Review: Frank J. Cannon: Saint, Senator, Scoundrel

 

Is there even a statue of Frank Jenne Cannon in Ogden, Utah? Maybe a photo somewhere in a city or Weber County building, or perhaps Union Station, a passion of Frank Cannon's? After all, he was the fellow who helped create today's Ogden Standard-Examiner newspaper (still kicking -- barely -- as the largest Utah -- sort of -- daily newspaper still printing its paper). He was the Standard's first firebrand editor. I am proud of having wrote editorials in a newspaper Frank once penned them for,

He was one of Utah's first U.S. senators. Before that, he was a territorial representative to the U.S. Congress.

His talents for patience, diplomacy, coupled with his Utah elite name, enabled him to travel back east, whether to New York City or Washington D.C., and negotiate with U.S. presidents and congressmen over touchy issues, from how hard Congress would hammer the territory of Utah, which Gentile judges would sentence Utah polygamists, and also the fate of Utah's impending statehood.

When the man spoke in public, he would fill halls beyond capacity. In between bouts of drunkenness, LDS Church leaders pressured him to finish ghost-writing assignments, including "The Life of Joseph Smith," a book credited to his father.

Frank J. Cannon is buried in Ogden. As Val Holley notes in his superb biography of Frank J., "Frank J. Cannon: Saint, Senator, Scoundrel," The University of Utah Press, 2020, his death in 1934, at 74, attracted only a few plaudits, most notably from early Ogden journalist Olin A. Kennedy, who noted that "more than any other man," Cannon "negotiated [the] truce that led to peace between Mormons and Gentiles here in Utah," records Holley.

During the last score years of his life, Utah political and ecclesiastical leaders had other words to describe Frank. They included "unspeakable," "vile," and even "Son of Perdition," a quote allegedly from LDS Church President Joseph F. Smith. 

Frank J. Cannon was born in 1859 to George Q. Cannon and his polygamous wife, Sarah Jenne Cannon. He married in 1878, to Martha Brown, of Ogden. It would last until her death in 1909. Although Frank, a graduate of Deseret University at 19, impressed with his skills in writing, persuasion and business acumen, he was prone to alcoholic binges and, soon after his marriage, adultery. He seduced an immigrant servant woman, impregnating her. The baby was eventually adopted to a relative family. 

Holley doesn't gloss over Frank's problems with inebriation. The alcoholic binges, likely fueled from business, political and family/ecclesiastical stress, were frequent enough that Frank's family, notably half-brother and business partner Abram, would have to search for him through Salt Lake City red-light districts, including brothels. 

In the book, family father and leader George Q. Cannon is pictured as an authority figure, spending little quality time with his sons, preferring to lecture and counsel them through letters. It's fair to wonder if the emotional absence of a father figure contributed to his sons' dysfunctions. Besides Frank, an older, more-favored half-brother, general authority John Q. Cannon, seduced his own wife's sister. The affair ended in tragedy when the woman, Louie Wells -- briefly married to the temporarily excommunicated and divorced John Q. -- suffered a miscarriage and later died. 

Half-brother Abram, who eventually became member of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles, followed his father in embracing polygamy. One of the reasons was dad's desire to make sure a deceased son would have an eternal marriage beyond the grave. This kind of stress, including overwork, likely contributed to Abram's early death at 37, from meningitis. He had recently taken a fourth wife, notes Holley.

Although his adverse antics were frequently lamented -- and later in life re-emphasized by his former allies -- Frank largely escaped any long-term ecclesiastical sanction in the first half of his life. Frankly, his talents were needed by the territory of Utah and its dominant faith. He had an abundance of knowledge and eloquence that often impressed financiers and politicians. The LDS Church of the latter half of the 19th century faced real, and frightening possibilities of losing all its economic capital as well as imprisonment of its leaders. 

Over a period of a decade plus, Frank contributed to a gradual reduction of congressional punishment towards Utah. Accomplishments included easing judicial pressure on the state, helping the First Manifesto against polygamy occur and convincing Washington D.C. powers that Utah was ready to be admitted as a state. These happenings, chronicled in detail by Holley's meticulous research, were not easy accomplishments. They were frequent setbacks, including the capture of family patriarch George Q. Cannon. In the biography, Holley details a hare-brained scheme to rescue George Q. via a holdup on a train. Fortunately, the plan never reached a felonious stage. 

Frank was an opponent of polygamy, accurately believing that its eradication was the key to Utah's acceptance. The church's failure to stick to its Manifesto promises for a generation would be integral to his eventual disaffection with church leaders, his criticism of, and excommunication. 

Holley covers well the power struggle between Frank and his father, George Q., to become a Republican U.S. senator in 1896. Frank was the favorite for the seat. His father, backed by LDS Church leadership, ran a coy, shadow campaign, falsely denying he wanted the position. In a long struggle, Frank outlasted the wishes of dad and the First Presidency, winning appointment from the Legislature.

The cycles of partisan power had prevented his election to the House -- as a Republican -- a few years earlier, although he briefly served there just prior to becoming a senator. His nearly three-year tenure in the Senate was rocky. Although his pro-silver politics and opposition to a single gold standard was popular, Holley writes that his opposition to a trade bill that favored sugar interests sunk his popularity in Utah. Frank's attempts to grow a "Silver Republican" party were not successful and he was not re-elected in 1899, although his seat would remain vacant until 1901. He eventually became a Democrat.

George Q. Cannon's death in 1901 initially reinforced Frank's Mormon faith, which he had severely tested with criticisms of church leaders, including Heber J. Grant. Holley notes that his tithing was far, far more impressive than his long church-reinstated brother John Q's offerings, for example.

Yet his break with the church was imminent. The ascendency of Joseph F. Smith as president, as well as clandestine LDS polygamy despite two Manifestos, hastened his withdrawal. He also opposed Mormon apostle Reed Smoot's election to the U.S. Senate. During a short tenure as editor with the anti-Mormon Salt Lake Tribune, Frank's harsh editorials against the LDS Church leadership, notably Joseph F. Smith, led to his excommunication. It was an ugly split, one that contributes to Frank's diminished status in history today. 

In 1909 his wife Martha died. Soon after he married her younger sister, May. That union lasted until his death. 

He would move to Denver, work as a journalist. He used his skills there to help bring down a corrupt municipality and prevent a corrupt mayor from becoming a U.S. senator. He later moved further in muckraking, with Mormonism as his target. He co-authored two books. The more successful was "Under the Prophet in Utah," which led Frank to a several-year success on the lecture circuit, condemning Mormonism, its prophet, and extolling Christianity as a solution to the nation's ills. The book even led to a Broadway play, "'Polygamy."

During this period of anti-Mormon activism, Frank would occasionally be followed and challenged by LDS missionaries and other church leaders while on the lecture circuit. He became a permanent major villain within the church. Nevertheless, he was a still popular draw when he visited Utah to lecture or promote his books, which were also serialized in magazines.

The final dozen years of his life were quieter, although he still retained enough prominence to appear before Congress and lobby presidents for a pro-silver policy. Bimetallism, silver, was likely his biggest passion. Late in life he pitched a plan to revive China's economy through a massive loan of silver to that nation. He advocated silver policies in writing up to his death, notes Holley.

A promising business venture in ores, including lead, was hampered by the Great Depression. His once fervent faith in Christianity cooled during the Roaring 20s. Holley recounts that late in life Frank considered himself an agnostic. Two of his three children died before him; his son months before his own death. Holley surmises that Frank's death from an abdominal condition may have resulted in part from grief over his son's death. 

I have omitted much of Frank's business ventures in this review. They do involve a substantial portion of Holley's research. They vary from bookselling ventures with his brothers to newspaper startups and acquisitions, as well as frequent times Frank represented the Mormon leadership in business. He encountered businesspeople of principle as well as charlatans. He invested in power companies, as well as fads including "liquid air" and "vapor light." He published books and invested in a planned film adaptation of "Under the Prophet in Utah." It turned out to be a scam that landed the swindler a felony conviction.

Holley accurately presents the paradox that was Frank J. Cannon. He's a difficult man to judge. Perhaps we shouldn't. He was imperfect in morals, and in his anger exaggerated claims against the faith he had once espoused. But, as Holley notes, his detractors exaggerated his claims, and withdrew any merit he had earned. Frank J. Cannon was also accurate in a chief charge -- that church leaders were not truthful -- for a long time -- in repudiating polygamy. 

It's well past time that Frank J., the scoundrel of the Cannons, get some notice for his many achievements. Holley's biography is a valuable, interesting read. Maybe it will lead to a statue for Frank J. (You can buy the biography via Amazon here).

-- Doug Gibson

Enjoy the Cal Grondahl cartoon below.