“Struggle and Fight,” chapter 9 of Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days, Volume 3, Boldly, Nobly, and Independent, 1893–1955 (2022)
Chapter 9: “Struggle and Fight”
Chapter 9
Struggle and Fight
When Joseph F. Smith returned from Europe in September 1906, Reed Smoot’s future as a United States senator was still uncertain. At the general conference five months earlier, Francis Lyman had publicly announced the resignations of apostles John W. Taylor and Matthias Cowley. Joseph Tanner was also released from his leadership positions.1
The resignations, along with the recent death of apostle Marriner Merrill, had left three vacancies in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, which were filled by George F. Richards, Orson F. Whitney, and David O. McKay.2
The announcement of the resignations seemed to have a positive effect on many of Reed’s colleagues in the Senate. “From all that I can hear,” Reed had reported to Church leaders, “the senators, generally, have taken the action of the last conference as an evidence of good faith on the part of the Church, and especially of President Joseph F. Smith.”3
That was not true of the members of the Senate committee assigned to the investigation, however, most of whom remained suspicious of the Church. After closing their investigation, they voted to recommend removing Reed from office.4
The full Senate finally considered the matter in February 1907, four years after Reed’s election first sparked an outcry. The committee had documented more than three thousand pages of testimony from upward of one hundred witnesses, hostile and friendly. As the senators reviewed this record, they also considered their personal interactions with Reed, who had gained the respect of many in Washington, DC. Theodore Roosevelt, the president of the United States, was his staunch supporter and strongly urged the Senate to vote in his favor. When the senators finally ruled on the matter, they voted to disregard the committee’s recommendation and permit Senator Smoot to retain his seat.5
Within a few days, Joseph F. Smith wrote to congratulate Reed and thank the senators for their fair-minded decision. He wished others could become better acquainted with the Saints. “If this could be done, the current misunderstanding and widespread misrepresentation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” he wrote, “would forever cease.”6
A few weeks later, President Smith opened the April 1907 general conference with more good news. “The tithes of the people during the year 1906 have surpassed the tithing of any other year,” he said. “Today The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints owes not a dollar that it cannot pay at once. At last we are in a position that we can pay as we go.”
He praised the Saints’ faithfulness and commented, “We do not have to borrow any more, and we won’t have to if the Latter-day Saints continue to live their religion and observe this law of tithing.”7
After his sermon, President Smith invited Orson F. Whitney to read a public statement the First Presidency and the Twelve had prepared about Latter-day Saint beliefs and values. The statement responded to many of the charges made against the Church and its members during the Smoot hearings. But it also provided the Saints with an official summary of basic gospel principles and practices. “Our religion is founded on the revelations of God,” the declaration affirmed. “The gospel we proclaim is the gospel of Christ, restored to earth.”
The statement characterized the Saints as an honest, open-minded, intelligent, and pious people. It also testified of their devotion to home and family, including monogamous marriage. “The typical ‘Mormon’ home is the temple of the family,” it stated. “The ‘Mormon’ people have bowed in respectful submission to the laws enacted against plural marriage.”
The declaration also explained the principles of individual agency, tithing, and priesthood leadership. And it attested to the Saints’ patriotism, allegiance to earthly governments, and commitment to the separation of church and state. “We desire to live in peace and confidence with our fellow citizens of all political parties and of all religions,” it proclaimed.
The restored gospel sought to uplift society, the declaration stated, not destroy it. “Our religion is interwoven with our lives, it has formed our character, and the truth of its principles is impressed upon our souls,” it read.8
After Elder Whitney finished reading the declaration, Francis Lyman voiced support for it on behalf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. At the invitation of President Smith, the congregation then voted unanimously to adopt and sustain its message.9
On April 16, 1908, Jane Manning James, one of the earliest Black Latter-day Saints, passed away in her Salt Lake City home. She had come to the Salt Lake Valley with her husband and children in September 1847 as part of the first company of Saints to follow Brigham Young’s advance company west.10 Since then, she had become a well-known presence in the city. She was proud of her eighteen grandchildren and her seven great-grandchildren. She and her brother Isaac went to Church meetings in the Salt Lake Tabernacle and often attended reunions of the Church’s “old folks” and pioneers.11
Her funeral was held in the Salt Lake City Eighth Ward meetinghouse. The chapel was crowded with Jane’s friends, both Black and white, who came to remember her life. The room was filled with flowers to honor Jane’s faith and goodness of heart.
Jane’s friend Elizabeth Roundy read a short autobiographical sketch that Jane dictated to her a few years earlier. Jane had been born free at a time when slavery was still legal and Black people throughout the world were often treated as social inferiors. Her autobiography told the story of her conversion in the eastern United States, her family’s nearly eight-hundred-mile walk to Nauvoo, and her experiences living with and working for the prophet Joseph Smith’s family. It also recounted how Emma Smith had twice invited Jane to be adopted into her and Joseph’s family.12
Near the end of her autobiography, Jane bore a fervent testimony. She had been widowed, had outlived all but two of her children and ten of her grandchildren, and was nearly blind by then, yet she affirmed, “The Lord protects me and takes good care of me in my helpless condition, and I want to say right here that my faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ as taught by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is as strong today, nay, it is, if possible, stronger than it was the day I was first baptized.”13
President Joseph F. Smith spoke at the funeral. Over the years, Jane had sometimes sought his help in receiving temple ordinances for herself and her deceased family members. She particularly longed to receive the endowment and be sealed to a family.14 But since the early 1850s, the Church had restricted Saints of African descent from holding the priesthood or receiving any temple ordinance except baptism for the dead. Explanations for the restriction varied, but they were speculative, not the word of God. Brigham Young had promised that all Saints, regardless of race, would one day receive all the ordinances and blessings of the gospel.15
Like other Black Saints, Jane had done baptisms for her kindred dead. She had also asked to be endowed and then be sealed by proxy to Walker Lewis, one of the few Black Saints to hold the priesthood before the restriction took effect. On later occasions, she asked to be sealed by adoption into the family of Joseph Smith. But each time she petitioned for an endowment or sealing, Joseph F. Smith or another Church leader had upheld the Church’s restriction.16
With the help of Relief Society general president Zina Young, however, Jane had received permission from Church leaders to be joined for eternity with Joseph Smith’s family. In response to her request, they had prepared a vicarious ceremony that joined Jane to the family as a servitor. Zina Young had acted as Jane’s proxy in the ceremony while Joseph F. Smith stood in for the prophet Joseph Smith.17
Although she felt dissatisfied with the ceremony, Jane had continued faithful. “I pay my tithes and offerings, keep the Word of Wisdom,” she said. “I go to bed early and rise early. I try in my feeble way to set a good example to all.”18
In 1902, Jane asked Patriarch John Smith, Joseph F. Smith’s older brother, when she would be allowed to receive her endowment. “Be patient and wait a little longer,” he had said, assuring her that the Lord had His eye on her. He promised that the Lord “would be far better to her than ever she had dreamed.” To the end of her life, she retained a hope that she might one day receive all temple blessings.19
Following the funeral, Jane was buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery. “Few persons were more noted for faith and faithfulness than was Jane Manning James,” the Deseret News eulogized. “Though of the humble of the earth, she numbered friends and acquaintances by the hundreds.”20
In July 1909, the Salt Lake Tribune began publishing lists of men who had allegedly entered into new plural marriages since the Manifesto. The lists alarmed the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Joseph F. Smith immediately appointed apostles Francis Lyman, John Henry Smith, and Heber J. Grant to investigate the matter and discipline Saints who had violated the Church’s policy on plural marriage since the Second Manifesto.21
The investigation lasted more than a year and resulted in the excommunication of two men who had recently entered into or performed new plural marriages. The First Presidency also sent a letter to all stake presidencies, directing them to instruct bishops to discipline violators of the Second Manifesto. “We hold that anyone violating this important rule and action not only commits an individual transgression but dishonors the Church as well,” they wrote.22
Around this time, Pearson’s, a popular magazine in the United States, published a series of articles criticizing the Church. Drawing on the Salt Lake Tribune’s lists of new plural marriages, the articles accused the Church of dishonesty and corruption. Joseph F. Smith also learned that another popular magazine, Everybody’s, planned to run a similar series written by Frank Cannon, son of George Q. Cannon.23
Frank was a former senator from Utah and had once been an adviser to the First Presidency. But his hard drinking, extramarital affairs, and other wrongdoing had driven a wedge between him and Church leaders. After the death of his father, he became a bitter critic of the Church and Joseph F. Smith, and his former standing among the Saints gave his words the appearance of credibility.24
When they learned about Frank’s plans, Joseph F. Smith and Anthon Lund wrote immediately to the editor of Everybody’s, warning him that Frank’s writings were false and unworthy of attention. But magazine editors at the time were often eager to print scandalous stories and exposés, and the editor promptly began publishing Frank’s articles. Soon, subscriptions to the magazine poured in from across the country.25
Frank was not the first former Latter-day Saint to attack the Church publicly. Ezra Booth, John C. Bennett, T. B. H. and Fanny Stenhouse, and William Jarman had all tried to damage the Church with their writing. Still, the popularity of Frank’s series was disheartening.
Once again, the Church was facing a crisis of public opinion.26
A handful of Latter-day Saint students and missionaries from the Swiss-German Mission cheered as Emma Lucy Gates appeared for her second curtain call at Berlin’s Royal Opera House. Since first coming to Germany with John and Leah Widtsoe a decade earlier, Lucy had become a rising star in European opera, and it was her first time singing in the famous hall. She did not disappoint her audience.
From the stage, Lucy could feel the faith and support of her fellow Saints, who were tucked away in the top gallery. They called her their “Utah Nightingale.” Many of them had been praying for her success that night, and some of them had fasted for her.27
The newspapers praised her performance. “The training in her voice leaves nothing to be desired,” one reviewer wrote, “and the fine, clear-cut technique showed the real musical art.”28
While some reviews noted Lucy’s imperfect German, none mentioned her home state or religion. Opposition to the Church was still on the rise in Germany and other parts of Europe, so Lucy had kept her membership secret from the Royal Opera House. Most German Saints were harassed in their communities, and missionaries were frequent targets of fines, banishments, arrests, and imprisonments.29
Lucy’s voice teacher, Madame Blanche Corelli, had urged her to conceal her religion for the sake of her career. Writing home, Lucy told her mother, Susa Gates, that she reluctantly identified as a Protestant at the Royal Opera House. Lucy did not want to hide her faith, but she would not allow someone’s prejudice to define her future.30
Susa supported her choice, noting that she had spoken to President Smith about it, and he believed it was all right for her to keep her religion private. Her father, Jacob Gates, also gave his support. “You are doing it for a good purpose,” he wrote, “and not because you are ashamed of what you know to be true.”31
In the summer of 1910, German opposition to the Church worsened, leaving Lucy afraid to worship publicly with the Saints in Berlin. Police in the city had recently arrested twenty-one Latter-day Saint missionaries, tourists, and students. When officials released them from jail eighteen hours later, the prisoners were banished from the city as “undesirable foreigners.” Only a few students were permitted to remain, provided they did not attend church or preach the gospel.32
In September, after missing three weeks of church meetings, Lucy longed to worship with other Saints and partake of the sacrament. She suggested holding small sacrament meetings for the American Saints in Berlin, as she had done with Leah and John in Göttingen. Since all religious meetings had to be officially registered in the city, though, the small group met in secret.
At their meetings, the American Saints partook of the sacrament, sang hymns, and bore testimony. Lucy had brought several Church books with her to Berlin, including the scriptures. So at their second meeting, they studied the Doctrine and Covenants and spent an hour discussing the doctrine of resurrection.
“Now please do not publish this around,” Lucy cautioned her mother in a letter describing the meetings. The German government monitored the news coming out of Salt Lake City. If an article about their secret meetings appeared in a Utah newspaper and the Berlin police took notice of it, Lucy and her friends would be in serious danger.
“We can be put in jail,” she wrote. “So please, all be careful that read this.”33
In January and February 1911, McClure’s magazine in New York City published a two-part article on post-Manifesto plural marriage under the title “The Mormon Revival of Polygamy.” With the appearance of these articles, three of the most widely circulated magazines in the United States were now publishing attacks on the Church. The articles had an audience of millions.34
The McClure’s article estimated that between 1,500 and 2,000 plural marriages had taken place in the twenty-one years since the Manifesto. The number was actually about 260, but that did not slow the author down. “There seems no immediate likelihood that the practice will die out,” he opined. In fact, he believed there were enough young people entering new plural marriages to keep the practice thriving for at least another fifty years.35
The article caught the eye of New York City journalist Ike Russell, who had grown up in the Church in Utah. He was a grandson of apostle Parley P. Pratt, and his wife’s uncle was the mission president in New York City. Ike had left the faith as a teenager, but he followed news from Utah and had an affection for the Saints.36
Ike was irritated that so much in the McClure’s article was untrue or misleading. One page had pictures of seven apostles who had married plural wives after the Manifesto. Its caption read, “The Church has not excommunicated one of them for violating the revelation.” In fact, five of the men had already passed away, and the other two were John W. Taylor and Matthias Cowley, who were no longer in the quorum. The article also failed to mention that all but one of the apostles pictured had since been replaced by monogamists.37
Ike wrote to the editor of McClure’s about the many errors in the article. He also wrote letters to other magazines, but the editors largely ignored him.38
He then felt prompted to try something else. One of the articles in Pearson’s claimed that former U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt had made a deal with Church leaders to secure votes during a recent election. If Ike could get Roosevelt to deny the claim in a letter, he could use it to discredit the article.
Ike sat down and began typing. “I am writing in the hope that you will be so good as to assist me in an effort I am making to have the record made more straight.”39
Meanwhile, in England, apostle and European Mission president Rudger Clawson learned that the British government was launching an investigation into Latter-day Saint missionary work. Aware of the German efforts to banish missionaries from their cities, some lawmakers wondered if Britons should do the same. Although a few British journalists argued for religious tolerance of the Saints, many people in the United Kingdom continued to see missionaries as representatives of a foreign church who taught strange ideas and lured British women into plural marriage.40
Critics of the Church fed these fears, eroding the good work Latter-day Saint women had done as missionaries to correct misconceptions. Following the example of William Jarman, who was still giving occasional lectures, another former Latter-day Saint from the United States was touring the country with a withering account of his experiences in the Church. Other critics were publishing antagonistic literature and leading opposition against the Saints.41
In early 1911, Rudger wrote to British Home Secretary Winston Churchill, promising to cooperate with the government. “In case of any investigation,” he noted, “we stand ready and willing to render you whatever assistance we can.” Churchill began an inquiry into the Church and its missionary work soon after. “I am treating it in a serious spirit,” he told Parliament.42
Opposition to the Church in Britain remained steady into the spring. One Sunday in April, a group called the Liverpool Anti-Mormon Crusade started a riot in the town of Birkenhead, where around thirty Saints were meeting in a hall. Spurred on by a crowd, some of the rioters rushed a group of police gathered outside the hall. Others threw stones at its windows.
As the violence escalated, the officers tried arresting those causing trouble, but the rioters fought back. Some in the mob gave the missionaries a letter demanding that they leave Birkenhead within seven days.
“I will give no heed to it,” said Richard Young, the presiding missionary at the conference.
“You are willing to take the consequences?” one of the mob asked.
“Yes,” he said.43
Local newspapers published stories about the riot and the mob’s ultimatum, and many people were eager to see what would happen next. Rudger worried that the missionaries would be physically harmed if they remained in the town. But after counseling with Richard and the other missionaries, he agreed they should stay. If the elders abandoned Birkenhead, what would stop mobs from trying to force missionaries out of other towns and villages?44
Rudger designated the following Sunday as a day of prayer and fasting for the missionaries. When the day arrived, the elders in Birkenhead gathered for their first public meeting since the riot. The police came and formed a line in front of the hall. A crowd of around five thousand people soon assembled, and members of the mob paraded past the police with a brass band. The crowd cheered the mob, but no violence broke out.
The elders’ defiance of the mob impressed some observers. “It seemed to change the tone of newspaper articles concerning us,” Rudger reported to the First Presidency. “For the time being at least, the air seems to be cleared of the spirit of abuse and malice towards the Latter-day Saints.”45
During this time, Winston Churchill continued his investigation into the Church. Across the country, police questioned the families of young women who had joined the Church and emigrated to Utah, and government representatives attended worship services. No one found evidence that the Church or its missionaries were causing harm. Satisfied, Churchill concluded that there was no reason to expel missionaries, and he recommended no legal action against the Saints.46
In Utah, Joseph F. Smith received a copy of a long letter Theodore Roosevelt had written to Ike Russell, refuting claims that he had struck a deal with the Saints to get Utah’s vote. “The accusation is not merely false,” Roosevelt informed Ike, “but so ludicrous that it is difficult to discuss it seriously.”47
Joseph knew Ike wanted to publish the letter in Collier’s, a magazine with a circulation of about one million readers. Reed Smoot also urged Joseph to do something about the attacks. “Without action,” Reed warned, “I doubt whether we can escape an investigation.” But so far Joseph had done little to respond to the magazine articles.48
Then, in early April 1911, he telegrammed Reed to ask if any eastern newspaper would publish an official response from the Church. Reed contacted the newspapers immediately, but he received no promises. Ike, meanwhile, arranged for Theodore Roosevelt’s letter to appear in Collier’s. Pleased, Joseph had the letter and the Church’s response to the magazine articles published as pamphlets and distributed to prominent citizens throughout the United States and Great Britain.49
Still, new magazine articles about the Church continued to appear. In March, a fourth magazine, Cosmopolitan, had launched a series of three articles comparing the Church to a viper that was poised to strike at hearth and home. Like the other magazines, it claimed the Church still promoted plural marriage.50
Around this time, Francis Lyman heard reports that John W. Taylor and Matthias Cowley had recently married new plural wives and performed more plural marriages. He and his committee met with both men individually. John W. was headstrong at his meetings. He had indeed married another plural wife in 1909, yet he refused to admit or deny the fact.51 For his part, Matthias acknowledged he had done wrong. In the end, the Twelve excommunicated John W. and forbade Matthias from using priesthood authority.52
After the former apostles were disciplined, Joseph F. Smith traveled to Washington, DC. While there, he met with a reporter at the home of Reed and Allie Smoot. The reporter asked about politics, Church finances, and other issues normally raised in negative articles about the Church. But most of his questions were about plural marriage. Joseph responded frankly to his questions, eager to correct the misinformation circulating through the magazines.
“Polygamy among the Mormons is now absolutely frowned upon and forbidden by the Church,” Joseph declared.
“How could it be shown that polygamy now is absolutely forbidden by the Mormon church?” asked the reporter.
“The best evidence that we seriously and conscientiously are fighting polygamy,” Joseph replied, “is shown by the fact that Mr. Taylor, formerly an apostle of the Church and a member of the governing council, has been excommunicated.”53
The interview appeared in the newspaper a few days later, and it was soon followed by other favorable articles about the Saints. “I hear nothing but good reports from your visit here,” Reed told Joseph. “I believe it has done an immense amount of good.”54
The magazines soon lost interest in publishing critical articles about the Church. Later that summer, Joseph wrote to Ike Russell, reflecting on the recent uproar. “We believe that public opinion will change,” he observed. “We have had to struggle and fight our way through from the beginning, and we expect nothing else but opposition of one kind and another until victory shall be won.”55