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A Constitution for Utah
Utah Historical Quarterly
Vol. 25, 1957, Nos. 1-4
A CONSTITUTION FOR UTAH
BY STANLEY S. IVINS
"WHEN the Mormons, or Latter-day Saints, followed Brigham " Young westward in search of a new home, they were inspired by the prediction of their martyred prophet, Joseph Smith, that they would "become a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains." A few months after the first of them had entered the Salt Lake Valley, on July 21, 1847, the editor of their official publication in England wrote: "The nucleus of the mightiest nation that ever occupied the earth is at length established in the very place where the prophets, wrapt in sacred vision, have long since foreseen it."
Early in 1849 these settlers met in convention at Great Salt Lake City and framed a constitution for the State of Deseret. State officers were elected, and Almon W. Babbit was sent to Washington with a memorial to Congress praying for the admission of Deseret to the Union. The request was denied, and, in the fall of 1850, a bill was approved organizing the country occupied by the Mormons as the territory of Utah.
Partially appeased by the appointment of Brigham Young as their governor, the Saints reluctantly accepted the territorial status, but their dream of empire building persisted. On March 17, 1856, they met in convention and adopted a second constitution for the State of Deseret. But by this time, a nation-wide sentiment had developed against the Mormons. They had openly avowed their belief in the doctrine of a plurality of wives, and there were complaints that they were setting up a theocratic dictatorship, under which the federal government was ignored and unbelievers were mistreated. Not only was this second application for statehood disregarded, but President Buchanan appointed Alfred Cumming to replace Brigham Young as governor, and gave him a military escort, to make sure that he would be welcomed to Utah. The Mormons resisted the entrance of the troops into the territory, and the "Utah War" followed. It was more a war of words than of bullets, and when it was over, in the spring of 1858, the arrival of the troops and the installation of the new governor had been delayed for only a few months.
The outbreak of the Civil War was seen by the Saints as the fulfillment of a prophecy made by Joseph Smith, that war beginning in South Carolina would be "poured out upon all nations" and continue until "the consumption decreed, hath made a full end of all nations," in preparation for the setting up of the earthly kingdom of God. The Mormons were sure that the war would end only when all nations, including that of the United States, were overthrown and God's government established through the agency of the chosen few who, safe in Zion, had escaped destruction.
Actuated by this belief in the imminent dissolution of the Union, the Mormons called a convention to frame a third constitution for the State of Deseret. A mass meeting at the town of Santaquin, to choose delegates to the convention, adopted a resolution which said:
The convention met on January 20, 1862, and took only two days to adopt a constitution. At a March 3 election the constitution was ratified and Brigham Young chosen as governor of the new state. Commenting upon the possible reaction in Washington to this step, Governor Young said:
This third bid for statehood was rejected, and the dissolution of the Union anticipated by the Saints did not follow, but the phantom State of Deseret lived on for eight years. Following adjournment of each session of the territorial legislature, the state assembly would meet long enough to listen to Governor Young's message and pass an act declaring the territorial laws to be in effect in the state. In his 1869 message Governor Young said:
But the Mormons apparently tired of keeping the state machinery in order. The State of Deseret came to an obscure and unexplained end, and the 1872 territorial legislature called for a convention to draft a new constitution. It soon became evident that this convention was to be different from those which had preceded it. Among the delegates nominated from Salt Lake County were half a dozen non-Mormons, or "Gentiles," including General P. E. Connor, the once hated commander of the federal troops stationed at Camp Douglas. General Connor declined to serve as a delegate because he was not a resident of Utah, but other Gentiles attended the convention and took an active part in its deliberations.
The convention met and framed Deseret's fourth constitution, which contained a provision that such terms as Congress might prescribe as a condition of admission would be accepted. On the face of it, this provision appeared to be a compromise on the question of plural marriage, but years later, the Deseret News denied that there had been any intention to "swap polygamy for statehood." And John Taylor, Brigham Young's successor, said that the apparent concession had been made "to meet the minds of a few members, but there was no promise of compromise."
The Mormon people evidently understood that their religious principles were not being compromised, for they voted 25,324 to 368 to ratify the new constitution. They also elected Frank Fuller, a non-Mormon, as their representative to Congress, and the state legislature chose W. H. Hooper, a Mormon, and Thomas Fitch, a Gentile, as United States senators. Mr. Fuller made an ardent plea for admission before the House of Representatives' Committee on Territories, but he convinced no one, and another attempt to obtain statehood had failed.
The next serious attempt to gain admission to the Union began early in 1882, with the territorial legislature calling a constitutional convention for April 10. The convention met nineteen days after approval of the Edmunds act, which greatly strengthened the law against polygamy. In the face of this new threat, some of the convention delegates assumed a defiant attitude. Daniel H. Wells said that in view of the possible effects of this law, "we should be prepared for such a state of anarchy, and take the reins of government until a steady government is organized." Ben Skeeks, a Gentile delegate, protested that it "would be absolute suicide" to do more than draw up a constitution, and Joseph L. Rawlins declared that he was "not willing to help set up a revolution; for the nation would overpower us." After a rather heated debate, Mr. Wells abandoned his proposal and the convention proceeded to draft a constitution for the state of Utah.
The constitution was ratified by a vote of 27,814 to 498, but this fifth attempt to gain statehood suffered the same fate as those which had gone before. By this time an anti-Mormon political organization, the Liberal party, had been formed in Utah and was working actively against admission.
In the fall of 1884, an intensive campaign to enforce the antipolygamy law was launched, and during the following three years, hundreds of Mormons were sent to prison and most of the high Church officials fled into exile to avoid arrest. And the enactment of the Edmunds-Tucker law, early in 1887, placed the Church in a desperate situation. To meet this threat, a sixth constitutional convention was called for June 30, 1887.
The convention met and quickly drafted a constitution containing an article which declared that: "Bigamy and polygamy being considered incompatible with a republican form of government, each of them is hereby forbidden and declared a misdemeanor." Another article provided that the anti-polygamy section could not be amended without the approval of Congress and the president of the United States.
The Mormon people were not publicly notified that they should accept this latest constitution, but they were privately given to understand that they could vote for its ratification without compromising their religious principles. In response to inquiries from his family, Apostle Erastus Snow, then in Mexico where settlements were being established as cities of refuge for polygamists, wrote:
The people voted 12,887 to 485 to ratify the new constitution, but the opponents of statehood did not accept it as a sincere move toward the suppression of polygamy, and Congress once more rejected the bid for admission.
Confronted by this latest rebuff and an increasingly untenable situation within the Church, the Mormon leaders at last decided to surrender on the two points which had been the main obstacles in the way of statehood. On September 24, 1890, President Wilford Woodruff issued a statement which came to be known as the Manifesto. In it he declared his intention of obeying the anti-polygamy laws and counselling others to do likewise. And late in the following May, the Mormon political organization, the People's party, was formally dissolved, and Church members were advised to divide on national party lines.
With the issues of polygamy and ecclesiastical control of politics dead, there remained no logical ground on which to base a continuation of the campaign against Mormonism. In the fall of 1893, the Salt Lake Tribune, which had been the organ of the Liberal party, came out for statehood, and with the home opposition gone, it was only a question of time until Utah would be admitted to the Union. In September Joseph L. Rawlins introduced a statehood bill in the House of Representatives. On December 10 it passed the House without a roll call, and on July 10, 1894, was passed by the Senate with two negative votes. A week later President Cleveland signed the bill and Utah Mormons and Gentiles joined in a grand celebration at the Saltair resort.
In November, 1894, the people of Utah elected 107 delegates to the seventh and last constitutional convention. The Republicans secured 59 seats to 48 for the Democrats. And in line with the new political truce, there were 28 non-Mormon delegates, 23 of them Republicans. The Mormon members included Presiding Bishop William B. Preston, apostles John Henry Smith and Moses Thatcher, and Brigham H. Roberts of the first seven presidents of Seventies. There were also two stake presidents, eight counselors to stake presidents, eleven bishops, four bishop's counselors, three high councilmen, and one patriarch. Other prominent Mormons were President Karl G. Maeser of Brigham Young University, W. J. Kerr, head of Brigham Young College, and T. B. Lewis, territorial commissioner of education. Among the Gentile delegates were Charles S. Varian, who had been in charge of the prosecution of polygamists, C C Goodwin, editor of the formerly anti-Mormon Salt Lake Tribune, and George P. Miller, a Methodist Episcopal minister.
The twenty-eight farmers and ranchers made up the largest occupational group in the convention. They were followed by the lawyers with fifteen members, the merchants with thirteen, and the mining men with eight. There were six educators, four newspaper men, and five members who might be called churchmen. Then came three bankers, three builders, two photographers, two clerks, two politicians, a brick mason, a druggist, a brewer, a railroad agent, a bookkeeper, a warehouseman, a blacksmith, and a "capitalist," Lorin Farr of Ogden.
A certification of the true copy of the Enabling Act of June 16, 1894.
The elected delegates met at noon on March 4, 1895, in the county civil court room of the new Salt Lake City and County Building. Two days later the Republicans nominated Apostle John Henry Smith to be president of the convention. To avoid placing their Mormon members on record as voting against an apostle, the Democrats refused to put forward a candidate, and Mr. Smith was elected president by acclamation. He was presented with a gavel, the handle of which was made of paradise wood grown on the Salt Lake Temple Square, and the body of mountain mahogany. Embedded in one end was some wood from the keel of an English ship, sunk during the Revolutionary War, and in the other end, " a piece of metal which suspended the bell which first proclaimed the freedom of the American people."
The convention meeting place was far from satisfactory. There was little room for spectators, and the delegates sat at tables with no drawers in which to keep their papers. The feasibility of moving to "the Christensen hall—that is the old Continental market" was investigated, and bids were obtained for furnishing metal or wooden boxes to be placed on the tables. But all suggestions for improving the situation were rejected, and the delegates remained in their cramped quarters without the convenience of drawers or boxes for their papers.
The question of seating arrangements was the cause of some debate. Finally, on motion of David Evans of Ogden, those delegates sixty years of age or over chose their seats, after which the other members drew lots for theirs.
On March 11 the president declared the introduction of propositions for insertion in the constitution to be in order. David Evans offered a provision that the right to vote and hold office "shall not be denied or abridged on any account of sex," and the actual work of the convention was under way.
On March 18 the convention resolved itself into the committee of the whole to consider an article on boundaries. A motion, by A. W. Ivins of Washington County, to delay action pending the outcome of proposed legislation to attach the "Arizona strip" to Utah was ruled out of order, and the article approved. It was then taken up by the convention and passed on third reading, thus becoming the first article of the constitution to be adopted.
The article on declaration of rights was approved with comparably little debate, although in reporting it, Heber M. Wells said he expected that it would be "subjected to the fusilade of a hundred guns." The first of the hundred guns was fired by Orson F. Whitney, who suggested a change to correct "what is called hegelism in rhetoric." With no one presuming to question Mr. Whitney's word on hegelism, his proposal was accepted.
An amendment offered by B. H. Roberts, providing that no person "shall be compelled to attend, erect, or support any place of worship, or maintain any minister against his consent," was rejected. The same fate met a proposal of James N. Kimball to prohibit the exemption from taxation of the property of churches and charitable societies.
The provision that private property might be taken without the consent of the owner, for private ways of necessity, and for reservoirs or ditches "on or across the lands of others, for agriculture, mining, milling, domestic or sanitary purposes," brought a quick protest from Charles S. Varian. He said that under it, "I can go upon your land if it adjoins mine, ... I can build an outhouse or a kitchen there, I can put a cesspool upon it, . . ." Over the opposition of a dozen prominent delegates, this provision was stricken out.
A "right to work" clause, declaring the right of every person "to the fruits of his labor and his freedom to sell the same," was stricken when it was acknowledged that it was aimed at labor unions. And a provision that elections should be "equal" was eliminated when W. G. Van Home asked what it meant. But when Mr. Varian questioned the meaning and purpose of the declaration that "frequent recurrence to fundamental principles" was essential, he was overwhelmed by a flood of patriotic oratory, and a motion to strike the section was rejected.
The longest debate of the convention was on a question on which no disagreement had been anticipated. During the campaign for the election of delegates, both political parties declared themselves in favor of granting suffrage to women. When the report of the committee on elections, providing for equal suffrage, was submitted, it was accompanied by a minority report limiting the vote to men, and the debate was on. Although it was evident that those most interested in denying women the vote were non-Mormon Republicans, the burden of the argument against female suffrage was left to B. H. Roberts, a Mormon Democrat.
Announcing that he would discuss the question from the standpoint of expediency without going into its merits, Mr. Roberts warned that including the suffrage provision would endanger ratification of the constitution and the issuance of the statehood proclamation by President Cleveland. He defended his refusal to uphold the platform upon which he had been elected, saying that party platforms "are like the shifting clouds of the summer day, and may be wafted where they may." He charged other delegates with being cowards, afraid to rise above party considerations, and said that he would stand by his convictions, although his constituents were "preparing to resolute against my conduct."
More than half a dozen delegates answered Mr. Roberts, with S. R. Thurman rebuking him for not speaking on the merits of the question. To this Roberts replied that he had spoken from only three of his fifteen pages of notes, but he would be glad, on the following day, to engage in "a running tilt with my friend from Utah County on the subject of logic."
Next morning, over the protest of A. W. Ivins, who compared the arguments of the previous day to Don Quixote's assault upon the windmills, Roberts was again given the floor. He spoke twice as long as on the day before, and his eloquence was well received if his logic was not, for he was interrupted a dozen times by applause or laughter. He argued that women should not vote because they were not "in a position to act independently, free from dictation." He called upon the Bible, Cardinal Gibbons, and Lord Tennyson to support his contention that woman's place was in the home, there to be ruled over by her husband. He said that if women were given the voting privilege, only those of low character would "brave the ward politicians, wade through the smoke and cast their ballot. The refined wife and mother will not so much as put her foot in the filthy stream."
Chosen to make the principal reply to Mr. Roberts was another Democrat, Orson F. Whitney, the Salt Lake historian and poet. Outdoing "the tall cedar from Davis" in oratory, he compared Roberts to a bull standing on a railroad track, bellowing defiance at an approaching express train. He said that woman suffrage was part of "the pageant of eternal progress; and those who will not join it must stand aside and see the great procession sweep on without them, [applause]"
There were many defenders of the rights of women, with most everyone agreeing with C. P. Larsen of Sanpete County, who explained: "As this seems to be a testimony meeting, I desire to just bear my testimony as well." Almost three-fourths of the delegates bore their testimonies, with only half a dozen supporting the stand of Mr. Roberts. When Richard Mackintosh expressed the fear that, with women voting, the Mormon Church would resume its dictation in political matters, Heber M. Wells quipped:
Mr. Roberts asked for the privilege of closing the debate, explaining that his Davis County constituents were demanding that he cease his opposition to equal suffrage or resign, and that "there is a great probability sir, that this next speech of mine will be the last that I shall make upon the floor of this convention." His request was granted, and his closing speech set for the morning of April 2. An hour before the opening of the convention room on that morning, "great throngs of people began climbing the flights of stairs leading to the meeting chamber." When the doors were opened, the crowd rushed in, led by ladies who occupied the seats of delegates who had not yet arrived. A squad of police finally restored order to a point where the session could open. 16 A motion to move to the Salt Lake Theatre, where "a thousand people waiting in the hallways and down to the ground to hear the eloquent speech of Mr. Roberts" could be accommodated, was tabled and Mr. Roberts addressed the committee of the whole. His many curious listeners must have been disappointed, for his speech was largely a repetition of his earlier arguments. He said that participation of women in politics would place them "in danger of sacrificing the high regard of men, which ever goes with true womanhood. ... I once saw a woman chewing tobacco. It was a vice a hundred times more disgusting in her than in man; ... let it operate twenty years, let it operate fifty, a hundred years, we will have a womanhood from whom we will dispose to flee."
At the conclusion of Mr. Roberts' speech, a vote was taken on an amendment providing for submitting the question of female suffrage to the vote of the people as a separate article. Only twentynine votes were counted for the proposal, twenty-five of which were cast by Republicans, and seventeen of these by non-Mormons. Two days later a motion to postpone the third reading of the article on elections and rights of suffrage was rejected, but on the following morning, Mr. Varian moved that the whole article be sent to a special committee, with instructions to write a new article, including a provision for submitting the question of woman suffrage to a separate vote. Thus the question which had been decided so many times was once more open, and the debate began anew. Led by Mr. Roberts and nine Gentile delegates, it continued all day and became even more heated than it had previously been. Roberts accused his fellow Democrats of playing peanut politics, to which Charles H. Hart, Democrat from Cache County, replied: "We have given him so much rope in this Convention and have submitted so long to his arrogance that he comes in this morning and denounces his democratic associates here as peanut politicians, . . ." And David Evans, another Democrat, asked:
He called Roberts' behavior "an act of perfidy and dishonor," and said that, upon the streets of Salt Lake, bootblacks were "hailing everyone passing by, asking them to sign that petition for separate submission. What kind of an expression of opinion is that?"
F. J. Kiesel, a non-Mormon from Ogden, charged that the ladies of the Mormon Female Relief Society were responsible for the agitation for suffrage, and W. G. Van Home, another Gentile member, threatened:
To this threat, George P. Miller, the Methodist minister from Sevier County, replied: "We accept the challenge and when it shall come to a test, the gentleman from Salt Lake City will realize that the outside counties carry some force, [applause]"
When the wrangling was over, the Varian motion was defeated by a vote of 53 to 43. The equal suffrage provision was then adopted 75 to 14, with 12 absent and 5 excused from voting. Mr. Roberts and two other Democrats joined with 11 Republicans in voting against adoption.
On April 8 the whole article on elections and suffrage was approved, but the female suffrage issue was not dead. Petitions poured in and by the end of April, 188 had been received. Of these, 139 bearing 13,980 signatures, requested submission of a separate suffrage article, and 48, with 17,580 signers, asked that the equal suffrage provision be placed in the constitution. One petition was signed by thirteen citizens of Bingham, who were dead set against the whole idea of ladies' voting.
On April 18, a motion of Mr. Varian, to reconsider the vote by which the suffrage article had been adopted, was defeated 69 to 32, and the debate, which had consumed almost ten of the fiftyfive working days of the convention, was finally ended.
The nearest approach to a strictly partisan division came during consideration of the article on the legislative department when the Democrats tried to insert a prohibition against state aid to private business. Following the failure of six attempts to have such a provision adopted, Charles S. Varian, the prominent Republican leader, offered an amendment declaring that the legislature should not authorize the state to "lend its credit or subscribe stock or bonds in aid of any railroad, telegraph, or other private, individual or corporate enterprise, or undertaking." A long debate followed, during which Mr. Varian was charged with deserting his party and assuming the role of delegate-at-large. The argument became violently partisan, with J. R. Bowdle accusing all Democrats of being afflicted with liver complaint, and C. C. Goodwin suggesting that they should go to Provo, where the asylum for the insane was located. With five Republicans joining with forty-one Democrats, the Varian amendment was adopted 46 to 44 and went into the constitution.
During consideration of the question of starting salaries, economy was the watchword, with many delegates calling attention to the heavy financial burden which would come with statehood.
In support of his motion to set the pay of legislators at $2.50 per day, John Henry Smith, the convention president, said that attending the legislature was "a holiday for six weeks during the winter, upon the part of most of the members, desiring to have a good time away from home." Charles H. Hart protested that "you cannot have a good time on two dollars and a half a day," and William Creer said: "It is nowhere written in the scriptures, I believe, that a man should serve without purse or scrip." Mr. Smith's motion was rejected and a salary of $4.00 per day was agreed upon.
Salaries of elected state officials were set at $2,000.00 per year for the governor and secretary of state, $1,500.00 for the auditor and attorney-general, and $1,000.00 for the treasurer. Edward H. Snow, a school teacher from Washington County, moved to raise the salary of the superintendent of schools from the recommended $1,000.00 to $1,500.00, but he said that a motion of Thomas Kearns to make it $2,000.00 would be "going entirely to the other extreme." C. C. Goodwin protested against the convention advertizing "all down through the years" that it had so little respect for the duties of a school superintendent, as to fix his salary at $1,000.00. He hoped it would be set at $2,000.00, "just to save a little of our self respect." With Gentile delegates supporting it 21 to 3, and Mormons opposing it 46 to 27, the Kearns' motion was rejected, and the $1,500.00 salary was agreed upon.
A salary of $3,000.00 was set for supreme and district court judges. Trying to have this cut to $2,000.00, Lorin Farr told how he had been paid only $50.00 for serving as mayor of Ogden for twenty years. He said that, after finishing his official duties each day, "I went to my garden and I hoed my potatoes and my com, and I put in my time in that way, and by so doing I had good health, and I brought up my family, and they had good health, and it is a healthy exercise, consequently, I do not maintain that a man, because he is a judge, has got to sit on the bench all the time." He might have added that the family he cared for so well, without a salary, consisted of five wives and thirty-six children. His attempt to reduce the salary of judges was unsuccessful, as was that of some of the non-Mormon members to raise it to $4,000.00.
The debate on the question of apportionment of representation in the state legislature was not unlike those which still take place during sessions of that body. The article on apportionment, as reported out of committee, allotted the initial representation to the counties and stipulated that each county should always be entitled to at least one member in the lower house. Mr. Hart complained that Cache County had not been fairly treated, and said that since San Juan County, with a population of 365, was given one representative, Salt Lake should have 174. F. A. Hammond sprang to the defense of his county, explaining that the discovery of gold had brought an "influx of immigration," until there were at least two thousand residents in San Juan, not counting Indians.
Mr. Varian called the principle of giving each county one representative "utterly vicious and wrong," and offered an amendment providing that future representation in both houses should be based on "an enumeration of the people," according to a ratio to be fixed by law. He was supported by his fellow delegates from Salt Lake and by those of Davis and Cache counties, but S. R. Thurman of Utah County warned that if representation should be based on population, "Salt Lake City alone would control the state of Utah." The rural counties had the votes, and the Varian amendment was rejected, along with all others offered.
The liveliest discussions during consideration of the article on education were on the questions of free high schools and consolidation of the state university and the agricultural college. The committee on education reported an article which provided for free grammar schools and that, where high schools were established, they should be free. But President Karl G. Maeser of Brigham Young University and W. J. Kerr of Brigham Young College sponsored an amendment to eliminate the provision for free high schools.
Arguing that, while children were entitled to free grammar school training, high school education was a privilege to be paid for, Dr. Maeser accused school teachers of using grammar schools as feeders for high schools. This, he said, was all wrong, because, "three-fourths of our school population get their education in our common schools and close up with that; then they depend upon mutual improvement associations and Christian endeavors, and Christian societies, and so on, for further information of a general nature, . . ."
In the face of opposition from T. B. Lewis, territorial commissioner of education, and some of the Gentile delegates, the Maeser amendment was adopted by a vote of 47 to 34. A few delegates, led by Mr. Varian, refused to give up, and a long debate followed, during which it was suggested that Mormons were holding out against free high schools because they did not want them competing with the church schools. Finally an amendment offered by Varian was accepted, under which first and second class cities might maintain free high schools, provided that any money needed to finance them, over and above their share of the general school funds, should be raised by local taxation.
The question of consolidating the two state institutions of higher learning was debated for three days. Proponents of consolidation based their arguments principally upon the ground of wasteful duplication in maintaining two schools. Statistics were presented by Professor Kerr of Brigham Young College and others, to show that there were 265 students enrolled at the agricultural college, most of them in the preparatory department, and that there were only eight courses being taught at the college which were not given at the university. It was also shown that the enrollment at the university was 365, of whom 216 were in the normal school, 49 in the school for the deaf, and 49 in the preparatory department, leaving 81 "doing university work."
Mr. Ivins pointed out that, for the 1894-95 biennium, the legislature had appropriated only $45,000.00 to the university and $15,- 000.00 to the agricultural college. He said that if Utah would not contribute more than this "niggardly sum" to the two schools, the only alternative was to combine them.
The strongest argument against consolidation was that the agricultural department of a united institution would be "overshadowed," and the purpose for which the college had been established be thwarted. Fear was also expressed that farm boys attending the school would feel inferior, or if they overcame this feeling, they would succumb to the influence of the city slickers and become useless as farmers. When Moses Thatcher said that the college at Logan was producing "men," while the university turned out "dudes," Aquila Nebeker protested that the gentleman from Cache, "knows, I believe, that I, while he might call me a dude, can pitch just as much hay, survey just as many water ditches, and assay just as many hand samples, as the gentleman can himself, notwithstanding I received what little education I have at the University. A dude, I think, gentlemen, is something born, not made by education, and is neither male nor female."
As a sideline to the debate on consolidation, there was no little discussion as to whether the combined school should be located at Logan or Salt Lake City. The climate and soil of the two places became an issue, and when Professor Kerr praised the soil at Logan, Mr. Goodwin asked if "the shrubs planted on that soil stand up or do they lean? . . . Some gentleman—if he is a liar he must be outside of this Convention—told me that all the plants leaned towards the college, that the winds from the canyon kept them that way." Kerr replied: "There is of an evening in Logan a gentle breeze from the canyon there which makes it very pleasant in the summer, but I do not think it is sufficient to interfere with the shrubbery on the hill."
When Mons Peterson proposed that the school be located at Logan, Mr. Hammond declared that he was "opposed, sir, to this substitute offered by the member from Grand County, although he is my son-in-law. He is a republican and I can forgive him, but he is off—plumb wrong. The idea of moving the university, as his substitute provides, to Cache County—why he may as well take it to the North Pole so far as San Juan could get any good from it."
All the talk about a site was wasted, for the movement for consolidation was doomed from the beginning. With the exception of Professor Kerr, the Cache County delegation stood firmly against it, and they were supported by such prominent leaders of both parties as Charles S. Varian, Samuel R. Thurman, David Evans, Franklin S. Richards and Brigham H. Roberts. When the decisive vote came, consolidation was rejected 78 to 33.
The sharpest debate during discussion of the article on taxation and revenue was on the question of taxing mortgages. As reported out of committee, the article called for taxation of money and notes, but the fifth section provided that notes secured by mortgages, or the mortgaged property, should be exempt. This provision met with strong opposition, led by John F. Chidester of Garfield County, A. W. Ivins of Washington, and David Evans of Weber, on the ground that it had been sponsored by the money lenders as a means of evading taxation. Its defenders praised it as a safeguard against double taxation. Mr. Chidester's motion to strike out the offensive fifth section was finally brought to a vote and passed, 57 to 24.
Andrew S. Anderson of Beaver County complained that a provision exempting Church property from taxation was unjust because the time might come when "probably half the citizens won't believe in any church." This brought a comment from Mr. Thurman that "there won't be any religious worship then," and Mr. Anderson's complaint was ignored.
With the delegates in general agreement on the importance of economy in government, there were no serious disputes over the article on public debt, which limited state indebtedness to $200,000.00 except in certain emergencies. When David Evans moved to strike out the emergency clause, C. C. Goodwin asked how, without it, money could be raised to meet an unexpected need. J. D. Holladay of Santaquin volunteered: "Get it out of the Tithing Office [laughter]." Mr. Goodwin could see nothing funny about the remark, and suggested that Holladay be put out. The Evans' motion was rejected.
Edward H. Snow offered an amendment preventing counties, cities, or school districts from creating indebtedness in excess of current taxes without the approval of a majority of qualified electors. This led to a long debate on the question of permitting persons staying at home on election day to exercise the same influence as those who came out to vote. The Snow amendment was rejected after J. R. Bowdle had asked how a majority of the qualified electors could be determined if one or two should die on election day.
The committee on labor and arbitration reported an article of nine sections, which was roughly treated. Four sections were rejected, as was a motion of B. H. Roberts to strike the whole article. An additional section proposed by Thomas Kearns, providing for an eight hour work day and laws to protect the health and safety of workers in factories, smelters and mines, was adopted 79 to 11. But an amendment offered by C. C. Goodwin, prohibiting employment of boys under eighteen years of age in "occupations dangerous to life and limb," was withdrawn in the face of a storm of protests.
During the discussions on the labor article, the two delegates standing out as defenders of the rights of the working man were Mr. Kearns, a Park City mining man, and C. N. Strevell, an Ogden merchant.
There was a brief but earnest debate on the question of prohibiting the sale of liquor. Before the convention met, a committee named by the Association of Protestant Churches, the president of the Mormon Church, and the Catholic bishop of Utah sent a letter to each delegate, asking for submission to the vote of the people of an article prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages.
Beginning on March 14, petitions bearing 9,626 signatures were received, asking for a prohibition article, and three propositions on the question were introduced. They were referred to the committee on schedule, future amendments and miscellaneous, which recommended that "the subject be left to the Legislature." A minority report, signed by the Reverend Miller and two others, submitted an "article on prohibition, to be voted on as a separate measure."
A motion by A. W. Ivins to adopt the minority report was supported by Mr. Miller and half a dozen others, but it soon became evident that there was little convention sentiment for prohibition. With most of the Gentiles remaining silent, an awesome array of prominent Mormons took the floor to speak against the minority report. Among them were Apostle Moses Thatcher, B. H. Roberts of the first seven presidents of Seventies, presidents Karl G. Maeser of Brigham Young University and W. J. Kerr of Brigham Young College, T. B. Lewis, commissioner of education, S. R. Thurman, and George M. Cannon. These church and civic leaders were backed up by one stake president, four counselors, two stake presidents, six bishops, four bishop's counselors, and two high councilmen.
Speaker after speaker deplored the evils of drink, but insisted that they could not be corrected by legislation. Mr. Thatcher dramatically related how he had watched while the normally calm citizens of Logan took young Charles Benson from the court house and hanged him to a telegraph pole because he had killed his friend David Crocket during a drunken brawl. He then told how legislating against drinking at Logan had only increased the evil.
Alma Eldredge wanted to know how man could progress throughout eternity if his freedom to choose between good and evil should be taken away. And Mr. Hammond asked, if the Lord "could not prohibit so that His good old servant Noah in his ark would not plant a vineyard and get drunk, what is the use of trying to legislate against it?"
Some of the advocates of enforced temperance were far from temperate in their remarks. Speaking against the high license system of control, J. L. Jolley said it would mean bad whiskey, but "there is perhaps one virtue in it, and that is the rotten stuff that they drink will kill the drunkard off all the sooner, . . ." And L. L. Coray declared that "any man or set of men who will stand up here and defend the whiskey business, I consider their just reward will be to live to see their children and their grandchildren gamblers, drunkards, illegitimate, and prostitutes."
When all the talking was over, only nineteen votes could be mustered for the minority report, and Utah had to wait twenty years for its first experiment with prohibition.
As with most assemblies of the kind, the convention was pretty well dominated by a few members. Edward Partridge complained that "there are a few men who occupy the floor, and a man that is a litde backward about it does not have an opportunity until they all get tired, and then they want the previous question."
Standing out as the most active, and perhaps the most influential of the delegates, was Charles S. Varian, non-Mormon Republican attorney of Salt Lake. Called by the Salt Lake Tribune the ablest parliamentarian and all-around man of the convention, he was well informed, independent and liberal in his thinking, and an excellent debater. He made 1,129 speeches, fifty-four more than his only close competitor, David Evans of Ogden. Following these two in order, were Samuel R. Thurman of Utah County, and George B. Squires, George M. Cannon, Franklin S. Richards and Dennis C. Eicknor— all of Salt Lake County. Then came Brigham H. Roberts of Davis County, Charles H. Hart of Cache, and C. C. Goodwin and William F. James of Salt Lake. These eleven men contributed 53 per cent of the speech making. Seventy-nine per cent came from the top twenty-seven delegates, and less than 1 per cent from the bottom twenty-seven. Fifty-four members did nearly 95 per cent of the talking, leaving less than 6 per cent for the other fifty-three. There were four delegates who spoke out only three times, five who spoke twice, and three only once. Joseph E. Thorne of Utah County sat through the proceedings without saying a word, except to record his vote. On the last day but one, he was rewarded for his consideration by being asked to offer the opening prayer.
Salt Lake County's twenty-nine delegates accounted for 44 per cent of the recorded convention activity. Weber, Cache and Davis counties added another 36 per cent, leaving 20 per cent for the other twenty-one counties. Only 3 per cent came from the ten counties of Grand, Iron, Kane, Morgan, Piute, Rich, San Juan, Tooele, Uintah and Wasatch.
As a group, the Gentiles were much more active than the Mormons. With only twenty-eight delegates, they contributed 46 per cent of the speaking, leaving 54 per cent for the seventy-nine Mormon delegates.
As should be expected, the lawyers were the busiest of the occupational groups. In proportion to their numbers, they did twice as much talking as the ministers and newspaper men, three times as much as the educators and mining men, nearly six times as much as the farmers, and ten times as much as the merchants.
On April 30, the forty-eighth working day of the convention, the secretary began reading those articles of the constitution which the committee on compilation and arrangement had reported to be ready for final approval. On May 2, a resolution was adopted directing that the constitution "be carefully engrossed, without blot, erasure or interlineation, on parchment 11 x 17," and when signed "by the members, or a majority thereof, be bound between lids, in enduring form, and they be deposited in the office of the secretary of the Territory for delivery to the secretary of state for the State of Utah, . . ." Two days later the convention voted to grant the request of John R. Wilson for a copy of the constitution, "to be sealed up in the construction of a table whereon will be signed the first bill passed by the first State Legislature of Utah." On May 6, the reading of the constitution was concluded and its adoption called for. It was adopted 72 to 0, with thirty-four delegates absent and one, A. H. Raleigh, excused from voting. The printing of two thousand copies of the document was ordered, with fifteen copies to be sent to each delegate, five to each county court, two to each municipality and each Utah newspaper, and one to each territorial officer. The committee on compilation and arrangements was directed to "compile and publish, as early as appropriations for that purpose can be obtained from Congress, the journal, Constitution, and debates in full, of the convention,..." This official report was published in 1898, in two volumes of 2,010 pages.
Before adjournment on this last day but one, the convention took time out to listen to an address by Miss Clara Foltz of San Francisco, introduced by Delegate Crane as "a lady who is well known, not only through the western portion of the Union, but throughout the nation as one of the most gifted orators of the country."
On May 8, the engrossed constitution was read and the roll called on its adoption, with the delegates signing the document as their names were called. The committee on accounts and expenses then made its final report. It showed that $1.10 of the $30,000.00 appropriated for convention expenses remained unspent. But there were unpaid bills amounting to nearly $10,000.00, including $8,009.50 due delegates for their per diem and mileage.
Following a brief address by Governor West, the convention president delivered the engrossed constitution to the territorial secretary, and then announced: "The business of the Convention, I believe, is done, and the Constitution has been placed in the hands of the secretary."
Mr. Varian took the floor to congratulate the delegates for demonstrating that all that was needed to bring about harmony in Utah was to bring together representatives of all factions, "that they might look into each other's faces, ascertain each other's motives, learn to judge and believe in each other, as members of one common family. ... In this fraternal spirit towards all of you, gentlemen I now move that this Convention do adjourn sine die." The president responded with a few words, concluding: "I think it is the design now to close by calling upon the oldest member of the house to offer benediction—Mr. Raleigh," and the seventy-six-year-old patriarch, Alonzo H. Raleigh, offered the closing prayer. The adjournment came at 2:35 P.M. on May 8, the sixty-sixth calendar day and and fifty-fifth working day of the convention.
At the general election in November the people chose their first state officers and ratified the constitution by a vote of 31,305 to 7,687. Most of the dissenting 22 per cent of votes apparently came from communities with a comparatively large non-Mormon population.
President Cleveland issued the statehood proclamation at 10 A.M. on January 4, 1896. Two days later formal inaugural ceremonies were held in Salt Lake, and Utah's forty-seven-year struggle for statehood was at an end.
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