Interview: Michael Quinn Michael Quinn has a PhD. in American History from Yale University. He is the author of many books on the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church) and the West. In Joe Hill he speaks of the social influences at work in Utah at the time of Hill's trial. Following is a full transcript of producer Ken Verdoia's interview with Quinn: Q: Let's begin with an assumption that admission to the Union can be viewed as ending the internal domestic strife that had plagued Utah throughout the 1870s, 1880s. Was the period 1896 to 1916 a quiet, bucolic era? A: Well, both the national government and local Utah government and local leaders of churches, protestant churches and the Mormon church, they wanted it to be a quiet era of good feelings. Everyone really made the effort to make it that way. But the problem was that a single document and a single announcement of the end of polygamy announced in September 1890, could not really make the sea change of attitude for all people that was necessary. And the old ways kept emerging, because the old time religion for Mormons was the only religion. And even though the Manifesto ended the most revolutionary sticking point between Mormons of Utah and the general population, still the appeal continued. And so there were Mormons who had entered into polygamy before 1890 who continued living with their pleural wives, continued fathering children, and in fact the church leaders quietly encouraged that. There were new plural marriages, that when those things became known, the old hysteria of the majority population re-emerged. And then there was the issue of church state. Which had always been a thorny problem because the Mormon experience was always legal. It was legal for church leaders to dominate the political process. Anytime there was an issue that concerned the church leadership in a direct way, they became involved. But they had to become involved more quietly after 1890 in order to not jeopardize statehood. And this developed a pattern of behind the scenes control of politics and more and more these two factors. The re-emergence of a kind of theocracy, and the re-emergence of living patterns of polygamist families, created a new kinds of strains because now it was a state, it was not under direct federal control, and those strains ended up in the halls of congress, when prominent leaders of the LDS church came to office. Q: It seems the concern that would exist is that for many people in the nation, the issue of plural marriage was really an issue of loyalty to the nation. Is that accurate? A: That's very accurate. Because the decision of the United States Supreme Court, the original decision against polygamy being a protected religious practice, essentially defined it first as un-American and second as un-Christian. And the cultural context was a part of every political campaign, judicial decision against the peculiar character of Mormon society, and so this whole question of Mormons became: "Are they Americans? Are they, are they really loyal?" It was a crucial question that was fought in the verbal battles and the legislative battles of the nineteenth century and after 1896, when Utah's now a state, the real question is: "Can Utah be loyal?" And so it was a state issue, and the question of Americanism was a very real one. And although there was not an overt connection between similar kinds of questions being asked about immigrants, it's all a part of that same culture of people not fitting in to what's perceived as good Americanism. Q: The Woodruff manifesto and statehood did not ease those national concerns about the peculiar institution of plural marriage as you've said. How did these concerns then manifest themselves back in the halls of Congress? A: Well, there were two dramatic cases and both were political. And this is the important thing to understand is that these were political decisions and political processes, and yet they were totally filled with religious questions. And religious overtones. But the first occurred in 1898 when a general authority of the Mormon Church, Brigham H. Roberts was elected by the people of Utah to the U.S. House of Representatives. He was a polygamist. And during his effort to actually be seated in the U.S. House of Representatives, one of his plural wives gave birth to a child. And so the issue of his polygamy was immediate for the nation. And it was a hysterical issue because the people of the nation lead particularly by the religious leaders, but not exclusively. They had the view that if the Congress admitted B.H. Roberts as a polygamist, this would be the end of marriage in the United States. And those were the terms in which the battle was defined. And so there was a petition assembled as a single petition that had eight million signatures on it, which protested against the seating of B.H. Roberts and put it in end of the world kind of terms. That if the United States government gave this opening to polygamy, it would spell the death of monogamy in the United States. So that case resulted two years later in a decision by the U.S. House of Representatives to exclude B.H. Roberts. And that term is significant because they never admitted him to membership. They excluded him from membership. He was legally elected but he was never legally seated. Now that issue is barely resolved when in 1903, an apostle, a member of the Mormon Church governing body next to the highest, a member of the quorum of the twelve apostles became a candidate for the U.S. Senate. Now, the leadership of the church approved this campaign and the leadership felt that Reed Smoot, the apostle, was different from Roberts. First of all, he was not a polygamist, he was a monogamist, and second of all, he was a Republican. Which was the party in control in Washington. And so the church leadership felt that this would basically be a painless kind of decision, and it would give prestige to the church and prestige to Utah as well to have Reed Smoot serve as a Senator. They did not perceive that the selection one of the highest leaders of the LDS church would again create these tremendous suspicions about what it means to be Mormon, what it means to be American and the suspicions about church-state control. Now, when this case began, the U.S. Senate, although it was faced with a similar kind of opposition by religious leaders not to admit Reed Smoot, the senate made a very crucial decision. And that was, they admitted Reed Smoot on the face of the fact that he said he was a monogamist and that he had been legally elected by the people of Utah, although at this time, that election was not by the people individually, but by the state legislature. So he's now a U.S. senator, but then the Senate begins an investigation about whether he should retain his position, and that dragged on for three years, from 1904 in March until the spring of 1907. The testimony filled four volumes of published documents by the U.S. government adding up to a about three thousand five hundred pages of verbatim testimony about the investigation. Q: In essence, is the LDS Church itself on trial in the Senate? A: And that very quickly became the direction of the Reed Smoot case. Reed Smoot almost disappears from the attention of those who are conducting the investigation. He personally was entitled to the office, he personally was a respectable person and he was a monogamist. And each of his opponents admitted all three of those issues. But the question was the affiliation that he had with the LDS church. And it was a question of, "Can a Mormon be loyal?" "And especially can a member, a leader of the LDS church be loyal?" And those were the issues that were debated. And because affiliation with the LDS church, what became the central question, the Mormon church became the central target of this investigation. Q: The Mormon church clearly is drawn to make a definitive statement about what they stand for. A: Church leadership made two statements during this period that were official. One at the beginning of the Reed Smoot case and one at the end of it. The statement at the beginning of it is the so-called second Manifesto. And in that the president of the church, Joseph F. Smith, said that if there were plural marriages, which he denied after the manifesto, that they were unauthorized. And he said future persons who advise or perform or enter into plural marriages are going to be subject to excommunication from the church. So that established a very clear position, and behind the scenes, the second manifesto had an effect the first manifesto did not. And that is that it ended official plural marriage everywhere in the world. And so that was a position that eventually had an enormous importance. And the church leadership also made a statement at the end of the case, when the U.S. Senate in 1907 decided that it did not have enough votes to reject Reed Smoot. Again it was political, it was a very political case. The church had various friends in the U.S. Senate, and had been urging them to develop a kind of strategy of compromise. And what happened was that normally a simple majority was necessary to exclude somebody or to vote somebody out of office. And in a procedural decision, the non-Mormon allies of the church put through a bill that amended the process and required a two-thirds majority. And rejecting Smoot failed, just a few votes short of a two-thirds majority voting against Reed Smoot. And so he kept his position. But just by the skin of his teeth. After that decision, the church leadership issued a statement which addressed each of the major issues that had been raised during that three year investigation. First was polygamy and the presidency in this 1907 statement said polygamy is prohibited everywhere throughout the world. Then it dealt with the question of church and state and said there is no theocracy. And that everyone is free to participate as they choose in the political process. The next major question to that was loyalty. Can you be a loyal Mormon and also be a loyal member of the United States? Can you be a loyal American? And the statement by the first presidency emphatically stated, yes, we are loyal. And they pointed to the participation of Mormons in volunteering during the war between the United States and Spain in 1898. There was a tremendous outpouring of volunteerism, because there was no draft in that war, so all those who participated, participated as volunteers. And so the message of that first presidency statement was, yes, we're loyal, we have laid down our lives and have encouraged Mormons to volunteer in service of government in time of war. And there had been a claim during the Smoot case that the d-- endowment ceremony which is secret, and not to be discussed by those who receive it, there was a claim that that endowment ceremony contained an oath which was treasonous against the United States. And emphatically the leadership of the church in 1907 said that that oath does not exist, it has never existed in the endowment ceremony. The next major question after the question of loyalty was the question of business control which had also been raised by the Smoot investigation. And the answer by the first presidency was that leaders of the LDS church have the same right to enter into business enterprise as anyone else. And that there are church owned businesses, but that they com- they compete in the free market with those who are in some cases competitors owned by loyal Mormons who are in head-to-head competition with one of the church owned enterprises. And so the leadership of the church said, yes, there are church businesses, yes, the leadership is involved in enterprise of a business nature, but this is a part of the free market. And consumers are free to patronize or not to patronize. And some Mormons who are loyal choose to compete with the church businesses by establishing competing businesses. And loyal Mormons choose to patronize some of these businesses that are in competition. So the effect of the statement in 1907 was to say, "Of course we're loyal, on all of these issues that have been raised as objections to Reed Smoot, and have been raised as objections to the LDS church. They don't have validity." And interestingly enough, it was a statement to the world. It wasn't stated to the United States of America. And they basically were looking to the world membership, not just to the United States membership. Continue                 About the Program || Joe Hill Home || PBS Home