Sunday, March 19, 2023

Michael Harold Paulos on Joseph F. Smith being a Difficult Witness on Purpose during the 1904 Reed Smoot Hearings

  

Despite Joseph F. Smith’s claim that he was “pleased to have another opportunity of presenting the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ before the world,” as this testimony shows, he was actually vague and cursory, sometimes misunderstanding questions—apparently deliberately—and passing up numerous opportunities to deliver short sermons on Mormon doctrine, the First Vision, the nature of revelation, and prophetic authority. And despite the New York Sun’s comment on his flashes of “temper,” hindsight makes it obvious that Smith was surprisingly equitable, not a trait he was particularly known for in his early life. (Michael Harold Paulos, “Under the Gun at the Smoot Hearings: Joseph F. Smith’s Testimony,” Journal of Mormon History 34, no. 4 [Fall 2008]: 198-99)