REPLY TO R. C. EVANS
The following letter was published in the Toronto Daily Star in answer to the false charges which appeared in Mr. Evans' interview.
Salt Lake City, Feb. 19, 1905.
Mr. R. C. Evans,
Counselor in Presidency of Reorganized Church.
Sir:—I have before me a copy of the Toronto Daily Star, bearing date of January 28, last, in which there is a column on the front page, purporting to be an interview, by a representative of that paper with you, in which I desire to call your attention.
In doing so I desire to be fair and dispassionate, and also candid, and I would like it if you would receive and reply to this communication in the same spirit and manner to me personally.
You are reported as not being "pleased," nor Toronto's six hundred baptized members, with the name "Mormon." "This fact," says the Star, "was emphasized today when R. C. Evans, one of the three members of the Presidency explained the radical difference between the two denominations. Mr. Evans * * * denounced the Utah Mormon and his iniquities." Then you are made to say: "The term Mormon is offensive to us, because it is associated in the public mind with the practices that I have specified." That is, the alleged practices of the Utah "Mormons," namely, "polygamy and blood atonement."
Did you know that "the term Mormon" has always been applied to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? That the name attached to the Church with the publication and promulgation of the Book of Mormon? That it was first applied by the enemies of the Church as an opprobrium; but that during the lifetime of Joseph Smith the Martyr, and ever since it has been a term accepted by the Church because of popular custom, as an appellation?
If, then, the name is so distasteful to you and your fellows in Canada and throughout the world, although it be on the grounds you have named, why do you not discard the Book of Mormon, from whence the name is derived, as well as the name. Is not the term Book of Mormon as closely associated in the public mind with "polygamy and blood atonement," as is the name of the Book? How are you going to disassociate the book itself from the name as commonly applied to the Church, since this name has been attached to the Church from the beginning, and before the alleged "practices" of the "Utah Mormon" gained such publicity? Really, I think it would be quite proper for those holding the view which you are said to have expressed, not only to renounce the name "Mormon" as applied to the Church but also the Book itself.[1]