When Socialism was popular with Mormons and Utah

Mormons, as well as the state of Utah, have been identified as conservative/Republican for so long that it may surprise many to know that 100 years ago more than a few Mormons in Utah were card-carrying socialists, rallying against the evils of capitalism.

No, socialists were never the majority in Utah, nor were most socialists in Utah LDS, but in the years between 1900 and 1920, the Socialist Party in Utah enjoyed some triumphs.

In the early 20th century, about 40 percent of the members of the Utah Socialist Party were LDS. There were many thousands of socialists in Utah, which was only one of 18 states that had socialists in its state legislature. In fact, there were nine socialist publications in Utah, with the largest, The Intermountain Worker, boasting a circulation of 5,000.

If you can find the spring, 1985 edition of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, John R. Sillito (of Weber State University) and John S. McCormick (of the Utah State Historical Society), provide the interesting information on the rise and fall of the Utah and LDS socialists. Utah socialists controlled the entire administrations in Bingham, Murray and twice in Eureka. The demographics of Utah’s socialists mirrored the national party at that time. The Socialist Party peaked in 1912, with presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs getting close to 1 million votes.

Eureka, a mining town, was the center of socialist success. According to Sillito and McCormick, They write, “In 1907, the voters of Eureka elected Wilford Woodruff Freckleton to the city council as a socialist. Halfway through his term. Mormon Church authorities called him on a mission to England. Upon his return two years later, he resumed his involvement in the Socialist Party and in 1917 was again elected to the city council on the socialist ticket.

A.L. Porter, a Mormon and prominent Springville socialist, wrote this declaration of beliefs that was unearthed Springville High School gymnasium, dedicated in 1931 (Porter was the janitor): “Our political faith is Socialism, our religious faith is (Mormon) the Latter-day Saints. We are living under capitalism and the wealth of the world is privately owned by individuals ... but this building is collectively owned by the community ... It is built by wage slavery as all labor at this point in history is ...”

In 1981, the authors recount, the opening of the cornerstone of the Gila Stake Academy in Thatcher, Ariz., revealed a socialist manifesto written by a prominent Mormon of that period, George W. Williams, who helped construct the building. Williams, born in Toquerville, Utah, firmly stated his beliefs, including, “millions are walking the streets of our large cities seeking employment. The capitalists who own the machinery of governments are using every means under their control to hold in check the rise of the workers who are beginning to show their strength ...” Williams “expected those who read his statement in the future to ‘be living in the light of a better day,’” write Sillito and McCormick.

More than 100 socialists were elected in Utah in 19 communities during that era, but by 1920 the movement had already peaked and socialism began its slide into irrelevance that remains today. Sillito and McCormick offer three reasons why the socialist movement waned in Utah. The first was the memory of the unsuccessful United Order socialist-like communities. While the United Order doctrine attracted some Mormons to socialism, its failures also led to a lack of enthusiasm for a collective society.

The second reason cited is that many non-LDS socialists were very critical of the Mormon Church and its cultural and political influences within the state. One prominent Utah socialist, Murray B. Schick, in a national socialist newspaper, harshly criticized the church for its emerging movements into the corporate world.

History has proven Schick correct, at least from a socialist perspective, but his and others’ critiques turned off many active Mormons from socialism.

The third reason, according to Sillito and McCormick, is that the LDS Church was moving toward a more free-enterprise, capitalistic institution. “Mormon leaders ... were clearly, if unofficially, anti-socialist, just as they were anti-union...,” write the authors.

The growth of Utah socialism clashed with the LDS Church’s deliberate decision to try to move into the mainstream of American society. In that kind of battle, at least in Utah, the Socialist Party was no match for the Mormon Church.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardNet

Mormonish stories from Peck tap into the subtexts of our faith

A while back, Steven L. Peck, a biology professor at Brigham Young University, wrote “A Short Stay in Hell.” It was a fascinating piece of Mormonish fantasy, with a protagonist sent to hell after being assuaged of fears of burning lakes and pitchforks. The hell he eventually becomes resigned to, however, proves to be more soul-decaying than anything envisioned in the Old Testament or by Middle-Ages artists.

Peck has a spare, to-the-point writing style, with strong dialogue that engages dilemmas. Through plot and the personal motivations of characters, the dilemmas sometimes find surprisingly simple solutions. The determination of the narrator or main characters, is ultimately rewarded.

Peck has also published a collection, “Wandering Realities: The Mormonish Short Fiction of Steven L. Peck,” published by the outstanding Mormon-themed house, Zarahemla Books. (zarahemlabooks.com) The short fiction is a mixture of LDS-themed science fiction, fantasy and the contemporary. I wasn’t disappointed by any of the fiction, which varies from a few pages to long stories.  

A top offering of the science fiction and fantasy is “Avek, Who Is Distributed,” in which Elder Windle is faced with telling Avek the discouraging news that church leaders have decided that distributed AIs cannot be baptized. As Windle tells Avek, “You must understand. The difficulty is that your intelligence is distributed across three planets in thousands of computational nodes ...”

Avek responds, “And yet I am one thing. A unique individual. Someone that thinks singly. Someone who can feel. Who longs for things. ...”

In the story, “AIs” have long been baptized, with questions of gender long settled. Elder Windle, and church leaders eventually reach a decision that allows a measure of achievement and relief for all him and Avek.

An excellent contemporary short story is “Bishop, Banker, Grocery, Fry,” in which our protagonist bishop is visited by the wife of an active family, a picture-postcard LDS family. Like an attentive spouse, she knows something is amiss with her husband, that there’s a unsettling change in their life. She’s unaware of what it is, and he’s not telling her,

The bishop goes undercover for a day, following the husband through a workday. The very first clue that the wife’s suspicions are on target is that the husband’s career job, the bank, is not on his agenda. Instead they make stops at a grocery and a small restaurant.

The resolution of this tale will resonate with very overwhelmed, working-too-hard career parents who wonders if it’s worth it.

“Wandering Realities” contains the elite of short Mormon fiction. Besides great tales, it enriches the reader with a diverse look at Mormon culture and sentiments. It’s a good deal via Kindle at $4.99 as well.

-- Doug Gibson

--- Originally published in StandardNET

Orson Pratt was Mormonism’s first intellectual

Originally published at StandardNET in 2011.

In the 19th century, for many in the East Coast of the United States, Brigham Young may have been the image they saw when they thought of Mormonism, but the ideas they heard coming from the new religion came mostly from the Apostle Orson Pratt.

That’s a conclusion reached by Top of Utah author Breck England, in his still-important biography of Pratt, “The Life and Thought of Orson Pratt.” The book was published in 1985 by University of Utah Press. I picked up a copy at a local library and was fascinated by Pratt, who was considered a rationalist thinker who often clashed with President Brigham Young, who preferred a more “meat and potatoes” interpretation of the Gospel.

Pratt, the brother of the more flamboyant Parley, lifted himself out of poverty to become Mormonism’s top intellectual. He was blessed with an amazing brain. He authored an unpublished textbook on calculus and penned a text on algebra that was cited by academics of the era. He was responsible for creating an odometer that could accurately log miles accumulated by wagon trains. He was instrumental in mapping the Salt Lake valley after the pioneers arrived. In fact, England notes that the parcel allotted to Pratt is today prime commercial real estate just south of Temple Square.

One can speculate that Pratt’s natural interest in science attracted him to follow Joseph Smith. Later in his ministry he developed the intelligence-matter theory, inspired by Joseph Smith’s teachings. The theology of endless worlds and gods progressing in eternity was manna to Pratt’s mind, and he was a fervent advocate of it his whole life.

Early in the his church membership, Pratt almost left Mormonism. The first was over a bank failure. The second was more serious and led to a short excommunication of Pratt and his wife. While he was away preaching, allegations were made in Nauvoo of impropriety between Smith, his associate John C. Bennett, and Pratt’s wife Sarah. Sarah Pratt claimed that Smith had asked her to be a plural wife. Smith claimed Sarah had had an affair with Bennett. 

Pratt initially sided with his wife. Eventually, Pratt and Sarah returned to fellowship in the young church and Bennett was excommunicated. He later became a prominent enemy of the church.

It is impossible to know what really happened, but apparently the bad feelings and scars never subsided. Years later, the Pratts separated and Sarah became an enthusiastic enemy of the LDS church, teaching her children to hate it.

Pratt’s excommunication reversed his placement in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and likely prevented him from becoming church president. For the rest of his life, he was a vigorous defender of Mormonism, the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. He was often called to Europe to lead missions and church publications. While in Germany he denounced that nation’s refusal to allow any religions besides Catholicism a chance. Pratt also translated the Book of Mormon into the church-created phonetic language Deseret.

Late in his life, Pratt was more mellow and less eager to explore unique looks into Mormonism or Christian theology. This was probably in large part due to Young and other apostles publicly denouncing some of Pratt’s ideas. In fact, some of his books were hunted down and destroyed by church leaders. 

Pratt accepted these rebukes humbly and urged church members to ignore his writings that were condemned by Young. Perhaps the Nauvoo battle, with his near expulsion from the church and failed marriage had worn him down and he wanted peace. Or, perhaps he truly believed his painstaking research was now a detriment to the church.

According to Breck, Pratt left a legacy of philosophy to Mormonism. His belief in an energy of one and many attempts to rationalize science and theology have been explored countless times since his death.

-- Doug Gibson

Polygamy was no Mormon harem, but it tore at marriages and hearts

(Originally published at StandardNET in 2011)

I spent some time re-reading the late Richard S. Van Wagoner’s excellent book, “Mormon Polygamy: A History.” The 19th century tales of harems and never-ending teenage-girl hunting were, of course, lies to excite Eastern U.S. readers. Polygamy was a contradictory doctrine, and extremely dysfunctional. Brigham Young once said that he wished it wasn’t a doctrine, but later also raged that those who disbelieved in polygamy — and even monogomous LDS men — were in danger of damnation. And polygamy led to divorce among LDS elite leaders in numbers that would shock today. According to Van Wagoner, more than 50 marriages of LDS leaders ended in divorce in the mid 19th century.

Indeed, two early wives of LDS apostle brothers, Orson and Parley Pratt, gave their husbands the heave-ho for their enthusiastic embrace of polygamy, and for marrying young, teenage brides. And not every faithful LDS elder with a feisty wife was brave enough to try polygamy. Van Wagoner recounts the tale of one husband who abandoned plans to take a plural wife after his wife informed him that she had received a revelation from God directing her to shoot any spare wife who darkened the family doorstep.

As Van Wagoner writes, though, there was a somber paradox to polygamy, particularly for faithful LDS women who reluctantly embraced the doctrine as a commandment of God yet suffered personal heartache and financial pain due to their husband’s extracurricular wives. Emmeline Blanche Wells, early Mormon women’s leader and feminist, wrote publicly that polygamy “gives women the highest opportunities for self-development, exercise of judgment, and arouses latent faculties, making them truly cultivated in the actual realities of life, more independent in thought and mind, noble and unselfish.” In her private journal, though, Wells despaired of how polygamy had robbed her of the love of her husband, Daniel H. Wells, member of the church’s first presidency.

Emmeline wrote, “O, if my husband could only love me even a little and not seem to be perfectly indifferent to any sensation of that kind. He cannot know the cravings of my nature; he is surrounded with love on every side, and I am cast out.”

“He is surrounded with love on every side, and I am cast out,” is an appropriate indictment of polygamy, and no doubt a reason that it has long been discarded by the LDS Church.

As Van Wagoner recalls, another LDS women leader, physician Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon, the first female state senator in the U.S., yearned in her personal letters for one husband who would be hers only to cherish. Despite these yearnings, she clung to her LDS faith in “the Principle.” Martha wrote her husband, Angus, that only her divine knowledge of the sacred principle of plural marriage made it bearable to endure. Nevertheless, Martha also wrote this scolding to Angus: “How do you think I feel when I meet you driving another plural wife about in a glittering carriage in broad day light? (I) am entirely out of money ...” 

For Emmeline Wells, there was a sort of happy ending that was denied many others. As Van Wagoner recounts, in his final years, her frail and aging husband, Daniel, seeking tender care and companionship, returned to Emmeline’s home and side, after mostly ignoring her for 40 years. In her eyes, that probably counted as a blessing due after decades of suffering.

Despite lurid tales and even the teenage bride races, sex was a distant reason for polygamy. It was the result of an odd doctrine, now mostly forgotten in the LDS Church, that taught that the more wives and children one accumulated on earth would increase one’s post-life eternal influence and kingdoms. Yet, one will rarely hear that explanation today.

-- Doug Gibson