The Mormon Church on Trial

Internet Bookwatch, May, 2008

The Mormon Church on Trial

Michael Harold Paulos, editor

Signature Books

564 West 400 North, Salt Lake City, UT 84116-3411

9781560851523, $49.95 www.signaturebooks.com 1-800-356-5687

Originally published along with other government business in four volumes spanning over three thousand pages, The Mormon Church on Trial: Transcripts of the Reed Smoot Hearings is an abridged, annotated, one-volume collection designed to make the Reed Smoot hearings (1904-06) accessible to readers of all backgrounds. The Reed Smoot hearings were, of course, a turning point in this history of the Latter-Day Saints Church (commonly called the Mormon Church). Reed Smoot was the first Mormon to be elected to the U.S. Senate; his election proved that Mormons could be enticed to abandon the Democratic Party and vote for the (widely hated) Republicans. Smoot himself was a modernist, seeking to bring his faith into the American mainstream with more emphasis on business and less on theology. In turn-of-the-century Utah, he was also unusual in that he was a monogamist. The Senate committee hearings were held to block Senator-elect Smoot from his position--hearings that were to unearth many a skeleton in the closets of Utah politics and the Mormon Church. Among the many ecclesiastical leaders subpoenaed to testify were Joseph F. Smith, then president and prophet of the Mormon Church. Perhaps the most far-reaching fallout of the hearings was the renewed pressure on the Church to abandon polygamy, and take action against any of its members who entered into a new polygamous marriage regardless of their rank. An excellent primary source of American history, made thoroughly readable due to the extensive annotations (including even a few political cartoons of the era), enthusiastically recommended for public and college libraries.