background initially, hoping that ex-Mormon Godbeites would prove more effective leaders and candidates. Godbeites believed they should reform Utah and the LDS Church to adopt more politically-progressive policies, but the non-Mormon element of the party took a more adversarial line. Non-Mormon partisans, especially miners and railroad workers, would increasingly dominate party leadership. Through the 1870s, the Liberal Party grew less appeasing of Godbeites and more openly anti-Mormon and anti-polygamy. Waning Godbeite influence was shown even by 1871, when Liberals Dennis Toohy and George R. Maxwell infuriated Godbeites at a party meeting by calling polygamists "dupes" and criminals of perverse sensuality. Like many political parties of the time, the Liberal Party ran a newspaper although unofficially. Godbe's Utah Magazine became the Mormon Weekly Tribune and in 1873, three anti-Mormon newcomers from Kansas bought it and it became The Salt Lake Tribune. Until the Liberal Party disbanded in 1893, the Tribune would operate as the Liberal Party's de facto political organ. Similarly, the Deseret Evening News, owned by the LDS Church, often functioned as a People's Party organ. History Unsurprisingly, the Liberal Party performed poorly against the Mormon majority. In the 1870 Salt Lake City mayoral race, Liberal Henry W. Lawrence lost to Daniel H. Wells 321 to 2301. Statewide contests produced even more lopsided figures, with Liberals regularly failing to garner 10% of the vote. Although Liberals never won a single statewide office, the party served as a political foil and won several local elections, including: The so-called Tooele Republic in 1874 Ogden, Utah in 1889 Salt Lake City, Utah in 1890 When the party first formed in 1870, party officials tried to win offices in the town of Corrine and reasoned that they could more readily overwhelm the small local population. They failed but continued to scout other promising areas. In Tooele County, perhaps the only non-Mormon majority in the territory existed. Its residents, mostly transitory miners, congregated in Utah after US Army General Patrick Edward Connor encouraged his men to prospect for minerals, which they discovered west of Salt Lake City in 1864. The Liberal Party, campaigning voraciously in mining towns, won a disputed election in August 1874. The People's Party incumbents, citing fraud, refused to yield their positions even as US Marshals authorized by the 3rd District federal court attempted to intervene and install the Liberal candidates. Brigham Young advised his followers to abide by the federal court,