deference to the present king.

You must know that in that day we were but five years old as a State.
Our political conditions were and had been greatly unsettled. The
purpose of the church to rule in politics had not yet been made so
manifest and determined. Lorenzo Snow held his office for a brief
time--about two years. What he did in that office pertaining to my
election I here and now distinctly assume as my burden, for no man shall
with impunity use his hatred of me to defame Lorenzo Snow and dishonor
his memory to his living and loving descendants.

As for myself, I am willing to take the Senate and the country into my
confidence, and make a part of the eternal records of the Senate, for
such of my friends as may care to read, the vindication of my course to
my posterity. I had an ambition, and not an improper one, to sit in the
Senate of the United States. My competitors had longer experience in
polities and may have understood more of the peculiar situation in the
State. They sought what is known as church influence. I sought to obtain
this place by purely political means. I was elected. After all their
trickery my opponents were defeated, and to some extent by the very
means which they had basely invoked. I have served with you four years,
and have sought in a modest way to make a creditable record here. I have
learned something of the grandeur and dignity of the Senate, something
of its ideals, which I could not know before coming here. I say to you,
my fellow Senators, that this place of power is infinitely more
magnificent than I dreamed when I first thought of occupying a seat
here. But were it thrice as great as I now know it to be, and were I
back in that old time of struggle in Utah, when I was seeking for this
honor, I would not permit the volunteered friendship of President Snow
to bestow upon me, even as an innocent recipient, one atom of the church