By Elder Joseph F. Smith, Jr.
Salt Lake City
1909
During the summer of 1906 and continuing until the summer of 1907,a number of Reorganite ministers who were engaged in missionarywork in Salt Lake City and Ogden, were greatly encouraged by one ortwo apostates and the local anti-"Mormon" press. Their method ofproselyting was of the usual nature, a tirade of abuse and falseaccusation hurled at the authorities of the Church. Encouragedby the anti-"Mormon" help, they became extremely vindictive intheir references to President Brigham Young and the present Churchauthorities. Their sermons were so bitter and malignant—whichhas been the character of most of their work from the beginning, inUtah—that they raised considerable protest from many respectablecitizens. Even non-"Mormons" declared that in no other community wouldsuch vicious attacks be tolerated. It appeared at times that thesemissionaries were attempting to provoke the "Mormon" people to someact of violence, that it might be seized upon and published to theworld through the anti-"Mormon" press that they had been mobbed, andthus capital for their cause be made of it. Fortunately they were notmolested to the credit of the people so constantly abused. One of thesemeetings was attended by a prominent gentleman from the East who wassomewhat acquainted with Utah and her people, he said, in conversationwith the writer a few days later, that never in his experience has hewitnessed such a thing before. "If that fellow"—referring to aReorganite who has since been promoted in his church—"shouldcome to our town and abuse the ministers of our church, callingthem murderers, thieves and liars, as he did Brigham Young and yourchurchmen, we would kick him off the streets."
While this agitation was going on, a number of the young people ofOgden appealed to their stake presidency asking that some reply tothose assaults be made for the benefit of those who were not groundedin the faith, and in danger of being deceived. Acting on this requestthe presidency of the Weber Stake invited the writer to speak alongthese lines in the Ogden Tabernacle. The invitation was accepted andtwo discourses were delivered, the first, March 10, 1907, on thesubject of the "Origin of the Reorganized Church," and the otherApril 28, 1907, on the question of "Succession." These remarks weresubsequently published in the Deseret News, and many requests werereceived asking that they be published in pamphlet form, where theycould be preserved by those who had to meet the ministers of the"Reorganization." An edition was therefore published in the summerof 1907, which has been disposed of, evidently without supplying thedemand, for in the summer of 1909 the orders for the pamphlet were sogreat that is was deemed necessary to issue a second edition. In themeantime a reply appeared in the Saints' Herald, commencing with theissue of June 30, and ending that of July 21, 1909. This reply will beremembered more for the unfair way matters were treated and the factthat the greater part of the evidence was left untouched, than for anymerit in the argument presented. Wherever it was deemed necessary, forthe sake of those who may be deceived, answers are given in this workin footnote references to the argument set forth in the Reorganite"defense." However, there was nothing presented in the "defense"that really required any reply; by reading carefully the discoursesmentioned, the ordinary reader can readily perceive the trickery,deception and sophistry, of the Reorganite reply.
Part one of this book contains the discourse delivered in Ogdenon the "Origin of the 'Reorganized' Church;" part two contains