Smoot smites smut was LDS senator’s mantra in 1930 crusade against ‘Lady Chatterley,” and more

 

One of the interesting footnotes to the long career of Sen. Reed Smoot, the LDS apostle who served in the U.S. Senate from 1903 to 1933, was his successful effort to have the U.S. Treasury continue to ban books that were deemed “obscene.” It was a relentless effort by Smoot, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, to change an amendment to a tariff bill that had prevented customs officers “to seize ‘any obscene book, pamphlet, paper, {and} writing.” Historian Michael Harold Paulos presented a paper on Smoot’s 1930 effort to smite smut at the 2013 Mormon History Association conference in Layton.

According to Paulos, Smoot was outraged over the anti-censorship amendment, sponsored by Sen. Bronson Cutting, of New Mexico, like Smoot, a Republican. Over the next few months, Smoot would literally exhaust himself to get the book censorship returned, losing weight on an already thin frame, adds Paulos.

As Paulos notes, Smoot was an absolutist on the issue of banning what he observed as obscene books. In his paper, Paulos provides a short history of book banning in the 19th century, including efforts by LDS leader Brigham Young. In a footnote, Paulos recounts advice against reading novels that Young sent to his son. The Mormon leader “compared reading novels as tantamount to using poisonous herbs or berries to salve ‘a poor appetite. … it is a remedy worse than the complaint.’” (It was a rare moment of solidarity between evangelicals and Mormons, as both were opponents of inexpensive novels for the masses.)

It seems that Smoot’s belief that “obscene” novels must be banned was as firm, and likely strongly connected to his belief in the Mormon faith and its scripture, “The Book of Mormon.” In short, Smoot’s desire to ban books can be compared to a testimony, or adherence to a principle from God. He fiercely fought his many critics, relying on that era’s standard for obscenity, the Hicklin test, which “broadly defined obscenity within the context of protecting children, or in so many words, any material whose ‘tendency of the matter is to deprave and corrupt the morals of whose minds are open to such influence and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall,’” writes Paulos.

Smoot made this emotional statement in support of the book banning: “I would rather keep out a thousand {books} than have one mistake made,” he said. Later, Paulos notes, Smoot said the “rotten” books are “worse than opium,” adding, “I would rather have a child of mine use opium than read these books.”

While these remarks may be surprising today, they were still a majority opinion, at least in the U.S. Congress, in 1930. Change was slowly occurring, though. However, Smoot had allies such as Senator James Thomas Heflin of Alabama, a Democrat, who “admonished the senate to use the Bible as a legislative guide, and added that senators “protect the boys and girls of America from the indecent, obscene, and immoral literature of foreign countries.”

Smoot had other supporters who provided outlandish rhetoric on his behalf. As Paulos writes: “GOP Senator Coleman L. Blease of South Carolina, that the ‘virtue of one little 16-year old girl is worth more to America than every book that has ever come into it from any other country.’ Moreover, Blease found it preferable to ‘see both the democratic form of government and the republican form of government forever destroyed if that should be necessary in order to protect the virtue of the womanhood of America.’” … Whew!

Smoot detested D.H. Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” describing it “written by a diseased mind and a soul so black that he would even obscure the darkness of hell. Nobody would write a book like that unless his heart was just as rotten and as black as it possibly could be.” Such hyperbole left Smoot open to derision from many of his colleagues, who pointed out that Smoot’s moralizing would exclude portions of the Bible and some of Shakespeare’s works from importation to the U.S. Other rebukes to Smoot pointed out that his own faith’s chief tome, “The Book of Mormon,” had once been a victim of censorship and scolding. Other detractors noted that under Smoot’s amendment, discourses by Brigham Young should be banned.

In obvious disgust for Smoot’s amendment, Paulos notes that Senator Cutting claimed that “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” was his favorite book. Cutting also expressed surprise that the Mormon faith, as depicted by Smoot, would evolve to oppose freedom of speech. Other opponents, including Time magazine and other media, regularly mocked Smoot. Another argument claimed that Smoot’s book banning was in opposition to Christ’s teachings.

Smoot used his seniority, Senate debating skills and sheer doggedness to survive the attacks on his amendment. However, one concession, made to Senator Hugo Black, a future U.S. Supreme Court justice, would prove fatal in the long-term to Smoot’s efforts to retain the Hicklin test and keep “obscene” novels banned. Smoot agreed to Black’s reasonable request to allow judicial interpretation to dictate whether specific books were banned. That concession likely helped Smoot’s amendment to pass easily despite fervent opposition from Cutter and others. The vote was 54-28 in favor of Smoot’s amendment being inserted in the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill.

On the Senate floor, Smoot emotionally defended his Mormon faith and its people, calling them “the most honest, industrious, and virtuous people if any ‘who ever lived in all the world.‘”  Smoot was “emotionally connected” to Mormonism, in my opinion, to the extent that he placed his religious and political beliefs into the same sphere he placed his religious beliefs. He saw opposition to his moral amendment in the same vein as he saw opposition to his faith. It must have offended him to have detractors in the Senate use Mormonism as a debating tool against him.

The Smoot-Hawley tariff bill passed and proved to be unpopular. As Paulos notes, Smoot’s career ended in 1932, when he was soundly defeated in a re-election attempt. Adding insult to injury, the courts took full advantage of Black’s successful insertion of judicial review into Smoot’s amendment. It wasn’t long before the court’s rejected the Hicklin test, thereby allowing the entrance of books such as James Joyce’s “Ulysses” access into the United States. In 1959, an unedited “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” would finally arrive legally into the U.S.

As Paulos writes, “a new legal framework for defining obscenity (replaced Hicklin), which was ‘that the legal test of obscenity must be a work’s effect upon persons of average sex instincts … rather than children or the particularly susceptible.’”

In other words, the ideals of Senators Smoot, Heflin, Blease and others were stymied. Smoot’s amendment was effectively ended by judicial review. One can picture Smoot, in his last years, lambasting himself for allowing judicial review.

Nevertheless, as Paulos notes, at LDS-owned institutions such as Brigham Young University and Deseret Book, there are still censorship decisions regarding books. “And if Smoot were alive today, he would in all likelihood be pleased with the work they are doing.”

--- Doug Gibson

--- Originally published in 2013 at StandardBlogs.

100-plus years ago, Utah, Mormon Church sold lots of magazines for publishers

I read a Rolling Stones piece on the Kingston polygamy family. It’s a breathless piece. The subject is described as “America’s most twisted crime family.” (You can read it at http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/inside-the-order-one-mormon-cults-secret-empire-20110615.) Today’s polygamists are a muckraker’s dream, just as the current Mormon Church was 100-plus years ago. At the 2011 Mormon History Association meeting, a small “keepsake” book — courtesy of historians Michael Paulos and Kenneth L. Cannon II — was offered. “Cartoonists and Muckrakers: Selected Media Images of Mormonism During the Progressive Era” featured excerpts from 100-plus-year-old muckraking pieces against the Utah Mormons, those purveyors of polygamy, once paired with slavery as the “twin relics of barbarisms.”

Rolling Stone’s piece has nothing on these pieces. Here’s a sample of early 20th century progressive journalism as directed against The LDS Church and its chief henchman, its president, Joseph F. Smith:

• Cosmopolitan Magazine, No. 50, March, 1911, “Viper on the Hearth” — a three-part series: “The name of the viper — I take it from the mouth of the viper — is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It lies coiled on the country’s hearthstone, and on;y asks time to grow and collect a poison and a strength to strike. … True, the Mormon himself had place in my mind for what he was and is — one who prefers lust’s substance to love’s shadow and would sooner wallow than dream; but it was not until my visit to Salt Lake City that he and his religion dawned upon me for the national threat they really are …” (The author, Alfred Henry Lewis, was the most celebrated writer in America at that time). Lewis described the LDS prophet Joseph F. Smith as an evil mastermind over a weak-willed, easy-to-lead U.S. senator, fellow Mormon, Reed Smoot.

• McClure’s Magazine, in its January, 1911 article, “The Mormon Revival of Polygamy,” described the LDS church President Joseph F. Smith in this hyperbolic manner as a man who had revitalized polygamy to Utah two decades after the manifesto. It reads: “Even before 1901 polygamous households had been reestablished on a considerable scale, but with the succession of Joseph F. smith to the presidency of the church the restoration of old conditions became practically open. … All of Brigham’s successors have been mild-mannered souls, but President Smith is a man of violent passions; one could easily imagine him torturing heretics or burning witches to advance the kingdom of God.” (The writer of this piece was Burton J. Hendrick, who later in his career would win three Pulitzer prizes).

• Pearson’s Magazine ran a three-part expose on Mormonism beginning in the September 1910 issue. It was titled, “The Political Menace of the Mormon Church” and dealt with Smith, polygamy, and the church’s political power and wealth. It was penned by Richard Barry, a famous war correspondent of that era. An excerpt: “These 375,000 people have more political power than any million in the United States because they are a unit. There is little secession among them from the will of their leader. … This political force, compact, unreasoning, unpatriotic, unAmerican, has a curious character, at once sinister and serene. It is the backbone of the Mormon empire, which is an echo from the time that antedates the Christian era.”

It’s very interesting to read these examples of muckraking articles against the Mormon Church.

-- Doug Gibson

Originally published in 2011 at StandardNET (blogs)

More than 100 years ago, Smoot Senate hearings titillated the public

Utah Sen. Reed Smoot, R-Utah, was an apostle and U.S. senator. Too bad that too few of us recall the fierce, almost four-year U.S. Senate battle that resulted before Smoot was fully accepted as a senator. He served until 1933.

The Monica Lewinsky testimony had nothing on the Smoot hearings. The Mormon Church, with its alleged rampant secret polygamy, anti-government rhetoric, “lecherous” old leaders in white beards, captured the attention of a gossipy nation and crusading publicity-seeking pols. As Mormon historian Michael Harold Paulos points out in several essays, hundreds of political cartoons were published — most on the front page — during the tenure of the Smoot hearings. The then-anti-Mormon Salt Lake Tribune published more than 300 Smoot-related cartoons. Church President Joseph F. Smith, future president Heber J. Grant, and pols of that era, including U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt, found themselves caricatured as part of the hearings’ commentary — most often with savage wit.

No topics were off limits. Secret LDS temple ceremonies were discussed on Capitol Hill. The Washington Times, on Dec. 14, 1904, published on its front page a photo of a man wearing Mormon garments and temple garb. 

To provide an example of the barbed hearings, here’s an excerpt of testimony between LDS Prophet Joseph F. Smith, who admitted to fathering children with his wives after the first LDS Manifesto on polygamy, from Paulos’ The Journal of Mormon History article, “Under the Gun at the Smoot Hearings: Joseph F. Smith’s Testimony”:

(Senate questioner) “Do you consider it an abandonment of your family to maintain relations with your wives except that of occupying their beds?”

(President Smith) “I do not wish to be impertinent, but I should like the gentleman to ask any woman, who is a wife, that question.”

The prophet had some wit, as that rejoinder shows. He also drew praise for candor, although it was a selective candor. As Paulos points out, Smith frequently obfuscated and avoided issues. He was a turn-of-the-century Alan Greenspan, often confusing senators. Smith shocked many Utahns when he stated under oath: “I have never pretended to nor do I profess to have received revelations.” That untrue statement may be a result of Smith’s long tenure in the LDS Church, fraught with longstanding distrust of federal authority.

Cartoons included references to Sisyphus pushing Mormonism up a hill, a tattooed Smoot covered with LDS liabilities on his body, and a Tribune cartoon that mocked Smith for his lack of candor on revelation. As Paulos explains, the era was a golden time of political cartooning, with most cartoons on page 1A, rather than the editorial pages. Readers can see several of the cartoons in the December 2006 Sunstone magazine, “Political Cartooning and the Reed Smoot Hearings,” authored by Paulos.

It seemed unlikely for a long while that Smoot would be accepted as a senator, but history records that after the long hearings, he passed Senate muster fairly easily. He owed that win primarily to President Roosevelt, who bucked popular sentiment and backed Smoot, whom the president genuinely liked. 

Another factor helping Smoot was that the original charges against him being a senator were lodged by anti-Mormons in Utah, who added one significant false charge — that Smoot was a polygamist. He was not; nor was he a strict LDS theologian. In fact, Smoot was chosen as an apostle and future senator due to his lack of interest in theology compared to politics and public service. In his speech to the U.S. Senate, which Paulos includes in an essay, Smoot is persuasive in both defending Mormonism and promising to separate his politics from his religion. Paulos suggests that current LDS politicians who seek political office should emulate Smoot’s frankness. That seems to be a critique of Mitt Romney’s “religion in the public arena” speech in 2008, one that failed to sway many voters wary of Mormonism.

Also read The seating of Reed Smoot

In 1904, LDS President Smith issued a second Manifesto against polygamy. It eventually led to the excommunications of apostles John W. Taylor and Matthias Cowley, who flaunted their polygamous lifestyles. Paulos opines that the Smoot hearings and the Second Manifesto were beginning steps toward the modernization and eventual secular power of today’s LDS Church.

The Smoot hearings cartoons are priceless, provocative mementos of LDS history. Paulos, and colleague Ken Cannon, have privately published a professionally bound, 90-page book on the Smoot hearings. One hundred copies were printed and the small publication was presented at a past Mormon History Association gathering. Many libraries have copies of the publication.

-- Doug Gibson

This article was previously published at StandardBlogs.

Frank J. Cannon a thorn in Mormonism's side 100-plus years ago

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.