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0 constitutional convention. Gov. John W. Dawson, who had arrived in the territory on December 7, vetoed it, because the time between its passage and the date fixed for the election of delegates was too short.

Dawson left Utah under controversial circumstances on December 31. At mass meetings on January 6, 1862, citizens elected delegates to a constitutional convention that met on January 20 in the county courthouse in Salt Lake City. By January 23 the 67 delegates had drawn up a constitution for a state still to be named Deseret. On June 9 Delegate Bernhisel presented the constitu-

I

I

Gentiles and dissident Mormons organized the Liberal party in Utah in February 1870.

Until the formation of national parties in the territory the Liberal party and the People's party of the Mormons would frame political debate in Utah along religious lines.

Fi,F,-1872

A new attempt to achieve statehood began on January 31, 1872, when the legislature passed a joint resolution calling for the election of delegates to a constitutional convention. The convention opened on February 19 in City Hall in Salt Lake City, and by March 2 had adopted a constitution and framed yet another memorial to Congress asking for the admission of Deseret into the Union. On April 2 the constitution was presented to Congress and referred to a committee that reported it adversely. Meanwhile, on March 18 the election provided for in the constitution was held. It was ratified by 25,160 votes in favor and 365 against-all for naught. It would be ten years before Utah made another serious drive for statehood.

1874

John M Bemhzsel. USHS collectzons.

tion to the House. This effort to achieve statehood also failed. More worrisome, though, was the passage a few days earlier, June 3, of the Morrill Anti-bigamy Act in the Senate. It prohibited polygamy in the territories and disincorporated the Mormon church. It was never effectively enforced.

1867 In January 1847 the legislature petitioned Congress to repeal the Morrill Act and, in the words of LDS historian Andrew Jenson, "prayed for admission into the Union as a State." Neither objective was achieved.

1869 Completion of the transcontinental railroad at Promontory, Utah, on May 10 ended Utah's isolation and ushered in an era of increased Mormon-gentile hostility.

On June 23, 1874, the Poland Act passed both houses of Congress. It became the legal basis for prosecuting Mormon polygamists throughout the ensuing decade. The act gave district courts, controlled by federal appointees, jurisdiction in civil and criminal cases and limited the probate courts, controlled by Mormons, to cases involving estates, guardianships, or divorce.

1879 George Reynolds, who had agreed to be the subject of a test case of the constitutionality of federal laws against polygamy, found his conviction upheld on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Chief Justice Morrison Waite issued the unanimous decision on January 6 which upheld the Morrill Act making the practice of plural marriage a criminal offense.

1882 On February 10, 1882, the U.S. Senate passed the Edmunds Act, and it was

approved in the House on March 14 and soon signed by Chester A. Arthur. It made the offense of unlawful cohabitation-much easier to prove than polygamy-a rnisdemeanor and made it illegal for polygamists or cohabitants to vote, hold public office, or serve on juries. It also provided for a fiveman Utah Commission appointed by the president to supervise all aspects of the electoral process in Utah Territory. Against this background Utahns nevertheless decided to mount another statehood drive. A constitutional convention authorized by the legislature met during April 10-27, 1882, in Salt Lake City and framed a constitution for Utah, abandoning the name Deseret and retooling the document. On May 22 the constitution was ratified by a vote of the people.

Although a delegation was dispatched to Washington with the new constitution to present to Congress, no action was taken on the matter until February 23, 1883, when it was introduced in the Senate; a statehood bill was later introduced in the House, but both bills were referred to committees where they were quickly put on hold.

and Protest" and chose a delegation to carry the document to the president. Similar mass meetings were held & other cities and towns throughout the territory. On May 13 the delegation from Utah, John T. Caine, John W. Taylor, and John Q. Cannon, presented the declaration to President Cleveland.

Although the Edmunds-Tucker bill was passed by the U.S. Senate on January 12, 1886, it was stalled by Democrats in the House as various amendments to it were considered. When finally approved by both houses in February 1887 and sent to President Cleveland, he allowed it to become law without his signature. Among other things, this act abolished woman suffrage in the territory and provided that LDS church property in excess of $50,000 would be forfeited to the United States. This discouraging news seemed to galvanize Mormons in Utah to continue their pursuit of statehood, but with a somewhat different proposal. On June 30, 1887, another constitutional convention met in Salt Lake City and by July 7 had hammered out a constitution that declared bigamy and.polygamy "incompatible with a republican form of government" and made both activities misdemeanors. On August 1 the new constitution was ratified

by Utah voters. Many doubted the sincerity of its provisions against polygamy, and newspapers across the country editorialized against statehood based on such flimsy evidence of a turnaround of affairs in Utah. The new constitution was not automatically set aside by Congress, which held hearings on it in 1888, but ultimately it too failed to achieve the desired result for Utah. With the Mormon hierarchy determined to retain polygamy as a tenet and a practice, some members of Congress began agitating for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would ban the practice.

As federal officials in Utah increased their pursuit and prosecution of polygamists under provisions of the Edmunds Act, many were imprisoned and others went into hiding on the "underground" or into exile in Mexico or elsewhere. On Saturday, May 2, 1885, Mormons held a mass meeting in the Salt Lake Tabernacle to protest the heavy hand of federal authorities. Those in attendance framed a "Declaration of Grievances

On September 24, 1890, LDS President Wilford Woodruff reviewed the text of a momentous announcement. After conferring with other church leaders, he issued what has since been called the Woodruff Manifesto to the Associated Press on September 25, Woodmff's key sentence stated: "I now publicly declare that my advice to

Utah Comission, 1885: Mr:Paddack, Secretary Tizonaas, Mrr Ramsey, Colond Godji.e, Jardge Carlton, ME Pettigrew. USHS coZlections.

31

the Lamer-aay saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land." It was published in many newspapers across the country, and, though some doubted its authenticity or sincerity, it s i g r m naled a major shift of direction in church doctrine and practice and cleared the path toward statehood.

Permanent formation of national parties occurred in Utah in 1891. On May 29 the officers of the People's party met in Salt Lake City and voted to disband the party and advised the members to join one of the two major national political parties. On July 6

Constimtional Convention and also served the needs of state government until the Capitol was basilt. USHS collections.

voters elected 107 delegates to a constitutional convention to be held in Salt Lake City the following year.

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Grover Cleveland. USHS collections.

the Democrats held their convention and nominated a slate of candidates for Salt Lake County offices. On July 8 the Republicans met and nominated their first county ticket.

The two parties met several times during July to effect their organization and to field legislative candidates for the August 3 election. Democrats and Liberals won most of the offices. The Liberal party did not disband until December 18, 1893. *>.

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Congress passed the Enabling Act, which set forth- the steps Utah must iake to achieve statehood. 1t was signed by President Cleveland on July 16,1894. On November 6

On Match 4, 1895, the delegates met in the new Salt Lake City and County Building and framed Utah's Constitution. In accordance with provisions of the Enabling Act, it "forever" banned the practice of polygamy. The delegates represented a mix of Mormons and non-Mormons from a wide range of backgrounds. They completed their work on May 6 and signed the engrossed document 0x1 May 8. At the general eleetion on November 5, 1895, the new Constitution was ratified, and state officials and state legislators were elected. (

18% On Jaouaty 4, 1896, President Cleveland proclaimed Utah a state on an equal footing with the other states of the Union. The long battle for stateh~odwas won, and most Utahns joined in jubilant celebrations held throughout the new 45th state. On January 6 state officials were inaugurated at impressive ceremonies held in the Salt Lake Tabernacle.

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