Harry Hopkins

Harry Hopkins was Secretary of the Interior in the La Follette Administration. In 1942, he began a series of negotiations with Mormon insurrection and met face to face with Hyrum Rush. He offered status quo ante bellum if the Mormons laid down their arms. He further promised no treason trials or further persecutions. Rush felt this did not go far enough and requested a plebiscite on independence as was done in Kentucky, Houston and Sequoyah by Al Smith. The administration resisted making any further concessions and when Hopkins reported the negotiations to the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, a majority objected to the ones already made. Peace negotiations failed in the face of both Executive resistance and bipartisan opposition in the US Congress.