Do you have your own, personal Three Nephites experience?

We Mormons have our own personal religious lore; one that tops the list is the Three Nephites. A healthy percentage of members who make it to church more often than not either have their own personal Three Nephites tale or can relate at least one that has been passed onto them.

The Three Nephites are mentioned in The Book of Mormon as disciples of Jesus Christ who ask to remain on earth until Jesus Christ returns and convert souls for him. Christ says yes, which is the same answer he gives to John the Beloved in the New Testament.

(I digress here to wonder how often the Three Nephites and John the Beloved have met the past 1,977 years or so. Do they ever get tired of each other? Do they ever squabble? I couldn’t imagine being on my best behavior waiting for a guest who won’t tell us when he’ll ever return.)

Despite my occasional skepticism, I’m one of those who can boast of his own “Three Nephites experience.” But first, some more about the LDS folklore of the Three Nephites. Besides John the Beloved, the Three Nephites have parallels to The Wandering Jew, Catholic saints and even the Prophet Elijah. Although reports of Three Nephites activity are not — for good reason — official Mormon doctrine, their calling is mentioned in Mormonism’s most unique scripture. One who claims a literal belief in the Book of Mormon must agree that the three are still hanging around somewhere. The same goes for the Bible and John the Beloved.

The first Three Nephites tale I recall hearing is about an army officer on the front in World War II who gives a lift in his jeep to three wandering civilians. When he drops them off, one of the men asks what he can do to repay the officer. The officer flippantly replies, “Tell me when this war will end?” The man gives him a date. The officer thinks nothing of the answer until the war ends, and you guessed it, on the exact date the man told him!

There’s a million of these tales. In 1949, author Hector Lee published “The Three Nephites: The Substance and Significance of the Legend in Folklore,” Albuquerque, The University of New Mexico Press. Here are a couple of accounts that Lee collected:

• The Hitchhiking “ghost” Nephite, where an old hitchhiker was picked up by couple traveling to Grand Junction, Colo. It was 1944. The old hitchhiker was a whiz on current events. At the most desolate part of their journey, the hitchhiker insisted on being let out. Naturally the couple protested. The hitchhiker told them they would soon be hauling a dead body to Grand Junction. He then told them the exact date that World War II would end. Sure enough, the couple came upon a car wreck with a fatality and hauled the dead driver to Grand Junction. The war ended on the same date as well.

I mention this tale because it’s similar to the one I heard as a child. The setting had changed and there was no dead body and there were three hitchhikers instead of one. I imagine that as “Three Nephites sightings” are passed along over and over, the tale can change significantly.

• Here’s another Three Nephites tale Lee compiled with a lot of the supernatural included. Mrs. Aylda Abbott Squires of Wa Wa Springs, in Utah, recounts an 1874 experience when she was all alone on the homestead and a lone man came by and asked for food. Mrs. Squires was frightened but provided him a meal. The man blessed her and promised her that a pain she was feeling in her liver would go away and that she would never want for basic necessities. As he turned a corner leaving she followed to see where he had gone but the man had disappeared. She returned to her table and discovered the lunch she had seen him eat and drink was untouched. Later, her mother reminded her that her Patriarchal blessing had mentioned she would see one of the Three Nephites.

I just love these tales. They’re part of what makes Mormonism so interesting and unique.

So here’s my “Three Nephites” tale. It’s got more holes in it than that once-sacred garment with the tokens cut off that grandma uses for cleaning, but here it is:

• It was 1983, in Chiclayo, Peru. My senior companion and I were in a massive slum, thousands of people living in homes without electricity or water. We were searching for the home of a referral. The potential investigator’s name was Marcos. After traipsing through the dusty dirt streets for the better part of a day, we stopped to stare at a very peculiar sight. A pig was hog-tied, presumably moments away from the slaughter. You’ve never heard screaming until you’ve heard a hog-tied pig scream. A crowd had gathered to stare at the pig. For some reason a man standing a few feet away caught our attention. One of us, I can’t recall which, asked — for the 100th time — “Do you know where Marcos lives?”

The man casually made a fist, thumb out, and glanced and pointed over his back toward an alley with a few house inward. “He lives back there,” he said.

To sum up a long story, we met Marcos, baptized him and later were baptized about 10 or 11 of his family members. Soon after we left Peru, Marcos went on his own mission. I’m glad Marcos and his family helped me to meet one of the Three Nephites.

A footnote

That same day, during our first visit with Marcos, the pig stopped screaming. When we returned to the site, there was only a dark, dank-smelling wet stain where the pig once screamed.

It took me about 10 years to realize that it would have been an impressive encore if the wandering Nephite had taken a moment to save the pig.

-- Originally published in 2010 at StandardNET.

Long before Hatch became a Senate institution, there was Utah’s Sen. Smoot

(This post was first published at StandardNET in 2010.)

There’s a lot of talk about Sen. Orrin Hatch, who has served 34-plus years in the Senate and intends to go for 42 year in 2012, and former Gov. Mitt Romney, who gets the question of who will he serve if elected president? The Mormon Church or the U.S. nation? What’s interesting is, long ago, Utah Sen. Reed Smoot (seen above) faced some of these questions.


Smoot, who was in the Senate for 30 years, was handpicked, or more or less called to the job, by the First Presidency and Quorum of the 12 Apostles of the LDS Church. In fact, the monogamous Smoot was not only a Mormon, he was a member of the 12 Apostles. It’s unthinkable today that an LDS apostle would be elected to that high of an office, let alone sent there by the Brethren. However, there is apostle Ezra Taft Benson becoming President Eisenhower’s secretary of agriculture in the 1950s.

Smoot had to fight for years to be accepted into the Senate. It wasn’t so much for his “church calling” as it was to general suspicion about the Mormon Church’s commitment to the federal government and of course, the big issue, polygamy. He won that battle, though, and like Hatch, became a respected member of the U.S Senate. His trademark achievement was the Smoot-Hawley tariff act and Smoot eventually became chairman of the committee on finance.

In the October, 1960 issue of the Utah Historical Quarterly, Dr. Milton R. Merrill, then vice president of Utah State University, praised Smoot, who died in 1941. Despite Smoot’s status as apostle, Merrill says that he regarded himself as a Republican on a mission for the church. But it was more of a political mission, and Smoot loved his job as much as Hatch loves his today. Some positions of Smoot’s: He opposed prohibition; helped get Warren Harding nominated in a smoke-filled room; worked to get non-Mormons in Utah into the Republican Party; and he opposed the League of Nations.

Smoot would have stepped down if LDS Church Presidents Joseph F. Smith and Heber J. Grant had asked him to, but they didn’t. In fact, according to Merrill, the church leaders never requested Smoot vote a certain way. However, just as Hatch may face closure from a nation tired of economic recessions, Smoot’s tenure was prematurely ended in the 1932 Depression-era election, where he was upset by Democratic challenger Elbert D. Thomas. 

Smoot retired to finish his life as an apostle and died in 1941 at age 79. He is buried in Provo.

-- Doug Gibson

Conference, coffee cake, stake centers, upchucking and our living room TV

This post was originally published at StandardNET in 2010. With the Covid 19 pandemic and mandatory watching of LDS General Conference next week in all our homes, with an empty conference center and fewer than 10 general authorities in the massive conference center, I thought it appropriate to share this column on the blog.

Growing up in the late 60s and 70s in Southern California, conference was a big deal. It was a chance to see and hear those general authorities, the elderly men on the ward poster. Some of these holy men were born in the 1880s! 

In Long Beach, Calif., “general conference” meant a trip to the stake center or some other venue to watch it on what was called “closed-circuit television.” Does closed-circuit TV even exist anymore?

In our house, conference Sunday, the main day for conference, always meant my mother’s coffee cake, baked early and ready for the AM session. Always delicious, the smell of a treat meant to go with a hot drink will always remind me of conference.

I was young the first time I was able to actually go to Temple Square. It was a bit surreal for a youngster. Here, on the street, one could catch a glimpse of the men I read about in Leon Hartshorn books. I got to shake Richard L. Evans’ hand. And the crowd outside the Tabernacle actually sang “We Thank We O God for a Prophet” when David O McKay walked by.

It wasn’t all fun. I was squeezed to the point of tears by crowds eager to get a good seat. My mom, with a few sharp words, managed to move the mass. 

My most humiliating conference experience was early one morning, when we accidentally walked into a welfare meeting. Halfway through, my stomach started to flip due to an earlier pancakes and berry syrup feast. I started down the carpeted stairs but my stomach surrendered most of my breakfast.

I’ll never forget the horrified pitch of the voice of the usher. “He barfed on the Tabernacle carpet,” he said, more or less to himself. I was mortified, and alone. My parents were in their seats, unaware of their son’s transgression.

I’ll give that usher credit, though. He was a class act. Regaining his composure, he helped me to a restroom where I cleaned up quickly. He then returned me to my seat.

It couldn’t have been more than five minutes from the time I upchucked to when I returned to the stairs, but those stairs were washed and cleaned until they shined. Now that’s priesthood efficiency!

Now I watch general conference in my living room. Even in California, we were able to do that by the early '80s. For several years my wife Kati translated talks into Hungarian. She’s been in the new Conference Center.

I haven’t been there yet. (I eventually attended a conference there in 2016). I’m satisfied with my living room conference seat. It’s closer to the bathroom ... and the coffee cake. (I also don't eat coffee cake since I went gluten-, dairy- and soy-free in 2017, but I cherish the memories of that wonderful food).

-- Doug Gibson

Racism in the Mormon war in Missouri

Originally published in 2014 at StandardBlogs

The Mormons’ deadly conflicts with Missouri residents during the 1830s have been covered well by historians. It led to the expulsion of Latter-day Saints from the state. There were faults on both sides, although via sheer numbers and influence, it was a battle the young Mormon church would lose.

The violence is posited — in part truthfully — as the result of native Missourians worried about the mostly emigrant Mormons achieving political power as “abolitionists.” Mormons say it was due to “religious intolerance,” others cite growing political power, arrogance and secretiveness from the Mormon emigrants that worried longtime residents. (This perception was not helped by some incautious meanderings on the state of free blacks by Mormon W.W. Phelps in a church publication.) I think more insight on “the Mormon War in Missouri” has been offered in a fascinating article in the Winter 2014 issue of The Journal of Mormon History. It’s titled “Some Savage Tribe”: Race, Legal Violence and the Mormon War of 1838.”

The author, Brooklyn, N.Y., lawyer T. Ward Frampton, argues convincingly that racism has been overlooked as a major reason for the violence, particularly such savage incidents as the Haun’s Mill Massacre, in which a Mormon boy and elderly Mormon were murdered after the initial shootings. In all, 18 were murdered by the mob of 250.

But getting back to Frampton’s article: He writes that there were three elements of racism exercised by the Missouri opponents of the Mormons. The first is one that other historians have agreed; that the Mormons, being Eastern immigrants, would be favorable toward abolition. These fears, Frampton argues, easily escalated into racist fears that the presence of Mormons would lead to a slave revolt as well as conflict with American Indians, with Mormons as confederates! As Frampton notes, in 1839, prior to the infamous extermination order that was issued, Missouri Gov. Lilburn W. Boggs received letters claiming ‘”there is a deeply laid scheme existing among these fanatics’ to unite with ‘immense numbers of Indians of various tribes … & work the general destruction of all that are not Mormons.” Boggs also received reports that Mormons were actively working with Indians to attack white non-Mormons.

With the Mormons established by Missouri opponents as allies of races the settlers despised, there was a second pernicious type of racism inflicted on the Mormons. As Frampton explains, the Mormons themselves, despite their white, eastern U.S. background, became regarded as “non-white” by their hostile neighbors. (It merits noting, as Frampton does, that the Mormons’ boasting that they were a chosen people, placed by God in Missouri, did not help assuage racist passions during the conflict.)

But, as Frampton shows, there are too many incidents in which Missourians used a racial context in trying to deny Mormons the vote. As the author writes, describing a violent incident in 1838, he quotes early Mormon leader Sidney Rigdon, who stated that Missourian Richard “(Weldon) swore that the Mormons were no more fit to vote than the d–d niggers” (sic). As Frampton adds, “as early as 1833, … the old settlers of Jackson County made clear their intentions to drive the new immigrants from the county, they took pains to cast the Mormons as akin to blacks.” (Frampton notes that the doctrine of Mormons being members of the tribe of Ephraim, and of “Israelite lineage,” as opposed to their depictions of non-Mormons as “gentiles” contributed to the strife that led to racial attacks on the new church’s members.”)

The third element of racism against the Mormons in Missouri is the most violent. As Frampton explains, it involved anti-Mormon Missouri militiamen painting their faces red or black before attacking Mormon settlements. Frampton writes, “these accounts consistently depict the painted Missourians as acting with a special depravity, suggesting that one function of such racial performativity was to open up a broader range of ‘acceptable’ conduct during the brutal conflict.” As Frampton adds, in that era of conflict, “whiteness (in contradistinction to the savagery of blacks and Indians) implied some minimal degree of restraint.” As a result, as one mob violence witness attested, ‘”With their faces painted in horrid Indian Style,’ the mobs suddenly became capable of committing unspeakable acts of violence,’” writes Frampton.

The Haun’s Mill Massacre (spelled Hawn’s in Frampton’s article) provides evidence for this specific racism, in which Missourians dehumanized themselves to kill Mormons who they considered worthy of the same contempt for living as they held for  as Indians and blacks. The murder of Sardius Smith, 10, demonstrates the racism involved. As Frampton notes, witnesses to the murder testified that the boy “Smith was hiding among the bodies of recently slain Mormons when he was discovered by a Missourian. The militiaman placed the muzzle of his gun to the boy’s head, declared ‘Nits will make lice,” and proceeded to blow off the upper part of Smith’s skull.”

The term “Nits will make lice” is extremely significant. As Frampton explains, it was a “phrase generally reserved for the killing of Indian children.” The militia/mob that attacked the Haun’s Mill settlement, with painted faces, were attacking individuals who they had dehumanized into the same racial prejudice that they assigned Indians. Frampton adds: “A late-nineteenth century Church history based largely on personal accounts, for example, commented that ‘it was openly avowed by the men of Missouri that it was no worse to shoot a Mormon than to shoot an Indian. …‘”

The murder of the Mormon child Sardius Smith, and other militia/mob depravities, support that claim.

Elements of racism cast the Mormon settlers as equal to blacks and Indians in the eyes of their Missouri neighbors. That sentiment eventually extended as far as the governor’s mansion, and to the many militias that overwhelmed the Missouri Mormons, forcing their expulsion from the state. (Photo above of Hauns Mill Massacre is credited to BYU).

-- Doug Gibson

Joseph Smith biography does not shy away from historical scrutiny

This review was originally published in 2005 at StandardNET.

Today is the bicentennial of Joseph Smith’s birth. Two hundred years later, his claims of divine guidance are debated with as much ferocity — if not violence — as when he was alive. Unquestioned is the success of the church he established. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claims more than 12 million members. Its influence stretches beyond the ecclesiastical, reaching into political, judicial and financial chambers.

What made Joseph Smith’s church so far-reaching? Columbia Professor emeritus Richard Lyman Bushman’s “Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling,” offers clues. Bushman’s Joseph (he prefers the first name throughout the biography) is a prophet who slowly realized his calling. Sophistication as a religious leader and understanding of his religious calling took years. Smith was prone to anger and forgiveness, fear and courage, capable of finding talented people and seriously misjudging others.

Bushman’s catholic interpretation of Smith’s gradually adjusting to being a prophet is refreshing. As a believing Mormon, I am tired of watching films or reading books where, if you squint your eyes and look hard enough, you can either see or imagine the halo just above Joseph Smith’s head. Latter-day prophets and other church leaders are too often regarded as perfect individuals, rather than sinners, who like anyone else, make mistakes in their lives, seek forgiveness and continue to learn.

This fanciful view can extend to LDS Church history. Bushman, a Mormon, does not dismiss uncomfortable topics: Smith’s dabblings in money-digging; differing accounts of revelations; vigilante operations that exacerbated problems with frontier neighbors; a failed bank that seriously harmed the early church; political grandstanding that threatened longtime settlers; the secrecy of early plural marriage. All are discussed and, at least, placed in a context more even-handed than, say, an anti-Mormon website or ministry.

Bushman writes, “Joseph Smith did not offer himself as an examplar of virtue. He told his followers not to expect perfection. Smith called himself a rough stone, thinking of his own impetuosity and lack of polish.”

Readers may be surprised to discover that Smith visited President Martin Van Buren in an unsuccessful attempt to seek reparations from Missouri. Also, the prophet was involved in early preparations to move the church to the Rocky Mountains.

Prophets claiming revelations were common in Smith’s time. So why do his claims endure today? One reason from Bushman: The prophet did not make himself the center of early prostlyting efforts. Missionaries promised latter-day revelation, priesthood authority and a gathering of Israel. These three themes are prominent in an early newspaper article by Oliver Cowdery, reprinted in “Rough Stone Rolling.” It was these doctrines that gathered converts by the thousands.

To Bushman, the temple-endowment session is another reason Mormonism did not disappear. To many converts, it provided a path to deity. “This transition gave Mormonism’s search for direct access to God an enduring form. … The Mormon temple’s sacred story stabilized and perpetuated the original enthusiastic endowment,” writes Bushman.

Bushman describes the isolation of early frontier America. The reader understands the perils Mormons faced from larger mobs. Law and order was controlled by the largest bloc. Groups howling for murder, rape and pillaging were not necessarily stopped.

Early Mormons were responsible at times for inciting anger, but “Rough Stone Rolling” relates the fear of being surrounded by hostile forces with no protection.

Politicians in a position to help were either opportunists, such as Missouri Gov. Lilburn W. Boggs, or appeasers like Gov. Thomas Ford of Illinois, who talked blandly of a nonexistent rule of law.

Comprehending the obsessive hatred that drove the murder of Smith still remains a mystery, though Bushman tries to explain it. What caused ordinary men, such as newspaper editor Thomas Sharp — perhaps most responsible for Smith’s murder — to call for killing?

Bushman writes, “It was fear of the familiar gone awry. … Joseph was hated for twisting the common faith in biblical prophets into the visage of the arrogant fanatic, just as the abolitionists twisted the principle of equal rights into an attack on property in slaves. Both turned something powerful and valued into something dangerous. Frustrated and infuriated, ordinary people trampled down law and democratic order to destroy their imagined enemies.”

After the Mormons left Nauvoo, Sharp lived a nonviolent small-town life, serving as mayor, justice of the peace and judge.

“Rough Stone Rolling” will not satisfy those who hate Mormonism or those who wish to shield the faith from historical scrutiny. But Bushman’s superior biography of an interesting life will leave most wanting to learn more.

-- Doug Gibson

Acid Test: LSD vs. LDS is an '80s Mormon punk conversion memoir

Review by Doug Gibson

"Acid Test LSD vs. LDS," 2020, Zarahemla Books, is a long-awaited memoir from Mormon writer, editor and publisher, Christopher Bigelow. At its foundation, it's a re-conversion tale. The author chucks away his Mormon faith -- proclaiming it bland and conformist -- after graduating high school, and re-converts after a short spell of trying to acclimate himself to what he describes as a "chaotic neutral" existence, to use a Dungeons and Dragons term.

The seeking-to-be-"chaotic-neutral" period involves sampling or observing modes of life his religion prohibits, or frowns on: including semi-communal living, a brief sojourn back to his childhood area, Southern California, drug use (particularly LSD), shunning higher education, scattered low-paying work life, attempts at a punk lifestyle, launching a punk 'zine that focuses more on critical thought than reviews and interviews,  fornication, mooching from parents, satanism, petty theft, and homosexuality.

At its heart though, "Acid Test," I suspect, is an homage to an era of Salt Lake City counterculture of the mid-1980s, when the city boasted an often unique punk and New Wave culture, with local bands, and musical venues and clubs filled with younger adults embracing a movement at odds with Mormon culture, and for that matter, Reaganism. Even readers, such as myself, with musical tastes that never approach punk, will smile with nostalgia as Bigelow recalls journeys to Cosmic Aeroplane shop or the Blue Mouse theater. This was also the era of Mormon conman/murderer Mark Hofmann, scamming gullible LDS Church leaders with fake memorabilia, and bombing people to death.

It really was a crazy time.

The very young Bigelow packed a lot of life into the short time this memoir covers. In Salt Lake area lodgings that eventually became packed with friends and squatters, he stayed in several locations. At times the reader forgets he's a youngster, 17 when the tale starts. He has an endearing immaturity mixed with an unfeigned quest to challenge conventions. At the beginning, nothing frightens him. Even the occult is a subject worth exploring.

The author's family history is etched in Mormon history, Heber C. Kimball, Brigham Young, and many more, all related to the author. The teenage Bigelow is perceptive enough to understand that the corporate-life LDS Church he shunned in 1984 was once a progressive, way-out-of-the mainstream religion when Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were its prophets. Many early church policies and doctrines we don't talk much about today fascinate Bigelow and his adventures in Acid Test seem an effort to connect with the spiritual bohemianism of his early-LDS ancestors

For someone who has never taken LSD, Bigelow's vivid descriptions of what the world appears like to an LSD user tripping is fascinating and almost, but not quite, tempts this reviewer to sample it. However, later in the memoir, Bigelow's enthusiasm for drugs is tempered, replaced by a fear that it's a tool of dark entities to lead souls away from spirituality.

Bigelow was already an accomplished 'zine publisher as a high school student. In Acid Test, he recounts efforts to start a 'zine, called Flourishing Wasteland. After a spotty start, he works very hard on issue 2. However, his interest wanes and then concludes as he begins a re-conversion to the LDS Church.

The author's effort to cast aside concepts of good, and evil start to shake a bit after he takes LSD a lot. He senses deception in his LSD experiences, questions how real they are. He is also fascinated with the Stephen King novel, "The Stand," which involves a near total loss of human life and survivors who gravitate toward locations with leaders who represent good and bad.

There is a central reason Bigelow returns to Mormonism, and this memoir (a trilogy is planned) ends with the author's mission approaching. I don't want to give away the distinct event that motivates Bigelow to give up an alternative lifestyle and return to staid Mormonism. Getting around that, reading Acid Test made me think about all those Bible-like quotes in the Book of Mormon that talk about a sinner being past the point of redemption and consigned to hell. I don't like any idea of a literal hell but Acid Test posits to me the possibility that those types of scriptures, in the Book of Mormon or The Bible, are talking not about a hypothetical lake of fire but instead a consistent state of wickedness that goes on too long, leaving the sinner devoid of grace, incapable of repentance, and redemption.

Another reason for the author's disillusionment for "chaotic neutral" is more simple. He loves a teenage girl. Her promiscuity causes him normal pain. He includes her in his re-conversion efforts. She joins in the effort but the relationship seems shaky as the memoir ends.

Bigelow is a very talented writer. I read a review that compared Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" to the memoir. It's probably apt but I thought more of George Orwell's memoir/fiction when I was reading. Bigelow's conflicted thoughts, yearning for a meaning, and despair of a shaky love reminded me Orwell's "Burmese Days." His at-times narrative, matter-of-fact, without-self-pity accounts of unpleasant circumstances (including a date with middle-aged male "chicken-hawk" ) remind me of the style of Orwell's 'Down and Out in Paris and London."

Late in the book, Bigelow laments that, for the most part, he's not getting the spiritual charge he's led himself to believe that conversion to the faith promises. The Scriptures are a tough slog, church meetings are still regimented, even the Temple lacks the spiritual manifestations that others have talked of. It's a reminder that spiritual experiences are rare commodities for most of us, and that endurance is a more valuable tool toward church activity.

Bigelow grew up in a family with parents that represent an earlier generation follower of Mormonism, one that talked more of the Three Nephites, of Cain roaming the earth, of White Horse Prophecies, and demons struggling to lead us into darkness. Each life is a battle between good and evil. Spiritual manifestations seemed to be more common in "those days." Bigelow mentions his mother having several spirit observances. On a side note, my parents were that way. My late mother once told me she saw the Savior's profile in the temple.

Ultimately, these traditionalist Mormons serve as a catalyst for the author's return to his family's faith. They never abandoned their son, and were often ready to provide assistance. This underscores another strength of the memoir; that love is still a commandment, even if the recipient is not living as parents, or others, might wish they lived. Some of the characters in Acid Test had depressing futures and ends. Others had better futures. Some of them did not receive unconditional love.

You can buy Acid Test LSD vs. LDS via Amazon here.

Utah's first serious presidential candidate — Christensen, not Romney

Utah’s first serious presidential candidate was not Mitt Romney, of course, or even Sen. Orrin Hatch, who ran a weak race in 2000 that ended after he received 1 percent in the Iowa caucus. 

I’ll bet most have no idea that 90 years ago, Utah fielded a presidential candidate that many newspapers — incorrectly — thought might have a shot at winning a few states. His name was Parley Packer Christensen. The Salt Lake City resident was a bachelor, a Unitarian, a former Salt Lake County attorney, and former candidate for U.S. Congress. He was also the Farmer-Labor Party’s 1920 nominee for U.S. president.

A fascinating article by Gaylon L. Caldwell from the October 1960 Utah Historical Quarterly provides loads of great historical information on Christensen’s candidacy. The Salt Lake Tribune mostly criticized and ridiculed Christensen as a defender of labor unions. The Deseret News afforded him more respect. However, according to the article, the Tribune predicted Christensen would carry six states.

Of course, history records that Christensen carried no states. In a days when polls were nonexistent, third parties still under-performed. On election day, Christensen tallied 265,411 votes, finishing fourth behind Republican Party winner Warren Harding, 16,152,200 votes, Democratic Party nominee James M. Cox, 9,147,353 votes, and Socialist Eugene V. Debs, who was in prison, with 919,799 votes. Finishing fifth was Prohibition Party candidate Aaron S. Watkins with 189,408 votes.

As Caldwell points out, “the final tally ... reinforced the old axiom of American politics that new parties begin with a burst of enthusiasm only to fade away.” There is a parallel between the Farmer-Labor Party of 1920 and the post-H. Ross Perot Reform Party. Once a dynamic personality or symbol leaves a third party, the bloom is gone.

How Christensen grabbed the Farmer-Labor nod is really interesting. As Caldwell recounts, it was big news in the summer of 1920 in Chicago at the Farmer-Labor convention, which was populated by a smorgasbord of political movements — left and right — looking for an alternative to the two main parties.

Christensen was a convention leader. There was a “committee of 48” that tried unsuccessfully to recruit a consensus candidate. That’s not surprising since two major contenders were ultra-right-wing automobile maker Henry Ford and the Socialist Debs.

Christensen, a persuasive leader, saw his opportunity and arranged alliances with lesser candidates. He finished second on the first ballot, which eliminated all but the two top finishers. On the second ballot, Christensen easily garnered the nomination. 

Christensen ran an energetic campaign and attracted nationwide press. In the Aug. 1, 1920 New York Times, reporter Charles Welles Thompson wrote, “The Republicans are getting a little uneasy over the unlimited activity of Parley Packer Christensen, the candidate of the Farmer-Labor Party. He seems a most virile and extensive person. ...”

Christensen also criticized the imprisonment of Debs, saying, “Mr. Debs may be utterly wrong in his ideas as how best to conduct the affairs of society, and so may I be and so may you, but my conception of liberty includes the right to think wrong.”

After reading Caldwell’s excellent account, I think another reason Christensen under-performed is that he was too moderate for a third party. Although clearly a liberal, he was not socialist enough to take many votes from Debs, but he was too liberal for Ford supporters, who returned to the Republican Party in the general election.

Nevertheless, Parley Parker Christensen is an individual worthy of our respect. I doubt, however, that his name is mentioned in any school rooms below the college level.

-- Doug Gibson

This column was previously published at StandardNet.