Book review: 'The Mormon Church on Trial: Transcripts of the Reed Smoot Hearings'

In a Nutshell: In 1903, LDS Apostle Reed Smoot was elected to the U.S. Senate from the state of Utah as a Republican, but the Republican majority in that body refused to seat him until they had held hearings on his fitness to be a senator. Obviously, they worried about polygamy, even though Smoot had only one wife. They called 42 witnesses, pro and con, to discern whether Smoot had taken religious oaths that would compromise his governmental role. In the end, they failed to get the two-thirds necessary to eject Smoot, and he served 30 years. Mike Paulos, a financial analyst with historical interests, has done a superb job editing and annotating the massive transcripts into a volume that can be appreciated by anyone who loves Mormon history.