Between 1901 and 1907, a broad coalition of Protestant churches sought to expel newly elected Reed Smoot from the Senate, arguing that as a Latter-day Saint apostle he was a lawbreaker and therefore unfit to be a lawmaker. The resulting Senate hearing featured testimony by 100 witnesses on every peculiarity of Mormonism, especially its polygamous family structure, temples, open canon, economic power, and theocratic politics. As Kathleen Flake demonstrates, this landmark hearing provided the occasion for the country - formally through its elected representatives and more immediately through the daily press, citizen petitions, and social reform activism - to reconsider the scope of religious free exercise in the new century.