By Jerald and Sandra Tanner

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The leaders of the Mormon Church have always found it very hard to accept criticism. In 1844 a newspaper was established in Nauvoo, Illinois, entitled the Nauvoo Expositor. This paper was opposed to Joseph Smith practicing polygamy and running for the office of President of the United States. After the Nauvoo Expositor had published its first number, the City Council met. At this meeting Phineas Richards stated that he “was for making a short work” of the Nauvoo Expositor. Joseph Smith, who was the mayor, ordered the press destroyed. In the History of the Church, vol. 6, page 432, this statement is attributed to Joseph Smith:

The Council passed an ordinance declaring the Nauvoo Expositor a nuisance, and also issued an order to me to abate the said nuisance. I immediately ordered the Marshal to destroy it without delay, . . .

About 8 p.m., the Marshal returned and reported that he had removed the press, type, printed paper, and fixtures into the street, and destroyed them.

Vilate Kimball, wife of Heber C Kimball, described the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor as follows:

June 11th. Nauvoo was a scene of excitement last night. Some hundreds of the brethren turned out and burned the press of the opposite party. (Letter written by Vilate Kimball, published in the Life of Heber C. Kimball, page 350)

In Utah, on October 7, 1868, George Q. Cannon, who became a member of the First Presidency of the Mormon Church stated:

Yet we, for years have had in our city [Salt Lake City] a paper which publishes, if possible, more abominable lies about us and our people than were published by the “Nauvoo Expositor,” for the abatement of which Hyrum Smith said he was willing to die. We have not noticed it; we have suffered it to go on undisturbed. But the times has come for us to take this matter in to consideration. (Journal of Discourses, vol. 12, page 292)

The Mormon Church had its own newspaper in Utah entitled the Deseret News. In 1870, however, a newspaper was established which was later to be known as the Salt Lake Tribune. The Mormon historian Joseph Fielding Smith quoted the historian Whitney as stating:

“The Nauvoo Expositor was holy writ compared with the Salt Lake Tribune.” It had been justly said of this sheet that it was “brought into the world to lie and was true to its mission.” (Essentials in Church History, page 548)

The Mormon leaders did not destroy the Salt Lake Tribune, however, they were gradually able to make it shift its emphasis from anti-Mormon to pro-Mormon. As one man explained it, the Salt Lake Tribune was “baptized” into the Mormon Church. The Tribune has now become a tool of the church. An employee of the Tribune stated that the suppression of news and the special favors shown to the Mormon Church made him “sick.”

While residents of Salt Lake City have two large daily newspaper (the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News) neither one of these papers will report the news if it is unfavorable to the Mormon Church. The following is an example of the way the news is suppressed in Salt Lake City: On December 27, 28 and 29, 1965, the New York Times ran a series of three articles on the Mormon Church. Both newspapers in Salt Lake refused to print these articles. The Deseret News claimed that it did not print the articles because it was not a member of the Associated Press News Service. The Salt Lake Tribune could not offer this excuse since it is a member of the Associated Press. Instead, a man in the editorial department stated that the activities of the Mormon Church were “sufficiently” covered and there was no need to pick up these articles from the New York Times. The following are a few excerpts from the New York Times articles written by Wallace Turner:

SALT LAKE CITY — The great socio – economic – theo – cratic organization that built this city has entered a period of ferment.

Within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—more commonly known as the Mormon Church—the liberal intellectuals are hungry as never before for avenues of discussion. Some of them will start a magazine soon for a outlet.

For many of these liberals the paramount question is the church’s attitude on Negroes, who are permitted to become members but cannot attain to the priesthood open to all other male members or become church officers.

At the other end of the doctrinal spectrum, some conservatives are causing concern by taking to polygamy—a practice officially discarded by the church 75 years ago—for which they are excommunicated. . . .

The problem of polygamy—for half a century a cardinal principle of Mormonism—has taken a number of members out of the church. One expert estimates that as many as 30,000 men, women and children live in families in which polygamy is practiced.

COLONY IN ARIZONA

Many live in and near Salt Lake City. Hundreds are concentrated in an isolated Arizona town, Colorado City. Others are scattered through the mountain West and in Mexico. . . .

Only by excommunication can a person leave the church. This may be had for the asking, but few ask, even when disenchanted with their religion.

Two who did request it are Jerald Tanner and his wife, Sandra, who run a small printing operation here that distributes such things as anti-Mormon books that have been out of print and pamphlets attacking the validity of the “Book of Mormon” as a divinely revealed work.

Mrs. Tanner is a great-granddaughter of Brigham Young she was holding a great-great-grandchild of the Mormon leader on her knee as she said:

“Even when I had decided in my mind that I did not believe the ‘Book of Mormon’ any longer, it was months before I could say it aloud.” (New York Times, December 27, 1965, pages 1, 18)

In a second article Wallace Turner stated:

SALT LAKE CITY—If George Romney runs for the Presidency of the United States his candidacy will produce button-popping pride among his coreligionists in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—the Mormons.

It would also focus attention on the church’s theologically oriented prejudice against Negroes—among whom there are about six million voters. . . .

Since a Negro cannot become a priest, he cannot, in the Mormon view, be one of the elite in the after-life. And he cannot hold any position in the L.D.S. Church beyond simple membership. He is figuratively relegated to the back pew.

The ramifications of this doctrine mean that the Negro is denied most of the glories held out to other races by the church.

Mormons believe that being married in a Mormon temple assures marriage in the after-life, and that being “sealed” to their families in the temple assures togetherness in Paradise.

But Negroes are not admitted to the temple, no matter how faithfully they follow the church’s rules.

This insistence that Negroes are theologically inferior has created an assumption of physical inferiority that runs like hot oil through the Mormon society. There are few Negroes living in any of the traditionally Mormon areas.

There are believed to be no more than about 200 Negroes who are L.D.S. Church members.

Utah has resisted civil rights legislation of various sorts. The L.D.S. Church in the 1965 session of the Utah Legislature managed to have a fair employment practices act amended to exempt a church-operated business. . . .

The Negro question has caused bitter resentments among many members of the L.D.S. Church. It is a fundamental reason given by many for their decision to stop attending church.

However, there are many others who equally oppose the church practice but who stay to continue the fight to force some change. One of these is Dr. Sterling McMurrin, provost of the University of Utah. . . .

Dr. J. D. Williams, professor of political science at the University of Utah, is another who objects to the church’s practice on Negroes. He is a member of a stake council and has been a bishop, the chief officer of an L.D.S. ward. . . .

For some in the community of Mormons, the change is inevitable. But it is generally considered that it will not be made at one stroke but will come gradually.

The church moves slightly toward the Negro all the time. Proselyting is heavy now in Brazil, where many persons of mixed Negro blood live and where many such have undoubtedly been taken into the priesthood.

However, sometimes the church missionaries have been required to go to new priests and tell them they no longer may perform their priestly function—that research has shown they have Negro ancestry. Orders for this come from Salt Lake City.

The church will identify only one Negro who was ever a priest. He was Elijah Abel, an undertaker in Nauvoo, Ill.—and a good friend of Joseph Smith, the founder.

In the extensive Mormon records there is a statement made in 1879 by Zebedee Coltrin, the white Saint who said it was he who annointed Mr. Abel while the Mormons were at Kirtland, Ohio. He said that “while I had my hands upon his head I never had such an unpleasant feeling in my life.”

Although there is ferment for change, many observers believe it probable that the majority of the church’s nearly 2.5 million members today would oppose changing the exclusionary rules on Negroes.

A decade ago Mark E. Petersen, one of the Twelve Apostles of the church, said in a speech at the church’s Brigham Young University, at Provo, Utah:

“Now we are generous with the Negro. We are willing that the Negro have the highest kind of education. I would be willing to let every Negro drive a Cadillac if they could afford it. I would be willing that they have all the advantages they can get out of life in the world.

“But let them enjoy these things among themselves. I think the Lord segregated the Negro, and who is man to change that segregation.” (New York Times, December 28, 1965, page 15)

In the third article Wallace Turner stated:

Interviews with both active and inactive members in Utah and elsewhere, point to three basic reasons that members fall away.

First, many of the intellectuals—educated by the church and its members at great cost, in the belief that “the glory of God is intelligence”— are unable to reconcile their learning with their religion.

Second, members become disenchanted with some aspect of church practice: the current leading cause of this is the barring of Negroes from full participation. Another is the constant round of religious activities that seem to have less importance in modern society than they did in pioneer days.

Third, as it was put by one Mormon wife: “This is a hard religion to live.” (New York Times, December 29, 1965)

These articles are very lengthy; we regret we cannot reproduce them in their entirety.

In another article—the writer’s name is not given—printed in the December 27, 1965, issue of the New York Times, the following appears:

SALT LAKE CITY—He was a handsome, persuasive man as he sat in the living room of his home on the south edge of town. . . .

He had served more than two years in jail for unlawful cohabitation. Nevertheless, he had taken another wife, in addition to the two he had.

“I just happen to believe all of Mormonism, not just the easy parts,” he said. “If it’s true at all, it’s all true. You can’t just take plural marriage out and still have the rest be true.”

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints officially outlawed polygamy in 1890. Members who practice it today are evicted.

The man shifted in his chair and looked hard into the eyes of his son across the room.

“We believe it was all revealed by God to Joseph Smith, and plural marriage was a part of it as you can see just by reading the book. If they want to leave it out, why don’t they tear it out of the book?”

He referred to Doctrine and Covenants. . . .

Then he quoted Brigham Young, second head of the church, who brought the Mormons to the Utah desert:

“The only men who become Gods, even the sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy.”

The man who talked in his living room about his strong conviction was reared as a Mormon. His first and only legal marriage was performed in the temple in Salt Lake City about 40 years ago.

His second marriage was to the half-sister of his first wife. His third wife—who listened to the interview and took part in it—asked to live with him, as did his fourth wife.

The first two left after the fourth one moved into the growing household. The fifth was added fairly recently.

All but the first marriage have been in ceremonies away from the church, performed by members of polygamous groups.

These women have borne 29 children. Of these 29, it was calculated that 12 now live in polygamous marriages. The husband and his wives came from polygamous families.

It is entirely possible that more people live in polygamy in Utah today than did between 1852 and 1890, the period when the L.D.S. Church openly advocated it.

But there is one great difference. In those old times, the leaders of the church were virtually all polygamists. Brigham Young had more wives than anyone has been positively able to establish. Generally it is said he had 27, but research indicates he probably had more than 50.

Today, none of the leaders is a polygamist—although almost every one of them is a descendant of polygamists. . . .

The last major attempt to round up polygamists in Utah ended in failure in 1958 when their neighbors refused to testify in a grand jury investigation. Members of the L.D.S. Church have shown a reluctance to participate in prosecutions of persons accused of polygamy.

Although polygamists today are all outside the L.D.S. Church, they draw their scriptural authorizations and their argument in support of the practice from the L.D.S. literature and extensive records.

They are able to quote some of the most revered names in Mormon history in support of plural marriage.

It was common in the late 19th century for Mormon leaders to argue that Jesus was married, and that he was married to several wives.

As the Salt Lake City polygamist indicated, Joseph Smith’s revelation on plural marriage is still printed in Doctrine and Covenants, one of the sacred works of Mormonism. (New York Times, December 28, 1965, page 18)

Although the Mormon leaders may be able to control the newspapers in Salt Lake City and keep them from printing articles such as these, we feel that the time will come when they will have to face these problems. They will not be able to keep their people in the dark forever.

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