use that mooted--and booted--Mormon question to re-elect the
President."

"Hardly that, Mr. Secretary," I said. "I have a plan to help my father
and his colleagues to regain their citizenship. If President Cleveland's
re-election is essential to it, I suppose I must submit. You know I'm a
Republican."

They laughed. We sat down. And I found at once that Colonel Lamont
understood the situation in Utah, thoroughly. He had often discussed it,
he said, with the Church's agents in Washington. I went over the
situation with him, as I had gone over it with Mr. Sandford, in careful
detail. He seemed surprised at my assurance that my father and the other
proscribed leaders of the Church would submit themselves to the courts
if they could do so on the conditions that I proposed; I convinced him
of the possibility by referring him to Mr. Richards, the Church's
attorney in Washington, for a confirmation of it. I pointed out that if
these leaders surrendered, President Cleveland could be made the direct
beneficiary, politically, of their composition with the law.

Colonel Lamont was a small, alert man with a conciseness of speech and
manner that is associated in my memory with the bristle of his red
mustache cut short and hard across a decisive mouth. He radiated nervous
vitality; and I understood, as I studied him, how President Cleveland,
with his infinite patience for [** missing text?**] survived so well in
the multitudinous duties of his office--having as his secretary a man
born with the ability to cut away the non-essentials, and to pass on to
Mr. Cleveland only the affairs worthy of his careful deliberation.

I was doubtful whether I should tell Colonel Lamont and Mr. Whitney of