SOLEMN COVENANT: THE  MORMON  POLYGAMOUS  PASSAGE

 

By Blaine Carmon Hardy, University of Illinois Press, 1992

 

Chapter 9           Late Efforts and Polygamy's Decline               Page  315 

Samuel J. Robinson (Appendix II, # 161) also said he received ap­proval from President Smith in 1907 to marry an additional wife.  Robinson was born and raised in Payson, Utah.  He married Minnie Amelia Stark as his first wife in the Logan Temple in 1886.  After accepting a mission call to England but before departing in 1891, he visited the colonies in Mexico, where he was married to a second wife, Annie Elizabeth Walser, by Apostle George Teasdale.  After returning from England, he moved both families to Mexico and was later chosen bishop of Colonia Dublán.  In 1903, while giving birth to twins, Annie Elizabeth died.29  Subsequently, Robinson claimed to visit with Presi­dent Smith, who told him to search for a way and if someone were found to perform the ceremony, he could marry again-the president saying, "God bless you." Robinson took Maud Heder as a plural corn­panion in 1907..30

When knowledge of the last Robinson marriage came to light, he was summoned before the Juarez Stake High Council, asked to resign his bishopric, and disfellowshipped.  Anthony W. Ivins and others on the high council were annoyed with Robinson.  It was later charged that peculation was involved and this weighed against him at the time of his hearing.  While unaware of these circumstances, certain that he had received approval for his marriage, Apostle John W. Taylor de­clared the "disfellowshipping of Brother Robinson to be one of the greatest outrages perpetrated upon the Church."31 Quorum members felt that 'I'aylor unfairly implicated President Smith, obscuring his own responsibility with inferences of secrecy and oaths.32 In the 1911 meeting in which the Robinson case and others were discussed, after referring to a private conversation with President Smith, Taylor told the apostles, "If I should turn my tongue loose, there would be the damndest time in this state you have ever had." Apostle Hyrum M. Smith, a son of the president, replied, "I think you are creating the damndest time by keeping still."33 

As the graph charting post-Manifesto marriages suggests, there was a dramatic increase in permission given to engage in the practice during the early years of President Smith's administration (see 317).  In accounting for the persistence of plural marriages after the 1904 "Official Statement" of President Smith, it is likely that, despite their diminished frequency, such contractions were inspired by the same reasons that had actuated them before, including a determination on the part of at least some authorities to keep the principle alive.  Carl A. 

316                      SOLEMN COVENANT

Badger indicated, for example, that a friend of his, Alonzo Blair Ir­vine, said Apostle Abraham 0. Woodruff told him that certain worthy individuals were being chosen to continue the principle.34 This is close to the language one encounters in other cases both before and after the 1904 declaration.  The children of Arthur William Hart (Appendix 11, #85), who took a second wife in 1903, remembered that their father was told by Apostle Matthias F. Cowley that "select" individuals were being chosen to perpetuate the practice and that such unions could be performed outside the temples.35 Heber Bennion (Appendix II, # 17), bishop of Taylorsville Ward and the husband of two plural wives married in 1900 and 1902, told his daughter Mary that when he was ordained a seventy he was asked to take an oath that he would do what he could to continue the practice.  He told her that one of the apostles personally spoke to him in behalf of the church president.  He was informed that President Smith was determined to keep polygamy indefinitely alive.  Bennion was told that word of this was being sent to "the most trusted young men in the church" and that they were ex­pected to enter the principle.  This was to be done secretly, however, and only those necessary for performing the ceremonies were to be present.  Of greatest importance, he was told, President Smith was to have no direct knowledge of the marriages.36

A similar episode occurred in the life of John B. Cannon, a son of George Mousley Cannon (Appendix 11, #37), in or near the year 1908.  John recalled that his father took him aside in the library of their home and told him that polygamous living was a requirement if one wished to enter the highest level of the celestial kingdom.  Unaware at that time that his father already had married two plural wives after the Manifesto, John later became convinced that, as a friend and business associate of President Smith, his father was counseled to enter the principle and had been instructed by Smith in the same sentiments expressed to him on the occasion of that visit in the library.37

It cannot be proved that President Smith gave permission for such ceremonies.  Confidence that approval was granted in many, if not all, cases, however, arises from several indicators.  Apart from those who named Smith as having given them consent, there was the determina­tion he had shown after the Manifesto, during the administrations of presidents Woodruff and Snow, to perpetuate the principle in spite of denials by these men that such things were occurring.38 There are also examples from the early years of his own tenure as church president when, contrary to his statements, permission for plural marriages was given.  Anson Bowen Call (Appendix 11, #34), who took a polygamous wife in 1903, was reassured by Anthony W. Ivins that approval for the 

Late Efforts and Polygamy's Decline                317 

  

Information based on data provided in Appendix 11

 marriage originated with President Joseph F. Smith.39 And there was the episode related by Orson P. Brown (Appendix 11, #29).  Some years after Brown married the daughter of Alexander F. Macdonald as a polygamous wife in 1901, he attempted to deliver to President Smith the record of marriages his father-in-law had performed in Mexico.  Macdonald, it will be remembered, had solemnized plural unions before his death in 1903.  According to Brown, Smith scanned the list and said: "Brother Brown, all of this work that Brother Mac­donald performed was duly authorized by me." He then told Brown to keep the record himself in Mexico because of fear it would be requisitioned by enemies of the church investigating its practices.  At the time of the Mormon exodus from Mexico in 1912, Brown gave the records to Anthony W. Ivins, who took them to Salt Lake City.40

     On the other hand, in 1902 Smith told a senior apostle, Brigham Young, Jr., that all plural marriages had ceased.  Similar statements were made before the quorum of apostles and other members of the First Presidency.41 He also announced to a meeting of the apostles in 1903 that he had not given approval for anyone to enter plural rela­tionships and that he had no knowledge of such marriages taking place.42 The most likely explanation for such inconsistencies is that 

318                  SOLEMN COVENANT 

Joseph F. Smith was simply traduced by events.  To maintain his alle­giance to the principle he was led into policies of constricted confi­dences and, perforce, prevarication.  Such resorts did not begin with his tenure as church president.  Some of what strengthens the convic­tion that they were engaged in during that time is the fact of their employment in connection with polygamy so many times before.  As we have seen, wariness among themselves and the use of circuitous channels were commonplace during the administrations of presidents Taylor, Woodruff, and Snow.  Matthias F. Cowley told Jesse N. Smith that part of the problem was that some did not understand all that was involved and that President Smith, "awfully tried," should not be held responsible for the difficulties "forced upon us."43

   Formal gatherings of the leaders were increasingly looked upon as off limits for authorizations or approving

discussions relating to the subject.  Even private conversations were guarded.  Apostle Reed Smoot was undoubtedly insulated on many occasions because of his role as a United States senator and sensitivities resulting from the prolonged investigation made by Senate members into his case.  We get some hint as to the presence of such walls when, during the ad­ministration of President Snow, Apostle Marriner W. Merrill pre­dicted to fellow apostles that the time would never come when chil­dren of polygamous parents would cease to be born in the church.  The next day, again while meeting in the temple, Francis M. Lyman said he believed the Manifesto was inspired and deserved to be treated as a revelations juxtapositions like this give credibility to the account by Byron Harvey Allred, Jr., (Appendix II, #3) as to how he was authorized to marry a plural wife in 1903.  When Louis A. Kelsch (Appendix II, # 1 13) of the First Council of Seventy was sent by Presi­dent Joseph F. Smith to give permission for the marriage, according to Allred, Kelsch told him that Apostle Francis M. Lyman, traveling with Kelsch on church business was, by Smith's direction, to be kept igno­rant in the matter.45

At the time of his and John W. Taylor's 191 1 hearing, Matthias F. Cowley said he was once censured by a member of the First Presiden­cy, George Q. Cannon, for telling other apostles of his activities.  He was instructed to keep his own counsel in such matters.  Furthermore, he was asked to take an oath of secrecy when another quorum mem­ber united him with a post-Manifesto spouse of his own.46 So far as permission to perform such marriages was concerned, Cowley said it was given to him by his "file leaders," that the official statements of 1890 and 1904 were "bluffs," and that neither declaration took away authority already conferred.47 Similar views were held by other apos- 

Late Efforts and Polygamy's Decline                 319 

les, even after Taylor and Cowley resigned from the quorum in 1905.  In 1907 Senator Smoot was so angered to learn that such marriages were yet occurring in the United States that he told Carl A. Badger, his secretary, he was going to inform his fellow apostles that, if they were going to persist with polygamous activities, they must do it out­side the country.  Badger asked if Smoot was referring only to con­tinued living with plural wives taken in previous years.  The senator replied that he was not.  Badger described himself as astonished that such things were happening.48

The history of officially sanctioned Mormon polygamy after the onset of the crusade in the early 1880s is one of increasing enclosure.  Each successive crisis led to greater secrecy.  Covert behavior following the Manifesto of 1890 reached its most obscure phase after 1904.  Albeit a surprising number obtained permission after that date to commence or continue the practice.  As the Quorum of Twelve Apostles grew to include a greater proportion of monogamists, unac­quainted with concealments of the past, partitions among the leaders became even more necessary.  Referring to the confusion besetting many in this period, H. Grant Ivins said of his father, Anthony W. Ivins, who became an apostle in 1907, "Even father wasn't convinced they meant what they said." Because he had been party to devices for continuing polygamy after 1890, Ivins was hardly to be blamed for wondering whether things were different from what they had been before.49 

More than abstract doctrinal commitment accounted for continued polygamy in these late years.  If wives were infertile or beyond child­bearing age, the wish to enlarge one's eternal estate through addition­al progeny, especially sons, could be insistent.  There was the influence provided by awareness that prominent men in the church yet lived in plural households.  Nor can we discount the weight of habit arising from family precedent and example.  These ingredients blended, quite naturally, with the inherent momentum acquired by decades of polyg­amous preachment.  When sermons were heard, like that of Joseph E. Robinson in 1908, yet arguing for the scientific advantages of the principle, it would be unrealistic to expect pluralist psychology sud­denly to cease.50

An example is Ernest Leander Taylor (Appendix II, #189).  Post­Manifesto plural marriage pervaded his family.  Maud, Taylor's oldest daughter by his third wife, was married to Joseph C. Bentley (Appen­dix 11, #18) in 1901 as Bentley's third wife.51 His daughter Lenora, the fifth child by his second wife, married Apostle Matthias F. Cowley

 

NOTES for Late Efforts and Polygamy's Decline               Page   331

 

29.     Lucille R. Taylor, "Samuel John Robinson," in Stalwarts South of the Border, comp.  Hatch and Hardy, 577

30.    Testimony of John W. Taylor, in Trials.  Robinson told much the same story when interviewed by Kimball Young, 28 Feb. 1939, box 11, fd. 13, Kimball Young Collection, Garrett Evangelical Theological Library, Evanston, Ill.

31.   Trials.  Also see Ivins Diaries, 30 Nov. 1907; and Juarez Stake High Council Minutes, 1895-1917, 26 Oct. 1907, Church      Archives.

32.    Trials.

33.     John W. Taylor and Hyrum M. Smith, in ibid.

34.     Carlos Ashby Badger Diaries, 8 Oct. 1904, Church Archives.

35.     Elna Hart Palmer, interviewed by Leonard R. Grover, 2 Feb. 1980, p. 14, POHP; Rhea Hart Grandy, interviewed by Leonard R. Grover, 16 Feb. 1980, pp. 9, 11, POHP.

36.     Heber Bennion, in Powell to Stewart, 26 Jan. 1952, pp. 24-25.

37.     John Bennion Cannon, interviewed by Leonard R. Grover, 19 Jan. 1980, pp. 7-8, 14, POHP.

38.     See above, in chaps. 5 and 7.

39.     Anson Bowen Call, "Life Story of Anson Bowen Call," pp. 6-7, original in possession of Arnold Call, Colonia Dublán, copy in possession of au­thor.  Also see Lorna Call Alder, interviewed by Jessie L. Embry, 28 June 1976, p. 28, POHP.

40.    Orson P. Brown journal, typewritten copy, pp. 67-68, UHi.  Also see the anecdote involving First Presidency member John R.        Winder in Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins, Under the Prophet in Utah: The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft (Boston: C. M. Clark, 1911), 350.

41.     Brigham Young, Jr., Diary, 5 June 1902, film, Church Archives; Clawson Diaries, 17 April and 5                          June 1902.

42.     Joseph F. Smith, in JH, 19 Nov. 1903.

43.     Matthias F. Cowley to Jesse N. Smith, 22 April 1906, in Journal of Jesse Nathaniel Smith: The Life Story of a Mormon Pioneer, 1834-1906 (Salt Lake City: Jesse N. Smith Family Association, 1953), 462.  Illustrating how knowledge of these things was kept even from family members of the leaders is an anecdote told by William Walser concerning a visit to the Mexican colonies by President Smith after his 1904 "Official Statement." Walser recalled that President Smith came to the colonies for the purpose of reinforcing and clarifying his policy and had brought his son, the future president of the church, Joseph Fielding 

Page 332                        SOLEMN COVENANT  

Smith, Jr., with him.  Asked to speak but unaware of the special arrangement existing between Ivins and his father, Joseph Fielding attacked Ivins from the stand for his part in solemnizing plural marriages since the Manifesto, so many of which had embarrassed the church.  Ivins defended himself by saying that not only had he been commissioned to perform such ceremonies but that none were undertaken without the approval of "that man that sits right there"-President Smith himself.  William Walser, interviewed by Jessie L. Embry, 11 June 1976, p. 18, POHP.

44.     Marriner W. Merrill and Francis M. Lyman, in Clawson Diaries, 11 and 12 July 1899.

45.     Byron Harvey Allred, Jr., in "Biographical Sketch of the Life of Mary Evelyn Clark Allred," 298.

46.        Trials.

47.      Matthias F. Cowley, in Charles William Penrose Diaries, 10 May 1911, UHi.

48.      Carlos Badger to Rose Badger, 21 Feb. 1907, Carlos Ashby Badger Letterbooks, Church Archives.

49.       H. Grant Ivins, Jorgensen interview, p. 41.

 

POHP= LDS Polygamy Oral History Project, Charles Redd Center For Western Studies, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT.

Trials = The Trials for the Membership of John W. Taylor and Matthias F. Cowley (n.p., n.d.) (excerpts from the official minutes of meetings held by the Quorum of Twelve Apostles in February, March, and May 1911, when inquiry was made into the view and polygamous activities of apostles John W. Taylor and Matthias F. Cowley. Because the transcription appears in a variety of formats and with differing pagination, specific page references are not use.)

Uhi =    Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City, UT

Copyright 1992 www.OrsonPrattBrown.org