In 1904, Utah's junior senator, LDS Church Apostle Reed Smoot, convinced the state legislature to elect George Sutherland to replace Kearns.
Kearns was outraged and was convinced that Smoot had orchestrated his removal because of the Tribune's opposition to the LDS Church.
[3] As an editor for the Salt Lake Tribune, former United States Senator Frank J. Cannon also played an important promotional role for the party.
The party attracted a variety of non-Mormon, lapsed Mormon, and ex-Republican politicians and was endorsed by the Salt Lake Tribune.
[4] Central platforms of the party were that the leaders of the LDS Church were still participating in plural marriage and had no intention of abiding by the 1890 Manifesto.