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Prelude to Statehood: Coming Together in the 1890s
Prelude to Statehood: Coining Together in the 1890s
BY JEAN BICKMORE WHITE
IN APRIL 1893 FORTY-NINE-YEAR-OLD Caleb Walton West was appointed governor of Utah Territory by the newly inaugurated president of the United States, Grover Cleveland. For both Cleveland and West this appointment was the second act in a drama that had begun seven years earlier. In 1886 President Cleveland had appointed West
to his first term as territorial governor, replacing the unpopular Eli H. Murray. West may have been disappointed with his first Utah appointment; there must have been better political plums for a deserving Democrat than assignment to a bitterly divided territory where many of the leading citizens were in prison or hiding from federal marshals At the time of his first appointment Utah had had twelve different governors in thirty-six years, including four who lasted less than a year and one who lasted only a month.1 West, a lawyer and Confederate veteran of the Civil War, lasted until 1889. After the political winds shifted to the Republicans in 1888 with the election of Benjamin Harrison, West soon was removed by the new president The political winds shifted back to the Democrats in 1892, returning Grover Cleveland to the White House for a second term. Soon after his inauguration, he followed the time-honored rules of political life by removing Republican Arthur L. Thomas as governor and appointing Caleb West for a second term. West was an excellent choice; he already understood the history and problems of the territory and could assist in the final efforts to gain statehood. So in 1893 he found himself again in the governor's chair in Utah.
The differences between conditions in Utah during his first term in the late 1880s and his second term in the early 1890s are striking. In his first term the obstacles to statehood seemed almost insurmountable; by 1893 most permanent residents of the territory recognized that Utah had to have statehood if it was to progress, and old animosities were being papered over to help achieve it. Although the Panic of 1893 loomed on the horizon when he took office and hard economic times persisted for most of his second term,2 the political and social atmosphere in Utah was immeasurably better. West would serve during the crucial last years before statehood—1893, when the vital Enabling Act started through Congress; 1894, when it finally was passed; and 1895, when a new constitution was written and approved by the citizens of the territory.
Governor West, during his first term, was recognized as a mediator. Although he disagreed strongly with the marriage practices of the Mormons and firmly enforced the federally imposed laws in the territory, he was able in the 1880s to begin a process of rapprochement and to foster better understanding between Mormons and gentiles. When he first came to Utah in 1886 from a municipal judgeship in Kentucky, he came in a spirit of conciliation, hoping to persuade the predominantly Mormon population to give up the practice of plural marriage in order to end the bitter struggles that had divided the territory into hostile camps. Visiting with Mormon leader Lorenzo Snow and others who were imprisoned in the territorial penitentiary for violation of the Edmunds antipolygamy law, West offered pardons in return for promises to obey the law.3 The rebuff of this gesture was to be expected in the 1880s, but West had made clear his determination to build bridges rather than widen the chasm between the Mormon and gentile people of Utah. Although he supported measures designed to end polygamy and Mormon political control in Utah, the bridges he helped build during his first term proved valuable when he again became governor in 1893.
In the 1880s the territory was a battleground for two distinct cultures, and the conflicts between them ran far deeper than the controversy over polygamy. Utah was not like territories that had been settled by people of diverse religious faiths and different political parties who could develop over time the institutions that would dull the cutting edges of their differences. Utah was settled by a cohesive group determined to escape the political, economic, and religious systems that characterized the rest of the United States. As historian Marvin S. Hill has pointed out, the Mormon settlers of the Great Basin were united not only by their religious beliefs but by their desire to create a political and economic kingdom of God. They were, he has observed, "set upon separating themselves from American society and awaiting the destruction of all governments that would precede their own rise to power."4 They were convinced that "God would reveal his will to them through their prophet-seer and that thereby they could achieve a godly life in their social, economic, and political affairs."5 To those not of their faith who settled among them in their mountain retreat, this amounted to a rejection of the fundamental tenets of Americanism.6 If the criteria of a democracy, as William Nisbet Chambers has suggested, should include "free entry into the political arena, widespread participation in the political system, effective representation for and balancing of varied interests in the society, open discussion and debate, free elections, government responsive to the judgments of the electorate, and the right to criticize government decisions,"7 then the commonwealth founded by Brigham Young fell far short. If the American economic system presupposed individual enterprise in pursuit of profit, leading ultimately to the common good, the aim of Brigham Young for a centrally planned, self-sufficient Mormon economy was its polar opposite.8 This economic philosophy, coupled with promotion of the cooperative movement and hostility to importing goods from outside the territory, led to the polarization of Utah's economy. Even after the coming of the railroad in 1869 brought about more trade with other parts of the nation, Utah's economy was essentially what Leonard Arrington has described as a "two-decker economy" until the turn of the century. It was based on traditional agriculture and manufacturing essentially for home use; superimposed onto this was "the essentially non-Mormon colonialistic mining and trading economy which bore kinship to the specialized, commercialized economies of Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Colorado."9
The willingness of Mormons to submit to church direction in their political affairs through their own political arm, the People's party,10 created considerable animosity among the gentile residents of the territory and seemed utterly un-American to the nation at large. It was easy for the national press to picture Utah as a "theodemocracy" or even a full-blown theocracy, encompassing all significant areas of life and run on the whims of the Mormon hierarchy Their exclusion from political power and limits on their economic opportunity frustrated the gentile residents of Utah and prompted them to seek in the halls of Congress ways to break the political control of the Mormon church. These efforts were aided by the negative national image of the Mormon people, whose practice of polygamy placed them outside mainstream Protestant America It was easy for prominent politicians in both national political parties to picture the territory as some kind of alien intrusion on the national polity and the majority of its people as sw&American if not actually im-American. So vividly was this portrait of Utah and the Mormons painted by the national press that one federal official sent to Utah in the 1880s acknowledged that he had carried to Utah "all the prejudices and hates that had been engendered against Mormonism. . . ."O f his first impression on arrival in Ogden, he wrote:
The officials sent to Utah as governors, judges, U.S. attorneys, or members of the Utah Commission12—all political appointees— depended on playing to a national audience. Although it is important to note that many were men of integrity who took seriously their obligation to execute the laws fairly, they tended to ally themselves naturally with the gentile population.13 Throughout the 1880s most of them adamantly opposed statehood for Utah and rushed to Washington to oppose every move in that direction. As long as the territory could be kept under federal rule there would be a counterbalance to Mormon political power. The Liberal party, founded in 1870 by the gentiles,14 provided only weak opposition to the Mormon People's party;15 it simply did not have the numbers to win elections, particularly after the Utah Territorial Legislature gave women the right to vote in 1870. Consequently, the People's party controlled the one high political office territorial voters were allowed to fill, delegate to Congress. They consistently elected Mormon delegates to every session of Congress, with the exception of Mormon-supported gentile John F Kinney in 1863 And until the late 1880s the Mormon party controlled most of the city and county governments and local judgeships. This, then, was the setting for the bitter political struggle over statehood in the 1880s, the political environment into which Governor West stepped for his first term in 1886. Mormons saw statehood as their only salvation from the rule of carpetbaggers16 and from punitive laws imposed on them by Congress.17
Mormons had sought statehood many times since the settlement of the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. The first attempt in 1849 to create the state of Deseret was rejected, although territorial status was granted in 1850.18 By the end of the 1880s they had elected constitutional conventions in 1856, 1862, 1872, 1882, and 1887 and presented draft constitutions to Congress—all to no avail. They were seemingly at an impasse in their efforts to gain statehood.19
In retrospect, it is easy to see why Congress was not ready to consider statehood for Utah seriously in the 1880s. Hostility to polygamy as an institution had been growing in intensity for several decades. Since 1862 Congress had attempted to stamp out polygamy, and in 1882 and 1887 passed strong antipolygamy measures that struck hard and effectively at Mormon political power. The Edmunds Act of 1882, making polygamy a felony, not only disqualified polygamists for political office or jury duty but resulted in the imprisonment or exile of many Mormon leaders. It also established a body commonly known as the Utah Commission to assume all duties pertaining to elections, its members appointed by the president of the United States. Until 1893 most of the members of this body came from outside the territory, and their avowed aim was to reduce the number of Mormons on the voting rolls.20 The effects of the Edmunds Act did not satisfy those in or outside the territory who were determined to break the power of the Mormon church. In March 1887 the Edmunds-Tucker Act became law without the signature of President Cleveland. Clearly designed to further limit the number of Mormon voters, this act abolished woman suffrage, which had been in effect since 1870, introduced a test oath to be administered by the Utah Commission, abolished the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company21 that had brought thousands of European Mormon converts to the Salt Lake Valley, disincorporated the Mormon church, and escheated most of its property to the United States. It was a dark day for Mormons, who felt that gaining statehood probably was the only way to control their destiny.
In the late 1880s statehood was on the horizon for several western states. No new states had been admitted since Colorado in 1876, and Idaho, Dakota, Montana, Washington, and Wyoming were impatiently waiting in the wings. There was a political standoff, because neither Republicans nor Democrats wanted to bring in states that would diminish their power in Congress Finally, in 1889 a compromise brought in Montana, Washington, and Dakota, split into North and South. Utah was left out, despite a major attempt in 1887 to prove that it was ready for statehood. Hoping to have Utah included in an omnibus bill, the Mormon leadership, through the People's party, called for a constitutional convention in 1887. The convention delegation included non-Mormons (as had the two previous constitutional conventions in 1872 and 1882) and for the first time faced realistically the barriers to statehood The constitution produced by the 1887 convention provided for separation of church and state, limited the vote to males, and made bigamy or polygamy a crime punishable by a fine and imprisonment. This document was not accepted at face value by the national press 22 or by Congress when it was carried to Washington. It was buried by the Senate Committee on Territories early in 1888 with this report:
This statement neatly summarized the feelings of the majority of non-Mormons, in and out of the territory, including Governor West The national perception was that Utah had not yet gone through a process called "Americanization" or "Americanizing" to show its readiness for statehood. The governor, however, recognized that changes in the political, economic, and social climate were taking place in Utah and that the slow process of "Americanization" was at least moving along.
The process was given a nudge near the end of the decade. The escheatment of Mormon church property by the Edmunds-Tucker Act caused great concern. Work on the Salt Lake Temple had been delayed, and Wilford Woodruff, president of the church, feared for the future of the temples already dedicated. Historian Thomas G. Alexander has shown that by the end of the 1880s both Woodruff and the church's apostles recognized that there would have to be changes in the political and economic relationships of Mormons to the larger society.24 Then there were signs that the continuing disfranchisement of Mormons might lead to a complete loss of political influence in the territory. Recognizing that the gentiles' virtual exclusion from having a voice in local governments did indeed look unAmerican, the Mormons had invited some gentiles to join a slate called the Citizens' ticket for the Salt Lake City election of 1888; it won handily over the Liberal party slate In 1889 the disfranchisement of many Mormons and the increase in the gentile population combined to produce a significant increase in non-Mormon political power in the two largest cities In 1889 the municipal election in Ogden was won by the Liberal party, though not without charges of fraud and importation of nonresident gentiles to swell the Liberal vote.25 The following year, both Mormons and gentiles were accused of doing everything in their power to win the 1890 municipal election in Salt Lake City by bringing in members of their parties from outlying areas to establish residence.26 The Liberals won the mayoral race and a majority on the city council—a clear shock to the Mormon hierarchy. A second shock in early 1890 was the U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the Idaho test oath banning those who practiced or advocated polygamy from voting.27 Another grave concern was the introduction in Congress of the Cullom-Struble bill which would have denied the vote to anyone who practiced or taught polygamy Given the national attention to the perennial problem of polygamy and the ongoing argument about Utah's unique political and economic environment, it was no surprise that Utah was not included when Idaho and Wyoming were granted statehood in 1890. Change, however, was in the wind. It would come sooner than many expected.
On September 25, 1890, church president Wilford Woodruff published a Manifesto advising members of the church to refrain from violating the laws of the land prohibiting plural marriages.28 Although it did not entirely end the practice of polygamy, it was the single most important act needed to moderate the national crusade against the Mormons and to move the territory toward statehood. It made possible a less vigorous enforcement of the Edmunds-Tucker Act, as well as proclamations of presidential amnesty for the Mormon people in 1893 and 1894
Important work remained to be done, however, to convince the president and Congress that Utah was becoming American enough to merit statehood. In the early 1890s the territory still needed institutions that would permit Mormons and gentiles to work together to create a truly American, pluralistic society and blur the social, political, and economic fault line that divided them The establishment of state-funded schools in 1890, long fought by many Mormons who feared the loss of religious teachings in the schools, was a step in that direction. Utah's school system prior to that time had been a divisive, rather than an inclusive social institution. Poorly financed, sometimes housed in Mormon church buildings, and supervised by a Mormon-dominated Board of Regents, the territorial school system was a patchwork of city, county, and Mormon ward schools of uneven quality Taxes—where citizens would pay them—provided buildings during the later territorial period, but parents generally had to pay fees for instruction and to purchase supplies. Given these conditions, many non-Mormon (and some Mormon) students went to the schools established by other churches, some financed by missionary funds of Protestant churches in order to attract Mormon students.29 Other practices of the public schools also contributed to the alienation of non-Mormon students. During the early territorial period school administrators (who were also Mormon church leaders) promoted the use of the Deseret Alphabet, which had originally been advocated by Brigham Young as a way to enhance the solidarity of the Mormon people.30 School records carefully classified students enrolled as Mormon or non-Mormon, a practice that did not end until statehood. The territorial public schools, then, did not provide a "melting pot" or even a common meeting ground for most children.
Some institutions developing in the 1880s did, however, provide meeting grounds for Mormons and gentiles. As early as 1887 Chambers of Commerce and Boards of Trade were started in Ogden and Salt Lake City by Mormon and gentile businessmen eager to end the economic isolation of the two groups Spearheaded by Governor West, the Chamber of Commerce in Salt Lake City gained the support of both Mormons and gentiles, including businessman and apostle Heber J. Grant as well as the acerbic publisher of the Salt Lake Tribune, Patrick H. Lannan. With a motto of "No politics or religion in the Chamber," the organizers hoped to revive trade, establish home industries, and attract capital and population to the territory.31 By 1892 the chamber was well established as a common meeting place. Generally, however, Mormon and gentile roles in the territorial economy continued to be separate until well into the 1890s. The launching of new enterprises by the Mormon church (in sugar, salt, and hydroelectric power, for example) in response to the difficult economic conditions following the Panic of 1893 forced church leaders to turn to non-Mormon financial sources outside the territory for capital and to modify the goal of local self-sufficiency.32
Given the desire for statehood and the need to show the nation that Utah Territory was becoming like the rest of the country, there was still one necessary step, the breakup of the old Mormon and gentile political parties and the development of national parties. In 1888 the Salt Lake Tribune had suggested: "The speediest way for the Mormons to get into the Union is to become Americans, take such interest in American public affairs as will divide them on the lines which divide the people of other States and affiliate them with the great national parties."33 This was not easily done in the 1880s, but a new opportunity arose in the early 1890s. As Richard Poll has pointed out, Republicans had seemed to be more punitive toward the Mormons in the past, working consistently toward destroying their political power. Democrats, such as Governor West and President Cleveland, had been more conciliatory, and at times more lenient in law enforcement.34 Democrats, moreover, had made serious attempts in the 1880s to establish a party organization in Utah. In 1884 a short-lived organization was established, then re-established in 1888 as the "Sagebrush Democracy." The party's nominee for delegate to Congress made a poor showing, and the party did not revive in Utah until 1891 when both Democratic and Republican clubs were organized in Ogden in February.35 In May of the same year a Democratic organization, including prominent Mormons and gentiles, was established in Salt Lake City. Later that month the groundwork was carefully laid by Apostle John Henry Smith and some leading Republican gentiles to form a Republican organization in the territorial capital. In June 1891 the Mormon leadership decided to disband the People's party, which paved the way for a rapprochement between the Mormon leadership, prominent non-Mormon federal officials, and Liberal party leaders and a softening of gentile opposition to statehood. After some delicate negotiations later in the year, Governor Arthur L Thomas and Chief Justice Charles S Zane agreed to send a personal letter along with the church leaders' petition for amnesty to President Benjamin Harrison, urging "a favorable consideration of this petition ,"36 The following year a group of prominent Mormon and gentile leaders went to Washington, D.C, to seek passage of a Home Rule bill that would have allowed Utahns to vote for their own territorial officials Although Home Rule was strongly opposed by Mormon leaders, who wanted nothing short of statehood,37 the visiting gentiles' fulsome praises of the Mormon people and their emphasis on the changes that had taken place since the Manifesto must have sounded strange to congressmen and senators.38 Only two years before, they had been encouraged to pass even more stringent legislation to curb Mormon political power Much, however, had changed in the meantime
Disbanding the People's party in 1891 raised some fears that most Mormons would flock to the Democratic party, leaving the territory in a de facto Mormon-gentile split.39 To encourage a division of the Saints into the two parties, the church presidency urged Mormon leaders without strong preferences to become Republicans.40 This served not only to create the appearance before the nation that Utah was becoming Americanized politically, but it also fit into the church presidency's strategy of working with national Republican leaders to further the statehood effort.41 Since Republicans controlled the U.S. Senate until 1893 this seemed like a promising plan. In 1892, however, the Democrats gained control of both the Senate and the House, and Grover Cleveland again became president. In Utah, too, the 1892 election saw Democratic victories, thanks partly to the fact that the majority of Liberals refused to disband their party.42
Newly elected Democratic Delegate-to-Congress Joseph Rawlins, who had left the Mormon faith of his parents but stayed in the good graces of church leaders, lost no time in introducing bills to achieve Utah statehood and to return escheated property to the Mormon church for its "charitable purposes." The latter bill passed both houses of Congress quickly, and substantial amounts of property were restored to the church in January 1894. The Enabling Act providing for Utah's admission into the Union was passed by the House with only two dissenting votes on December 13, 1893. On May 17, 1894, it passed in the Senate, thanks partly to effective behind-thescenes lobbying by prominent Republican leaders wooed by the Mormon church hierarchy. Three days later the House concurred in Senate amendments, and on July 16, 1894, it was signed by President Cleveland.43 The act contained several requirements for the new state's constitution, including a provision banning polygamy "forever," a system of public schools "free from sectarian control," and a guarantee of "perfect toleration of religious sentiment"44—reminders of the long struggle for Utah to become Americanized and ready for statehood.
In a perceptive study of Utah's territorial history, Howard R. Lamar observed that it was unique. "What other territory," he asked, "has been occupied by a federal army? What other continental territory has been the subject of so much special legislation, appointive commissions, and exceptional judicial control . . . has had to abandon cherished domestic institutions by manifesto, formally declare separation of church and state, and deliberately create national parties in order to get into the union?"45 Achievement of statehood was due in part, according to Lamar, "to deliberate change of the unpopular stereotype of the Mormon of the 1850s to that of the solid, energetic, conservative American citizen of the 1890s."46 Perhaps it was also due to the acceptance by Utah's gentiles of the fact that Utah would never be exactly like other states; the political and social culture of Utah would always be unique. Most non-Mormon politicians and businessmen understood that the changes brought about in the early 1890s—the Manifesto, the development of a public school system and a national political party system—were about the best they could get at the time; if they still had legitimate grievances they at least had a foundation for building a pluralistic society within the American Union.
Looking back on the turbulent 1880s when Caleb West first served as territorial governor, one can see the deep divisions in Utah society and how far-sighted those citizens in both the Mormon and gentile camps were who worked for the changes needed to make statehood possible. Looking back on the rapid accomplishment of statehood during the first years of Caleb West's second term in the 1890s, one can see how crucial were those years between the 1890 Manifesto and the final passage of the Enabling Act in 1894
The achievement of statehood did not end all of the divisions and controversies between religious, social, and economic groups in Utah. Ahead lay the divisive hearings over the seating of Apostle Reed Smoot in the U.S. Senate early in the twentieth century. Ethnic rivalries and industrial conflicts arose as the state's population increased and diversified. Still, a decade and a half after statehood was achieved, a gentile who had once been one of its bitterest opponents could say:
The "new Utah" that arose out of the Americanization process of the 1890s was built on a troubled past by bridging deep divisions along political, social, economic, and religious lines. Bringing two competitive cultures close enough together to make statehood possible was not an easy task, but it was accomplished by men and women who cared more about the promise of the future than about nursing old wounds of the past.
NOTES
Dr White is emeritus professor of political science, Weber State University This article is an adaptation of her January 1993 Statehood Day address.
1 In addition to the twelve who had regular presidential appointments, four territorial governors served interim terms between 1850 and 1886 See Thomas McMullin and David Walker, Biographical Directory of American Territorial Governors (Westport, Conn.: Meckler Publishing, 1984) A short biography of Caleb West is included, pp. 307-8.
2 For a comprehensive analysis of the causes and impact of the Panic of 1893 on a national scale see Harold Underwood Faulkner, American Economic Histoiy, 8th ed (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), pp 519-29 The impact on Utah is shown in LeonardJ Arrington, "Utah and the Depression of the 1890's," Utah Historical Quarterly 29 (1961): 2-18.
3 See Gustive O Larson, The "Americanization" of Utah for Statehood (San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1971), pp 130-31.
4 Marvin S Hill, Quest for Refuge: The Mormon Flight from American Pluralism (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), p 30.
5 Ibid., p 31.
6 Robert J Dwyer in The Gentile Comes to Utah, 2d ed rev (Salt Lake City: Western Epics, 1971), p 248, asserted that "the Gentile, with all his failings, his arrogance and self-assurance, had come to Utah as the representative of American political and social morality The Mormon aspiration to 'build a wall around Zion' has proved no more than wishful thinking."
7 William Nisbet Chambers, Political Parties in a New Nation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 12.
8 Leonard Arrington brilliantly analyzes the development of the Mormon economy in Great Basin Kingdom (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958), especially chaps. 6, 7, and 8.
9 Leonard J Arrington, From Wilderness to Empire, University of Utah Institute of American Studies, Monograph No 1, 1961, p 14 Also see Arrington, "The Commercialization of Utah's Economy: Trends and Developments from Statehood to 1910," in Dean May, ed., A Dependent Commonwealth: Utah's Economy from Statehood to the Great Depression, Charles Redd Monographs in Western History No 4 (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1974), pp 3-34.
10 Not to be confused with the Populist party, the Mormon party was run by the church hierarchy, and good Mormons nearly always voted its candidate—or abstained The lack of a secret ballot during much of Utah's territorial history contributed to the ease with which church leaders could assure their control of elections.
11 Testimony of Judge John W Judd in Arguments Before the Committee on Territories of the United States Senate in Favor of the Bill (S 1306) for the Local Government of Utah Territory, and to Provide for the Election of Certain Officers in Said Territory (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1892) Copy in Utah State Historical Society Library, Salt Lake City, Pam 1933.
12 The Utah Commission was a five-member body created by the Edmunds Act of 1882 to manage "temporarily" all aspects of Utah territorial elections, including selection of registrars and administration of oaths. It lasted until statehood was attained in 1896.
13 The interests of federal officeholders and local gentiles were not always identical Federal officeholders sometimes intended to stay in Utah only temporarily, while many of the gentiles had put down roots, established businesses, and wanted to get along with their Mormon neighbors—while trying at the same time to attain a share of political power in the territory.
14 For a history of the Liberal party see Velt G Erickson, "The Liberal Party of Utah" (M.A thesis, University of Utah, 1948) For a more detailed early history of the party in Corinne and Salt Lake City see Brigham D Madsen, Corinne: The Gentile Capital of Utah (Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1980), pp 93-118.
15 Prior to the formation of the Liberal party Mormon leaders had not needed a political party; electoral matters were simply handled through the regular church organization The People's party was created in response to the organization of the Liberal party in 1870 but was still tightly controlled by the Mormon hierarchy.
16 See Everett L Cooley, "Carpetbag Rule: Territorial Government in Utah," Utah Historical Quarterly, 26 (1958): 106-29, for a discussion of some of the difficulties encountered with appointed officials during the territorial period According to Earl S Pomeroy, unrest under territorial status and resentment of appointed officers were shared by other western territories See his The Territories and the United States, 1861-1890: Studies in Colonial Administration (Philadelphia and London: University of Pennsylvania Press and Oxford University Press, 1947), pp 101-8.
17 The U.S Supreme Court has ruled that after admission to the Union states may change provisions of their constitutions that were forced on them to gain admission. See Coyle v. Oklahoma 221 U.S. 559 (1911) Both states and territories, however, are subject to the U.S Constitution, laws, and treaties under Art 6, the so-called supremacy clause.
18 An account of this first statehood attempt, which contradicts traditional accounts of a constitutional convention, is given by Peter Crawley in "The Constitution of the State of Deseret," Brigham Young University Studies 29 (1989): 7-22.
19 In his first inaugural address, Gov Heber M Wells discussed seven attempts to get approval for constitutions for Utah, starting with the first constitution of 1849, which resulted in passage of the Organic Act for the territory in 1850 In addition to those listed by Jerome Bernstein in "A History of the Constitutional Conventions of the Territory of Utah from 1849 to 1895" ( M.S thesis, Utah State University, 1961), Wells included an amended version of the previously rejected 1862 constitution taken to Congress in 1867 See "Inaugural Address" in Report of the Utah Commission to the Secretary of the Interior, 1896 (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1896), copy in Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City.
20 See Cooley, "Carpetbag Rule," pp 120-21, for the test oaths administered to voters and methods used to keep down the Mormon vote; also see Stewart L Grow, "A Study of the Utah Commission, 1882-1896" ( Ph.D diss., University of Utah, 1954) Records of the Utah Commission are in the Utah State Archives.
21 The elimination of this fund was a prime aim of those attempting to limit the Mormon voting population.
22 See Edward Leo Lyman, Political Deliverance: The Mormon Quest for Utah Statehood (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986), pp 70-72 This valuable and detailed study documents the behind-thescenes efforts of Mormon church leaders to bring about statehood by working with Republican leaders in Washington and by trying to improve the national image of the church and the territory.
23 U.S., Congressional Record, 50th Cong., 1st sess., 1888, vol 19, pt 1, p 2391 For arguments made for and against acceptance of Utah's 1887 constitution see Arguments in Favor of the Admission of Utah as a State. Made before the House Committee on Territories, January 12-22, 1889 (Washington, D.C, 1889), copy in Utah State Historical Society Library, Pam. 1929.
24 For concerns over possible loss of the temples and steps taken to minimize public concern over polygamy see Thomas G Alexander, "The Odyssey of a Latter-day Prophet: Wilford Woodruff and the Manifesto of 1890," Journal of Mormon History 18 (1991): 169-206 A more detailed account of the church's move toward political and economic accommodation is found in Alexander's Things in Heaven and Earth: The Life and Times of Wilford Woodruff, a Mormon Prophet (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1991), pp. 253-59.
25 There is ample evidence that the gentile vote in Ogden was enhanced by the importation of miners and others from outside the city See Lyman, Political Deliverance, pp 110-12; also Jean Bickmore White, "The Right to Be Different: Ogden and Weber County Politics, 1850-1924," Utah Historical Quarterly Al (1979): 262-63.
26 Mormon businessmen were asked to bring in Mormon workers to qualify as residents of Salt Lake City to make up for the disfranchisement of many residents and for the inability of many foreign-born Mormons to gain citizenship because of a court decision early in November 1889 by Judge Thomas ]. Anderson See Lyman, Political Deliverance, pp 110-18; Thomas G Alexander and James B Allen, Mormons and Gentiles: A History of Salt Lake City (Boulder, Colorado; Pruett Publishing Company, 1984), pp 99-100.
27 Davis v. Beason, 133 U.S 333 (1890).
28 The Manifesto, approved by a vote of church members at their semi-annual conference in October 1890, did not actually end all plural marriages in the territory See B Carmon Hardy, Solemn Covenant: The Mormon Polygamous Passage (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), especially chaps 4-9; D. Michael Quinn, "LDS Church Authority and New Plural Marriages, 1890-1904, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 18 (Spring 1985):4—105.
29 For the difficulties in developing an adequately financed school system in territorial Utah see John Clifton Moffatt, The History of Public Education in Utah (Provo, Ut.: Author, 1946), especially pp 45-51, 117-34.
30 Ibid, pp 51-63.
31 O.N Malmquist, The First 100 Years: A History of the Salt Lake Tribune, 1871-1971 (Salt Lake City, 1971), pp 115-16.
32 Leonard Arrington explained: "The second phase in the accommodation of Mormon enterprise to the national pattern is evident in the arrangements made to finance new companies initiated in the 1890s The church, in this phase, did not abandon its role as entrepreneur or innovator, as some Gentile enthusiasts hoped, nor did it relax the interest it had always shown in the development of local resources and the stimulation of home industry, as some Mormons feared." See Great Basin Kingdom, p 386 See also Arrington, "Utah and the Depression of the 1890's," pp 2-18.
33 Salt Lake Tribune, January 28, 1888.
34 Richard D Poll, "The Political Reconstruction of Utah Territory, 1866-1890," Pacific Historical Review 16 (May 1958): 119.
35 Franklin D Richards Journal, February 16 and 21, 1891, LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City.
36 The petition noted the passage of the Manifesto of 1890 and asked that "full amnesty may be extended to all who are under disabilities because of the operation of the so called Edmunds and Edmunds-Tucker laws." In addition to their official letter to President Harrison, Thomas and Zane added a personal note suggesting that granting of full amnesty to the Mormon people would cause them to turn to the Republicans "as does the Colored race to Abraham Lincoln " Text of the amnesty petition and the Thomas-Zane letters are in Church, State, and Politics: The Diaries ofJohn Henry Smith, ed. Jean Bickmore White (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1990), pp. 264-66.
37 Ibid., p 269.
38 For testimony see Arguments Made Before the Committee on Territories of the House of Representatives on Bill H.R. 524 "For the Government of Utah Territory and to Providefor the Election of Certain Officers in Said Territories, February 10, 1892 (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1892), copy in Utah State Historical Society Library, Pam 1932.
39 These fears were well founded In 1891 elections for the Territorial Legislative Assembly, Democrats polled 14,116 votes, Liberals 7,386, and Republicans 6,613 Again in 1893, Democrats outvoted Republicans by slightly more than 2,000 votes See Utah Commission Minute Book G, pp 196-97, Utah State Archives.
40 Several private journals of high church officials recall the concern over creating a more even split between the parties See Franklin D Richards Journal, June 19, 1891: "deemed advisable that political parties may approach near an equality of numbers." Also the Abraham H Cannon Journal, Special Collections, Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, e.g., June 9, 1891: "The danger of our people all becoming Democrats is feared, and the results of such a cause would doubtless prove most disastrous to us, for we would have a repetition of the persecutions which we have endured for 5 or 6 years past It is felt that efforts should be made to instruct our people in Republicanism, and thus win them to that party ".
41 This strategy, pursued with national Republican leaders such as James S. Clarkson, Morris S. Estee, James G Blaine, Leland Stanford, and Isaac Trumbo, is carefully detailed in Lyman, Political Deliverance, pp 150-216.
42 The Liberal candidate for Congress, C E Allen, polled nearly 7,000 votes, while Democrat Joseph Rawlins defeated Republican Frank J. Cannon by only 2,811 votes. Utah Commission Reports, Book G, 196-97.
43 Joseph Rawlins's role in obtaining Utah statehood is recounted in Alta Rawlins Jensen, ed., "The Unfavored Few: The Auto-biography of Joseph L Rawlins" (Carmel, Calif.: Author, 1956), and in Joan Ray Harrow, "Joseph L. Rawlins, Father of Utah Statehood," Utah Historical Quarterly 44 (1976): 59-74.
44 Utah State Constitution, Article 3.
45 Howard R Lamar, "Statehood for Utah: A Different Path," Utah Historical Quarterly 39 (1971): 308.
46 Ibid., p 325.
47 Judge Orlando W Powers in an after-dinner speech at a banquet for President William Howard Taft at the Commercial Club in Salt Lake City, October 5, 1911, quoted in the Salt Lake Tribune, January 5, 1914.
