English

In the World: The Diaries of Reed Smoot

No one was more surprised than Reed Smoot when he was called to the LDS apostleship at age thirty-eight. He had not held a previous church office of significance. Yet, as the son of one of Utah’s wealthiest men and the husband of a ranking church leader’s daughter, he was destined for prominence of some kind. His role would come to be that of an ambassador for the church in Washington, D.C., rather than a strictly spiritual counselor. When he was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1902, and during the ensuing hearings to challenge a Mormon’s right to hold office, Smoot was ineffective in swaying public opinion. But over the next thirty years as he increasingly socialized with corporate leaders and heads of state; in consulting with other senators, and they with him; and in spending long hours at the White House–even vacationing with two U.S. presidents–he emerged as one of the country’s most influential men. It was because of Smoot’s political clout that Mormon immigrants were allowed to leave Ellis Island; that LDS colonists in Chihuahua were provided safe passage out of Mexico; and that missionaries were allowed back into Australia, Europe, New Zealand, and South Africa after Wo

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