Cannon and O'Higgins to write. They worked on it for a year, verifying
every detail of it from government reports, controversial pamphlets,
Mormon books of propaganda, and the newspaper files of current record.
It ran through nine numbers of the magazine, and not so much as a
successful contradiction was ever made of one of the innumerable
incidents or accusations that it contains. It is here published in book
form at somewhat greater length than the magazine could print it. It is
a joint work, but the autobiographic "I" has been used throughout,
because it is Mr. Cannon's personal narrative of his personal
experience.



Introduction


This is the story of what has been called "the great American
despotism."

It is the story of the establishment of an absolute throne and dynasty
by one American citizen over a half-million others.

And it is the story of the amazing reign of this one man, Joseph F.
Smith, the Mormon Prophet, a religious fanatic of bitter mind, who
claims that he has been divinely ordained to exercise the awful
authority of God on earth over all the affairs of all mankind, and who
plays the anointed despot in Utah and the surrounding states as cruelly
as a Sultan and more securely than any Czar.

To him the Mormon people pay a yearly tribute of more than two million