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CHAPTER XV.
The Cullom-Struble Bill the "Last Straw."
It is true, as alleged in Vol. III, page 720, of Whitney's history, that I carried to Washington a bill introduced by Senator Cullom in the Senate which was referred to the Senate Committee on Territories of which Mr. Cullom was a member, and was also introduced in the House by Mr. Struble and referred to the Committee on Territories, of which he was chairman. The bill was drawn by me, and provided in substance that no person living in plural or celestial marriage, or who taught, advised or counseled any person to enter into polygamy: or who was a member of or contributed to the support, aid or encouragement of any organization that taught or sanctioned that practice: or who participated or aided in the solemnization of any polygamous marriage, should vote, serve as juror or hold any office in the Territory. The bill also required each person, upon applying for registration as an elector, to show that he was qualified as such by taking the test-oath, the form of which was therein prescribed.
Mr. Whitney severely criticized that measure and my connection therewith. That its provisions were valid is clear, for in the case of Davis v. Beason, in 133 U. S. Rep., page 341, the supreme court of the United States sustained the validity of similar provisions of a bill enacted by the territorial legislature of Idaho, which had been introduced by Col. Enos Wall, now of Salt Lake City. Mr. Justice Field in the opinion delivered by him made the following comment:
"Bigamy and polygamy are crimes by the laws of all civilized and Christian countries. They are crimes by the laws of the United States, and they are crimes by the law of Idaho. They tend to destroy the purity of the marriage relation, to disturb the peace of families, to degrade women and debase man. Few crimes are more pernicious to the best interests of society and receive more general or more deserved punishment. To extend exemption from punishment for such crimes would be to shock the moral judgment of the community. To call their advocacy a tenet of religion is to offend the common sense of mankind. If they are crimes, then to teach, advise, and counsel their practice is to aid in their commission, and such teachings and counseling are themselves criminal and proper subjects of punishment, as aiding and abetting crimes are in all other cases."
Not only, then, was the bill valid, but its introduction was justified and rendered necessary because the previous stringent acts of Congress which had been passed to correct the evil conditions then existing in Utah had failed to accomplish their purpose; though notwithstanding their validity, and that they had in every instance been sustained by the highest court of the country, the hierarchy of the Mormon church was still recalcitrant and retained its absolute control of territorial political affairs. This control it abused by not only establishing and maintaining an anti-American, pernicious system and defeating the execution, especially of the laws punishing polygamy, and of a particular class of assassination prevalent in the Territory. The purpose of the bill was to wrest from the hands of the priesthood the political power which it had so long wrongfully usurped and shamefully abused.
After a full discussion of the bill before the House Committee on Territories, when Governor West and myself had spoken in favor of its passage, and John T. Caine, Franklin S. Richards and Jeremiah M. Wilson had spoken in opposition, the committee made a report to the House in favor of its passage. After a like discussion of the bill before the Senate Committee on Territories, and the committee had decided to make a report to the Senate favoring its passage, I was informed by Senator Cullom that he had been assured by a delegation of prominent Mormons, that if further action on the bill was delayed for a reasonable time, the practice of polygamy would be prohibited by the Mormon church, and that the delegation had requested that further action on the bill be temporarily delayed. The same assurance was given to Mr. Struble, and the request for delay was granted, but with the express understanding that if polygamy was not prohibited within a reasonable time vigorous steps would be taken to procure the passage of the bill.
Whitney's history, Vol. III, page 743, contains in substance the following:
"Among those who went to Washington to work against the Cullom-Struble bill was Hon. Geo. Q. Cannon, Bishop Clawson, Col. Isaac Trumbo and Frank J. Cannon, the latter of whom, having applied in vain to Senator Edmunds and other stalwart Republicans, called upon James G. Blame, and his powerful hand was interposed with the understanding that something would be done by the Mormons to meet the exigency of the situation."
Evidently he had been informed that the church authorities contemplated prohibiting polygamy.
The following are statements of Frank J. Cannon, contained in Chapter III, of his articles published in Everybody's Magazine:
"When the progress of the Cullom-Struble bill began to make its threatening advance, my father went secretly to Washington, and a short time afterward word came to me in Ogden, through the Presidency, that he wished me to arrange my business affairs for a long absence from Utah, and follow him to the Capital. I found him there in the office of Delegate John T. Caine. The Cullom-Struble bill had been favorably considered by the Committee on Territories, and the disfranchisement of all the Mormons in Utah seemed imminent. Every argument, political, and legal, had been used against the measure in vain."
After having stated that he had interviewed Mr. Blame and a member of the Committee on Territories, he further said:
"I went to other members of the committee, privately, and told them that the Mormon church was about to make a concession concerning the doctrine of polygamy. I told them so in confidence, pointing out the necessity of secrecy, since to make public the news of such a proceeding in advance would be to prevent the church from authorizing it. * * * It remained to make our safety permanent, and I took train for Utah, on my father's counsel, to see President Woodruff. I had given my word that `something was to be done.' I went to plead that it should be done, and done speedily. I told him (Woodruff) in detail of the events in Washington, and of the men who had helped us in them. I warned him that the passage of the measure of disfranchisement had been no more than retarded. I pointed out the fatal consequences for the community if the bill should ever become a law the fatal consequences for the leaders of the church if the non-polygamist Mormons, deprived of their votes, were ever left unable to control the administration of local government. I repeated the promises that my father had authorized me to carry to the senators and congressmen who still had the Cullom-Struble bill in hand; and I emphasized the fact that because of this promise the bill had been held back with the certainty that it would never become a law if we met the nation half way. To this statement he (Woodruff) said sadly: `I had hoped we wouldn't have to meet this trouble this way. You know what it means to our people. Did your father tell you,' he asked, `that I had been seeking the mind of the Lord?' I replied that he had."
Woodruff, as president of the Mormon church, issued a manifesto advising the Latter-day Saints to refrain from contracting any marriages forbidden by the law of the land. The Cullom-Struble bill was not passed, but its pendency was the "last straw which broke the camel's back." Evidently its pendency forced the issuance of the manifesto.
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