[First Presidency]
Our mind with respect to all such cases, that of Brother Evans included, is simply this: whether it be true or not that somebody in Church authority advised brethren to take this course [i.e., resign his membership in the Church in order to vote in Idaho], inasmuch as the intent and purpose of it was to frustrate the action of a combination of wicked conspiring men, who sought by means of this test oath legislation to prevent the Mormon people in Idaho from exercising their political rights, we cannot afford to recognize the rightfulness of such legislation by regarding the course taken by such brethren as worthy of disfellowshipment; ... their fellowship has never been questioned by the authorities of the Church on that account. And of course anything that yourselves and brethren of the high council can do by way of making it easy for the brethren referred to to assume their former positions in the Church without any formal action whatever, and partaking freely of the fellowship of the Saints, will be in the interest of salvation, and therefore labor worthily bestowed.
[Source: First Presidency, Letter to William A. Hyde and Counselors, as quoted in Minutes of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1835-1951, Electronic Edition, 2015]
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