150 years ago today - Apr 6, 1861

Brigham Young tells conference it is necessary "to grease the wheels" (bribe federal officials). "To show how minutely corruption prevails where justice should exist," Young gives example where it was necessary to pay $1,300 bribe "to get our claims paid for expenditures in quelling Indian disturbances in 1853." This is first announcement of First Presidency's policy to bribe federal officials when necessary. Historian Wallace D. Farnham once described the frequent graft in nineteenth-century federal government as the "weakened spring of government" in America.

[Source: On This Day in Mormon History, http://onthisdayinmormonhistory.blogspot.com]