BY JAMES WILFORD GARNER, PH.D., ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF
POLITICAL SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

In January, 1903, a petition bearing the signatures of nine-
teen citizens of Utah was laid before the Senate, praying that
Reed Smoot, a Senator-elect from that State, ” be not permitted
to qualify by taking the oath of office or to sit as a member of the
United States Senate, for reasons affecting the honor and dignity
of the United States and their Senators in Congress.” The prayer
of the petitioners was not granted; Immediately after the seating of Senator
Smoot petitions praying for his expulsion began to pour in from
every quarter of the country; petitions containing not less than
one million signatures have been laid before the Senate, and there
is hardly a woman’s club or similar organization in the country
that has not joined in the prayer.

The protest from Utah was referred to the Committee on
Privileges and Elections, and in March, 1904, the Committee
entered upon an investigation of the charges contained therein.

It will be remembered that the Mormons, after their trouble
at Nauvoo, migrated in 1847 to the shores of Salt Lake, then
outside the jurisdiction of the United States. There, under the
teachings of Brigham Young… practiced polygamy, and
continued it without interference for the next ten or twelve years.

[Yielding to public pressure laws were enacted] and Congress directed
the confiscation of the property of the Mormon Church and its

application to charitable and educational uses, on the ground that
it was being used for the teaching of polygamous doctrines and
the encouragement of polygamous practices.

At this juncture, the President of the Church, Wilford

Woodruff, sought, as he claims, Divine guidance as to the course he
should pursue in view of the critical situation. He claims to have
received in answer to his prayer a revelation authorizing him to
suspend the Divine command enjoined upon his predecessor con-
cerning polygamy, and to advise his followers [issuing a manifesto)

to obey the law of the State… but, significantly, it has never been published
in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, although the old com-
mand to take plural wives is still retained therein as a part of the
Mormon creed.

The President of the Church and the apostles presented an amnesty petition
to the President of the United States, in which they styled them-
selves the ” shepherds of a patient and suffering /people “; declared
that their followers were scattered and their leaders imprisoned,
that they had abandoned their former belief in polygamy and were
themselves in sackcloth and ashes.

In view of the official abandonment by the Church of polygamy, with
assurances of its leaders that no further plural marriages would be
allowed, President Harrison, in June, 1893, issued a proclamation
granting a full pardon and amnesty to all those who were liable
to penalties by reason of unlawful cohabitation under the cover
of polygamous marriages, provided such cohabitation had not
taken place since the issue of the “manifesto.” In September,
1894, President Cleveland issued a proclamation expressing sat-
isfaction that the members of the Mormon Church were generally
abstaining from plural marriages and polygamous cohabitation,
and extended a full pardon to all who had complied with the
terms of the previous proclamation. In the same year, Congress
enacted that inasmuch as the Church has discontinued the prac-
tice of polygamy, so much of the personal property and money
belonging to the Church as was then in the hands of the receiver
appointed under the Confiscation Act of 1887 should be restored;
and, finally, in 1896 Utah was admitted to the Union upon the
express condition that polygamy should be prohibited in the State,
and this condition was embodied in article two of its constitution.

The investigation of the Senate Committee shows the situation
as regards Mormonism to be substantially as follows …

Of the fifteen members constituting the First Presi-
dency and the Apostolate, eight are living in polygamy, the num-
ber of their wives aggregating forty-five. Practically all of these
wives have been taken since the enactment of the anti-polygamy
laws, and several of them have been taken since the issue of the
“manifesto.” In October, 1905, two of the apostles who had
contracted polygamous marriages since the ” manifesto ” resigned
their offices on account of the popular pressure brought to bear
upon them. The other polygamist apostles who took plural wives
before 1890 apparently do not consider that their offences come
within the purview of the “manifesto,” notwitstanding Wood-
ruff’s express statement that it was designed to forbid polygamous
cohabitation as well as future polygamous marriages. The Presi-
dent of the Church, Joseph Smith, testified at great length, frank-
ly admitted that he was living in polygamy, said he knew it to
be in violation of the law of Utah and the law of the Church,
but that he regarded his obligations to his wives to be higher
than those which he owed the State, and that, if his country-
men saw fit to punish him, he was ready to take the consequences.
Thus the Mormon leaders are not observing, as the laws of the
Church require, the terms of the “manifesto,” nor living up to
the profession embodied in their petition for amnesty, nor ful-
filling the pledges and solemn assurances made to secure the ad-
mission of Utah to the Union. Instead of actively using their
powerful influence to secure the faithful observance of the law
by the body of members who look to them for advice and counsel,
the majority of them are, by example if not by precept, daily
encouraging the practice of polygamy.

The protest does not charge him [Senator Smoot] with polygamy
or criminal conduct. His chief offence is that, as an apostle of the
Mormon hierarchy, he has supported and sustained his brother
leaders in their violation of the law. Thus, he voted for the
election of Smith to the Presidency of the Church, and has regu-
larly sustained him twice a year ever since, with full knowledge
of his polygamous cohabitation. Again, he voted for the election
to the Apostolate of a polygamist whose wives have been taken
since the issue of the “manifesto.” As a trustee of Brigham
Young University, he has supported and sustained polygamist
presidents and professors of the institution.

Several other reasons [besides polygamy] have been advanced in
support of the demand for the exclusion of Senator Smoot. One
is that the oaths which he took as a member and as an apostle
of the Church render him unfit, morally and intellectually, for
discharging the duties of a Senator. All good Mormons are ex-
pected to go through the endowment house where marriages are
solemnized and obligations and covenants entered into, — which
are kept secret from the rest of the world. One of the alleged
oaths is a solemn vow to pray to Almighty God to avenge the
blood of Joseph Smith upon this nation, and to teach the same
to their children to the third and fourth generations. Most of
those who were called before the Committee testified that they
took no such vow of vengeance, others declared that they were
unable to remember the substance of their endowment oaths owing
to the length of the ceremony, which lasts eight hours. The only
witness who gave definite testimony on this point was a former
professor in the Brigham Young University, who had been forced
to resign his position on an alleged charge of drunkenness, and
who subsequently left the Church. He says he went through the
endowment ceremony twelve different times, at each of which he
took the oath of vengeance.

Among the charges against Mormonism in general is that the
Church interferes in politics, conducts business affairs on a large
scale, and makes use of the public schools to inculcate the doc-
trines of the Mormon religion.

Finally, the Mormon Church is indicted for conducting busi-
ness enterprises. In various communities of Utah, it owns and
operates the street railways, electric light and power plants, coal-
mines, salt-works, sugar-factories, mercantile establishments, drug-
stores, publishing-houses and theatres, and, it is charged, refuses
to permit competition on the part of non-Mormon enterprises.
An instance of such interference occurred in Brigham City,
where the church authorities dictated to the city council its

policy with regard to the lighting of the streets. Another in-
stance was cited in which the Church assumed the right to regu-
late places of amusement in the city, forbade the establishment of
a dancing-pavilion, but finally gave its consent upon the agree-
ment of the private company to pay the Church twenty-five per
cent, of the proceeds…

James Wilford Garner

This account is abridged. To read the full document, please find it here:

The Case of Senator Smoot and the Mormon Church

James Wilford Garner The North American Review,

Vol. 184, No. 606 (Jan. 4, 1907), pp. 46-58 (13 pages) https://www.jstor.org/stable/25105749