Chapter 13 - Senatorial Fiasco

Chapter 13 - Senatorial Fiasco

WITH STATEHOOD ACHIEVED, Utah immediately set about choosing two senators to represent the new state in Washington, D.C. When the Republican - dominated legislature, elected the previous November in anticipation of a formal declaration of statehood, convened in Salt Lake City in January, 1896, one of its first orders of business was the selection by the State Senate of Utah's two United States senators. The Tribune behaved sensibly with regard to its old bugbear of church meddling in politics. True, the newspaper was not satisfied with both senators but its objections ran against the gentile elected rather than the Mormon.

The procedure for electing senators at this time may be briefly summarized: First, the parties held conventions and nominated one or more candidates to give the voters some idea of whom they might be supporting for senator, but the conventions were not required to make nominations. It was generally understood, and accepted, that the party winning a majority of the state legislature was entitled to the U.S. Senate seats. Just before the legislature convened, or shortly thereafter, the parties would hold caucuses to seek unanimous agreement on whom the legislative members of the party would support for senator. To refuse to accept a party caucus decision was a serious partisan "sin" excusable only for some overriding objection on the part of the defector. The majority party caucus, in effect, elected the senators. The minority party caucus was largely a matter of form, unless the majority party legislators happened to split on the issue and open the door to a floor contest.

In 1896, the Republicans controlled the legislature, but their convention had not made senatorial nominations. Thus, the door was open for the candidacies of any who wanted to formally declare or work for the honor without a formal declaration. Among the candidates who did not declare, but who had substantial support, was the admittedly outstanding church, civic and political leader, George Q. Cannon. A declared candidate, who had campaigned throughout the state for a Republican victory, was his son, Frank J. Cannon.

The Tribune editors made it very clear before the legislature convened that they would regard the election of the father as a repudiation of the separation of church and state understanding and that they would view the failure to elect the son as an act of perfidy on the part of the Republican legislators. On the eve of the caucus George Q. Cannon announced that he would not, under any circumstances, present himself as a candidate. The Tribune promptly commended him for the decision in these words:

. . No one better than he understands what some of the effects of such [his] candidacy would be. He has not since the division movement prominently identified himself with either party, and if any man has ever heard that he considers himself a Democrat or a Republican, we have never heard of that man. Hence, if elected to the Senate, he would not be elected as a Republican or as a Democrat, but simply considering his clerical position as he who is second in authority in the Mormon Church; the country would accept his election as a certain indication that the old order of things, so far as church rule was concerned, had been restored. It would cost Utah millions of dollars by turning back people who are now contemplating making this their home. It would disintegrate the Republican Party, if not both the Democratic and Republican parties. . . .

Three days later The Tribune ran a long editorial presenting the case for Frank J. Cannon's election:

The Republicans made no nominations for senators in their convention, but it was just as well understood on that day and every succeeding day during the campaign, that in case of Republican success, Hon. Frank J. Cannon would be one of the senators. It was an understanding universally conceded throughout the length and breadth of Utah ... As we look upon it, there is not a Republican member of the Legislature who was not elected under an implied promise at least that he would vote for Frank J. Cannon. . . .

Had the writer been able to gaze a few years into the future, he could have added that the election of George Q. Cannon, the father, would probably produce a long and controversial investigation as to his eligibility for the seat and that history would record, instead of the "Smoot investigation," the "Cannon investigation" with this difference — Cannon was a practicing polygamist, whereas Smoot was not.

The Republican caucus and legislature did half its duty, as The Tribune saw it, by electing Frank J. Cannon. But the newspaper was appalled by its selection of Arthur Brown for the other Senate seat. Brown, a gentile and a lawyer, had represented a considerable number of defendants under the anti-polygamy laws. The two senators drew lots to determine which would serve the short and which the long term. Brown drew the short term.

In an editorial congratulating Frank J. Cannon upon his nomination and election, The Tribune had this to say about Brown:

...It was unexpected, and will strike the people as something in the nature of a trick and bad faith. Mr. Brown deserves nothing from the Republican Party. He is not of the stuff that the ideal Senator is made; he has none of the qualities that are looked for in the incumbent of that high and illustrious position, but many that one would suppose should forbid any one thinking of him in that connection. The caucus action as to him can only be explained on the theory that a sudden madness overtook the members, and in their frenzy they recked not of consequences. His election will mean nothing good for Republicanism locally; it will signify nothing for Utah before the nation.

B. H. Roberts, in his history of the Mormon Church, took a dim view of both senatorial selections: "Mr. Arthur Brown no more fittingly represented the better class of non-Mormon Republicans in Utah than Mr. Frank J. Cannon met the standards of the Latter-day Saints of Utah."

But his appraisal of the two men might have been colored by hindsight. He was writing after Senator Cannon had, in Roberts words, "turned professional anti-Mormon" and after Brown, again in Roberts words, had been "shot to death in a Washington, D. C, hotel, by a discarded mistress."

In the 1896 general election Utah participated for the first time in the election of a president and vice-president. Party alignments were thrown into chaos by the money issue. William J. Bryan's "cross of gold" campaign shattered the party loyalties of both Republicans and Democrats and The Tribune was confronted with a choice of supporting the Democratic national ticket or turning its back upon the cause of bimetallism for which it had vigorously crusaded since "the crime of 1873" — (the demonetization of silver). Apparently the choice was not a difficult one. From the outset of the campaign, The Tribune sounded its editorial trumpets for the election of Bryan; the remonetization of silver on a ratio of sixteen to one with gold; the election in Utah and other states of Republican senators and congressmen who were "right" on the money question; and the election of Republican state legislatures.

The election turned out to be a lost cause for The Tribune all the way around. Bryan carried Utah by a huge majority but lost the nation. The new state elected a Democrat to the House of Representatives and a Democratic state legislature.

William H. King was the Democratic nominee for Congress. He won by a margin of almost 20,000 votes, and thereby launched a political career which led to the United States Senate where he served continuously from 1917 to 1941. When the Democratic legislature convened the contenders for the U.S. Senate seat held by Brown were Joseph L. Rawlins and Moses Thatcher. Rawlins, although a "drop-out" from the Mormon Church, was the author and chief sponsor of Utah's Enabling Act and author of the act which returned to the church about a halfmillion dollars in personal property which had been escheated to the federal government during the polygamy crusade. Interestingly, he was described by Roberts, the Mormon historian, as "a lawyer of recognized ability, of statesmanlike quality of mind and temperament and a man of temperate habits."

Thatcher, a prominent Mormon leader, had at this time been deposed from the Council of Twelve Apostles because of his refusal to accept the rule of the church respecting the acceptance of other positions without permission of ecclesiastical superiors.

The contest was close and extended through fifty-three ballots over a period of fourteen days before Rawlins won. In this instance The Tribune was not distressed to see a Democrat replace Republican Brown, who had drawn a short term of barely more than a year when the state elected its first senators.

Utah again went Democratic in the 1898 election and the Democratic legislature, which had the responsibility of selecting a successor to Republican Frank J. Cannon, produced what became known in Utah political history as the "senatorial fiasco of 1899."

The circumstances, briefly outlined, were: Senator Cannon, although elected as a Republican, felt he was entitled to reelection by the Democratic legislature because he, with other western delegates, had bolted the regular Republican Party convention to form the free silver wing of the Republican Party. His chief opponent initially was Alfred W. McCune, a wealthy mining and businessman. There was at the time a sort of unwritten, informal understanding that one senator should be a Mormon and one a non-Mormon. Inasmuch as Rawlins was a non- Mormon, the Mormons had a claim to the new member. McCune soon won the support of the majority of the legislature but was unable to reach the two-thirds majority required for election. The deadlock continued until near the end of the session when the able and overpowering George Q. Cannon emerged as an independent candidate. He too was unable to muster the required majority. With time running out, the Democrats began turning to James H. Moyle, then the party's state chairman, and on the 169th ballot he was just behind Cannon with twenty votes. A Democratic caucus was called and soon the word was being passed around that Moyle had been agreed upon. But by this time the session had fallen into pandemonium — no doubt with a few pushes from jeering Republicans — and some of the members were leaving. Before the Democrats could reassemble their forces the clock struck midnight and Utah was left with one of its Senate seats vacant.

But this was not the only fumble of the Democrats in this election. They had nominated B. H. Roberts, a general authority of the church and a polygamist, for representative to Congress. He easily won the election but the House voted to exclude him on the ground that he had violated anti-polygamy laws. Thus the Democrats had exposed themselves to the charge that they were responsible for the state's having only one of the three seats in the Senate and House to which it was entitled. Despite this campaign weapon placed in the hands of the Republicans, the Democrats won a special election in April of 1900 to elect William H. King to fill the seat Roberts was denied.

A newspaper development of this period was the purchase by McCune (in furtherance of his candidacy) and some associates of the Salt Lake Herald, The Tribune's most consistent journalistic sparring partner over a period of a quarter of a century. A short time later the newspaper was sold to former Senator W. A. Clark of Montana, a major sponsor of a company organized to build a railroad from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles (San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad Company). Inasmuch as Clark was a Democrat, the Herald remained a spokesman for that party until its subsequent sale to the Republican Party. It continued its friendly policy toward the church but The Tribune's claim that it was the "minor voice" of the church had less validity than in earlier days. Although the editorial feuding between The Tribune and Deseret News established the bench mark in bitterness, it subsided and rose from time to time. But it was a rare day when The Tribune and Herald were not at each others' throats over some religious, political or civic issue.

Another major news event of this period was the death of president Wilford Woodruff at age 91 on September 2, 1898, in San Francisco, where he had gone seeking relief from a health problem. The Tribune devoted more than half its front page and almost a page inside to an account of his life and to the background of Lorenzo Snow, who, it correctly assumed, would be the next Mormon president. In the news story The Tribune said:

The news of President Woodruffs death was received in Salt Lake with very general manifestations of sorrow. His simple, kindly nature and his unassuming character endeared him even to those who were not of his faith and they shared the sorrow of the bereaved Mormon population. . . .

In its editorial, which made no mention of the "Manifesto" banning polygamy, the newspaper said:

We suspect that his sterling honesty was his most pronounced trait. His beliefs were strong; he would have died for them at any time and would have smiled as he died, but he was destitute of all arrogance and all pretension; his greatest desire was to perform within his sphere his duty, and to do that without the slightest ostentation or selfglorification. No man was ever more loved by his people. There will be sorrow for him wherever there are Latter-day Saints, for he was more of a father to them than president. . . .

While there were still many bitter words to be exchanged between Mormon and non-Mormon in Utah, between The Tribune and the journalistic defenders of the church there was at this time a notable softening of old animosities. This era of good feeling had been conspicuously evident a year earlier, in 1897, during a four-day observance of the fiftieth anniversary of the arrival of the Mormon pioneers in Salt Lake Valley. At the dedication of the Brigham Young monument at the head of the city's Main Street, Goodwin of The Tribune delivered a speech on the "Utah Pioneers" which Roberts described as "A bit of western American literature of high class, a western classic in English in fact."

The closing paragraphs:

Whatever the future holds in store for Utah, that story of toil and suffering and final triumph [of the Pioneers should be held as sacred history to every man who honors devotion to duty in men, and self-sacrifice in women. It should be taught to the children in schools, and one lesson that should be impressed upon the mind of every child is, that a wrong act on his or her part would be a reproach to the brave men and women who came here in the shadow of despair and by incessant toil and by life-long self abnegation laid solidly here the foundations of a state. And out of the granite of these mountains should be hewed an imperishable monument, which should be set up in some conspicuous place, and upon it, should be embossed words like these: They wore out their lives in toil. They suffered without plaint. From nothing they created a glorified state. Honor and reverence and glory everlastingly be theirs.

The election of 1900, a presidential year in which a full roster of state officers was elected, produced a minimum of complaints about church interference in politics. Otherwise, the pre-election campaign was typically uninhibited with the two major parties playing the role they are supposed to play in politics and with their journalistic spokesmen slamming each other with unrestrained exuberance. The Tribune had concluded that there was no future for bimetallism in the Democratic Party and was now back in the Republican fold without reservations. The Herald was as ardently Democratic as The Tribune was Republican. Both candidates for governor — Republican incumbent Heber M. Wells and Democrat James H. Moyle - were Mormons. The candidates for delegate to Congress were George Sutherland, a Protestant who was in good odor with the Mormons, on the Republican ticket, and William H. King, a Mormon, on the Democratic ticket.

The Republicans, who were enjoying a brief interlude of unity, skillfully tailored their protective tariff and "full dinner pail" issues to Brigham Young's economic doctrine of building up home industry as opposed to import encouragement, and thereby reversed the Democratic tide which had been building up in the state. They carried the state for McKinley over Bryan; elected a full slate of state officers and won a substantial majority in the state legislature.

One defeated Democrat who left a bit of testimony as to the effectiveness of the role played by The Tribune in the campaign was Moyle, a man of unquestioned party loyalty but an intelligent realist who was not blinded by his loyalty. In his papers, and in discussions with this writer, he expressed the view that a major factor in his own, and his party's defeat, were the editorials of Goodwin and cartoons of Charles C. Worthington in The Tribune. "This combination of editor and cartoonist was a more effective opponent than all the stump speakers the (opposition) party could rally."

While the issue of church interference in politics had been, relatively dormant during the pre-election campaign, it again exploded in an unprecedentedly virulent form when the Republican legislature prepared to convene the following January to, among other duties, elect a United States senator. The impassioned charges of church intervention were directed not at Mormon political cohesiveness in behalf of Mormon candidates; not, as might reasonably be expected, at the Mormon leadership pushing one of its own for political preferment; but at the alleged support of the highest Mormon leader for a wealthy Catholic mining man. The targets of the furious political outburst were the president of the church, Lorenzo Snow, and Thomas Kearns, a man destined to play a major role in the history of The Tribune, as its owner and its policymaker for eighteen years, and a significant role in the economic and political history of the state. He had by this time already made a fortune in mining, was an influential member of the Republican Party, and had served as a member of the state's Constitutional Convention in 1895. However, the general public did not yet regard him as a leader nor as a logical prospect for a seat in the United States Senate.