A majority 7 to 5 of the Barlow committee makes a report to the U.S. Senate recommending that Apostle Reed Smoot was not entitled to his seat in the Senate. They found that he was one of a "self-perpetuating body of fifteen men, uniting in themselves authority in both Church and state," who "so exercise this authority as to encourage a belief in polygamy as a divine institution, and by both precept and example encourage among their followers the practice of polygamy and polygamous cohabitation;" that the Church authorities had "endeavored to suppress, and succeed in suppressing, a great deal of testimony by which the fact of plural marriages contracted by those who were high in the councils of the Church might have been established beyond the shadow of a doubt;" and that "aside from this it was shown by the testimony that a majority of those who give law to the Mormon Church are now, and have been for years, living in open, notorious and shameless polygamous cohabitation." Concerning President Woodruff's anti-polygamy manifesto of 1890, the majority of the committee reported that "this manifesto in no way declares the principle of polygamy to be wrong or abrogates it as a doctrine of the Mormon Church, but simply suspends the practice of polygamy to be resumed at some more convenient season, either with or without another revelation." They found that Apostle Smoot was responsible for the conduct of the organization to which he belonged; that he had countenanced and encouraged polygamy "by repeated acts and in a number of instances, as a member of the quorum of the twelve apostles;" and that he was "no more entitled to a seat in the Senate than he would be if he were associating in polygamous cohabitation with a plurality of wives." The full senate seats Smoot in spite of the committee's report.
[On This Day in Mormon History, http://onthisdayinmormonhistory.blogspot.com]
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