Review: The Reed Smoot Hearings: The Investigation of a Mormon Senator and the Transformation of an American Religion, edited by Michael Harold Paulos and Konden Smith Hansen

Reed Smoot (1862–1941) was a Republican senator from Utah who served in Congress from 1903 to 1933. The fact that Smoot was a high-ranking apostle in the Quorum of Twelve in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) caused controversy when Smoot was first seated, resulting in nearly six years of Congressional hearings to determine whether a member of this widely despised new religion was worthy of office. Largely in conversation with Kathleen Flake’s The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle (2004), editors Michael Harold Paulos and Konden Smith Hansen have assembled eight essays in The Reed Smoot Hearings to reconsider various aspects of the Smoot case, both in terms of its implications for the evolution of American secularism and the twentieth-century trajectory of the LDS Church.After an introduction by Smith Hansen that lays out the historical background behind the Smoot controversy and previous scholarship on the subject, the first part of the book consists of four essays addressing the national context of the hearings. Smith Hansen’s discussion of the hearings shows how “the expanding notion of religious pluralism and secularity…during the Progressive Era” (25) provided a space for Mormons to achieve greater acceptance on the national stage. Such acceptance, however, came with a price, since it was predicated on the LDS Church making radical changes to conform to the “new secular–Protestant definition” (26) of what a legitimate religion should be. Specifically, this meant suppressing plural marriage and demonstrating subordination to the federal government. Paulos, in “Justice is Never Permanently Defeated Anywhere,” focuses on the secularizing strategy of Smoot’s defenders who argued that a citizen’s religious beliefs were private and therefore off-limits to determining fitness for national office, a position enshrined in the Constitution, but largely flouted in the nineteenth century. Bryan W. Daynes and Kathryn M. Daynes rehearse the long history of proposed constitutional amendments banning polygamy and their impact on the course of the hearings, while Kenneth L. Cannon II details the on-going anti-Mormon crusade of Utah Senator Frank J. Cannon that stretched well into the 1910s. Cannon specifically takes aim at Flake’s contention that the Smoot hearings were the high-water mark of anti-Mormon agitation in this country, but in my opinion Flake’s argument is still sound, with Frank J. Cannon’s personal crusade the exception that proves the rule.The second part of the book pivots from the larger national issues of the hearings to a look at four personalities who played important roles in the events. Kathryn Smoot Egan explores the stresses and strains on Smoot’s wife during this period, as the Smoots’ monogamy came under intense scrutiny as the new ideal of Mormon marriage. The appearance of LDS president Joseph F. Smith as a witness under subpoena is the subject of Paulos’ analysis of Smith’s congressional testimony as an example of political tightrope walking that had profound implications for Mormonism. This is a fascinating chapter, although for a fuller understanding of how Smith astutely used the hearings as an opportunity to shift the LDS Church away from polygamy, it needs to be read in conjunction with Flake. The last two chapters deal with Smoot’s long-suffering Mormon secretary, Carl Badger. Gary James Bergera and John Brumbaugh provide interesting insights into the impact of the hearings on the lives and careers of two men rooted in the Mormon Corridor of the intermountain West. The book concludes with a long list compiled by D. Michael Quinn of high Mormon officials who contracted new plural marriages after the Church’s 1890 Woodruff Manifesto seemingly banned polygamy, a contentious issue during the Smoot hearings.The Reed Smoot Hearings is an important addition to the ongoing reassessment of Mormon history in the twentieth century, providing much needed detail surrounding a signal event in that history. As this review makes clear, however, I strongly recommend that the book be read after reading The Politics of American Religious Identity since Flake provides the broad context necessary to better understand the specific concerns of the individual chapters. Indeed, I could see both books being used to great advantage as a unit in graduate seminars on Mormonism or American new religious movements in general, and in courses on secularism and the history of church and state in America.