150 years ago today - Apr 29, 1866

You have heard what Elder Charles S. Kimball has said this afternoon relative to the general belief of the people in the old countries,'"That Brigham Young reads all letters before they leave this county, and if any are not written to suit him, they are destroyed by his order! In this way they account for so few letters reaching the members of the Church in distant lands from their friends here in Utah. I will now make a public request that the Saints hereafter cease to bring their letters to me, if there are any that have ever done such a thing; and I also request the postmasters throughout the Territory to stop sending all foreign letters to me for my inspection previous to mailing for abroad; that is, if they have ever done such a thing; and for this simple reason, that I have so much to do that I cannot possibly pay attention to such an extensive amount of reading.

[Source: Journal of Discourses. Liverpool, England, 1853-86. 11:212-216, in The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, Ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner, Smith-Pettit Foundation, Salt Lake City (2009), http://bit.ly/BY-discourses]

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