The authorship of the
Manifesto remains controversial. Frank Cannon says, “He [Wilford Woodruff] told
me he had written himself, and it certainly appeared to me to be in his
handwriting. Its authorship has since been variously attributed. Some of the
present-day polygamists say that it was I who wrote it. Chas. W. Penrose and
George Reynolds have claimed they edited it.”
At the Smoot
investigation, George Reynolds testified before the Senate committee that he
helped write the Manifesto. “President Woodruff wrote it in his own hand—and he
was a very poor writer, worse, I believe, than Horace Greeley—and he gave it into
the hands of three of the elders to prepare it for the press, . . . C.W.
Penrose, John R. Winder, and myself . .
. We transcribed the notes and changed the language slightly to adapt it
for publication.”
Thomas J. Rosser
stated that, when a missionary to Wales in 1908, he asked the mission
president, Charles W. Penrose, during a missionary conference, if the Manifesto
was a revelation from God. “Brethren, I will answer that question, if you will
keep it under your hats,” Penrose said, “I, Charles W. Penrose, wrote the
Manifesto with the assistance of Frank J. Cannon and John White . . . Wilford
Woodruff signed it to beat the devil at his own game.”
[Most]H[oly]P[rinciple]
4:67 stated that the Manifesto then “was submitted to a committee of
non-Mormons, Judges Charles S. Zane, C.S. Varian, and O.W. Powers, none of whom
were well known for their friendship for the Mormons . . . A change of wording was insisted upon in the
Manifesto, and the document was recopied by a clerk named Green. It would seem
very unusual that the Lord would dictate a statement to His mouthpiece upon the
earth that required a committee to render it intelligible.” (Samuel W. Taylor, Rocky
Mountain Empire: The Latter-day Saints Today [New York: Macmillan
Publishing Co, Inc., 1978], 35 n. 16, comments in square brackets added for clarification. It should be noted that the Manifesto is
not presented as a revelation, rendering the criticisms at the end as a non
sequitur)