The Shoreham, Washington, D. C., July 11, 1894. My dear Sir: Having at last reached success in the passage through Congress of the bill admitting Utah to Statehood, it is due to you to know something of the more important details of the long and difficult contest. The victory which has been reached has come only through the help of friends whose services can never be forgotten, and through a patience and persistence of effort which I have never seen equalled. Indeed, in this contest have ...

have melted away before you, and how unanimously at last has come the victory after so many years of injustice and oppression, I have been forced to feel that the spirit of a higher power than that of man has been controlling in the movements and destiny of your people and in the final judgment toward them of the whole American people. All of us as we grow older learn to value more and more highly the gifts that come to us through dis- cipline, and it is a strange part of human life that nearly everything ...

Mormon Church, being of a liberal and tolerant mind, and having acquaintances with the section of the Mormon Church located in Iowa, made up of as good people as we had in that State, of course I never knew or had opportunity to know fully and distinctly all the facts in regard to the career of your Church and people in Utah and the contiguous western States. It was some ten years ago that in connection with Mr. Blaine, when we were studying the elements of voters ...

organize and conduct a contest in your behalf on lines that we knew were absolutely right and as absolutely sure to win for you in the end. Of course, I need not say to you, or to any of your people, how devotedly and wisely Colonel Trumbo over several years has subordinated his own interests in life and made your interests the ambition and as- piration of his every effort, and how with apparently more than human energy he has de- voted every day and every thought of his life to your service. It ...

shall be taught to know the value of his services, I am sure from what I know of the Mormon character will be true. The story of the struggle of your people, as a people, and the later story of the struggle of your Territory for Statehood, are both so interesting and absorbing that it is hard to confine any analysis of it to anything like the proper limits and space of a letter. But I feel it is due to you, who have been remote from nearly all the phases of these ...

pletely, and there was left to him only the memory of his indignation at the wrong proposed and of his duty to resist to the highest limit of his power such wrong and encroachment. Of course, your people know something of the courage and loyalty of Mr. Blaine towards you in oppression; but the summit and sublimity of it all was reached when he stood in this small committee room and smote down with the giant strength of his indignant wrath this further attempt in a free government to degrade still further a people already wronged too ...

more an engine of injustice and oppression toward you than a representative party of just sentiment, and which had finally become simply a means of persecution and money- making, the apparent sanction of acting in the name of the Republican party of the nation. To do this efficiently it was necessary to dispossess this Utah Liberal party of its membership in the Republican National Committee, and to give admission instead to the Republican party in Utah, and thus to gain entrance of the national party on the local ground, where it could deal in justice and ...

which may seem trivial now but which was the first necessary step toward success at all. In thus helping to strike down the Liberal party by the hand of the official national power of the Republican party, I gave assurance to almost every Republican of influence and prominence in the nation, and to everyone whose help I finally succeeded in gaining, that despite of the past, when Republicanism and Mormonism were made to stand as deadly elements of opposition, the future would be one of fair play and one in which your people would act on ...

toward you all. After this step in the National Committee, the next important chapter was to overcome the prejudice existing with President Harrison and the influences almost uni- versally exerted upon him, a man of peculiar religious prejudices and particularly open to the appeals of the more intolerant Churches, and induce him to follow out the per- mission of the law and the demands of justice and issue amnesty to all your people. This was not dealing with one man, as may appear on the surface. If it had been, and that man of the tenacious ...

clamation, and he required that I should have all the editors of these papers seen, and that I should test all the sources of power among the leading religious denomin- ations. When you realize how many there are of these papers and how numberous are the sources of religious power and authority, you can imagine something of the task that he laid upon me. It was then that Colonel Trumbo came on to help in this work, and we were fortunate enough also to have the benefit of the wise counsel and suggestion ...

ments of the party and of the Churches, and especially of the newspapers, the latter be- ing the power that men in Congress fear more than any other, for they depend on their home papers to keep them right before their people and in public favor. I should not omit to state somewhere in this letter, and here may do as well, the constant efforts of Colonel Trumbo while all these things were going on, and his success in assembling strong influences to accomplish it, in securing favorable action toward your people and Church ...

you to use your judgment in making known to others in authority with you, and the actual facts of friendship and enmity. I very much coveted and so did Colonel Trumbo the ad- mission of Utah to Statehood through a Republican Congress. Through our system of effort, through the assembling of influences reaching into every State of the Union and almost every neighborhood, reaching into the Churches, into business elements and corporations, we succeeded in getting the bill through the House and in gaining practically a unani- mous vote ...

needed. We are pretty well satisfied now, after a whole year of investigation, that the influences that acted upon Senator Platt to hold him in opposition, even after we had secured every Church and political element who had acted with him before to appeal to him to be favorable then, came from Utah, from Lannan, Thomas, and Goodwin, and that it was secretly exerted through Senator Dubois of Idaho. We shall finally discover all the facts, for it ...

among the leaders in the Republican party who early identified themselves with this movement and have as constantly served in it loyally ever since. Among the most promin- ent I may mention Senator Quay, who until we took the matter up with him and caused him to see the truth was amongst your most persistent opponents. For two years, however, he has used all his great power and influence in your behalf. Ex-Senator Thomas C. Platt of New York, who is in many respects the most ...

people ever had. These are elements, as you will notice, outside of Congress. In Con- gress we had at the start the powerful help of Senator Allison, who was then the most influential Republican in the United States Senate, and Speaker Reed of the House, these two men furnishing out the most of the power we have utilized on the Republican side in Congress. When Congress was Republican these were our leaders and main helpers. This brings us down to the expiration of the Republican Congress on the 4th of March. It is ...

ferent Churches held during the summer. All the time we had felt that the coercion of church sentiment over men in Congress was the thing to be feared, for religious in- tolerance is always last to release its grasp. We succeeded well and increased our chance among these controlling elements during the summer; and this brings us to the assem- bling of the Democratic Congress in December. During the extra session in the summer, called by the President to meet the financial situation, our question played no part. And when Congress met in December, Democratic ...

This danger was heightened by the fact that the Democrats held their power in the Senate by a slight majority, a majority sure to be decreased in some of the States electing Senators this year and in especial peril against the probability of Republicanism when Utah is admitted. It was our fortune and salvation in this dilemma that we had been able in five years of constant effort to gain the friendship of the Republican party general- ly, and to have it mobilized in such hearty manner that it was willing to play any part of honor ...

human power and wisdom has been in this matter for its guidance from the first. No one could have believed that in the same House where for so many years the name of Utah and the word Mormon had been used to excite bitter contests, and where the Democrats always stood to challenge the Republicans for their course towards Utah, the time had come when both parties would act together as one man to admit it as a State. There is a blessing in this for the State and its people, I am ...

tention and interest not to admit to Statehood a Territory whose two Senators would be Republican and change the balance of power in the Senate. In addition to this, some of the most powerful men in the Senate were opposed personally to the admission of Utah or any other western States. I should have said further back in this letter that all the time one of the most powerful elements we have had to contend against was the eastern prejudice against the admission of any more western States, and especially of any more silver ...

to defeat the nomination of Mr. Hornblower. Before doing so we secured the pledges of honor of Mr. Gorman and Mr. Hill that they would favor the admission of Utah. But for this opportunity we should have stood no show whatever, despite of all the powerful influences we had assembled, to pass Utah into Statehood in this Congress. On the second fight, over the nomination of Peckham, these gentlemen again appealed to us and we again organized a line and gave them success. This ...