On the night of January 10, 1890, the Latter-day Saint People's Party held a parade President George Q. Cannon described as “the most beautiful sight I think I ever saw.”1 Thousands of Latter-day Saints marched in torchlight through four inches of snow as drum corps and marching bands, including a newly formed kazoo band, played their instruments. Meanwhile, marchers carried banners from each of Salt Lake's twenty-two wards plastered with slogans including “Here to Stay” and “Hold the Fort.”2 The display of unity was impressive, yet it belied intense internal divisions that had rocked the party in recent months and years. Just a few months earlier in General Conference, several church leaders spoke at length on the need to overcome the “sentiment of division” then afflicting the church and party. Apostle Francis M. Lyman emphasized that the Saints had few divisions over religious matters, yet still local disputes...

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