Main Page: These Amazing Mormons!
INTRODUCTION
Perhaps the best way to introduce this book is to relate the circumstances under which it came to be written.
When military duty took me into the intermountain west in 1940, I came into direct contact with the Mormons for the first time. Here was a complete culture as different from the main trend of civilization in America as the history of England is different from that of China.
My usually insatiable curiosity impelled me to seek accurate information about these people. This was difficult to get, despite the plethora of printed material available. I found many publications that were enthusiastic tracts in promotion of the Mormon way of life. Those writings that were not strongly pro-Mormon were bitter tirades against the church, its leaders and its members. In neither of these classes of writing could I find what I wanted: a fair, impartial, unbiased survey of the Latter-day Saint culture. I wasn't seeking to become a convert, because I was fairly happy in my own philosophy. On the other hand, I had no sympathy for the professional chronic reformers who felt called upon to attack a civilization that they knew next to nothing about. I desired neither to help wreck the Mormons nor to unduly praise them at the expense of truth. Out of this wish to obtain a professional journalist's full observation grew the idea of recording my findings for the benefit of others who might share my thirst for facts and my distaste for polemic distortions.
Sometime after my release from active duty in World War II, I found myself at an editor's desk in a Chicago publishing firm, engaged in preparing manuscripts for publication - and yearning for an opportunity to return to the mountains for a further study of the interesting people I'd met there. Finally I could stick at my desk no longer. So I chucked my job and headed west, to begin the writing of a book with no more security behind me than my ability to earn my own way.
Through many years of newspaper reporting I had formed the habit of always going to the top authorities in whatever subject I was covering. Therefore it was perfectly natural that I should lay before the presidency of the Latter-day Saints church the plans for my projected work, and explain to them what I was setting out to do. Although the Mormons almost never have been treated squarely by writers, and although the church authorities early in 1946 had just suffered a sad disillusionment in regard to the work of several authors, the presidency put all practicable resources of the church at my disposal, to interpret as I would. They gave me the following letter, which President George Albert Smith and both his counselors signed.
April 19,1946
Dear Mr. Weston:
We have your letter of April 9, in which you tell us of your project to write a book which shall deal at least in part with the Latter-day Saints, and in which you indicate you would like some assistance with access to sources which are available to us.
We should like to say to you that we shall be happy to give you such assistance as may be feasible and will be glad to designate someone to whom you may go to help you in connection with your work.
We hope that you will pardon our saying that some untoward experiences which we have had in the past with those who have written books, sometimes scurrilous and defamatory against us, lead us to make bold to set out the following observations, though the tone of your letter indicates that you do not fall within the class whose members have given us the unfortunate experiences in the past. We do hope you will allow us to say that while we do not expect people to come here to make studies and to write their accounts to be propagandists for us nor to violate their own conviction in order to be kind in their statements concerning us, we think we have a right to expect that they should be fair and honest and not distort the truth in order to provide sensation and thus probably increase the saleability of their product. We have had experiences in the past in going out of our way to be obliging and courteous to writers and to cite them to materials and we have had our confidence greatly abused by their after words, either to facilitate sales or to satisfy the demands of their employers, garbling facts in such way as to give altogether false impressions.
We are returning herewith the following papers which accompanied your letter. (A long list of enclosures follows.)
(Signed)
Geo. Albert Smith
J. Reuben Clark
David O. McKay
I have made free use of many church publications, handbooks, textbooks, journals, and of the excellent library which the church maintains in Salt Lake City, in my effort to present as complete and fair a view of Mormonism as possible. I attended stake and churchwide conferences, interviewed several thousand Mormons and other residents of Mormondom, and for several months took part in most of the activities of a typical church ward, or congregation.
It has been my aim to give Mormons a view of themselves from the outside that is free from bigotry and bitterness, and to write for non-Mormons an interesting, fairly complete, and readable report of a million people whose faith has set them apart from the rest of the world. Alghouth I've assembled my material with the attitude of an impartial sociologist, I have endeavored to avoid pedantries and to present the work in as lucid a form as possible.
Writing this book has been a most absorbing, but rugged task. It is not easy to sit calmly on the sidelines to survey, assess and evaluate anything as pulsing and virile as a vital, living, religion. It began as an assignment that I told myself would last three months at most, but it has dragged on, and on, and on. A year and a half of study, observation, writing, cooling off, re-writing and revision has passed since that day I left Chicago to return to the intermountain west.
It is not my aim to make converts to the Latter-day Saints church. Neither is it my wish to cause any Mormosn to leave their fold. I deliberately seek to avoid the crude sensationalism that has impelled the writers of so many books on this subject. Through the period in which I produced the work, I received no subsidy nor support from either Mormon or anti-Mormon sources, but maintained myself at the scene of my researches in several cities by means of whatever journalistic employment that came to hand. I have "called my shots as I saw them." No man told me what to write, nor sought in any way to influence what I have said in the pages that follow. I wish to express my thanks to the many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from humblest to highest for the great amount of time and effort they have spent in answering my questions through long months on end.
Here, then, is a picture of the Mormons, their way of life and their religion, as I find it today.
Joseph H. Weston
Salt Lake City, Utah, May 17, 1947
Next: Meeting the Mormons
When military duty took me into the intermountain west in 1940, I came into direct contact with the Mormons for the first time. Here was a complete culture as different from the main trend of civilization in America as the history of England is different from that of China.
My usually insatiable curiosity impelled me to seek accurate information about these people. This was difficult to get, despite the plethora of printed material available. I found many publications that were enthusiastic tracts in promotion of the Mormon way of life. Those writings that were not strongly pro-Mormon were bitter tirades against the church, its leaders and its members. In neither of these classes of writing could I find what I wanted: a fair, impartial, unbiased survey of the Latter-day Saint culture. I wasn't seeking to become a convert, because I was fairly happy in my own philosophy. On the other hand, I had no sympathy for the professional chronic reformers who felt called upon to attack a civilization that they knew next to nothing about. I desired neither to help wreck the Mormons nor to unduly praise them at the expense of truth. Out of this wish to obtain a professional journalist's full observation grew the idea of recording my findings for the benefit of others who might share my thirst for facts and my distaste for polemic distortions.
Sometime after my release from active duty in World War II, I found myself at an editor's desk in a Chicago publishing firm, engaged in preparing manuscripts for publication - and yearning for an opportunity to return to the mountains for a further study of the interesting people I'd met there. Finally I could stick at my desk no longer. So I chucked my job and headed west, to begin the writing of a book with no more security behind me than my ability to earn my own way.
Through many years of newspaper reporting I had formed the habit of always going to the top authorities in whatever subject I was covering. Therefore it was perfectly natural that I should lay before the presidency of the Latter-day Saints church the plans for my projected work, and explain to them what I was setting out to do. Although the Mormons almost never have been treated squarely by writers, and although the church authorities early in 1946 had just suffered a sad disillusionment in regard to the work of several authors, the presidency put all practicable resources of the church at my disposal, to interpret as I would. They gave me the following letter, which President George Albert Smith and both his counselors signed.
April 19,1946
Dear Mr. Weston:
We have your letter of April 9, in which you tell us of your project to write a book which shall deal at least in part with the Latter-day Saints, and in which you indicate you would like some assistance with access to sources which are available to us.
We should like to say to you that we shall be happy to give you such assistance as may be feasible and will be glad to designate someone to whom you may go to help you in connection with your work.
We hope that you will pardon our saying that some untoward experiences which we have had in the past with those who have written books, sometimes scurrilous and defamatory against us, lead us to make bold to set out the following observations, though the tone of your letter indicates that you do not fall within the class whose members have given us the unfortunate experiences in the past. We do hope you will allow us to say that while we do not expect people to come here to make studies and to write their accounts to be propagandists for us nor to violate their own conviction in order to be kind in their statements concerning us, we think we have a right to expect that they should be fair and honest and not distort the truth in order to provide sensation and thus probably increase the saleability of their product. We have had experiences in the past in going out of our way to be obliging and courteous to writers and to cite them to materials and we have had our confidence greatly abused by their after words, either to facilitate sales or to satisfy the demands of their employers, garbling facts in such way as to give altogether false impressions.
We are returning herewith the following papers which accompanied your letter. (A long list of enclosures follows.)
(Signed)
Geo. Albert Smith
J. Reuben Clark
David O. McKay
I have made free use of many church publications, handbooks, textbooks, journals, and of the excellent library which the church maintains in Salt Lake City, in my effort to present as complete and fair a view of Mormonism as possible. I attended stake and churchwide conferences, interviewed several thousand Mormons and other residents of Mormondom, and for several months took part in most of the activities of a typical church ward, or congregation.
It has been my aim to give Mormons a view of themselves from the outside that is free from bigotry and bitterness, and to write for non-Mormons an interesting, fairly complete, and readable report of a million people whose faith has set them apart from the rest of the world. Alghouth I've assembled my material with the attitude of an impartial sociologist, I have endeavored to avoid pedantries and to present the work in as lucid a form as possible.
Writing this book has been a most absorbing, but rugged task. It is not easy to sit calmly on the sidelines to survey, assess and evaluate anything as pulsing and virile as a vital, living, religion. It began as an assignment that I told myself would last three months at most, but it has dragged on, and on, and on. A year and a half of study, observation, writing, cooling off, re-writing and revision has passed since that day I left Chicago to return to the intermountain west.
It is not my aim to make converts to the Latter-day Saints church. Neither is it my wish to cause any Mormosn to leave their fold. I deliberately seek to avoid the crude sensationalism that has impelled the writers of so many books on this subject. Through the period in which I produced the work, I received no subsidy nor support from either Mormon or anti-Mormon sources, but maintained myself at the scene of my researches in several cities by means of whatever journalistic employment that came to hand. I have "called my shots as I saw them." No man told me what to write, nor sought in any way to influence what I have said in the pages that follow. I wish to express my thanks to the many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from humblest to highest for the great amount of time and effort they have spent in answering my questions through long months on end.
Here, then, is a picture of the Mormons, their way of life and their religion, as I find it today.
Joseph H. Weston
Salt Lake City, Utah, May 17, 1947
Next: Meeting the Mormons
