Nineteenth century Mormon apostle Moses Thatcher (above) is buried in the Logan City Cemetery. His death in 1909 at age 67 was national news. The prominent businessman, polygamist and politician never lost his fame, but he was famously smacked in a very public battle he waged with the LDS Church’s hierarchy in the mid 1890s.
In the Spring 1998 issue of Journal of Mormon History, Cache County LDS historian Kenneth W. Godfrey has a fascinating 35-page account of Thatcher’s battle with the LDS Church and his expulsion from the Quorum of the 12 Apostles. Intermixed in the drama is the war of words that was waged between the two competing newspapers in Utah; the anti-Mormon Salt Lake Tribune, which championed Thatcher, and the church’s Deseret News, which criticized him.
However, Moses Thatcher was no apostate, even if he did come within a hair of being excommunicated from the LDS Church for failure to sustain a “Political Manifesto” from church leaders. The manifesto required church leaders to seek ecclesiastical OK prior to accepting an outside calling or seeking political office. Thatcher was a Democrat, which put him in conflict with many church leaders.
For a very long time, Thatcher, in a very public manner, refused to sustain the manifesto. His argument was that he feared average church leaders would be prohibited from political activism, which he considered, correctly if interpreted it as such, as church dictating to state.
Thatcher wasn’t alone in his initial concerns. For a while fellow church leader B. H. Roberts supported him. Eventually, however, Thatcher became the solo nay vote on this among church leaders, and gradually he became a constant subject of criticism from President Wilfred Woodruff and others. However, church leaders, mindful of Thatcher’s status as an apostle, were quite patient with him, giving him lots of time to recuperate from a chronic bowel illness, and lots of time to reconsider his position. They tried, to no avail, to convince Thatcher that the manifesto would not restrict speech.
On Thursday, Nov. 19, 1896, Thatcher missed his last opportunity to meet with the church hierarchy and explain his position. At the meeting, he was dropped from the quorum and relieved of all priesthood responsibilities. The Salt Lake Tribune featured the news with a huge headline, “Deposed.” The Deseret News editorialized, “The leaven has been working for a long, long time and for well nigh half a score years this same result might have been feared,” records Godfrey.
After being dropped, recounts Godfrey, a still defiant Thatcher almost was elected — by the Democratic-controlled Utah State Senate — to the U.S. Senate. He was a frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, but was nosed out by Democrat Joseph L. Rawlins.
What killed Thatcher’s campaign was B.H. Roberts’ publicly opposing his candidacy. It was a clear indicator to the Cache County leader that losing the church approbation had secular consequences.
In August of 1897, Thatcher faced a church court that would determine whether he would remain a member of the LDS Church. At that time, Thatcher suddenly capitulated and recanted his previous opposition and criticisms. In fact, he admitted guilt to eight specific offenses and admitted “that he has obtained light wherein he was in the dark …”
Godfrey offers various ideas for what might have changed Thatcher’s ideas. One is that after the heat of the campaign, he could “reflect deeply and broadly” about the past events. Another was that the ostracism of the past 18 months since being dropped from the quorum was a reality he had a tough time dealing with.
The reason that seems most likely is that Thatcher was no longer ill. In the years prior and time of his dispute with the LDS Church leaders, Thatcher had suffered intensely from his bowel troubles. He had been addicted to morphine and treated for the pain as well as the tension associated with such, it’s very possible Thatcher was not thinking clearly.
There’s no doubt that church leaders were relieved that a prominent fellow member was back in the fold. As Godfrey puts it, “In short, when faced with being severed completely from Mormonism, a movement for which he had sacrificed so much, Thatcher finally chose church over state.”
For the rest of his life, Thatcher, who remained wealthy, was a partisan Democrat, In 1900, at Brigham Young College, he lectured in favor of socialism, recounts Godfrey.
-- Doug Gibson
-- Originally published at StandardBlogs
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