REVIEW: Transcripts of the Reed Smoot Hearings

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