Introduction and Guest Welcome

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast, Mormon Expression Edition with John Larsen. I am your host, John Dehlin and today we are super excited to be covering a topic that I personally requested five years ago, no, two years ago. How many years ago? I don't know how many years ago it was. Today we're going to be talking about the Reed Smoot hearings and I anticipate that it will be as interesting as the. What was it the, the pioneer. What was the one you did, John Larsen, that everybody just freaking went and

John Larsen [00:00:32] got Billy and Martin Handcart Co. 1.

John Dehlin [00:00:35] Do you think I'm over billing it if I say it might be that good?

John Larsen [00:00:38] Maybe that, that, that one kind of cuts to the heart. This one, this one's a little different. We'll, we'll get there.

John Dehlin [00:00:44] Maybe I should under promise and maybe we can over deliver but really quickly. For those who don't know, John Larsen is an amazing Mormon podcast host who for many years ran the Mormon Expression Podcast. And once hackers got it and took it down, we were able to work with John to get that archive back up. And so there's 300 plus amazing episodes of content from John Larsen in the Mormon Expression Archive that you can find anywhere you get your podcasts audio based. And we cut a deal with John Larsen that he would come on Mormon Stories podcast once a month. And, and it's your donations that make that possible. If you go to mormonstories.org mormonexpression you can become a monthly donor to the John Larsen project. And yeah, people love John Larsen episodes. I will say that he brings the heat. And so if you don't like the heat, then get out of the John Larsen kitchen. But John Larsen is smart and interesting and a powerful speaker. Welcome back to Mormon Stories, John Larsen.

John Larsen [00:01:50] Thanks, John. I've been told I say things that other people don't dare to say. So I'm either stupid or crazy. I don't know one of the two. Thanks for the opportunity.

John Dehlin [00:02:01] My pleasure. And also normally we have Kara Burrell. Kara is in California live streaming as we speak with Colts to Consciousness and Chalice over there. So we excuse Kara for the month and yeah. So John Larsen, where should we begin?

John Larsen [00:02:19] Yeah, well, so John did ask for this and I think John, you had said there's the one topic you'd never covered on Mormon Stories, is that correct?

John Dehlin [00:02:28] Oh, there's a lot of topics I haven't covered, but this is absolutely a big one that I think people don't know. And it's a very important part of our history to talk about.

John Larsen [00:02:39] It's an extremely important one. And, you know, after studying and getting ready for this, as a matter of fact, let's. Let's show the photo. I want. I want you to know my level of service. This is me Friday night at the OSU University of Utah game. There are my. My friends who came in town.

John Dehlin [00:03:00] Is that Ben and Jen?

John Larsen [00:03:02] That is Ben and Laura. You have your pickleball buddies, Ben and Laura.

John Larsen [00:03:06] Oh, and.

John Dehlin [00:03:06] Oh, wait, who's on the other side of them?

John Larsen [00:03:09] That's. That's Brent and Colleen.

John Dehlin [00:03:10] I love those guys. Those are my pickleball buddies.

John Larsen [00:03:13] Yeah. Yep. So we got to watch the University of Utah get trounced by. By the locals here, the local sportsball team. And it's hard to see in the. In the photo, but there I am reading the. If you can zoom in on the. You guys don't need to do it. But that's the Read Smoot Herrings book. I'm sitting there in the stadium reading Mormon history so you don't have to. I'm willing to sacrifice myself for the greater good.

John Dehlin [00:03:38] And I'm going to say your. Your heresy. Curse the Utes, because I think the Utes lost that game.

John Larsen [00:03:44] Oh, they got trounced. But I think they were playing their fourth string quarterback. Right. I think at one point they sent in the. The drum major to cover. So. Yeah, it was. It was. The Utes were down a lot of injured players, so I think.

John Dehlin [00:03:59] I think they looked up. I think they looked up in the stands and they said, man, if we can't even keep John Larsen's attention, why. Why should we even bother? That's what.

John Larsen [00:04:07] I'm a great big sports ball fan. I was, uh, you know, rooting for my local team to score more points than the other team while simultaneously holding the other team from. Holding from scoring points, too. I. I was there.

John Dehlin [00:04:22] You're a true fan. I can already tell.

John Larsen [00:04:23] Yeah, Yeah, I did the wave, but I didn't stand up. I only did with my arms. So that's. That's the kind of fair, weathered fan fan I am.

John Dehlin [00:04:30] Well, it worked for your team.

John Larsen [00:04:34] And if you ask him, I really did bring the book and I really did read it for part of the time, but not most of the time.

John Dehlin [00:04:38] Okay, so you're a good friend, John Larsen.

John Larsen [00:04:42] Oh, yeah, they're great friends. People coming out to Corvallis, we're stealing them all away. We stole Maven. So have you seen Maven yet? Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's coming and hung Out. And yeah, so is that, that's a, that's half of the dream team here has, has moved out to Oregon.

John Dehlin [00:05:02] You're next, John, Julia and Gerardo and then me. I think that's the order.

John Larsen [00:05:06] All right, well, they're all, they're all welcome to come. Come and take a stay.

John Larsen [00:05:09] Okay.

Who Was Reed Smoot?

John Larsen [00:05:11] All right. So Reed Smooth.

John Dehlin [00:05:13] Any announcements? Are we going right into Reed Smooth?

John Larsen [00:05:16] Oh, my. No, no. No announcements in particular.

John Dehlin [00:05:20] I have a question. I have a question. Yeah, so I, I was mentioning to you pre show that the combination of this eight passengers, Ruby, Frankie, Jody Hildebrandt story combined with this Tim Ballard story has, has been the biggest month on Mormon stories. Bigger than any of the Romney stuff, bigger than, you know, any of those Mormon moments, you know, Prop 8, any of that. It's just been gargantuan. And John Larsen, I don't know if you even know who the eight passengers were or anything about Ruby, Frank and Jody Hildebrandt or Tim Ballard, but I want to give you a chance to opine on any of that stuff.

John Larsen [00:06:00] Tim Ballard, I know a little. I was telling John, I attended a project management conference back in Salt Lake about seven or eight years ago and he was the keynote speaker. And he, he struck me as being completely full of shit back then and I thought he should be arrested for what he was doing. And apparently he's well on his way to getting there, so. Oh no. But Kimmy, my partner, she's been voraciously gobbling up every Mormon stories. You guys have been cranking them out. You're spitting them out one a day. And thank you for doing the Lord's work on this. I will say this to give other people permission. One of the ways I keep my mental health in relationship to the church in check is I don't follow a lot of this stuff very closely. It's not a criticism to those who do. This is a fascinating story, but I am sketchy on the details. So, yeah, powerful men do powerful things and it usually is stuff that makes the rest of us say ick.

John Dehlin [00:07:01] And in the case of Jodi Hildebrand, it was a powerful woman. But, but Margi reminds me often it's like, John, are you looking out for the mental health and well being of your audience? Are you bringing them too much intensity too frequently? And John Larsen, I think you and Margi are on the same page.

John Larsen [00:07:18] Well, they, they need a meter. I don't know if it's your job to decide on, you know, several hundred thousand people's mental health, but I will say that the podcasts are forever. You can, you can hit pause anytime. And hey, if you start finding yourself getting worked up, you start finding your blood pressure going up, you know, go take walk. And this stuff is a lot. It's a lot to process. It's a lot to understand. It takes years. It's okay to take your time. There's no hurry. No hurry.

John Dehlin [00:07:51] I love it.

John Larsen [00:07:51] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:52] The recordings will be there for when you need them. All right, well, let's jump into the Reed Smoot hearings. John Larsen.

Sources and Historical Background

John Larsen [00:07:57] All right, let me first, and I always try to do this to reveal my sources, primarily four sources. Four books. The first one is called the Mormon Question, Polygamy and constitutional conflict in 19th century America. The second one, the Reed Smooth the Investigation of a Mormon center, the Transformation of an American Religion. The third was the Mormon Church on Trial Transcripts of the Reed Smoot Hearings and Polygamy of History, which, if you're only going to read one of those books, read the last one. It's like 10 bucks on Amazon. Well worth it. And then of course, the official statements in the church and, you know, Wikipedia and whatever else I can magpie in. So if you are really wonky and want to follow up, there's been a lot written on this. And, you know, John, I understand why now nobody has done this. If this were a history class. This is sort of graduate level stuff because, well, it's fascinating, but there are so many threads going on here to try to understand what was happening and why. And I think this story that we're going to go through the next hour or so is going to twist and turn in ways that I didn't think it would in the beginning. The things that I think are really interesting about this, the hearings and what was happening at the time are not the things that, when I started, when I started, I thought, oh, we'd find a good couple ways to poke at Joseph F. Smith, make him look silly and that sort of thing. But there's this is, this is, this is big, and it reflects on what's going on today in Congress. I see a lot of. I see a distant mirror in the Reed Smoot hearings, so. So buckle up and get ready to cover a lot of material. I'll do my best to kind of summarize American history and the church history and where these two things collided in the early 20th century.

John Dehlin [00:09:51] All right, let's do it.

John Larsen [00:09:53] All right, so let's jump straight into American and kind of European history to get kind of the bigger picture of what was Going on. First of all, you know, I'm going to repeat your 9th grade history class here. The Industrial Revolution really kicked into the late 1700s, and they span it to about 1840 or so. Kind of the era of Joseph Smith really is the end of the Industrial Revolution. And then there's what historians tend to classify as the second industrial revolution, which was from 1870 to 1914. So the first Industrial Revolution, you have people kind of moving out of the farms, Home production sort of goes away. We start having a lot of things in factories, cities building up, a lot of big stuff coming out. Cultural change that is quick. And of course, the settling of America is part of that. Well, also in the 17th and 18th century, or I should say the 18th and 19th, in the United States, you have a couple of interesting things happening. And one is the United States was never really settled for the idea of religious liberty. It was the early settlers and the early movers and shakers were really more about creating kind of the religion, the religious place that they wanted. I mean, the Puritans were not pluralists at all. They wanted a Puritan haven. And as the English sort of started taking control of the American continent, you know, from the French and the Spanish and the Russians and the other people who were also trying to get territory, a really sort of Protestant ethos sort of emerged. And it had its height really at the end of the 19th century. And I bring these things up because this period that we're looking at, these hearings, were between 1904 to 1907, was really a time when America was kind of searching for an identity coming out of that, with the Progressive Era. We'll get into that in a little bit. So let's go back to the Civil War. The Civil War and the election of Lincoln seized the foundation of an important American institution, the Republican Party. And the Republican Party, of course, Lincoln was the first president of the Republican Party. And the Republican Party was founded on sort of a battle between what they call the twin relics of barbarism. And the twin relics of barbarism were slavery and polygamy. And those two things were seen by the Protestant kind of power base as being these throwbacks to barbarism, throwbacks to paganism, a reversal of society. And the idea in the 19th century was we needed to have our Protestant values. And when I say Protestant, we definitely mean anti Catholic at this time. You know, it wasn't just people who weren't Christians. It was against the Mother Church too. But this belief that to have a good life in the United States we need this Protestant ethos. And you see a lot of like blue laws and things during this time. Like it's. And some of these laws are still on the book, some of them are still in some counties, you know, like no alcohol on Sunday, no stores open on Sunday, you know, prayer in schools, this moralistic test that to be a male and it was always men, because at this time women were not allowed in the public sphere to hold office and to vote even, you know, you had to have this strict upbringing. Because the Protestant belief that prevailed in American politics was that individuals are depraved by nature and they require strict upbringing. And if you don't bring them up strictly with moral instructions, both the state having a heavy hand on what can and can't be done and the church having a heavy hand, then people will decay, that is into slavery. We're talking about the practice of slavery, like slave owning and moral reprehensible acts like polygamy. From the Mormons. The period from 1890 to 1910 is generally called the Progressive Era. So that's the end of the Victorian era, the start of the Edwardian era. And people are starting to see the benefits and payoff from industrialism and the things around it like scientific progress. So we start seeing some real progress in society. We see the suffragette movement giving women the vote. You can read like Upton Sinclair talking about the terrible working conditions in factories and pushing back against those.

John Dehlin [00:15:07] That's the jungle. That's the jungle.

John Larsen [00:15:09] The book, the Jungle. Yes. You see like child labor laws going in place. But before that, if you were an 8 year old in Appalachia, you might be a coal miner, you know, who would die a black lung when you were 27. Like things really were quite deplorable during that whole industrialization and that Protestant era. And this Progressive era wanted to increase pluralism because it was really good for commerce. If you cut your market off and you don't deal with, I don't know, China or India or other places that are ostensibly non Christian or you are constantly treating them as an other than that, you're waging war on, you're gonna limit your markets. So increasingly, money leads to a progressiveness. And this incident of the Reed Smoot hearings happens right in that Progressive era. So it is this changing flip in American history as to what's going on and who is allowed at the table. And that question of who is allowed at the table and this table I'm talking about is political power and the right to govern. That is going to be the Key question. And that is what these hearings were all about. Okay, all right, so let's put the US History aside for a second. You know, I kind of want to set the table. Let's talk about. Let's do a brief, like, five, ten minute history of polygamy in the church. So Joseph Smith, by the admission of, you know, his closest compadres, people like Oliver Cowdery, had his first real affair with Fanny alger in the 1830s. By 1842, they were secretly practicing polygamy in Nauvoo. And the church leadership, it was really the church leadership where it was limited to. Were approaching women on the sly and they would bring them in and they would do this thing in pairs. It's really creepy. They do it in pairs. They. There'd be two men and they would initiate her into. Into polygamy. Then they would marry, and then they would oftentimes, you know, then go off and consummate said marriage. These women were often already married to other men or they were single. It was just the gamut. Some of them were really young, some of them were old. It was all over the place. In 1842, it kind of blew open when Bennett was outed and he and William Smith, the prophet's younger brother, had kind of gone rogue a little bit, according to Smith and others. And then of course, we have the Nauvoo Expositor, which really blows the top off of it. By 1846, when the saints are leaving Nauvoo and heading into Omaha territory to winter quarters, it's an open secret, for example, in William Clayton's journals. William Clayton was Joseph Smith's personal secretary and he kept extensive journals. Great book. You can find his journals. He was prolific. They're available on Amazon, the journals of William Clayton. They're a fascinating read, but they were openly, like, sporting around their second and third wives by the time the Saints were leaving to head to Salt Lake City. So although it's still a secret, and the church denied it publicly up until 1856 when they had a fireside or something there up in the hills, and they announced publicly that polygamy was now the practice. So the missionaries and the apostles who would go out and talked to newspapers or go out in proselyte, they had orders to lie about it until 1856 or so. What happens next is in 1857, we have two big incidents that get a lot of national press. One is the assassination of Parley P. Pratt. Parley P. Pratt had married a woman who had left her husband to join the church. And as was practice at the time, she had not obtained an actual divorce from her husband. He was not happy about this. And he chased Parley P. Pratt down and, and murdered him on, on the. In. In Arkansas or somewhere. I can't remember where it happened.

Polygamy in Early Mormon History

John Dehlin [00:19:42] Yeah, it was.

John Larsen [00:19:43] And then in the fall, it was our good time. In the fall of, in the fall of 1857, September 11th, of course, notoriously, that's when Mountain Meadows Massacre happened. A brutal, brutal attack by the Mormons on the Fancher wagon party. They basically killed everybody who was over 7, 8 years old. Everyone. Women, children, 10 year olds, 11 year olds. And then they kind of piled their bodies up on the plains to feed to the coyotes or whatever. It was a difficult section of Mormon history. Well, that got the attention of everybody. And so that's when the US Government sent an army to suppress. Now there were other problems. Young was openly talking about creating a kingdom at this time. And he was doing strategic things like setting Mormon settlements and Mormon armed militia on every single watering hole from this side of the Rocky Mountains all up and down from San Bernardino down into Mexico, all the way up. He was basically creating this wall. He never really branched, held the territory that the Oregon Trail went through up in Idaho very well. But everything south of that was really controlled by the Mormons. This made the federal government really super nervous. So they sent out what is referred to in secular history as the Utah War. Mormon writers really refer to it as Johnston's army, as if Johnston was the sole instigator.

John Larsen [00:21:19] I don't know.

John Larsen [00:21:20] So they bring these guys out, they come into Utah, Mormons know they're skunked, but it shows the Mormon tenacity. I love this story. They had run everybody out of Salt Lake City and they'd filled up the houses with straw. And when Johnson's army comes down the streets in Salt Lake, there's the Mormon elders there with torches burning, ready to light the whole fucking town on fire. It speaks. It speaks to the tenacity of these events. Things were hot and they set up some bases. But then the Civil War breaks out about 1860. So that puts, we have the two twin barbarisms of polygamy and the slavery. And polygamy goes to the wayside. Now, Brigham Young kind of plays both sides a little bit during the Civil War. And the Mormons believed that the Civil War at the time, if you read the writings, they believed that the Civil War is a precursor to the end times, that they were going to set up the Kingdom of God. The United States would fail. And that was always sort of the belief. All through the 19th century, Mormons were kind of backwards and back and forth on the. Their participation, activism in the American scene, because they just believed it was gonna go away, it was going to collapse, and that the Mormon kingdom would spring up and take its place. And their job was to put that kingdom in place for Jesus to come down and take the reins. But Lincoln didn't lose sight. 1862, Lincoln signed the Morrill act, which was the first real big legislation. I'm going after the Mormons. It didn't get a lot of attention until post war. Now, the Southerners call this the post war phase. They refer to them as the carpetbaggers, and it's called restitution, whatever it is, in the history books. But a lot of northern politicians, business people, were sent to rebuild the South. But what they were really doing is kind of colonizing it and making sure that the Confederates didn't have the power that they had pre war. Well, the same thing happened in Utah. So Utah had been set up as a territory, but there were a lot of federal officials that were sent in to govern the territories as a federal territory. Utah was an independent state. And the federal officials reported that as of 1865, 2/3 of all territorial government offices were polygamists. So at this time, polygamy is becoming very kind of entrenched. Now, if you take the church's number, I think the church says that only 4% of people practice polygamy. But let's be clear where that number comes from. If there was a man who had two wives and they had 21 children, the church would count the man and his two wives as being in polygamy and the 21 children as not being in polygamy. So that's how the church gets its really low numbers. It only counts people who are engaged in polygamous marriages directly, as opposed to. The reality of it is it was a familial situation where everybody was participating in this whether they wanted to or not. So the federal government was really concerned that Utah, especially during the war, that Brigham had sealed his grip on the territory and they didn't trust him from. For some reasons. We'll get into a little bit further. So Republic, the Republican Party, having kind of taken control of the government and won the war, turned its eyes heavily onto Utah and the polygamous. Going through a couple other dates in 1874, we talked about this last podcast. One of Brigham Young's wives, Anna Eliza Young, who wrote the book Wife 19. She had divorced Brigham Young and the divorce was very sensational. National news followed it and she went on a tour all the over the United States and would tell about the horrors of polygamy. So a lot of anti polygamous sentiment in the eastern papers in particular. So things start ratcheting up politically. There's this back and forth game between the federales and the Utah people over control and political control of the territory. So in 1878, to kind of push things, the church selects a young man by the name of George Reynolds. And he was kind of a clean cut guy and he had two young wives. He didn't have a great big beard, he didn't look like a relic from the past. And they sort of put him up as a test case to go before the Supreme Court to basically rule on if polygamy was protected by the establishment clause of the First Amendment. Basically saying the government has no right. This is the Utah argument. The government has no right to dictate what we do in our marriage ceremonies. That's a religious right and protected by the First Amendment. An argument which I will point out. In 2008, the church completely 180'd on with Prop 8. And the church said that the state does have an interest in deciding who and what can get married in the church's campaign against gay marriage, which backfired on them spectacularly. But that case goes before the Supreme Court in 1878 and the Supreme Court decides that the establishment clause does not apply to domestic relationships. And that whatever you're doing from a marriage or family perspective, that is not protected religious practice. And you know, I've read a lot about the reasoning. I'm not gonna bore you guys all with constitutional theory, but it basically boils down to that, that thing I was talking about, that Protestant exceptionalism that kind of ruled the day during the 19th century. The Supreme Court kind of uses that ruling to say, no, this is. The state has a vested interest in the way people live their lives and their moral code. And so we have an interest in this. Well, that rule, that losing the Supreme Court case and basically opens the floodgates to the Edmunds act, which is 1882. Now, again, you know, historical purposes, these were all spearheaded by the Republican establishment. Now I realize that the party has changed in many ways, but you know, I want to, I want to be absolutely clear who, who is going on, because this will come up a little bit in the, in the future. Now, the Edmond Act, 1882, and then it was amended and became The Edmund Tucker act, I believe, 1887. And at the time by. By Mormons referred to this big, this time period as the raid, and outside newspapers referred to it as the crusade. And so what happens is the federal agents start coming in and looking for what's called the cohabs. They really couldn't. They first tried to say, you're making illegal marriages, but that didn't work because the church just stopped. They literally stopped recording every marriage. And if you read in the late 19th century, the church claims that they kept track of no marriages whatsoever. It just wasn't something they did. They had no idea who got married to whom or whatever. So in these laws, they made unlawful cohabitation, which is why they became known as the cohabs. During this time, anybody who is still practicing polygamy. And they went after the church hard. John Taylor went into hiding and he was never caught. But Cannon spent time in prison. Rudger Clausen spent time in prison. A bunch of them did. And then with EDMUNDS TUCKER Act 1887, they started seizing the church property. Basically said, the church is not capitulating. They are not obeying. We're going to take everything that they have. And they started to do so. If, if, if the manifesto had not come out in 1890, the Mormon Church would have ceased to exist as we know it. I have no doubt.

John Dehlin [00:30:14] Really?

John Larsen [00:30:16] Yeah, yeah. They would have just seized everything. They would take in everything. The leaders would have all been in prison. They would have crushed it. It's absolutely clear.

John Dehlin [00:30:25] That makes sense.

John Larsen [00:30:27] So stat I'm going to throw out then. I'll, I'll take a breath here. I thought. This is fascinating. Between 1871 and 1896, 1896, the year Utah chief statehood, there were 2,500 criminal cases on court records in Utah. 95% of the criminal cases tried in Utah were sexually related. So it goes to show that. I've said it before, Mormonism is a sex cult. It always has been and always will be. And that statistic kind of shows it, because the practice was what the feds were going after, and they wanted it stamped out of United States territories.

John Larsen [00:31:11] Hmm.

John Larsen [00:31:12] All right. That's a lot.

John Dehlin [00:31:13] Okay. So, yeah, no, that's good. I don't have a lot. I think that's a really important foundation. I don't have a lot to say or to ask. I think it's. It's just a good foundation you've laid, I guess. I guess if we're playing devil's advocate, we, you know, someone could claim you Know, religious freedom, discrimination, you know, don't, don't yuck our, you know, non monogamy.

John Larsen [00:31:37] Don't yuck our. Yum.

John Dehlin [00:31:38] Don't knock, don't, don't yuck our non monogamy. Yum. What would you say to that, journalist?

John Larsen [00:31:43] Well, well, that was the. That was the, the moral case the church had. And I think the church had an interesting case. I don't think they were necessarily wrong about that, you know, from a constitutional perspective and a perspective of. Of religious freedom. But I think that they lost. Whatever. Whatever political points they had won in the 19th century, they lost when they reversed it to go after the gays. It really dismayed me in the first half of the first part of the 21st century when they just completely threw their ancestors under the wagon, as it were.

John Dehlin [00:32:24] Yeah. By claiming there's only one type of marriage. And it is all. It has always been so, you know, from the very beginning of time, one.

John Larsen [00:32:32] One man, the state to enforce it.

John Dehlin [00:32:34] Yeah, one man and one woman and all that stuff.

John Larsen [00:32:36] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. There's another podcast that I have queued up. I don't know when I get to it, we're going to talk about the year 1890. The year 1890 is really super important in Mormonism. And because in a nutshell, Joseph Smith had a revelation. It's in the Book of Commandments or Doctrine and Covenants, where he asks about the coming of Christ. And the answer is, well, if you live to be 80 or whatever the age is, I can't remember off the top of my head, then you'll see Christ return. And then again, God says, that's all I have to say about that. Well, if you added those years onto Joseph Smith, it comes out to 1890. So as all this stuff is happening, as the church is falling apart, there are several hardliners in the quorum of the 12 who don't want to do anything because they believe Jesus is about to come and set everything right. As a matter of fact, Wilford Woodruff maneuvered around those guys to get the manifesto in place because they didn't think that it would matter. So when the manifesto came out, some of the members of the Quorum were like, ah, whatever, because Jesus is just right around the corner. So the manifesto gets published in 1891, and it's in your scriptures right now. It basically condemns the practice of polygamy or stops the practice of polygamy without actually condemning the practice of polygamy. And there's a lot of scholarship that's been spent on nuanced parsing of manifesto one and Manifesto two. But the manifesto was important for Utah, saying, we give up. We're leaving polygamy behind. We want to be part of this bigger pluralism, and we want to join the rest of the world, and we're willing to walk away from that, as a matter of fact. So that happens in 1890. But the understanding. This comes out in the Reed Smoot hearings. The church leaders sort of believed there was a wink and nod sort of thing, that they weren't going to practice it openly, but everyone could just stay with their wives. And this becomes a big point because Joseph F. Smith fathered 11 children from five different women after 1890. And that comes out in the hearings. Now there's another political. We have to keep coming back to politics here. In 1895, there is a political manifesto that is done that basically the church says no officer of the church can run for office unless they have the approval of the first presidency. Let's say the approval. I don't think it's the first presidency at that point. It was just the approval of the church. I can't remember who exactly they needed. Well, the majority of the 12 at this time were already Republicans, but there were two noted Democrats. One was Moses Thatcher, who is a member of the quorum of the 12. And there was B.H. roberts. Moses Thatcher didn't like this at all. And they tried to strong arm these two guys into signing the manifesto that said you had to have the permission of church leadership. Moses Thatcher refused to sign, and he was kicked out of the quorum of the 12. B.H. roberts eventually signed. And because of this political manifesto, the federal agents sort of believed this was the church pulling back on political playing around, that there was always a concern, we'll hit this more. It was always a concern that the church was calling all the shots. And so they wanted to see that if Utah is going to become a state, that this is not just a puppet organization for the church. So 1896, statehood is achieved. Yay. The Utah state is born, the 45th State of the Union. And in 1898, Roberts runs for this, for the House of Representatives. This is BH Roberts, who we've talked about. We talked about last time. He did have permission to run, and he won the election, but the House refuses to seat him because he is a polygamist. I think at the time, he had three. Three wives. They're like, nope, we are not. The ethics board of the House says, you can't come in. You have three wives. See, one point, Congress had some standards and they caught Roberts up and 1903, this is right on the eve of the events we're talking about here. Heber J. Grant, who was not the president of the church yet. He was giving us talk a speech to the University of Utah students. And he said kind of. And I love reading Hebe Grant. He's fantastic. If you get yourself a copy of the journal Discourse, read yourself some Heber J. Grant. He's a kick, but he brags that he has two wives and he would take a third if the law permitted it. Right now he got exiled out to Europe, so he didn't get arrested. The church shipped him out to Europe to hide him and cool off, which is actually the same thing they did with Benson about 40 years later. Get him out of. Get him out of. Out of solid. Get him into Europe to protect him political, politically. Okay, so that leads us up to 1903. Now, at this time, senators were still. Were. Were not put in place by the electoral college. They were put in place by the local state legislature. The constitution was amended to change that. But in the early days of the Union, the states elected their senators directly or appointed them. It was an election of the. Of the. Of the state senators. And so Abraham Smoot, or I mean, I mean, Reed Smoot was chosen. And now Reed Smoot was a member of the Quorum of the twelve Apostles. And so he went to the powers that be and say that he wanted to run. Now let's talk about who Reed Smoot was for a minute. Reed Smoot was the son of Abraham Smoot, who I slipped and said a minute ago, anybody who's been to BYU will recognize name Abraham Smoot, because that's. The administrative building is named after the Smoot administration, the asb. The asb, yes. He was the second mayor of Salt Lake City, Abraham was. And then he went down to Provo, where he became the stake president of Provo for like 27 years. And stake presidents at the time were very. Were more powerful than they are now. They held a lot of economic power also. And he was the first president of the board of trustees at byu, which is why he's kind of honored there. And he was a polygamist. In fact, Reid was the son of his fifth wife of Abraham's fifth wife at the time in the church, in the late 19th century and early 20th century, when the members of the Quorum of the Twelve had sons, the firstborn son of the quorum of the 12 was usually put into the quorum of the 12. So it was patrilineal for a long time. So when you study the members of the Quorum of the twelve in the modern church, you'll see a lot of sons of former church leaders. And Reed Smoot was one of those. He was a successful businessman. And Reed Smoot sort of embodied this transition of time, this progressive era that I was talking about. He was put into the Quorum of the twelve by Lorenzo Snow. And Lorenzo Snow was fully embraced a new liberalism and believed in science. Go, go, go figure. Unfortunately, Lorenzo Snow, which was Eliza A.R. snow's brother, he seemed like he was a really fantastic dude. By the way, Lorenzo Snow was very compassionate. His sermons were compassionate. He was not like the other girls, you know, the Brigham Young faction. And when he ascended, he put in Reed Smooth. But he was only the president church, like a year or two. And he died, I think rather unexpectedly. But he opened a new era in the church that lasted until the Depression. If you get Sunday school manuals from the teens and twenties, they are full of poetry and literature and science. And you start seeing people like John Widtso and Henry Eyring Senior, you know, people who brought science to. Henry Eyring Senior was a 70, I think, so was John Widtsoe. And they brought a new era of looking at Mormon doctrine through the lens of kind of a more modern thing. It's fantastic stuff. It's some of my favorite portions of doctrine out there from the period. And that was put in place by Lorenzo Snow. So we have the polygamy is ostensibly supposed to be ended 1890. And before that point, being a polygamist was a litmus test for being in the leadership of the church. You could not ascend high positions. And there's journal entries and stories and speeches where there were people they wanted to get into higher positions of the church, but they refused to take plural wives. So they said, you can't be in the 12. You can't be in the 70 unless you're a polygamist. This started transitioning during this period, and Reed Smooth was not a polygamist. He never was. And he only had one wife. He also had a lot of business acumen, like his father. The other transition we start seeing at this point, during this progressive age, kind of 1890 to 1910, in the church, it's following the same pattern we're seeing in the United States. The chokehold that religion had on everything during the 19th century was starting to form, fade. And what we see is that prior to this era, In Utah, it's the theologians, the religious guys who are controlling the state. And when we transition to the more American way of doing things, that it was the businessmen controlling the state, but the businessmen who were sons of general authorities. So they kind of were inside the inside rail. There's a podcast waiting out there, research on all of the inner. All the nepotism in the church. It's enormous. It's huge. I can't keep track of it all, but Reed Smoot had business acumen and was loyal to the church. He was a monogamist, and he had served progressively in the church. So Lorenzo Snow recognized him and put him in the Quorum.

The Political Climate and Lead-Up to the Hearings

John Larsen [00:44:05] So

John Larsen [00:44:08] when Reed Smoot decided he wanted to run for the Senate, it was a good choice because the church was still not quite ready to give up political control. And, of course, Ezra Taft Benson later was Secretary of Agriculture while being in the quorum of the 12. So for Ezra Taf Benson, he was really following precedent of what had happened. Okay, so. So the church says, let's put this guy in, and he gets elected by the Utah Senate, because, of course, the church controls the. The Utah Senate at this point, and goes, get seated. And then there's a couple guys who say, now, wait a minute. And that. That leads us to the Reed Smoot hearing. So. Oh, take a deep breath. We've gone through a lot of. A lot of history there. A lot of things happening, a lot of moving parts. But let me say this. This thing that happens is really extremely important in the identity of America itself, which is why this is such an important topic.

John Dehlin [00:45:18] Absolutely.

The Reed Smoot Hearings Begin

John Larsen [00:45:20] All right. Any. Any questions on any of that stuff?

John Dehlin [00:45:23] No, I think we're ready.

John Larsen [00:45:25] All right.

John Larsen [00:45:25] That's great.

John Dehlin [00:45:26] Context.

John Larsen [00:45:28] Yeah.

John Larsen [00:45:28] Yeah. 20 minutes of polygamy history from John. You're welcome. Okay. So at the time, the times were very similar to right now. The Republican Party controlled the White House, the Senate, and the House and the Supreme Court. And the Republican Party had run on this ticket throughout the. From the end of the Civil War to the beginning of the 20th century on sort of Make America Great Again. I'm not trying to make fun of anybody. I'm trying to draw the parallels that they wanted to get rid of progressive elements and they wanted to return back to that Protestant view of the church of the state. I mean, and so the Republican Party is sort of trying to find a new identity. And of course, by this time, a lot of the leadership of Utah and the Mormons have embraced Republicanism. So Reed Smoot is a Republican, and he gets seated into a Republican Senate with a Republican majority. But there were some of the Republican senators who didn't like polygamy, and they didn't like some other elements. There were basically three big issues. And a fourth one I'm gonna add as a kicker. First of all, it hadn't been that long. Polygamy was still considered a pariah. And there were these whispers that polygamy was still being practiced in Utah, that when the. When the. The accusation was, that was that the manifesto was a blatant lie, that they were still marrying women, they were still trafficking women, and it was just all under the hood. An accusation, which, of course, was true. Although the grip of polygamy was starting to fade at this time, the polygamists did not have as much power at this time as they had, say, in the 1860s, 1870s. That was the first big complaint that gets litigated in the Reid Smith hearings. The second one is church and state. This sort of goes along with. I mentioned Upton Sinclair in, like the jungle, the antitrust laws. Cause, remember, 1870s, 1880s, you have the railroad barons and standard Oil and these robber barons who were getting hugely rich. Again, a parallel to our time, where you have these few industrialists who are just sucking up. So much of the collective wealth and the quality of life of the working class is tanking. So at this time, you start seeing a pushback on that. So as some of the more progressives are looking at the church, they see the church as potentially pulling the strings behind the government that, yeah, we're putting in people who are no longer church authorities into these positions. But the second accusation was the church is still calling all the shots. A question that's still open today. The third one was basically the primacy of the church over government. This sounds a little bit like the other one, but the belief among the prosecutors of the Reed Smoot was that Mormons were loyal to the church above and beyond their loyalty to the federal government, which is exactly what Brigham Young, who was ordained king of the world, Joseph Smith, who was ordained king of the world, and John Taylor, who was ordained king of the world, believed Brigham Young made no pretense that he was setting up the kingdom of God and that he was the steward to hand it off to Jesus Christ. And of course, there's enough people going in and out of Utah that this stuff is. Is out. Rudger Clausen, who was convicted, he was also kind of. What the brethren did is they picked certain general authorities to go get prosecuted and put into the territorial prison. And Rudger Clausen is one of those. And he said in his hearing that when the laws of this country come in conflict with the laws of God, I will always choose the laws of God. To paraphrase. And these guys down in Congress, in the Senate, they knew that he had said this. And then there is another element in the temple. Let's talk about the oath of vengeance. So after Joseph Smith died, they were always tinkering with the temple, but they added this, which is you. And each of you do covenant and promise that you will pray and never cease to pray to Almighty God to avenge the blood of the prophets upon this nation, and that you will teach the same to your children and to your children's children unto the third and fourth generation that was still in the temple when these things happen. So the prosecuting senators and their lawyers are like, color me skeptical. And the oath of vengeance does come up in the hearings. It's one of the things they deal with. So I just gave you two instances there where the federal government had good cause to believe that the church still viewed itself as above the federal government and not subjected to federalism. And to the state. Now, remember, that's what the Civil War was about, or in part is about many things, but this whole state's rights. Do states have the right to pull away from. From the Union? Of course. So I don't sound racist. The reason they wanted to pull away is because they wanted to practice slavery and keep dominating African Americans the way they had. But it was fought over the idea that they cannot withdraw from the Union, that the Union can enforce itself. And same way with Utah. The Utah cannot set its own theocratic state. It is now part of the Union and what the Union says goes. So those three issues, polygamy, church and state, and the primacy of the church were what was really litigated during these hearings. And then there was the other one that I kind of alluded to was the Protestants. The Protestants did not like the Mormons at all. They considered them other. They considered them barbaric. They considered them animals. And the question was, are we going to expand the tent to let Mormons into the Republican Party, let Mormons into the federal government and have a legitimate seat here. That sets the stage for the hearings that begin in 1903.

John Dehlin [00:52:31] Okay, I'm dying to know whether it was really morality and principles that guided the. What I'm anticipating to be is the opposition versus just pure money or power, you know, or even bigotry. But I guess you'll tell us that's

John Larsen [00:52:52] a really big question, you know, during the age during, when the Protestants really had a lot of control. And of course this is an important thing because there are a lot of people, especially on the right, who want to go back to this. But wherever there was big pockets of this Protestant WASPy American power, there was always tons of prostitution and other things like that. So I look at this skeptically. You know, I am not, I'm not a Christian and I don't, I don't look at Christian history very favorably. I don't. You guys, I don't, I don't think you are who you think you are. And when we look through this showy sort of, you don't have two wives who you take care of and walk to church with. You have one wife and three mistresses who you put up and then you visit the brothels after Congress. So their morality was a very public facing morality and back facing it was a very Epstein sort of morality. That's still with us. So the idea that these guys were somehow morally superior to the Mormons, I don't buy it. But they really, you know, had that show of pretense and they did a lot of pearl clutching about polygamy in this thing.

John Dehlin [00:54:09] Okay, all right, well, that gives us a preview anyway.

John Larsen [00:54:12] Okay, so the, the hearing span about, I think it's like 3,000 pages. And I will admit to you, I did not read all of them. They, they bring all sorts of people on on stage, and we're going to really focus on Joseph F. Smith because that's who, that's who the spotlight was on. But I want to say that the hearings had established the Matthias Cowley, Heber J. Grant, John Henry Smith. So Matthias Cowley, member of the 12, Heber J. Grant, member of the 12. John Henry Smith was the patriarch of the church. George Teasdale was, I think in the 12. He might have been a 70 though, and John W. Taylor were in the 12 had all practiced post manifesto polygamy in some form or the other. So this thing did actually crack open and prove that the church was lying about post manifesto polygamy, that the highest echelons were in fact marrying people. Oftentimes it, it became underground. Sometimes they did it in homes. They oftentimes most often they did in Canada or in Mexico in the colonies. And then sometimes they would do a seafaring marriage, which is going to come up here in a minute as part of concert.

John Dehlin [00:55:22] Like Scientology.

John Larsen [00:55:24] Yeah. So it's like they're all reading from the same playbook. No, Matthias Cowley and John W. Taylor were both excommunicated over this in 1907 because they refused to capitulate. They thought the polygamy was eternal. And in fact, Richard Lyman was excommunicated in 1946. I think he was stooping. His secretary got caught in bed with her. He later claimed that they had actually been married, polygamous. And the two wives, who knows? Who knows if he was just having an affair or if they had. But. So there we have evidence of a member of the quorum of the 12 practicing polygamy in secret up until in the 40s. So these accusations, not without some merit. Okay, so let's talk about Joseph F. Smith. Joseph F. Smith kicks the thing off and he submits himself to five days of testimony. Now, both he and Smoot had tried to do the same thing. Smoot had put in his written testimony, and Smoot had tried to set himself up as making it about him. He was trying to avoid that the hearings would go into the practice of the church. Now, the lawyer for the Smoot hearings, Taylor, he really wanted to. He was going after those two other points that the church controls the Mormons, and Mormons do what the church tells them to do. So you might come and say, well, I'm not the church. I'm just a dude who happens to be a member of the church, and I'm here. But the lawyers would say, no, no, you've committed to them in the temple. You've told them you'll do whatever they say. We're not buying that. You're independent. So Joseph F. Smith, as I was reading about this, there are some mixed descriptions. People who are antagonistic towards Joseph F. Smith tend to describe him as being kind of mousy and small during these things that, you know, he looked out of place. Now, he had a ZZ Top beard when he did this, you know, going down to his belly button. And he wore homespun, like he looked like a yokel. So, you know, we're in Washington, D.C. kind of in the Edwardian era. It's rich. It's the Gilded Age. It's garish. Like, people are wearing expensive clothing and silks and all this stuff. And this guy comes back from the hinterland and, you know, wearing a suit that his wife had sewn. So he looked kind of like a whimsical figure. And, you know, Americans and the press kind of had a heyday with that. He looked like he was from a different time, a different place. But the faithful accounts of this and one of the sources we have is George Q. Cannon took copious notes. We also have the congressional stenographers. This is gonna be important because there's a big argument that comes up about a comma here in a little bit. But they describe him as being an orator. Now he was, he was Joseph F. Smith. I've read his writings. I've never heard a recording of him. I don't know. I don't know if there's a recording of F. Smith. But you know, those guys were in the tabernacle without, without amplification. They, they knew how to project their voice. They knew how to rock a room. Right. And this is a guy who has been in the inner circles of the church since he was born. And, and he, you know, he spoke and wrote as somebody having huge authority. And so some accounts, we don't have any recordings from this because it's too early in time for that. But some accounts make him sound bold and the others make him sound mousy. I'll leave it to you. John and I are going to do a dramatic reading now. John? John, do you have the. Do you have the.

Joseph F. Smith Testifies Before Congress

John Larsen [00:59:28] I do.

John Dehlin [00:59:28] I have a dramatic reading right here.

John Larsen [00:59:32] Okay. So I got to get to my book here because my eyes aren't so great anymore. So this is from the very first day of testimony here. And what you'll see here is now, now you can get a public domain copy of the congressional hearings that's out there. It's like an archive.org but it is the original congressional. It's like, it's, it's a little bit hard to read. So we're reading from, from Paulos book where they took and transcribed these and made them easier to read. So I took a picture this afternoon of those and sent them to John.

John Dehlin [01:00:14] And John, I'm probably going to ask you to repeat a tiny bit. So this is what. This is in Washington D.C. in one of these congressional buildings, traditional hearing where they're all like up on some big council, like stand and. Yeah, and the witnesses are down at some table. They wouldn't have microphones at the time, but. And the senators, there's probably, they're split across party lines. Is it, is it Whigs, is it Republicans, is it Democrats? And you know, if you just had to restate the government's general position and then what, what Smith was fighting for, how would you kind of summarize what, what was, what was being battled and what was at stake?

John Larsen [01:01:06] Well, yeah, great question. To reset. So again, remember that the Republicans control the government and this is a Republican nominee. So they could have just rubber stamped him. But there were. There were a few Republican holdouts that didn't like the idea of a Mormon being seated in the Senate. They didn't want that at all. And one of the ringleaders was a guy named Julius Caesar. Barlow or Barrow, I think. But the guy we're going to be reading here, Tyler, he is the lawyer for the Senate. So he's questioning Smith and there are some Democrats there, but the Democrats are out. They don't have enough power here. And nobody cares what the Democrats are gonna say. This is to try to get the Republicans on board to seat Smoot. And I'm glad you bring up that. It's a little bit different. These hearings go on for three years.

John Larsen [01:02:05] Whoa.

John Larsen [01:02:06] It's a different time and place. I mean, they're still riding on horses, for heaven's sakes, at this time, Right? So, you know, you subpoena somebody from Utah, they're gonna take, you know, they're gonna take the train. You know, it's gonna take months to get these things scheduled. And when Congress is not in session, there's no airplanes. So that means, you know, the guys from Oregon and Washington, California, they gotta hoof it all the way across the. You know, they take the train all the way across the continental United States and then go meet with their constituents. So. And the United States government is designed to work slowly. You know, it was one of the first things that was done by the political parties, is to slow everything down, make sure things don't happen quickly. So this is just another casualty of that. These hearings go on very slowly. Joseph F. Smith is there for five days. He gets questioned for five days. And the testimony we're about to read, I think comes from the first day.

John Dehlin [01:03:03] And he's president or prophet of the Mormon Church at the time.

John Larsen [01:03:07] He is the president of the Mormon Church, prophet, seer and revelator. And actually we're going to. The lawyer is going to ask him that question coming up here.

John Larsen [01:03:17] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:03:17] Okay. And he's wanting Smoot to be seated. And he's wanting the Mormon.

John Larsen [01:03:22] He does not want Smoot to be seated. Who the. He is.

John Dehlin [01:03:28] Joseph F. Smith wants you to be seated.

John Larsen [01:03:31] Joseph F. Smith is there to get Smoot seated because, like, I've kind of set the table. The stakes are high here. The question is, do Mormons have a seat at the table? Are Mormons going to be ruled by the other outside Utah, by the federal government, or are Mormons going to become part of the political establishment? And part of the Republican Party proper, that's really the question at hand. Are we going to let the Mormons play?

John Dehlin [01:04:01] Okay. And also, Joseph F. Smith probably just wants the church to come off looking good, not. Not goofy and backwards and weird, right?

John Larsen [01:04:09] That's right. They're worried. You know, we have some of the letters and stuff. They are writing back and forth. There's a mix of hubris that, you know, that some of them think, well, we're the Lord's anointed. We can go in and eat these guys lunch. The more introspect, we're like, we need to coach the witnesses, make sure that they're not going to get hammered out there, make sure they don't. And the witnesses were generally well coached by the church. There's a lot of nuance in, in the, in these hearings. So, yeah, the, the sort of Cora horror farce of a, Of. Of. Of a courtroom doesn't quite happen here.

John Dehlin [01:04:50] Okay. All right, so now we're going to do a dramatic reading. Is that right?

John Larsen [01:04:55] Yeah. So on page 20, there on the left, there's. We're going to skip the first line, and I'm going to start. I'm going to play Mr. Taylor, the aggressive lawyer. And John Dehlin here is going to be our hero, the prophet of the Lord, Joseph F. Smith, getting questioned. Are we ready to go, John? Are you ready?

John Dehlin [01:05:16] I'm ready. I'm gonna put on my old. And how old is Joseph F. Smith by this point?

John Larsen [01:05:20] Do you think he's. He's cranky. I don't know. Probably in his 60s.

John Larsen [01:05:25] Okay, all right.

John Dehlin [01:05:26] I'm doing old cranky prophet voice. All right, here we go.

John Larsen [01:05:30] Okay, well, the page I didn't include at the beginning says, Mr. Taylor asks, where do you live, Mr. Smith? Okay, now we can start right now.

John Larsen [01:05:39] I live in Salt Lake City.

John Larsen [01:05:41] How long have you lived there?

John Larsen [01:05:43] Since 1848.

John Larsen [01:05:46] I believe you were born of parents who were members of the Mormon Church?

John Larsen [01:05:49] Yes, sir.

John Larsen [01:05:51] So that all your life you've been in the Church?

John Larsen [01:05:53] Yes, sir.

John Larsen [01:05:55] What official position do you now hold in the church?

John Larsen [01:05:58] I am now the President of the church.

John Larsen [01:06:03] Is there any other description of your title than mere president?

John Larsen [01:06:07] No, sir, not that I know of.

John Larsen [01:06:10] Are you a prophet, seer, and revelator?

John Larsen [01:06:13] I am so sustained and upheld by my people.

John Larsen [01:06:18] Do you get that title by reason of being president or by reason of having been an apostle?

John Larsen [01:06:25] By reason of being president?

John Larsen [01:06:28] Are not all the apostles also prophets, seers and revelators?

John Larsen [01:06:34] They are sustained as such in our conferences.

John Larsen [01:06:38] They all have that title now, have they not?

John Larsen [01:06:41] Well, they are so sustained at the conferences.

John Larsen [01:06:45] I want to know if they do not have the title now.

John Larsen [01:06:49] I suppose if they are sustained, they must have the title.

John Larsen [01:06:55] Are they sustained as such now?

John Larsen [01:06:58] I believe I have said so twice, sir.

John Larsen [01:07:01] Who were your predecessors in office as president of the church?

John Larsen [01:07:05] My immediate professor was. My immediate predecessor was Lorenzo Snow and

John Larsen [01:07:11] his predecessor, Wilford Woodruff, and his.

John Larsen [01:07:15] John Taylor.

John Larsen [01:07:17] Yes, go on back through the line.

John Larsen [01:07:20] Brigham Young.

John Larsen [01:07:21] Yes.

John Larsen [01:07:22] And Joseph Smith.

John Larsen [01:07:24] You are possessed of the same powers that they were possessed of.

John Larsen [01:07:29] Oh, yes. I'm supposed to be possessed of the same authority that they were.

John Larsen [01:07:36] You believe yourself to be, do you not?

John Larsen [01:07:39] I think I do believe so.

John Larsen [01:07:43] I do not know that there is any significance in your use of the word think, Mr. Smith. But one hardly thinks that he has a belief. He either knows or does not know that he has a belief.

John Larsen [01:07:55] I think I do.

John Larsen [01:07:58] All right. Is the Deseret News the organ of the church?

John Larsen [01:08:02] Well, I. I suppose it is in some sense the organ of the church. It is not opposed to the church.

John Larsen [01:08:09] At least it is not opposed to it.

John Larsen [01:08:12] No, sir.

John Larsen [01:08:13] It has for years published. Has it not, at the head of its columns, that it is the organ of the church or the official organ of the church?

John Larsen [01:08:22] Not that I know of.

John Larsen [01:08:24] Not that you know of?

John Larsen [01:08:25] No, sir. It has been called that it is styled.

John Larsen [01:08:29] That it is styled, that. But you do not recall ever having seen, at the head of any page or on any page or in a conspicuous place in the Desert News the statement that it was the organ of the church or the official organ of the church?

John Larsen [01:08:44] I do not recall that I ever saw it.

John Larsen [01:08:48] You read the paper regularly, do you?

John Larsen [01:08:50] As much as I have time to

John Larsen [01:08:52] read it, I can appreciate now the significance of that answer. How long have you been reading the Deseret News?

John Larsen [01:08:59] I think it was started in 1851 or 1852, somewhere along there. I believe it was established somewhere along the early 50s.

John Dehlin [01:09:09] And I've read it more or less ever since.

John Larsen [01:09:12] Do you know who owns it?

John Larsen [01:09:13] How is that?

John Larsen [01:09:15] Do you know who owns it?

John Larsen [01:09:16] I know who owns the building that it's in.

John Larsen [01:09:21] Who owns the building in which it is published?

John Larsen [01:09:24] The church.

John Larsen [01:09:25] The church.

John Dehlin [01:09:26] Okay. Wait. I'm looking to see what.

John Larsen [01:09:28] Oh, yes, sir.

John Larsen [01:09:30] All right, That's. That's enough. Thank you, John.

John Dehlin [01:09:33] Barbara.

John Larsen [01:09:33] Well done.

John Dehlin [01:09:35] Thank you, John Larsen.

John Larsen [01:09:36] All right, so that was about 10 minutes. It goes on for five days like that.

John Dehlin [01:09:43] No, super evasive.

John Larsen [01:09:45] I mean, super evasive. Right?

John Larsen [01:09:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:09:48] I mean, I guess there's One. There's one position which is just, he's totally being deceptive. Another is that they're like, screw you guys. You hate us. You've been persecuting us forever, so I'm not giving you a gosh darn thing.

John Larsen [01:10:03] You know what I mean?

John Larsen [01:10:03] Right. Yeah. He's a. He's. He's. He's a. He's a hostile witness up against a hostile attorney. And, you know, generally speaking, he holds his own. I've heard ex Mormons sort of characterize him as a doting old fool when he's there. He's clearly not that. He. He knows. He knows what he's doing. He knows what he's. He's nobody saying, but it's just this push and pull to try to. It's like talking to my teenagers, right? It's like trying to get the basic facts out of things. It's just really hard. There's times he's very, very open that they question him about his children. And I think I mentioned earlier that he had fathered 11 children from five women. And what's funny is they go on for about a page because he says, well, I've had at least two kids from each of the women. And then they're like, well, there's 11 kids, so one of them had three. Right. And he's like, I guess so. But, you know, they just. They just this crank all that stuff out. But. But, you know, you know, he's like, I'm. They're my wives. I. You know, I go stay with them. I'm not trying to make a show of it. I'm not trying to be, you know, put it in people's face. But they're. They're. I. I still take care of them. They're my family. So. So he does speak with a boldness and certainty sometimes, but there's times that he kind of just does that sort of stuff. All right, there's three particular areas I want to focus on there. This is a statement, and this is the statement from the. This is the. You're looking for the nut. The thing that everybody fights about from these things, it's this. There has never been, since the Manifesto, to my knowledge, a plural marriage performed in accordance with the understanding, instruction, conveyance, counsel, or permission of the presiding authorities of the church or of the Church in any shape or form. And I know whereof I speak in relation to the matter. Okay, I'll read that one more time.

John Dehlin [01:12:06] Saying that. Who's saying this?

John Larsen [01:12:07] That is. That is Joseph F. Smith in these Testimonies. This statement comes out, they're asking him about post manifesto marriages, marriages that happened after 1890. And he says there has never been since the manifesto, never been to my knowledge, a plural marriage performed in accordance with the understanding. Now we're going to put a lot of weasel words in here. Performed in accordance with the understanding. Instruction. I, I froze because it's con, conveyance, counsel or permission of the presiding authorities of the church or of the church. All right, let me read those again. Understanding instruction, Convian, conveyance, counsel or permission of the presiding authorities of the church or of the church in any shape or form. And I know where of I speak in relation to the matter. Now here's the nut of the issue. When he says or permission of the presiding authorities of the church, that is a bald faced lie and he knows it. But he says the presiding authority of the church comma or of the church. The apologists have been arguing that he didn't mean to say presiding authorities of the church. And when he says or he is correcting himself and what, what he does over and over and over in this is he separates the leadership of the church, the 15, the 12 and the president of the church from the church itself. So they're trying to do the same thing corporate America does right now. They have officers, they have investors, but nobody's to blame. It's the church doing things. It's Enron that did it. There wasn't any particular person in Enron who committed the crimes. It was Enron. There wasn't any particular person who authorized the marriages. It was the church. So the church doesn't know anything. Or in this case he's reversing that the church has no idea this is happening. Is he saying even though he knew it was happening. So in order to preserve and say that Joseph F. Smith was not lying here when they said or of the church, he was correcting and scratching out the other thing. Although Cannon, George Q. Cannon, our, our note taker who is faithful to church. He, he writes it down the same way really quickly.

John Dehlin [01:14:48] Is it possible that Joseph F. Smith actually conducted some of these marriages himself whilst later denying that any even happened? Do you know, do you happen to know that fact?

John Larsen [01:15:01] Well, let's talk about the strange case of Lillian Hamlin and Abra Abraham Smoot.

John Dehlin [01:15:09] And I didn't, I didn't mean to jump ahead or.

John Larsen [01:15:11] No, no, it's a perfect segue. Thank you, John. Okay, I'll give you five dollars after. Okay, so, and this does come up in the, the, the, the Hearings. But there requires a little bit of backstory. George Q. Cannon, who was one of the members of the 12, had a son, David, who died while on a mission. George Q. Cannon was heartbroken because David would have come home and then been in the quorum of the 12, and then, you know, Ben had his kingdom, but because he didn't ever marry, he didn't. In the Mormon belief at the time, he had no kingdom. You had to start setting up your kingdom here now. So when we talk about the celestial kingdom and stuff in the church now, you have to remember this is very literal at the turn of the century, that the kingdom were these men's children and wives. And, you know, they were all part of that. So if you didn't have wives, you didn't have children, you didn't have a kingdom. So George Q. Cannon was really heartbroken. So he approaches his son, and this happens after. After the manifesto, he approaches his son, Abraham Smoot, who at the time, already has three wives.

John Dehlin [01:16:26] And.

John Larsen [01:16:27] And he wants him to take on a Levitical marriage for and behalf of David. So. So the idea is that Abraham Smoot will marry Lillian Hamlin by proxy. Abraham Smoot will. Will father children out of Lillian Hamlin, but those children in the afterlife will be the property of his older brother, David. Does that make sense?

John Dehlin [01:16:57] Okay. Yeah.

John Larsen [01:16:59] Okay. So Abraham Smoot, he's. He is on the inside. By the way, this is a different Abraham Smoot than the one.

John Dehlin [01:17:11] Oh, my goodness. Are you joking?

John Larsen [01:17:13] He. So he. He is. He is on the inside. And so Abraham Smoot and Lillian Hamlin go on a cruise to Catalina island, you know, off outside of Los Angeles. So they take the train out there, and Lillian Hamlin, I think at the time, Abraham Smoot is in his late 30s, and Lillian Hamlin is 18 years old when this happens. So they go on this tour. They take the train with Joseph F. Smith and one of his wives. So they take the train to Utah, from Utah to Los Angeles, get on the boat, and sail to Catalina Island. Now, why would you want to get on a boat? Because the Mormons believed at the time that if they were married at sea, they were circumventing the law of. That they were still obeying the letter of the law or whatever moral reasoning they were doing, that somehow they were trying to circumvent the fact that they weren't supposed to conduct polygamous marriages. Abraham Smoot married Lillian Hamlin as his fourth wife or fifth wife, I can't remember, and they actually had a baby. Unfortunately, Abraham Smoot Died a month later, like a month after they got married. There is an. Our old friend D. Michael Quinn did a lot of research on this and there are letters that state that they were married by Joseph F. Smith. And this was 1896. So this is six years following the manifesto in the testimony in the that, that the lawyer is like, well he's with this young woman, right? And he's like, yeah, I guess I'm like, you know, you've known this guy for years and years and years, right? Yeah, yeah. Did you ask him who this woman was? And Joseph is like, no, I didn't. So he's traveling with this 18 year old girl and he's got wives at home. And you're not curious, Mr. Prophecy, Revelator President Church. He's like, no, I never ask. So D. Michael Quinn argues that Joseph F. Smith was full on lying. There are others that suggest that they got married in Salt Lake City before they went on the trip and that Joseph F. Smith went on this honeymoon. But it strange credulity to believe that Joseph F. Smith did not know what was going on. When you have this young woman there, you know, who's really too young to have been married before or even if you don't take the age into account, that, that he knew this person and he knew that she wasn't his wife a month ago, Right. And now he was traveling, the four of them as companions. And Joseph F. Smith says he was not curious in the least bit as to why Abraham Smoot was traveling with this young woman.

John Dehlin [01:20:22] Not super credible.

John Larsen [01:20:23] Not super credible. And you know, and it happens whenever you have a corporation, you know, the, the CEO makes it sound like they have no idea what's going on anywhere in the organization at all. So that was one of the second big controversies of the Reed Smoot hearing, the third one.

John Dehlin [01:20:41] Basically he's just lying and saying there's no post manifesto polygamy when not only we all know that it carried on for another 10 to 20 years to the point where the church had to issue a second and I heard even a third manifesto.

John Larsen [01:20:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:20:54] But also he maybe was even conducting them himself.

John Larsen [01:20:58] Well, great question.

John Dehlin [01:20:59] And several other apostles were too.

John Larsen [01:21:01] Let's clarify. Joseph F. Smith never denies that there was post manifesto polygamy.

John Dehlin [01:21:07] Okay.

John Larsen [01:21:07] What he denies is that he had any knowledge of it.

John Dehlin [01:21:09] Okay.

John Larsen [01:21:10] And he denies that the church. The church was doing it. And that was that first big complicated quote I shared with you. I see that if these guys were doing it, they were doing it on their own, not in the auspice of the church. The church had no knowledge. The church was innocent. He was innocent. So. So. But he evasively never answers the question really of did he know these things were happening.

John Dehlin [01:21:35] Got it.

John Larsen [01:21:37] Okay, then the next quote. This is a quote by Joseph Smith from the Smoother. I have never pretended to, nor do I profess to have received revelations. I never said I had a revelation, except so far as God has shown to me, the so called Mormonism is God's divine truth. That is all.

John Dehlin [01:21:57] So that's a big one. That's the one that I've heard that he admits that he's never received a revelation, right?

John Larsen [01:22:05] Yes. And he gives this in. There's a series of questions about are the members of the Quorum of the twelve appointed by Revelation? And he's very clear. He says the first ones were, but after that it was all just procedural. And he really makes the distinction. He refuses to actually say that things were divine. So he keeps going back into this sort of still small voice, kind of like he's implementing here. And he's kind of evasive when they ask. He's like, well, I just know. I just know when I feel it, I know it. But he never gives any kind of mechanism. And then this one, of course, I'll read it one more time. I've never pretended to, nor do I profess to have received revelations. I've said I had a rebel. I, I never said I had a revelation, except so far as God has shown to me, the so called Mormonism is God's divine truth. That is all.

John Dehlin [01:23:03] Yeah, that's. That's pretty significant.

John Larsen [01:23:06] It's. It's significant. And you know, I, I'm reminded of Hinckley and, and the way these guys talk to the faithful versus how they talk to the world. Pay attention to how they talk to the world. And what have I said before here? If you want to know what somebody believes, ask their lawyers. If you want to know what these guys really believe, see what they say under testimony, not what they say in conference, not what they say in super secret firesides that only special people are invited to, not what they say in the holy of holies, what do they say when the spotlights are on, when the cameras are on, when the microphones are hot? And it's always like this.

John Dehlin [01:23:44] Okay.

John Larsen [01:23:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:23:46] And why, why do you think. I mean, why. This is obvious. Why do you think he was lying about polygamy? And then why do you think he was lying about, you know, telling the U.S. senate that, that he wasn't receiving revelations. When he would go back to Salt Lake and tell the members that he was, why wouldn't he just say, of course I receive revelations and yeah, we do some polygamy here and there. Go take each one separately.

John Larsen [01:24:13] That's a good question. He was trying to protect the church, clearly. He's trying to plead for relevance and significance in the modern world. And he wanted his cake. He wanted to eat it too. He wanted to preserve what the church had, the political influence, the money. By this time, the church is starting to get rich. When I did my tours of Salt Lake City during this time, like 1907, 1904, a lot of the high rises that are still, the old ones that are still in Salt Lake were built during this time. Salt Lake, and this comes out in the testimonies that had become a railroad hub and an important hub of the west. And a lot of economic growth, mining ventures were going crazy. There was a lot of speculation. So the church had a lot of money and power at this time that needed to be preserved. And I think Joseph F. Smith lived through it all. He had seen the, the, you know, the Edmund Tucker act, lock up the brethren, start seizing property, send people into hiding. So I think there's some evasiveness that is self preserving, but also, I mean, if, if you cut to the heart of it, he's an honest man, even though we're catching him lying. I don't think Joseph F. Smith is a liar. And I think he's cornered and that's what gets him to lie. I think he's being honest here. He doesn't receive revelation because there is no revelation. He feels that Mormonism is God's divine truth and he's finally cornered by lawyers and has to admit the truth and that's that he just operates on emotion, which I think is pretty apparent when you just watch the church.

John Larsen [01:25:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:25:59] So you think he's more likely to be honest with Gentiles than he is with his own people? I mean, that's a really interesting thought that, that, that a Mormon prophet is inclined to be more honest with non Mormons away from the church without the scrutiny of the membership than, than they are with the actual membership. Especially when they're all. I mean, this is crazy. Especially when they're all congregated together in a general conference. It's almost like the more active, faithful, believing Mormons that are around, the less honest the leaders are going to be. Is that fair? I mean, or is that not fair?

John Larsen [01:26:42] I think it's a great observation and the question is why? Why do we treat. I don't know. The parallel that comes to mind is like, somebody who's having an affair, they might love their spouse that they're cheating on, but they're lying, either by deception or outright. And a friend that they drink beer with down at the local pub, they might be more forthcoming with that friend because they don't gain anything from the lie. But lie is kind of a harsh word here because I look at the world and I see most people are caught up in some kind of religious belief that is demonstrably not true. From my perspective, you can take virtually any religion, any big movement, look at it a little bit, and you'll find things in there that are not provable, that are not, that are and oftentimes are contrary to science or reason or understanding. But they're all playing a game, you know, like everybody in there is, is. It's like not just the emperor is not wearing any clothes. Like, nobody's wearing any clothes. So is. And, but, but your question, John, I think, is intuitive and brilliant. And I don't have an answer for, for. For why the church seems more forthright with people. I mean, look at, look at like, Curtin and McConkey, the lawyers, when we're dealing with, like, sex abuse, they. To members, they dissemble and they cover up and they lie. But the lawyers just come in honest and just drop $30,000 and have you sign an NDA. So maybe it's something about the periphery of the business that doesn't make it any less sleazy, but makes it more honest. I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:28:42] I'll say. I don't mean to, like, answer my own question, but just. I'll be thinking. I'm thinking about this with you. When Margi and I were really studying about parenting, one of the things we learned is kids lie when they don't feel safe to tell the truth.

John Larsen [01:28:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:28:58] That's just a fact. And the truth is, where are you more likely to. Where are you less likely to feel fear to tell the truth, especially if you're doing something that you know your spouse doesn't like? Are you going to be more honest with your spouse where there's a lot, a lot at risk? Or are you going to be more honest with your buddies if you know they're going to keep your confidences?

John Larsen [01:29:22] Right.

John Dehlin [01:29:23] And if you're doing things you shouldn't be doing, it's almost objective that you're going to be more honest with the people who you, who you feel you're at least risk to be honest with. And I think that extrapolates to corporate leaders and church leaders. It reminds me of those tobacco executives that are sitting in front of the Senate and they're like, we have, we

John Larsen [01:29:46] don't have any information to believe that tobacco is addictive and causes cancer.

John Dehlin [01:29:52] Like, that's the most. Certainly, that's the least honest they've ever been in their lives. Now I'm contradicting myself because in front of Congress, those dudes lied. So I just literally contradicted myself. John Larsen.

John Larsen [01:30:06] Yeah, it's. It, it is a. It is a head scratcher. I'm actually thinking of the Life of Brian, of course, the Monty Python movie where for those who haven't seen it, you need to go out and see it right now. But Brian, everything that happens in the movie is parallel to what's going on with Jesus. So it happens at the same time. Jesus out preaching and this group of followers keeps pinning Brian as a prophet. Brian wants nothing to do with it. And no matter what he says or do, they use that as a sign that he's actually, you know. So when he says, I am not the prophet, you know, it's like, well, that's exactly what the prophet would say. So. Mormonism.

John Dehlin [01:30:45] No, no, I believe, I believe the quote is, I'm not the Messiah.

John Larsen [01:30:49] I'm not the Messiah.

John Dehlin [01:30:50] And then one. And then one of his people's. One of his followers says, it is

John Larsen [01:30:54] written that the Messiah shall deny his own divinity.

John Dehlin [01:30:58] And so then he says, all right,

John Larsen [01:30:59] then, I am the Messiah.

John Dehlin [01:31:01] And then the whole crowd goes, he's the Messiah. He's the Messiah. I think that's the quote.

John Larsen [01:31:06] John Larsen sounds right to me. But, you know, Mormonism for Joseph F. Smith is his life. He was the child of the brother of Joseph Smith of Hyrum, right? He was everything about his whole existence. His whole family was the church. And, you know, he had a big family, he had wealth, he had fame. I mean, people believed he was a prophet of God. He probably believed it to some extent. I think they mostly do. And maybe he felt a little imposter syndrome, I don't know. But it's like a mutual lying society. That's why I keep using the word lie. But I'm chastising myself for doing it, because when you're in a religious milieu, when you're in a religious paradigm and you're saying things that you know aren't

John Larsen [01:32:07] true,

John Larsen [01:32:09] it lodges in this weird place in our brain that separates, like, logical truth from spiritual Space. There's holy space, and there's the mundane world. There's the sacred and the profane. And when he's speaking with the mantle of a prophet, he's in a sacred space. And it's a very human thing to do. We can't pin this on the Mormons. What's going on here happens to every religious movement. This is human psychology. This isn't some flaw of the Mormons to have this inside speak, outside speak.

John Dehlin [01:32:47] Yeah. And as I'm thinking about it, if I'm. If I'm trying to apply that parenting analogy about lying when you don't feel safe, it must be that Joseph F. Smith feared being ridiculed if he were called a prophet, if he called himself a prophet. Or maybe he feared them asking him. Maybe he feared the risk of them asking him to actually prophesy or to give evidence of something that he had prophesied about. So either he feared being mocked and understood to be a fool, or he feared their attempt at getting him to prove his claim. And the risk of that seemed greater than just admitting, you know, what he probably knew to be true. And maybe he just never felt like it would get back. And so maybe he felt like the risk of it getting back all the way to Salt Lake City, which, if Salt Lake City is a bubble now, I can't imagine what the bubble was like in the early, you know, pre1910. Right. So it just must have been he did a calculus of harm and he felt like there'd be more harm. And if he called himself a prophet to the Senate, then if he just told the truth and, you know, come what may, I think it was probably just a risk, a risk, benefit, harm analysis. Right.

John Larsen [01:34:20] I'm sure. And, you know, it's immense pressure from both sides. I sometimes feel empathy for the guys who call themselves prophet seers and revelators. Then they do something stupid and I lose it all. But, you know, they advance to the church, they believe this stuff, they get there, and the magic that they believe is happening is not there. It's all just the same stuff that you learn when you're eight, you know, the still small voice or whatever. If you feel really good about something. That's right. I have to believe there's immense amount for some of these guys, especially guys like Kimball Snow, a few of the others that clearly were more sensitive, and I can imagine imposter syndrome. And I can imagine very much this fear that you're going to be the one that breaks it. You know, like Mormonism has this continuous chain now. You're the guy, you're the guy in charge. And the fear of screwing it all up must be so, so immense.

John Dehlin [01:35:26] Yeah. And that's partly why they, they are so conservative, is because at least if you don't make too fast, you know, changes, unthought out changes, rapid changes, maybe you minimize your risk of ruining it. Ruining, ruining it all. Maybe.

John Larsen [01:35:44] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:35:45] Yeah.

John Larsen [01:35:45] So you, you asked about getting back to Utah first. There, there were. He, he was sensitive. He wrote some letters and he said, oh man, I think I screwed it all up for poor you. He's, you know, he's got to deal all this all with all of this. So there was some acknowledgment that, that he may not have done the thing, but overall his testimony was solid. And I think he defend, he defended the church. So let's talk about the aftermath. The, The. Reed Smith was seated. He. The. The decision was made. They brought the, the holdouts of the Republican Party into the main fold and. And Mormons became a central part of the Republican Party thanks to Reed Smoot. Reed Smoot served in the Senate until 1932. Most people who are listening to this will have heard from the Smoot hawley tariff of 1930. Reed Smoot was a protectionist. And when the Great depression started in 1929, he and Howley put this tariff to try to save the economy. And you learn this in standard history books and by embracing this protectionism again stuff sounds echoey of today. And then there were all these inverse trade. They started a trade war basically in the middle of the Depression, the global depression, which most economic historians believe plunged us even deeper into the Great Depression. And then he was booted. He didn't win election in 1932, but he served until 1932. So the members of the church saw this as a victory and a validation of Mormonism. Whatever worry they had about Joseph F. Smith went away pretty quickly. And at the time, many of the members of the church saw this as a fulfillment of the white horse prophecy, you know, which. The white horse prophecy, again is the idea that the Constitution will hang by a thread and the elders of Israel will save it. And I think there's a side lesson here about the problem of prophecy. There's a whole generation of people who said prophecy fulfilled, and then they die off. And now the prophecy is unfulfilled again. So we're constantly looking for fulfillment of prophecy. The debate about whether or not he lied still goes on today. If you're really glutton for punishment. You can read the apologists and the scholars on this stuff. They really parse the words. There's a lot of lawyering and about that going on as to what the lies are. We gave you the most egregious case. Mostly it's dissembly and obfuscating the truth, not sharing the whole truth, that sort of thing. With this thing, the idea of Republicanism based on the pursuit of the two twin evils of slavery and polygamy started to fade to where most Republicans today will have no idea. That was the founding principle of the pro of the. Of the party. And of course there was a big in. In the 50s the, the Dixiecrats who were Democrats who are really want to preserve the old south. They hold it's a story for a whole nother day. But they all jumped and joined the Republican party. So, so, so things. So things changed. The church's take the church has an essay out there. If you, if you go search for Reid Smoot for me it came up as the second link by Google. It's. It's one of the church's essays on it. And I just copied the first sentence or first sentence two out of it. This is what it says. At first the protest labeled Smoot as a polygamist, which he was not. But they quickly turned to accusations that Smoot lacked sufficient loyalty to country due to his status and apostle of church. And then there's some more dissembly and stuff like that where they talk about it. Everything there is technically true. But they miss the kernel of what the Reed Smoot hearings are about. And I thought this is a great example of how the church works, like the fact that Smoot was a polygamist. Everyone knew he wasn't. There were some people believed he was, but that was not an issue. And that's what the church leads with. So what they're doing is they're setting up a strawman right in the beginning saying look, the hearings didn't have it right from the beginning they were saying Smooth was a polygamist, which of course he wasn't.

Outcomes, Legacy, and the Republican Party

John Dehlin [01:40:16] Okay, okay.

John Larsen [01:40:20] How this changed both America and the Church. They kind of went on parallel paths at this point following Reed Smoot, the church was really on the search for a new identity. They really wanted to leave the polygamous past and the old longbeards and old guard Mormon behind. So more and more after this, if you had been a polygamist, even if your wife had passed away, it flipped. You couldn't get into high church calling after this, but this did give rise to a strong identity of American exceptionalism. They sort of started to say, no, we are not this kingdom that's going to replace America. America is the kingdom. And that's a new belief. That's a 20th century belief. That was not a belief of the 19th century at all. And it really emerges out of this. And this is when you see the Mormons take on Sunday school. When they first did, they followed the Sunday school unions of the East Coast. They. They join the Boy Scouts, they, they, they. They start really like pushing articles and things into Reader's Digest and just try to become part of the overall American fabric. We are not different. We're not other. We are American. And, and they really lean into that American exceptionalism. Of course, everything came with it, including prosperity gospel. So for the church, this was a net positive for the country. This was a real turning point because the Mormons were let in, and then we started letting in others. And of course, by 1960, the Kennedys won. As Catholics and former rum runners, they made their money in the prohibition. In the previous incarnation of the 19th century, when there was, you know, when prohibition was really in place, they wouldn't have had to place. So the quest for Mormons to have acceptance into the American scene pivoted right here in these hearings, the same kind of hearings we have today. And they became part of it. And America started to embrace a more pluralistic view of religion. And that is still being fought out today. The central questions of conservatism today that make America great are, do we go back to the 19th century when Protestantism ruled and we had prayer in schools and people were judged by their loyalty to the church and no one could get in office. They weren't also active in church. Is to go back to a day before Reed Smooth and Reed Smoot sort of changed all that. So it is extremely important in American history.

John Dehlin [01:43:18] Yeah. And if we had, I mean, it sounds like you could say Joseph F. Smith rocked it. He convinced him, he sold it and they liked him. And he, you know, he. It was a, Was it viewed as a wild success and was he heralded as a, as a, as a inspired great man?

John Larsen [01:43:36] Yeah, they had a member of the 12. So those questions that they asked, was the Mormon Church calling the shots and are Mormons more loyal to the church than they are to the United States? Have been still a part of the question about Mormonism? Those questions remain unresolved. He, by every sense of the word, the Mormons won this one. Most Mormons have know Nothing negative about Reed smooth hearings, if they know anything at all. Most even critics don't. Don't. You know, this is a kind of a marginal issue. People focus on other issues and yeah, I would say a complete and total win for the church.

John Dehlin [01:44:17] And would it be unfair to say that they won by being deceptive and that being deceptive was a key to their success?

John Larsen [01:44:27] Yes, but I don't think they were any more deceptive than anybody else appearing before Congress. Right. You know, you get all the lawyers throwing their mud back and forth at each other. This is sort of garden level. This isn't perjury. This is garden level deception that runs Washington. So, I mean, let's not hold the church out too much for the kind of answers they're given. You hear this in every single hearing. Go watch any congressional hearing, and it'll make you mad because of this sort of avoidance and skepticism and pretending to not know anything. They're playing out of the same handbook of all of American politics.

John Larsen [01:45:03] Hmm.

John Dehlin [01:45:04] So this is just normal human behavior, basically. The Mormon story is the human story.

John Larsen [01:45:11] It is.

John Larsen [01:45:12] And what's interesting about this, although there are interesting things as a critic of the church, that Joseph Smith basically admits that he doesn't see Jesus Christ and there's no special thing, but that the Mormons really aren't that much different than everybody else, that Mormons have the same place at the table that others do, is the story, you know, from this weird cult that, that was burning wagons and engaging in open warfare, killing, murdering, you know, wagon parties in, in the mid 19th century to what it became in the 20th century. It's it, it is really the tale of how a cult becomes legitimized. I would say Mormonism ceased to be kind of a cult in the traditional sense at Reed Smoot. And what it became is the new modern model for harmful and religions, you know, following the same playbook of the Scientologists and the Moonies and others that are really heavily lawyered up and fight things out in the courts. That's the way the church goes now. It's not. It's not God's prophet fighting God's fight. It's Curtin McConkie.

John Dehlin [01:46:33] All right. Well, I think that was a really important part of our history, John Larsen. And as always, you. You didn't disappoint. You delivered a really important couple hours of understanding Mormon history, especially the kind of stuff that we should know but didn't.

John Larsen [01:46:53] It's fascinating Mormon history. I say this over and over again. You know, I'm I'm known mostly as a critic of the church, but I. Mormon history and the history of, you know, our people and what they went through is. Is fascinating in and of itself and worthy of. Of inquiry. And I think us always trying to divide it into two camps and say, you know, who was. Who was lying, who was telling the truth, all that kind of stuff. It's a fairly interesting question, but it's not the most interesting question, like, how did we get here? How did the Mormons conquer the West? And this is a key element to that. And these are fascinating things to read about and are still our strange relationship with polygamy that we haven't quite figured that one out. You know, this is an important saga in that. But I do want to ask. I ask myself a question all the time, and I use this as a gut check, you know, to say, am I wrong? Is the church true? And I've just got it wrong? So I always ask myself, there's a theory of Mormonism, right? And for Mormons, that theory is that this is God's true and anointed church, and there's divine revelation, and this is a restoration of his will and his ordinances. And God wants us all to subject ourselves to the Mormon Church, pay tithing, do the ordinances so that we may get heaven. That's one theory of human existence. The other theory is that this is just a human endeavor. This is just one more attempt by human beings to try to bridge the gap between the inexplicable and what it means to be human. So the question I ask myself is, which theory makes more sense? Having gone through all this, and you can read the transcripts of the Reed Smoot hearing, ask yourself the question, does all of the goings on in here make more sense? If Joseph Smith, Joseph F. Smith, is the true living prophet of God, would the only man on the earth to have the authority to act in his name, or he's just another guy running another organization. And I say, no matter how many of these podcasts I record, no matter how many times I look at Mormonism, the second one always has more explanative power. It always makes more sense to me when I filter Mormonism through the idea that it is not divine, that it is a human institution, it always makes more sense that way. That because if you say it's divine, then you've got all these caveats like, why was he lying? Why was he not forthcoming? Why did he not just with boldness declare that he's the prophet of God? Why all the assembly, while the attorneys. But if you say he's just a man, then it makes perfect sense.

John Dehlin [01:49:53] Yeah, it's kind of the Occam's razor. It's the simplest, simplest answer.

Closing Thoughts and Future Topics

John Larsen [01:49:59] All right, so I do want to tease. Next week, next month. Yeah, Next month we're doing the Devil More. The, The. We're taking on Old Nick himself. The. The Satan in Mormon theology.

John Larsen [01:50:10] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:50:11] And I. I'm guessing the. I'm guessing you're gonna say that he's real, he lives, and that we should beware and watch out and stay faithful.

John Larsen [01:50:22] We're gonna see what exactly the Mormons believe about the Devil. A more complicated question than might see appear at first blush. So that's my special Halloween episode. So we'll look at the Devil.

John Dehlin [01:50:34] All right, Joe Larsen. Well, thank you so much for today. I loved it, and I want to thank everyone who donates to the Mormon Expression Project to make it possible.

John Larsen [01:50:46] We, we.

John Dehlin [01:50:48] We lose donors every month, and John Larsen's Mormon Expression Project has, you know, lost a few. It's still going strong. But we really would love any of you who are new to this show who love John Larsen and want to see him stay on Mormon Stories Monthly. And Kara Burrell, when she's able, Please go to MormonStories.org Mormon expression. Become a monthly donor to the. To this campaign. And we'll keep John Larsen on for a good long time. And also John Larsen. So in addition to doing that, John Larsen, can you plug your farm and the other stuff that you like to plug?

John Larsen [01:51:29] Yeah, and I need to put out a thanks. You know, we have. If you go to johnlarson.org, you can find a link there to the little store, the Amazon store, or I think there's a link from Mormon Stories, too. You know, in lieu of money, donations. You know, we have our little farm here. I have to work a regular job to make ends meet. So people donate all sorts of wonderful little things to us, like hose stops and soaker hoses and things that have made my life so much, so much easier in terms of this summer. We were able to, like, automate the watering on most everything. And I've had people get stuff for the chickens. The chickens have swings and xylophones that have come from the listeners. I even had a very generous person buy me an electric lawnmower, something that, you know, I wouldn't have been able to afford.

John Dehlin [01:52:23] But a big riding one or.

John Larsen [01:52:25] Well, no, just a push one. But, you know, so as we're trying to move away from gasoline. Our little farm is really about sustainability and finding how to, you know, grow more of your own food and take care of some of your own needs in, in a smaller scale. And we've got a great community out here. People that I've been connecting with and people that we've been helping and people who've helped me. And really, if you want to look at it, my parents came out to visit the farm and really trying to keep the spirit of the Mormon spirit of my grandparents and that pioneer spirit alive of people who were canning and self sufficient as much as they could be and building strong communities. And I do not want to throw away anything good that I got from Mormonism. And I've just been so and so generous that people have helped. So, so thank you. Thank you for everyone who has lended me a hose bib. I appreciate it.

John Dehlin [01:53:34] I love it. All right, John Larsen, you're a softy. Some people think you're fiery. I think you're softy. I think you're a teddy bear.

John Larsen [01:53:41] Maybe I'm both.

John Dehlin [01:53:43] You're crusty and you're Crusty the teddy bear.

John Larsen [01:53:46] Is that what you are? Crusty the bear? I'll take it.

John Dehlin [01:53:50] All right. All right, John Larsen, you're the best. Thanks for doing. Thanks for joining us tonight and we're excited to see you later in the month.

John Larsen [01:53:56] All right, thanks, John.

John Dehlin [01:53:57] All right, thanks, everyone, for joining us. Thanks to Maven and Julia and Gerardo and all those who help us at the Open Stories Foundation. Thanks to our board, Clinton, Carey and Brooklyn, and just everyone. And mostly thanks to our donors. We couldn't do this without you. And so thanks for everyone who makes this possible. We've got a lot of good stuff coming up in the weeks and the months ahead, so please stay tuned. Be good to each other, be kind to each other, and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.