V. THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD: 1900-30

One of the most painful but also most consequential events in modern LDS church history for the endowment was a series of hearings by a United States Senate subcommittee, 1904-06, to determine whether elected Utah senator and apostle Reed Smoot should be allowed to serve. Among many issues on which the committee heard testimony were the "secret oaths" of the temple endowment ceremony. The subcommittee's concern was whether the Mormon covenant of obedience would conflict with a senator's oath of loyalty to the Constitution. In the course of the Smoot hearings, the "oath of vengeance" also attracted the subcommittee's sustained interest. One witness, disaffected Mormon and recently resigned Brigham Young Academy professor Walter M. Wolfe, testified that this oath wasworded:

"You and each of you do covenant and promise that you will pray, and never cease to pray, Almighty God to avenge the blood of the prophets upon this nation, and that you will teach the same to your children and your children's children unto the third and fourth generations."107

On 14 December 1904, the Washington Times and the New York Herald featured front-page photographs of a man in purported endowment clothing, depicting signs and penalties. Testimony during this hearing as well as other previously published unfriendly discussions of this oathindicate that, commencing by 1845 in the Nauvoo Temple ceremony as administered by Brigham Young, the oath of vengeance was routinely given to all initiates.108

Most Latter-day Saints today undoubtedly would be uncomfortable taking an oath of vengeance. Obviously, so was the general public's response to such testimony. In the context of early LDS church history, however, it is not difficult to see how and why such an oath developed. Following the bitter persecutions sanctioned by the governor of Missouri, the newly resettled saints in Nauvoo were deeply suspicious of more attempts to limit their freedom. Mistrust of government officials was heightened when Joseph Smith failed to obtain redress for the Missouri losses from U.S. president Martin Van Buren in February 1840.109

Immediately following Joseph's and Hyrum Smith's murders in June1844, hostile feelings by Mormons toward their persecutors was at afever pitch. Encouraged, perhaps, by scriptural passages such as Revelation 6:9-11, many Latter-day Saints hoped for revenge of the deaths oftheir charismatic and beloved leaders. Allen Stout, a former Danite, recorded in his diary after he watched their bodies being returned to Nauvoo: "I stood there and then resolved in my mind that I would never let an opportunity slip unimproved of avenging their blood. . . .1 knew not how to contain myself, and when I see one of the men who persuaded them to give up to be tried, I feel like cutting their throats yet."110

Such feelings were institutionalized in the Nauvoo Temple rites. On 21 December 1845, Heber C. Kimball recorded a passage in his diary regarding "seven to twelve persons who have met together every day to pray ever since Joseph's death. . . .and I have covenanted, and never will rest. . .until those men who killed Joseph & Hyrum have been wiped out of the earth."111

During an 1889 meeting of the First Presidency, George Q. Cannon reminisced about his experience there He [Cannon] understood when he had his endowments in Nauvoo that he took an oath against the murderers of the Prophet Joseph as well as other prophets, and if he had ever met any of those who had taken a hand in that massacre he would undoubtedly have attempted to avenge the blood of the martyrs. The Prophet charged Stephen Markham to avenge his blood should he be slain: after the Prophet's death Bro. Markham attempted to tell this to an assembly of the Saints, but Willard Richards pulled him down from the stand, as he feared the effect on the enraged people.112

Negative publicity from these hearings probably led to a deemphasis of this oath in the endowment. For example, while many early published accounts of the endowment (see n. 108) echo George Q. Cannon's statement that those endowed were personally charged with avenging Joseph and Hyrum Smith's deaths, in a 1912 meeting in the St. George Temple, David H. Cannon described the "law of retribution" as follows:

To pray the Father to avenge the blood of the prophets and righteous men that has been shed, etc. In the endowment house this was given but as persons went there only once, it was not so strongly impressed upon their minds, but in the setting in order [of] the endowments for the dead it was given as it is written in 9 Chapter of Revelations and in that language we importune our Father, not that we may, but that He, our Father, will avenge the blood of martyrs shed for the testimony of Jesus.113

This change in emphasis on the law of retribution evolved further as part of many procedural revisions made to the endowment ritual and temple clothing spearheaded by an apostolic committee organized in 1919, at the beginning of Heber J. Grant's administration, under the direction of Grant's counselor and Salt Lake Temple president, Anthon H. Lund.114

Following Lund's death in 1921, leadership of this committee went to the new Salt Lake Temple president George F. Richards. From 1921 through 1927, Richards chaired the group which included David O. McKay, Joseph Fielding Smith, Stephen L Richards, John A. Widtsoe, and later James E. Talmage. Under Richards's direction, the committee codified and simplified the temple ceremonies originally drafted in St. George in 1877, committing to paper for the first time those ceremonies informally known as the "unwritten portion," i.e., "the covenants and the instructions given in forming the [prayer] circle and [the lecture] at the veil."115

A major reason for this effort was to ensure that the ceremony was presented the same way in all temples. Since part of the ceremony had remained unwritten, the manner in which it was given tended to vary somewhat. The St. George ceremony was taken as a model, because it was the oldest ceremony; there Brigham Young had committed most of the ritual to writing, trying to make the ceremony conform to the content introduced by Joseph Smith in Nauvoo. Since 1893, St. George Temple president David H. Cannon had maintained a certain degree of autonomy as the president of the oldest temple. In 1911, for example, he stated:

"We are not controlled by the Salt Lake Temple. . . .This temple has the original of these endowments which was given by President Brigham Young and we have not nor will we change anything thereof unless dictated by the President of the church."116

In 1924, Cannon apparently refused to accept changes endorsed by the special committee and the First Presidency. In a meeting on 19 June 1924 in the St. George temple, Cannon recounted how George F. Richards had "criticized [him] very severely for not adhering to the unwritten part of the ceremonies as he had been instructed to do." He told the assembly of local church leaders that Richards had instructed him to either burn the old rulings and instructions or send them to Salt Lake: "If we want any information, not contained in the 'President's Book' we will refer to the authorities of the church for that information, but not refer to any of the old rulings." St. George Stake president Edward H. Snow (who became the temple president in 1926) then mentioned one of the recent changes, "in no longer praying that the blood of the prophets and righteous men, might be atoned for, because this prayer has been answered and [is] no longer necessary." As if to pass approval on this change, Cannon recalled comments by Anthony W. Ivins given at a conference in Enterprise, stating that Ivins "took exception to the way the Law of Retribution was worded, and said he [Ivins] thought the language was harsh and that the authorities [had] thought of changing that."117

Perhaps in response to occasional continued references to this oath, a final letter in 1927 from Apostle Richards to all temple presidents directed that they "omit from the prayer circles all reference to avenging the blood of the Prophets. Omit from the ordinance and lecture all reference to retribution."118