Frank J. Cannon, son
of the LDS leader, George Q. Cannon, Mormonism’s most famous apostate, led the
Salt Lake Tribune’s editorial assault on the LDS Church, Sen. Reed Smoot, and
particularly President Joseph F. Smith from the years 1904 to 1907.
Historians Michael
Harold Paulos and Kenneth L. Cannon II have done a great job preserving
Cannon’s contributions. Even those Latter-day Saints who agree with his most
fervent critics should acknowledge FJC’s many contributions to LDS history.
He was more than a
writer and editor. FJC was a paradox: An educated, accomplished advocate and
diplomat, editor and founder at the Ogden Standard, missionary to the Sandwich
Islands, LDS Church authorities utilized his many talents to negotiate statehood
for Utah. Later, FJC served as the Utah territory’s U.S. senator.
However, FJC also was
a man of many personal weaknesses. His vices included drinking and patronizing
brothels. These weaknesses in following LDS Church laws were tolerated, or at
least partially forgiven, while his dad, George Q. Cannon lived. But after his
father died, FJC saw his influence within the church’s hierarchy wane quickly.
The result was an antipathy toward his longtime faith’s leaders that would last
the rest of his life. In fact, his anger, while always eloquent, would
sometimes be so over the top as to backfire and generate sympathy for his
targets.
FJC’s editorials
during the Smoot hearings, between 1904 and 1907, are masterful polemics,
designed to amuse, humiliate, sneer, attack, moralize and infuriate LDS Church
supporters. One who was very often infuriated was then-LDS Prophet Joseph F.
Smith, who not surprisingly, seethed at the savage pen of FJC, which accused
the LDS leader of being a traitor to the United States, a traitor to the
original LDS Church, a dictator in Utah, and an unrepentant polygamist. In
public, Smith mostly avoided mentioning FJC. In private, he called him many
names, including a “son of Perdition,” which is an LDS term for those consigned
to hell.
Besides attacking
Senator Smoot, FJC also enjoyed taunting Deseret News editor — and LDS apostle
— Charles W. Penrose, as a toady for the LDS Church. An example: “Probably the
only person in Utah who doesn’t know the Mormon Church is in politics up to its
very eyebrows, is Apostle [Charles W.] Penrose, of the Deseret News. The Church
has to keep things secret from Penrose. He is a new apostle, and, like
President Smith blats out everything he knows. … Penrose ought to wash windows.
He takes to soapsuds.”
But FJC saved his
harshest criticism for the prophet. He mocked the LDS leader’s claim on Capitol
Hill that he had never received revelation and later called him “God’s
Appointed Liar” after Smith justified his testimony to many perplexed
Latter-day Saints as a way to avoid being trapped by hostile questioners. For
example, FJC editorialized: “Gentiles and Mormons, you are front to front with
the proposition. Either you must accept Joseph F. Smith as the prophet of God,
ordained to speak falsehoods or truth at his pleasure, ratified by God as a
liar or a truth teller to meet the prophet’s needs; or, you must consider him a
false, deceiving, lying, hypocritical old man, who clings to his power with
selfish hands, and who fain would live out the balance of his life with his
five wives …”
Why FJC hated Joseph
F. Smith so fiercely is still debated by historians. FJC’s father, George Q.
Cannon, whom Frank loved, had a long in-depth business relationship with the
prophet. Historians opine that JC may have blamed President Smith for cutting
him off from the church’s hierarchy after his dad’s death.
I favor the theory
that FJC blamed President Smith for the death of his brother, apostle Abraham
H. Cannon, who died in the mid-1890s shortly after marrying another wife, years
after polygamy was abolished. In FJC’s opinion, stress from the secret marriage
harmed his brother’s health.
Cannon was
excommunicated by the LDS Church long before the Smoot hearings concluded. His
barbed editorials continued until Smoot was eventually cleared by the U.S.
Senate. Soon afterwards, Cannon left Salt Lake City and worked at the Post and
the Rocky Mountain News.
His sabbatical as an
anti-Mormon crusader would resume soon, and “Round 2″ would continue for a
generation, both as author of a best-selling “expose” on Mormonism and his longstanding gig at chautauquas, a series
of lectures, dances, debates, plays and music offerings then popular across the
country that Paulos and Cannon describe as the forefront to modern adult
education. At one chautauqua event where Cannon lectured, he was confronted by
a group of outraged LDS priesthood holders. (To read more about FJC's editorials, read this Journal of Mormon History article by Paulos).
-- Doug Gibson
This essay was originally published at StandardBlogs.
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